The night was thick with malice.

  The air itself felt heavy, suffocating, as though the world held its breath in anticipation of something unnatural.

  Above, the moon, once a beacon of silver light, had long since vanished behind a sea of writhing black clouds.

  What little illumination remained came from the ritual circle—glowing runes carved into the damp earth, pulsating with an eerie purple radiance.

  Shadows danced and twisted unnaturally around the markings, as if possessed by unseen forces.

  Grion and Tores stood at the heart of the circle, their bodies trembling, drenched in a mixture of sweat and blood—the blood of human sacrifices.

  The metallic scent was thick in the air, mingling with the stench of burning incense and charred flesh.

  The screams had long since faded, swallowed by the wind, leaving only silence and the crackling of dying flames.

  Their lips moved ceaselessly, voices hoarse from relentless chanting.

  Again and again, they called out, their words laced with desperation, with hunger, with madness.

  But each time, the ritual failed. Each time, the abyss remained silent.

  And yet, they did not stop. They could not stop.

  Because at the end of this madness lay the promise of power—power beyond mortal comprehension, power to reshape the world as they saw fit.

  Time blurred. Hours bled into days. Or had it been weeks?

  They no longer knew.

  Hunger gnawed at their stomachs, exhaustion clawed at their minds, but still, they endured.

  Then, at last—

  A crack.

  The very fabric of reality splintered, as though an unseen force had struck existence itself.

  It was not a summoning.

  Not fully.

  But it was a link.

  A connection to something that did not belong to this world.

  And then, they heard it.

  A voice that was not a voice.

  A whisper that did not need sound.

  It bypassed language, slipping into their very souls like a serpent in the dark.

  Grion staggered, his vision fracturing into shards of incomprehensible images.

  Tores clutched his head, his entire body convulsing as if his mind were being peeled apart.

  The presence alone was enough to drive weaker beings into the depths of utter insanity.

  And yet—

  Through sheer force of will, they endured.

  Grion’s bloodied lips parted, and in a voice cracked from exhaustion and tainted with unwavering resolve, he spoke.

  "We seek your power, O Abyss. We seek your blessing to erase the humans who have wronged us."

  For a long, agonizing moment, there was nothing. Only the suffocating weight of the abyss pressing down upon them.

  Then—

  Laughter.

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  Deep. Reverberating.

  It shattered the night, turning the silence into something dreadful.

  The very ground trembled beneath their feet, and the air grew colder than death itself.

  And then, the Abyss answered.

  Darkness surged through them, colder than ice, sharper than any blade.

  It did not merely fill them—it burrowed into their flesh, into their bones, twisting them from the inside out.

  Their skin burned as something ancient and malevolent remade them, stripping away the last remnants of their former selves.

  And the Abyss, in its infinite malice, made a promise.

  "I shall grant you strength. And in return… I shall feast upon the heavens themselves."

  Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the link snapped shut.

  But the change had already taken root.

  Grion and Tores were no longer men. They had ascended.

  And now, it was time to build an army.

  With the Abyss’ blessing, they no longer needed to convince monsters to follow them.

  They simply spoke. And the monsters listened.

  Beasts of all kinds—once wild, leaderless, mindless—now bowed before them.

  Trolls, ogres, goblins, creatures of the deep caves—none dared resist.

  The Abyss had marked Grion and Tores as chosen, and that was enough.

  Their army grew, swelled beyond anything the world had seen.

  But an army without leaders was chaos waiting to unravel.

  They needed commanders.

  And fate delivered the first one.

  Their path took them to a swamp of decay, where the air was thick with the stench of rotting vegetation and death.

  The waters were black, choked with sludge, the land itself a graveyard of forgotten bones.

  There, lying half-submerged in the filth, was a lizardman.

  His body was riddled with wounds, deep gashes across his scaled hide, his breathing ragged, his golden eyes dimming with the weight of death.

  Yet despite his broken state, those eyes still burned with the fury of a predator.

  Grion did not hesitate.

  He reached out, the dark power within him swirling to his fingertips.

  Energy seeped into the dying lizardman, forcing his wounds to close, his pain to subside.

  When Movok opened his eyes, there was no fear. No confusion. Only curiosity.

  He rose from the muck, towering over them, his frame rippling with newly restored strength.

  "Who are you?" His voice was deep, resonant, like a distant thunder.

  Grion met his gaze, unwavering.

  "We are the harbingers of a new world. And we have use for warriors like you."

  Movok was silent for a long moment.

  Then, a sharp, tooth-filled grin split his face.

  "Then I am yours."

  Their first general had been chosen.

  But fate had one more waiting for them.

  Their path led them to the outskirts of the human kingdom, where the trees stood tall and thick, a barrier between civilization and the untamed wilds.

  There, they sensed movement.

  A boy. A beastkin—tigerkin. He ran through the underbrush, his golden fur slick with blood, his breath ragged. Behind him, a dozen human soldiers pursued, their swords drawn, their eyes burning with cruel intent.

  Grion and Tores watched. Waited.

  Then, in an instant, they struck.

  The soldiers never had a chance to scream. Shadows engulfed them, tearing through steel, flesh, and bone.

  And when the last body fell, the tigerkin stood amidst the carnage, his wide eyes reflecting the crimson-stained earth.

  Grion stepped forward, blood dripping from his fingertips. "You are free now."

  The boy let out a bitter laugh.

  "I didn’t need saving. But I suppose I should thank you anyway."

  His eyes gleamed—not with gratitude, but with something darker.

  Hatred.

  "You hate humans, don’t you?" Grion asked.

  The tigerkin smirked.

  "More than anything. They took my family. Made my kind slaves. So I took something from them." He paused. "I killed a noble. Right in his own home."

  Grion chuckled. Tores exhaled sharply in amusement. This one… he was different.

  And with that, their third general was chosen.

  ---

  With three generals at his side, an army of monsters at his back, Grion stood upon the hill, gazing down at the kingdom that had once scorned him.

  For years, he had wandered, lost in rage, in grief.

  But now, he had power. Now, he had purpose.

  ---

  Years slipped by like whispers carried on the wind—silent, unseen, yet ever-present.

  Grion and his generals did not rush to war.

  They knew brute force alone would never be enough.

  Victory required patience. It required cunning. It required deception.

  And so, they wove their schemes deep within the heart of the human kingdom.

  Their spies—beastmen hidden beneath flawless human disguises, shaped by Tores' dark magic—walked among the unsuspecting.

  They became merchants, soldiers, scholars, and nobles, blending seamlessly into every level of society.

  They whispered poison into eager ears, left false evidence where trust was most fragile, and fanned the flames of doubt until they became an inferno.

  Neighbor turned against neighbor. Friend against friend.

  Suspicion spread like rot, unseen but relentless.

  Rebellion took root in the streets, fueled by whispers of oppression and injustice.

  The people no longer trusted their own king.

  Beyond the borders, the web of deception stretched even further.

  Gold filled the hands of barbarian warlords, planting greed in their hearts and vengeance in their minds.

  One by one, the treaties that held the human kingdom’s allies together crumbled into dust.

  The balance of power teetered on the edge of ruin.

  And then, when a decade had passed—

  When the world stood fragile, trembling like a house of cards—

  Grion gave the order.

  The time to strike had come.

  On that fateful night, the sky turned black.

  Not with the coming of twilight, but with a darkness thick and suffocating, curling across the heavens like a living thing.

  Storm clouds churned in silence. Lightning flashed, but no thunder followed—only an eerie stillness, as if the world itself was holding its breath.

  Grion stood upon the jagged peak of a mountain, his cloak billowing in the cursed winds.

  His eyes, once alight with fury, now held only cold, unshakable resolve.

  He was no longer a mere warrior seeking vengeance.

  He was no longer a man.

  He was the Demon King.

  And beside him, three figures loomed like harbingers of the end.

  Tores, the Master of Forbidden Arts, his skeletal hands clutching the very essence of death.

  Movok, the Swamp Tyrant, his monstrous form seething with ancient rage.

  Korran, the Shadow of the Beastkin, unseen yet ever watching.

  And behind them, an endless tide of nightmares.

  Twisted creatures of the abyss, monstrous warbeasts, barbarian legions drunk on bloodlust—an army forged for annihilation.

  Their march began.

  And the world would never be the same.

  Yet, even with all their preparations, three obstacles still stood in their path.

  Duke Driesell.

  A war veteran whose mind was as sharp as his blade, he commanded an unbreakable fortress—the last true bastion of the kingdom.

  Marquis Hector.

  A knight of unrivaled skill, his mere presence on the battlefield could shift the tides of war.

  And then—

  The Hero.

  A chosen warrior, blessed by the gods themselves, the last beacon of hope in a world falling into shadow.

  These three alone had the power to halt their advance.

  But Grion and his generals had anticipated this.

  The rebellion was sent to sink its claws into Duke Driesell’s stronghold, forcing him to turn against his own king.

  The barbarians stormed the southern lands, dragging Marquis Hector into an endless, grueling war.

  And the final piece—

  The Abyss God reached into the heavens, and for the first time in history, the gods fell silent.

  There would be no divine miracles.

  The world had been abandoned.

  And Grion claimed it as his own.

  Cities burned.

  Castles crumbled into ruin.

  Banners that once stood as symbols of honor and glory lay torn, bloodied, and trampled in the dirt.

  The songs of old heroes faded beneath the chorus of screams.

  There was no salvation.

  No divine hand to intervene.

  The Demon King and his generals swept through the lands like a merciless storm, grinding the once-mighty human kingdoms into dust.

  Rulers who had once sat upon golden thrones now knelt in chains before the abyss.

  And when the fires died and the last cries of resistance were silenced, only one truth remained.

  The age of men had ended.

  And the reign of the Demon King had begun.