God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The four Judges of Stone...

The Vagabond Knight, Ephistus.

The Land Eating Dragon, Buldokak.

The All-seeing Sword Maiden, Malcivian of Terras.

And finally, Siva, the remnant corpse of the God That Never Dies.

Cain stared at the four statues, his eyes filled with cautious wonder.

As they traveled further towards the lake at the center of this mystical land, he was able to further appreciate the detail that went into this obviously artificial, yet stunning world.

There was no way such a thing could exist naturally after all...

'Then again, the world I know has become one of sorcery and magic. Normal, or at least, what I thought was normal, does not exist anymore.'

In any case, he had gotten curious enough to try asking the system for information about the four statues.

And according to it, each one of these figures were real beings that had existed in the past in the known universe, each more infamous than the next.

They all had rather peculiar tales behind them.

As they walked towards the still waters of the lake far beyond, Cain listened to the he system tell the tales of these beings;

**"

{The heavens are vast, and time is ceaseless. Across the infinite worlds within the planes by which reality is confined, where the skies are vast seas of white clouds, or the shadowy depths of an endless ocean, or the smoldering darkness released from a bottomless pit, and the ground breathes with the whispers of forgotten names, and dead bloodlines, I give you these tales...

The tales of they who wait— silent, immutable, everlasting, their bodies encased in stone a thousand years ago by he who dons the Magenta robes.

To gaze upon them is to hear their stories, carried on the winds of time like dirges sung by unseen lips.

Listen.

Ephistus, the Vagabond Knight.

"I sought to bear glory with my hands. And in my foolishness, I learned that hands wetted with blood shall know no glory. There is only carnage and madness on the battlegrounds."

Once, there was a knight called Ephistus, the Cross Knight of Ironblood.

A man of legend he was, clad in armor so heavy that lesser men would break beneath its weight. His sword was said to be a gift from the Celestial, Gilgamesh, Lord of Warriors.

The blade, Mütenkrieg was a wicked thing, its edge unable to dull, its hilt only obedient to hands that had spilled the most blood in the name of the God of Warriors. According to the legends, it was heavier than a mountain, and could split open the back of a Terror Dragon with a single swing.

For a time, he was the paragon of the army of White Marble, the chief military within the Nexus World in the realms ruled by Gilgamesh.

He spilt blood and had his blood spilt in the name of his god.

Mages and Warriors alike sought his allegiance, mortals sang his praises, and even his enemies, though they cursed his blade, could not deny the terror he was.

But what is glory in a world that drinks only from the scum, filth filled cup of betrayal?

Ephistus learned, too late, that sacrifice is a burden few can bear.

A jealous king...

A court of disloyal subjects poisoned the mind of the ruling class.

Blood!

Madness!

A civil war!

Then his liege sold his people for a Devil's promise. All in a bid to slay the beloved of the God, Gilgamesh, who stood upon his throne within the Heavens, watching this play of mortals come to a fascinating climax.

Ephistus led his knights against the throne he had sworn to protect. He killed his king. He became a traitor. And in doing so, he shattered his soul.

For what is a knight without a kingdom?

He couldn't be a king. He had slaughtered too many. He had spilt rivers of blood that could fill up the cosmic oceans.

Hands wetted with blood could not hold the scepter, and a head clad in a crown of bones could not carry that made of gold.

For centuries, he wandered, his sword growing heavier with every battle fought.

Man, beast, spirit, flesh, god, Devil, it didn't matter. Everything his blade kissed was embraced by death.

He had become nothing but a beast of regret and steel.

And so, despite all the power he had accumulated across the centuries, when at last he collapsed upon the Plateau overlooking Eternity, his body failing, his mind succumbing to the abyss, the world did not let him go.

Fate wouldn't let him go.

Instead, he got to meet him.

A man— a person with a devious smile clad in lavender robes, like that of a king, or a jester...

Then, stone swallowed him, and fused with his flesh}.

***

{Buldokak, the Land-Eating Dragon.

"It was not a god. It was not a demon. No! If was something far worse! Far more terrifying than the abyss itself! It was Hunger! Hunger that consumed everything!"

The Beast that devoured Hunger itself.

Before the beings that walked the lands drew maps and discovered the nature of reality or named the stars, before even mana had reached this world, there was a hunger that slumbered beneath the earth.

The Thing that Devours all...

When it woke, the world trembled. It did not fly, for it had no need. It did not breathe flames, for fire was but an afterthought to its ruinous hunger. Where it walked, the ground collapsed into itself. Where it roared, the rivers fled from their banks.

And when he fed—oh, when he fed—entire cities disappeared into his cavernous maw, their towers crumbling into dust, the beings of this world swallowed whole.

A hunger that knew no limits.

It devoured the world that bore it.

But the beast was not satisfied.

And so, it transfered the endless void, seeing to devour the next.

A deep fear spread.

A great horror had been born within the mortal planes.

The gods that ruled that portion of reality, fearing that Buldokak would consume all of their precious sources of Divinity, wove a terrible spell.

They tore its enormous body asunder and ripped its flesh from its bones. Then, they harvested its organs to make medicine, and hung its tusks within their palaces.

The curse that would consume all of reality had been defeated.

As the last dregs of its hollowed out corpse drifted across the endless void, a piece of its consciousness caught sight of something floating in the distance.

For the first time since it had been born, the beast did not feel hunger.

Instead, it was curious...

***

{Malcivian of Terras, the All-Seeing Sword Maiden.

"I have seen the truth. And I will never unsee it. Not for an eternity at least."

There was once a woman whose beauty was of myths and legends, found only in the erotic dreams of men and beasts alike.

But her beauty was not flesh, not mortal. No, Malcivian of Terras was something else entirely—an echo of perfection, a being carved not by human hands but by something archaic, ancient... cruel.

And because of this, the All-seeing Sword Maiden born with no eyes to see, was strange.

Odd if you will...

Like a star in the night sky that didn't exist the night before.

She did not need eyes to see.

Because of this, she saw the world as it was—not the illusions the gods wove for men, not the fragile veils the Celestials draped over reality.

She saw the strings that pulled at men's fates, the silent hands that wrote their lives in the crimson ink of sorrow, tragedy and despair.

It was who she was. It was what she was made to be.

It was her fate.

It could not be defied.

It was her only god.

For what it was worth, the Sword Maiden was valiant...

She tried to change it. She wielded a sword that could cut through the tapestry of the Endless Void itself, a blade that could sever what should never be severed— no, what did not exist to begin with.

Armed with the knowledge and power of magic as well as her companions, she sought to unmake destiny, to carve a new world where she was not cursed to see everything, to know everything.

But the world does not suffer those who defy its design.

An unnatural being was bound to be noticed by the world eventually. Created by unholy madness, she was rejected and absconded by reality itself.

Never had there been a fate as tragic as hers, nor would there ever be, some legends say.

Yet, just before her dying breaths, surrounded by the torn bodies of her companions she saw a figure dressed in overflowing purple robes.

A moment later, the last of the mana flowing within her was corrupted from within forcing her to cast herself into stone, freezing her own form before the madness could claim her.

***

{Siva, the Remnant Corpse of the God That Never Dies.

"A sunken graveyard, the flames of the Divine still burns within my hollow skull."

Once, he had a name.

Once, he was a god.

An arrogant one.

Once known as the God of Sunfire, he ruled his worlds with fierce tyranny.

He burned and scorched countless worlds in his wake as he conquered, vanquishing and burning his foes with Sunflame till their ashes burned and became nothing.

This cruelty extended even to his loyal subjects.

Those who spoke out of turn had their families burned with Sunflame as they were forced to watch before they took were put to death is equally gruesome manner.

Even amongst the gods, Sekth was known to be a vile being, such that his subjects within both the Godly and Mortal planes, filled with thousands upon thousands of millenia of hatred towards their wicked liege, devised a plan.

A plan to burn this tyrannical God with his own Sunfire.

And so, by sacrificing all the souls within the myriad worlds ruled by Sekth, enough Sunfire burned the wicked god.

And oh— did it burn.

It burned for a long time, scorching and licking his hairs, and then his skin, and then his flesh, down to the very bones.

However, it didn't stop there.

The Sunfire poured my countless souls was so powerful, it burned away the true name and identity of this god.

They had killed a god.

But from the ashes of the everlasting Sunfire rose the bones of a dead god.

One that would never be killed again.

It used the bones of the bodies that had been sacrificed to create a lantern to hold the everlasting Sunfire.

Then it heard a voice;

"A being of destruction, born of destroyed, who is destroyed, yet exists only to cause destruction. I shall call you Siva."

The hollow eyes of Siva, still burning with the Sunfire, caught a glimpse of the lavender robes.

And then, he turned into stone}.

***