High above the chaos of the Expanse, suspended in a sky of starlight and prayer, floated the citadel of Aeloria.
At its heart stood the Sanctum—a temple so silent it felt as if the air dared not breathe. Its walls were living crystal beating with the quiet hum of time.
Here, the High Oracle, Eryndel Vass, served as the vessel of the Goddess's sight.
He was deep in a trance, his mind drifting down the silver river of time, watching fate flow in its calm, predictable rhythm.
Then, without warning, the river twisted. The current turned violent, black, and raging.
Eryndel's body jerked against the marble floor. A raw gasp tore from his lips as his eyes flew open, glowing white-hot.
Light poured from them like liquid fire. The temple walls flickered and warped. The calm harmony of crystal song turned into a chaotic shriek that rattled the air.
Priests in moon-pale robes rushed toward him, faces twisted in alarm. None of them had ever seen anything like it.
When Eryndel spoke, it wasn't with his own voice. It was a scream that scraped through the silence like iron.
"The nameless walks the Expanse! The Godless is here."
The words shook the chamber.
A series of sharp cracks followed, loud as thunder. Every relic in the Sanctum shattered at once.
Scrying mirrors split apart, raining shards of silver glass. The Hourglass of Threads—the one said to measure the lifespan of empires—stopped. Then, impossibly, the sands began to rise instead of fall.
It was omen, the worst of them.
---
The shock didn't stay contained. It rippled outward through the divine current that connected every holy site in the Expanse.
In grand cathedrals and small shrines alike, sacred flames guttered. Choirs singing eternal hymns faltered mid-note. Across the faiths, a psychic tremor of dread spread.
Priests whispered to each other of old prophecies long dismissed as myth. Heresy that suddenly didn't feel so distant.
An urgent call went out.
The Conclave of Faiths—an assembly so rare it hadn't been summoned in hundreds of years—was convened within the broken Sanctum of Aeloria.
Representatives of every major divine order came.
The pale Priests of Aeloria stood beside the armored Knights of Caelun. The ethereal Choir of Eternal Song floated near the dark-clad Samarites.
Even the humble Hopeful Dawn sent envoys, though they looked lost and small among the giants of faith and power.
They gathered around a circular table of divine steel. Markings of their factions floated above it, flickering and unstable.
The mood was thick—fear hidden beneath a thin shell of faith.
"I saw him," Eryndel rasped, his voice hoarse, his eyes bloodshot and hollow. "A man without a god's will. No divine tether. No resonance. Only an echo… the echo of the void left by HIM."
A portly priest from a minor harvest god snorted. "You speak of ghosts, Eryndel. The Godslayer is gone...most likely dead. That heresy was burned out long ago. You're chasing fever dreams."
But others were silent, troubled.
A Knight of Caelun finally spoke, her voice steady but low. "The relics didn't shatter for a dream. The Hourglass reversed its flow. That is not a thing to be ignored."
The room split in two—the believers and the deniers. Those who saw warning in the signs, and those too afraid to admit they might be real.
Then a sound like cracking glass cut through the argument.
All eyes turned toward the center of the room. The Hourglass of Threads was spinning on its axis, a blur of silver and gold. It stopped suddenly, its spires pointing toward the eastern Expanse.
Toward Jahar, or the hundred million other cities like it—they had no way of telling exactly where East.
A silence fell so heavy it seemed to crush the air. The artifact only moved when fate was disturbed.
There was no more doubt.
Desperation replaced debate.
"If the prophecy is true," said the lead Knight of Caelun, his voice low and grim, "then we must find this vessel before the Godslayer's Will fully awakens inside him."
Someone suggested sending a holy battalion—a full legion of blessed warriors to purge the East.
The idea was met with stunned silence.
"To do that," rasped a Samarite elder, "Would be to start a great war, surely there's a more subtle approach."
So they chose a quieter plan.
A reconnaissance unit. Small. Silent. Unblessed, so the gods themselves wouldn't sense them. Officially, they wouldn't exist.
Five operatives, each from a different faith, chosen for their unique skills. The Hollow Scouts—an ancient order trained to walk in spiritual voids, resistant to corruption and divine gaze alike.
"We won't send crusaders, inshadows," the High Oracle whispered, barely able to stay upright. "Let the gods see nothing."
---
In a sealed chamber deep below the Sanctum, five figures stood in silence.
Veyra Dhal of Aeloria: a seer who had sewn her own eyelids shut, guided by the whispers of futures no one else could hear.
Rorak Venn of Caelun: a knight covered in glowing blue runes that crawled across his skin like cracks, each one sealing away holy fire.
Silin of the Choir of Eternal Song: a Voiceless One. Her vocal cords had been replaced with cosmic resonance. She didn't speak—she sang—and her song could break the fabric of reality.
Thassor of the Samarites: a healer whose touch rebuilt by decay, forcing flesh through cycles of death and rebirth, leaving behind cold, scarred strength.
Eira Kael: the outlier. A former assassin bound to the Conclave by divine debt. She was their blade in the dark—a killer among priests.
Each of them bore a mark of secrecy burned into their wrist, glowing faintly blue. If they spoke of their mission, even once, the mark would consume them from within.
"Find him," the High Oracle told them, his voice barely a whisper. "Confirm the truth. If he carries the Godslayer's Will… purge him, or die trying."
When the five disappeared through the hidden celestial gate, the Conclave chamber dimmed. The weight of what they'd set in motion seemed to drain the light itself.
Alone in the wreckage of his sanctum, Eryndel Vass stared into the largest surviving shard of his divination mirror.
At first, he saw only his own face—pale, trembling, afraid. Then the reflection shifted.
A man stared back at him. Rough, dark hair. Eyes like dying stars. The same face from his vision. But now, the eyes were aware.
The man smiled. A small, cruel twist of the lips.
The mirror shattered, exploding inward. Shards rained over the floor as a whisper filled the air, soft and cold as dust.
"Denounce your gods, or die with them."
In the upper heavens, a sound like distant thunder rolled through the endless light. For the first time in eons, every divine gaze turned toward a single point in the mortal world.
The hunt had begun.
And the heavens were watching.