The sky no longer wept.
It bled.
Above the ruins of the old world, crimson rivers of broken starlight streamed across a sky torn open by Darius's will.
The heavens had no gods left to rule them.
The earth had no kings left to claim it.
Only Darius remained — a being without a name, a soul reforged in the silence between heartbeats.
And yet, the battle was far from over.
The survivors of his empire—those loyal beyond reason, beyond fear—rose from the ashes of their shattered cities.
Their eyes burned not with hope, but with defiance.
Their battered banners, stitched from rags and blood, rose into the wounded air like declarations against fate itself.
They would not kneel to the Usurpers.
They would not scatter to the void.
They would fight.
For him.
For the world he would remake.
The first to answer the call was Ardan the Steelborn, once Darius's general, now a warlord unto himself.
