The sky of the Aethelgard did not darken with clouds; it bruised. A deep, sickly violet bled across the horizon, signaling the arrival of Juro-Gai, the Tainted God of the Crimson Eye. He drifted through the stratosphere like a mountain made of flesh and gold, his presence alone causing the oxygen to thin.
Below him, the Koda District—a modest floating shard of rock and greenery—was in chaos. But it was a silent, terrifying kind of chaos. The Mist-Ghouls had already breached the perimeter. They were tall, spindly things, their limbs clicking like dry wood, their faces nothing but a smooth surface of bone with a vertical slit for a mouth.
In the center of the village, the air was thick with the scent of copper and salt.
"The Song!" Elder Mora barked, her voice cracking. "Begin the Song! We are the soil, we are the seed!"
Thousands of villagers—men with hands calloused by the mines, women holding sleeping infants, children wide-eyed with a terror they couldn't name—formed a massive, concentric circle. They linked arms, skin to skin, creating a human circuit.
As the first Ghoul tore through a thatched roof and landed with a wet thud in the square, the villagers began to hum. It was a low, guttural vibration that started in their chests and shook the very foundations of the island. They didn't beg for their lives. They knew the Gods were deaf to mercy.
Instead, they drew small, obsidian shards from their belts.
"For the one who follows," Mora whispered.
In a single, synchronized motion, a thousand blades bit into a thousand palms.
The blood did not drip to the floor. It defied gravity. It rose in shimmering, rubied droplets, drawn toward a modest hut on the edge of the cliff. Inside that hut, a woman lay gasping her final breath, her eyes fixed on the wooden cradle where a silent newborn lay.
The Ghouls lunged. Screams began to pierce the Song as the monsters started their feast. But the blood-prayer was faster. The crimson droplets swirled into a vortex, slamming into the infant's chest and vanishing.
At that moment, the cliff edge groaned. Under the weight of the Tainted God's gaze, the rock fractured. The hut, the cradle, and the child tumbled into the white abyss of the Shush below.
High above, Juro-Gai narrowed his massive eye. A ripple of unease passed through his immortal form. He had intended to erase this lineage forever. Instead, he had just witnessed a miracle paid for in the blood of an entire people.