The morning dawned not with light, but with fire.
A deafening roar split the bruised sky. It wasn't thunder. It was the sound of something immense, something alien, tearing through the perpetual clouds. A blinding, searing light followed, hotter than any forge fire, painting the miserable hovels of Dirtspire in a grotesque, orange glow.
Then came the impact.
A shockwave ripped through the slum. Dirt, dust, and debris exploded skyward. The flimsy structures around them buckled. Collapsed. The ground heaved as if the very earth were screaming.
Kael, jolted awake, cried out. His father, Elara, was already scrambling. His face was a mask of primal terror. He snatched Elian from his small cot, cradling the infant close, his large body instinctively trying to shield the baby.
"Kael! Stay low! Stay with me!" Elara yelled, his voice raw, barely audible over the rising cacophony of screams and explosions.
The air became a suffocating inferno. Huts ignited like kindling. The stench of burning refuse, burning flesh, filled Kael's nostrils, searing itself into his memory.
Through a gaping hole in their hovel, Kael saw them. Figures descending from the sky. Not just one. Dozens. Their armor shimmered with a cold, ethereal light. Their movements were swift, precise, terrifying. These were not the scavengers or petty criminals of Dirtspire.
These were the Upper Realm elites. The 'enforcers.'
And among them, one figure stood out.
He moved with an almost leisurely grace. His armor was dark, sleek, accented with cruel, sharp angles. His presence devoured the light, casting a pall of dread over everything. This was Carn Malach. A Crimson-Sky warrior from the 8th Realm. A being of devastating power, casual cruelty personified.
He landed in the main thoroughfare. A casual step that shook the ground. Around him, the air throbbed with a dark, suffocating pressure. It wasn't just physical force. It was something colder. More insidious.
Carn Malach looked around, his helmeted gaze sweeping over the chaos. No compassion. No emotion. Only a chilling, detached assessment.
He raised a hand. A dark, pulsating energy gathered around his palm. With a casual flick of his wrist, a man fleeing nearby crumpled to the ground. His body contorted, limbs snapping inward with sickening cracks, before he lay still, a broken doll. No fire, just grotesque breakage.
Kael stared, paralyzed. The screams of his neighbors, the roar of the flames, the terrifying power on display – it all blurred into a symphony of absolute horror.
Elara's eyes darted frantically. There was no escape. No ditch deep enough. No alley narrow enough. His gaze fell upon a mound of recently killed bodies, already cooling amidst the debris. It was the only cover.
"Listen, Kael!" Elara shouted, his voice hoarse with desperation. He shoved Kael towards the gruesome pile. "Get in there! Under them! Don't move! Don't make a sound!"
Elara quickly but gently pushed Kael deep into the cold, limp forms. Then, with surprising speed, he nudged Elian, still wrapped in his blanket, further into the horrifying embrace of the dead. He used his own body to shield their entry, twisting to conceal them with his final movements.
Kael found himself pressed against a man's cold, stiff back. The metallic scent of blood was overwhelming. The crushing weight of lifeless limbs pressed down. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then forced them open, peering through a narrow gap between a stiff arm and a torn piece of canvas.
Just as he settled, hidden, a heavy shadow fell over their position.
Carn Malach stood there. Looming. His helmeted gaze, cold and impassive, swept over the pile of bodies, then settled on Elara, who stood exposed, his face contorted with desperation.
Elara stumbled back, hands raised, trying to draw attention away from the hidden children. "Leave us!" he roared, his voice cracking, but laced with a defiant courage Kael had never heard before. "We are just powerless beings against you!"
Carn Malach tilted his head slightly. A faint, almost imperceptible chuckle resonated from behind his mask. "Powerless, you say?" His voice was a low, sibilant whisper. It cut through the din of the burning slum. "That makes you all the more… pliable."
He moved with chilling speed. Kael didn't even see it. One moment, Elara was there. The next, he was snatched, held aloft by a single, dark-armored hand wrapped around his throat. Elara thrashed, his feet kicking uselessly in the air.
Kael whimpered. A raw, choked sound, muffled by the bodies around him.
Carn Malach stalked towards a crumbling wall. He slammed Elara against it, head first. A sickening thud echoed, even over the screams. Elara crumpled, then slumped, his body limp. But he wasn't dead. Kael saw him stir, a tremor running through his father's limbs.
Malach released his grip. Elara slid down the wall, falling to a heap on the ground. He lay twisted, struggling to draw breath, his face bruised and bloody. One arm lay at an unnatural angle.
"Such defiance," Malach purred. He knelt. Not in reverence, but in predatory amusement. He reached out a gloved hand. Not to kill. But to torment.
A dark pressure pulsed from Malach's palm. It settled over Elara's chest. Kael watched, frozen, as his father's body convulsed. A deep, wet gurgle escaped Elara's lips. His muscles spasmed. Every breath was a strained, agonizing gasp.
"I wonder," Malach mused, his voice utterly calm, "how much a powerless body can endure before its spirit simply... snaps."
Elara screamed. A sound that ripped through Kael's very soul. It was a sound of agony. Of despair. But still, in the depths of his father's eyes, Kael saw it: a desperate, unyielding fight. A fight to stay conscious. A fight to keep them hidden.
Malach's hand tightened. Elara's bones groaned. Kael could hear them. A faint, sickening crackling. His father's eyes locked onto Kael's. Wide. Filled with a plea. A wordless command: stay hidden.
Carn Malach then gripped Elara's arm, the one already badly injured. He twisted. Slowly. Deliberately. Elara's raw scream was swallowed by a wet, tearing sound. Kael saw his father's arm wrench at an impossible angle, muscle and sinew tearing with a sickening stretch. Elara's body arched, convulsing violently.
The agonizing sounds continued, punctuated by Carn Malach's low, satisfied murmurs. Kael tasted blood, the metallic tang of his own mouth, as he clamped his jaws shut, fighting the urge to scream. His father's face was a ruin, battered and broken, but those eyes, those kind, weary eyes, were still fixed on the place where Kael and Elian lay hidden. A final, desperate spark of defiance.
Just then, a nearby building, already weakened by the initial shockwave, groaned. Splintered. Began to collapse.
Kael was already hidden, buried deep. But the roar of the collapse, the sharp cracks of splintering wood, the dull thuds of stone, thundered around him. The air was thick with flying dust and grit.
A searing pain lanced through Kael's left eye. Something sharp, a splinter of wood or jagged metal, had pierced it. His vision erupted in a blinding flash of white, then darkness. He whimpered, clamping his hand over the gushing wound, but even through the agonizing pain, his right eye remained fixed.
Through the tiny crack, Kael could still see Carn Malach, seemingly untouched by the collapsing building. The Crimson-Sky warrior stood over Elara's convulsing, broken form.
Malach raised his foot. Slowly. Deliberately. He brought it down, crushing Elara's head with a sickening crunch. The sound was swallowed by the fires and distant screams, but Kael heard it. Felt it. It echoed in his bones.
His father was gone. Reduced to a broken, unrecognizable mass.
Kael's breath hitched. He wanted to scream. To cry. To run. But he couldn't. His father's last command. "Hide them." Elian was still here, nestled deep beside him.
He pressed his face into the rough fabric of a dead man's tunic. The cold, lifeless body beneath him. The chilling, dead weight above. He could feel the warmth of fresh blood seeping into his clothes.
The world outside continued to burn. The screams continued. The methodical slaughter continued.
Kael did not cry. He did not move. He just watched. Through the tiny crack of his remaining eye. He saw Malach walk away, his dark figure disappearing into the smoke and fire.
The face of his father. His kind, humble father. Twisted in agony. His body broken. His head crushed. All of it. At the hands of that monster.
A coldness settled deep within Kael. A core of ice forming around a burning ember. It wasn't sadness. It wasn't grief. Not yet. It was something else. Something hard. Something dark. Something unyielding.
He clenched his small fists. His knuckles white. He would remember every single detail. Every sound. Every scent. Every agonizing moment of his father's death.
And the face of Carn Malach.
The Cleansing of Dirtspire had begun. And with it, something else was born. Something terrible. Something that would one day burn brighter than any flame in this ruined realm.