More than a decade ago, Saint Rosward descended from the clouds — quite literally — from his gilded palace in Mary Geoise.
It was a special day. One he'd marked weeks in advance on his golden calendar.
The day of the Hunt.
His personal galleon, brimming with Holy Army guards and luxury supplies, dropped anchor near a small, unnamed island just off the Red Line. One of his favorite "Playgrounds."
Rosward was giddy as a child.
Dressed in the customary white robe of the Celestial Dragons — a sterilized, gleaming outfit that resembled a diver's suit — and protected within a glass helmet filled with pure oxygen, he descended the gangplank with the pomp of a king and the grace of a spoiled toddler.
The air was thick with salt and sun, but Rosward's filtered helmet spared him the stench of the lower world. It was beneath him. Everything was.
As he stepped onto the dock, one of his armored guards handed him his prized flintlock rifle — polished mahogany, gold inlays, custom trigger. It was loaded.
Another soldier yanked forward a chained man, crawling on all fours — Rosward's personal mount. A human being, chosen for the honor of being his steed for the day.
More soldiers followed, unlocking the cargo hold of the second ship — the livestock carrier.
From it spilled a dozen slaves.
Men and women, young and old, starved and bruised. Some limped. Some carried fresh lashes across their backs. Others clutched silent, terrified children.
Not one of them protested. Not one dared cry.
These weren't prisoners. Not a soldiers. Not even rebels.
They were just expendables.
Cheap stock, Rosward had called them at the auction. Criminals, vagabonds, runaways... and children — those were especially cheap.
"Let the games begin," he chuckled, adjusting the rifle on his shoulder with childlike excitement.
He wasn't hunting animals. Not today.
Today, he was the god of this island.
And these people — in his eyes — were pests wasting the oxygen of his planet. He turned to his guards.
"Release the dogs."
The gates of the forest creaked open. He then started to walk towards where the other Tenryuubito would gather, a place where luxurious tents had already been erected.
Then it struck.
Without warning, Saint Rosward's skull split—not literally, but as if invisible knives had carved into the center of his brain.
A scream clawed its way from his throat. He tumbled off his crawling mount, slamming onto the muddy ground like a ragdoll.
His guards rushed in with military precision—but not out of loyalty. No, they knew: if anything happened to a Celestial Dragon, their heads were next.
Panic attack them immediately.
"Saint Rosward!" one barked, shaking him, but the man was already gone in the mind.
His face was pale.
Eyes bloodshot.
Mouth wide, drooling, twitching like a man drowning in something only he could see.
He was staring into nothing.
But to him—it was everything.
He saw the end.
Not a death.
A reduction.
A collapse.
A judgment.
The skies above cracked open like glass shattering. The oceans boiled and screamed. The land beneath his feet yawned wide like a hungry jaw, splitting continents like paper.
Then his body—and every soldier and slave around him—exploded.
Not with fire. With release.
His soul was ejected, torn from his corpse like a fishhook ripping through flesh.
He looked down... and saw the pieces of flesh that were his body in the blood-soaked mud.
But the worst was yet to come.
From the blazing direction of the sun, arms came. Black, endless arms. Billions. They writhed like serpents of despair, clawing through the sky, reaching not for the earth... but for the souls now drifting free.
One by one, they grabbed them.
Even his.
"NO!" Rosward screamed, thrashing in the airless void.
But the arms dragged him. Into the sun.
And inside it—was a furnace.
Rosward was dropped onto its surface, a field of eternal fire, where souls screamed without lungs and cried without tears. He howled as heat licked through his incorporeal form, a hunger he had never known overtook him.
He was thirsty.
Thirsty.
In death.
In soul.
"WATER! GIVE ME SOMETHING TO DRINK!" he screamed to his guards.
But no one answered.
They were writhing, burning, screaming for their own salvation.
He stumbled forward through the fire, crawling past millions—no, billions of souls. A sea of damned humanity.
And then—he saw them.
Five figures standing at the far edge of the fire horizon.
So far away, yet, he can see them clearly.
Two were monstrous beyond comprehension.
The first... was a tree. A black, skeletal tree towering above all, on its branches, many beautiful, long-eared women sat silently, elegantly, on every branch, unmoving, watching their suffering. The tree's arms—gnarled branches—clutched a scroll with reverence. A short scroll of parchment.
The second... froze Rosward in terror.
A colossal beast with the skull of a deer—massive, ancient, with antlers that reached the heavens, and human heads hanging from every branch-like tip.
Each head wept blood, their mouths screaming in silence, their faces frozen in agony.
The beast's body was covered in thick, matted fur, and it had long, six arms, each ending in mouths—ravenous, slavering mouths.
Six breasts sagged grotesquely from its chest, leaking black ichor.
From its back, six wings extended—not feathered, but covered entirely in open, blinking eyes.
Its legs were like the talons of a bird of prey, each claw large enough to crush cities.
And in its hand, a same parchment scroll, but its length seemed endless.
Rosward screamed.
Not out of pain.
But because every part of his soul knew: This... was what waited for men like him.
But there—between the two monstrosities—the tree and the beast—something else stood.
A small gray silhouette.
Not man, not woman.
Not child, not adult.
Just... a presence.
Barely the height of a toddler, its form shimmered like smoke trapped in flesh. Where its face should've been—only void.
A gap in reality. A hollow, an absence, a bottomless wound in the shape of a soul.
Yet Rosward knew.
It was watching him.
Not just his soul... his sins. His cowardice. His pride. His laughter at suffering.
The very essence of him was being peeled open.
And then it began.
The beast with the deer skull opened its mouths—on its every hand—and called names.
A voice not meant for living ears.
A soundless scream that shatters soul, echoing across the hellscape.
Each name summoned a soul.
And each soul was taken, ripped away from the fire plains by the same arms that had dragged Rosward—plunged screaming into the blazing holes beneath the sun.
One by one.
Millions.
Endless.
And still, the small silhouette stood—unmoving, unrelenting. Silently.
But it was not alone.
Flanking it, on either side, stood two women—opposites that broke Rosward's mind more than the monster did.
To the right, a woman with hair like golden rice fields, long and flowing like a river of harvest.
She wore a gown so delicate, so alien in beauty, that even a World Noble like Rosward had never seen its like.
Her face—anguish.
Tears fell without end, her sorrow so profound her mere presence made Rosward's guilt scream.
To the left, the second woman.
Hair like black pearl, soft and ethereal, cascading in perfect waves.
Her eyes closed. Always closed.
As if she could not bear to watch what was being done.
As if her very being wept in silence for the unredeemable.
Between them—the silhouette stood still.
The void where its face should have been seemed to tilt—ever so slightly—toward Rosward.
Then—Rosward awoke.
His eyes snapped open, wild and bloodshot.
He gasped for air like a man rising from drowning.
Sweat soaked his ceremonial robes.
Mouth still open in a scream he hadn't finished.
But his limbs refused to move.
He collapsed, face-first into the dirt. The image still burned into his mind.
And then, unconsciousness took him.