Corruption lived in the Deadlands.
Beneath the ruined cathedrals, where shattered spires' broken fingers clawed at an indifferent sky, the air itself throbbed, a pulse of decay, heavy with the weight of something old.
Chains dragged across blackened stone, twitching with restless anticipation. They tasted the shift.
Kassimir sat upon his throne, a monstrous creation of twisted bone and blackened steel, its jagged edges drinking in the dim, flickering light.
He sat in stillness, his fingers steepled beneath his chin, crimson eyes smouldering with quiet, lethal amusement.
Because he had felt it.The shattering ripple across the Veil.
The fracture of time and fate itself, bending under the weight of power no mortal could mistake.
Esme is being awakened.
A low chuckle rumbled deep within his chest, curling through the chamber like smoke before a wildfire. The darkness around him stirred, whispering in tongues that had no place in the realm of men.
"So," Kassimir murmured, his voice velvet-wrapped steel, "the Guardian rises."
Shadows shifted, taking form and dissolving again, whispers slithering, unseen, between crumbling walls.
And before him, kneeling like puppets awaiting their master's strings, his general Veylor bowed, hollow-eyed creatures stitched together from nightmare and hate, their forms remnants of what they had once been.
One dared to lift his head, his voice rasping like sand grating against iron.
"My lord… shall we wait? Let her full ascension complete?"
The amusement in Kassimir's gaze sharpened, edged with something cruel.
"Wait?" he echoed, as if the mere suggestion was an insult.
His lips curled, sharp teeth glinting with an undeniably immortal.
Slowly, he rose from his throne, the ground shuddering beneath his weight, as though the world itself bent in reverence.
His Armor was no mere protection; it was an extension of him, living darkness that slithered and coiled, plated in charred silver, shifting with every breath.
"We move now," Kassimir said.
With a flick of his hand, the chamber burned with visions, cities crumbling into ash, temples collapsing beneath a blood-red sky, screams threading the air like a symphony of destruction.
"We strike before she remembers everything. Before she learns to wield herself fully again."
He stepped forward, pacing deliberately, chains following in his wake like obedient dogs.
"She is powerful," he mused, "but she is still weak. At present, she is tied to the limitations of human sentiment. Still clinging to old wounds."
The visions twisted, revealing a thousand futures, a thousand broken possibilities. In every single one, she came to him.
"I know, she will seek me out," he continued, confident, inevitable. "It is so written. That's fate."
And then, slowly, his lips parted, an expression that was neither smile nor snarl, something far more terrifying than both.
"And when she does…" His voice dropped, thick with promise. "She will kneel before me. Bagging for my forgiveness."
The air thrummed with movement, his army stirring, shadows writhing with anticipation, thousands of unseen voices whispering in approval.
The preparations had already begun. His spies had vanished into the fabric of the world, silent Specters slipping between borders of light and shadow.
His greatest abominations, twisted horrors birthed from the heart of the Veil, sharpened their claws in restless hunger.
The world would burn.
And Esme would watch helplessly. Unless she destroyed herself in the process.
Kassimir lifted his gaze through the fractured ceiling toward the rotting sky.
"Come on, Guardian," he whispered.
It was not an invitation. It was a summons.
"Let us end what was begun long before memory itself."
The chains rattled, answering him with vicious, furious agreement.
And the war began.
* * *