The rain never truly stopped in Umbryss.
It only changed its rhythm—from a gentle weeping to a violent, endless sob.
For two cursed years, the family of Don lived under the crushing weight of whispered hatred.
The villagers began to avert their eyes, clutch charms of protection when passing near, and mutter dark prayers against unseen evils.
Some spoke openly now of visions sent by the gods: a dark child, a cursed bloodline.
Lucien bore the worst of it.
Every night, he dreamt of golden fields and smiling faces, of wealth and peace beyond imagining.
In every dream, a single condition was whispered to him:
The death of Froy.
At first, he resisted.
Then he endured.
Finally... he broke.
But before hands raised against Froy could strike, something far more terrifying arrived.
One gray morning, shrouded in a mist so thick it swallowed sound itself, they came—
The Nameless Priests.
They descended upon the village like a black tide, followers of a god whose very name had been erased from mortal memory.
They carried no banners. Only rusted blades, broken staves, and bloodstained robes.
Without warning or mercy, they fell upon the villagers.
The baker and his family, burned alive in their home.
The smith, torn apart in the street.
The children, the elders, the hunters, the healers—
None were spared.
No prayer, no offering could halt the slaughter.
The family of Don fought desperately.
Don himself stood in defense of his home, wielding a broken sword, but he was cut down within minutes.
Amelia, weeping, tried to hide—but she was dragged screaming into the night, her cries swallowed by the mist.
Lucien, desperate beyond sanity, fled with Froy clutched to his chest—but he was overtaken by the priests, pinned down, and forced to watch as they encircled the boy.
Lucien died begging.
Not for himself, but for his brother.
The priests listened to none of it.
By dawn, the village no longer existed.
Only bloodstained ruins remained, and smoke that curled into a black sky like a funeral shroud.
And there, standing untouched in the ruins, was Froy.
The Nameless Priests knelt before him, chanting in voices that cracked and bled:
"The Saint is born."
"The Herald of the Forgotten Crown."
"The Vessel of the Endless Hunger."
Above them all, unseen and triumphant, Sethvyr lingered—
Its laughter stitched into the fabric of the dying world.
Froy, the child of ruin, had survived where gods, men, and hope itself had fallen.
The Calamity of Faith had begun.
"Blessed by ruin — damned to endure."