A stone altar—black as obsidian—stood at the center of the chamber, encircled by twelve candles. Their flames hissed and writhed, bending unnaturally, as if something unseen was breathing against them.
Hooded figures moved around the altar in frantic bursts. Whispering overlapped whispering. hands gestured sharply. Robes brushed stone as they hurried, tense and restless, like insects skittering across a shrine they didn't fully understand.
Then the light changed.
Not brighter.
Different.
Every voice cut off mid-breath.
The chamber fell into absolute silence.
One by one, the hooded figures turned toward the altar.
A thirteenth flame flickered into existence.
It wasn't a towering blaze like the others. It barely clung to life—a trembling spark, fragile enough to be snuffed out by a breath. And yet it felt heavier than all the others combined.
As if the room itself bowed to it.
The hooded beings dropped to the stone floor in perfect unison. Foreheads pressed down. Bodies shaking. Not in fear—but in reverence.
They spoke as one.
Their voices layered together, overlapping and merging into something inhuman. The language they used didn't belong to men. It was older than history, older than the first lie, older than the first prayer ever whispered into the dark.
The words crawled through the chamber, alive and suffocating.
"All hail… for the Thirteenth has returned."