In this world, no one worships. They survive.
Once, the firmament was whole, and night differed from the abyss only in color. Then the first crack appeared above the earth—thin as a scratch on glass. They called it the Rift. And that same year, the first rift-demons crawled out of that "scratch"—creatures that didn't understand human words, but understood human fear perfectly.
People didn't answer with prayers. They answered with discipline.
That was how the Six Halls were born. They were not temples. They were military institutions, training those who could hold the line.
The Hall of the Shield—knights. The ones who stand first.
The Hall of Steel—warriors. The ones who break the enemy's formation.
The Hall of Shadow—assassins. The ones who cut down commanders.
The Hall of Arcana—mages. The ones who seal rifts with sigils and thunder.
The Hall of Light—luminaries. The ones who heal, empower, and cleanse corruption with purity seals.
The Hall of Pacts—summoners. The ones who fight with чужие fangs.
Power rose in steps: from the early ranks, where a person merely learned to hold a weapon and channel inner energy, to the ninth—where one could influence the very Law of the battlefield. Legends called such people Law Lords. Not gods. Bearers.
But the most terrifying—and the most coveted—thing was something else:
The Heavenly Mark.
Sometimes—rarely, almost like a flaw in the world—a sign would surface on someone's body, like a thin line of a crack. The Mark did not grant power for free. It came with a condition. An oath. The price always walked beside its growth, like a shadow at your feet.
They said the Mark was a trace of the ancient Seal of Heaven, branded into flesh. A trace that drew its bearer toward the Throne, where the fate of the Rifts would be decided.
They said many things.
But the truth began in a small border town called Yancheng, at the foot of the Gray Wall, on the day a boy first heard the sky "crack."
First came the sound—as if someone had dragged a fingernail across glass. Then, for a heartbeat, the streetlamps dimmed, and the birds fell silent all at once.
The boy looked up.
And he saw a thin, barely visible scar in the clouds—like a line that should not exist.
Then he looked at his palm—
and realized the scar hadn't appeared only in the sky.