— Thirty Years Ago —
Verdaal had once been… simple.
A world of rolling plains that stretched into endless green. Towering mountain ranges crowned with white. Oceans that whispered to untouched shores.
Its people were industrious—clever in their ways, always seeking to improve life. They had advanced farming, stable medicine, clean energy… but by modern Earth standards, they were quaint. Planes still used propellers in the outlands. Their proudest weapon was a ballistic missile—rarely used, barely tested.
The sky above them was blue. Peaceful.
Until it tore open.
Without warning, the heavens screamed.
Rifts erupted across the atmosphere like bleeding wounds—crimson gashes that pulsed with an eerie, mist-like substance. It shimmered, danced, breathed. The people who saw it first named it Veilflux.
And then came the monsters.
They did not crawl. They spilled—like nightmares given flesh. Some were claws and teeth. Others slithered, winged, or walked on too many limbs. Grotesque, ravenous, wrong.
In mere days, entire towns vanished. Weeks later, nations fell.
Even the animals of Verdaal began to twist—mutated by exposure to the Veilflux. Horses with bone for skin. Wolves with hollow eyes. Crops that grew teeth instead of fruit.
Desperate leaders unleashed their nuclear arsenals.
It didn't matter.
The bombs fell. The land burned. But the monsters didn't die. Not truly.
What could fire do to things born from a place beyond reason?
Humanity panicked. Governments collapsed. Technology crumbled. Satellites went dark. The world fell silent, except for the screams and the crackling of cities on fire.
Verdaal stood on the brink of extinction.
But fate wasn't done.
The sky shimmered again—this time, not with horror… but presence.
Something vast moved between dimensions. A silhouette, neither solid nor illusion. Neither machine nor god.
No one could describe it the same way. Some saw wings. Others saw gears. Some heard singing. Others wept without knowing why.
It called itself Nytherion.
Its voice wasn't heard—it was felt, like thunder inside the skull.
"People of Verdaal," it spoke into every mind, young and old, across oceans and ruins alike."Your extinction is not yet sealed. I offer salvation. I offer power."
A pause.
Hope flickered.
"I am the Threshold Warden, the Sovereign of the Veiled Crucible. I do not offer mercy—but opportunity. I shall mark a chosen few. Lords. They will become the axis upon which your world turns anew."
Then, silence.
Nytherion vanished, and the world waited.
And then—they began to awaken.
Those chosen by Nytherion were marked with Crucible Sigils—symbols not just etched into skin, but into the soul itself.
With those sigils came access to another realm.
The Crucible Plane.
A world layered behind Verdaal, built of arcane energy and subdimensional chaos. There, the Lords carved out domains called Fiefs—fortresses of wonder and war, where time flowed differently and logic bent under ambition.
Science fused with sorcery. Cities were built in days. Weapons born of thought and metal alike.
One hour in Verdaal might be a week inside a Fief.
Lords returned from their Crucibles bearing gifts:Tools that defied gravity.Blades that sang with elemental fury.Machines powered by Veilflux cores—fueled not by electricity, but by the very force that once brought ruin.
And as they grew stronger… so did humanity.
Verdaal clawed its way back from the abyss.
The world, however, was no longer whole.
Verdaal had become a broken tapestry—patched, scarred, reclassified.
🟩 Green Zones
The first to rise. Domains of Prime-Class Lords, the strongest of Nytherion's chosen. Cities of glass and light, floating on arcane platforms. Forcefields shimmered overhead like artificial skies. AI-driven constructs patrolled the streets. Sky-fortresses drifted in silence.
Only the elite lived here—genius inventors, awakened tacticians, master-tier Veilflux wielders.
🔵 Blue Zones
Controlled by Second-Class Lords—efficient, militarized, and proud. These were towns of discipline, mass-production, and innovation. Crucible-alloy weapons lined the armories. Veilflux reactors pulsed beneath factories and homes. Life here was hard… but safe.
Mostly.
🟡 Yellow Zones
The frontiers. Settlements ruled by Third-Class Lords, where ambition was high but power was fragile. These were half-reclaimed lands, where ruins met reconstruction. Walls were always being rebuilt. Alarm sirens were frequent. Stability was a hope, not a promise.
🔴 Red Zones
Unclaimed. Or rather… unreclaimable.
These were the Veil's scars. Graveyards of civilization, now forests of bone, swamps of rot. Veil-corrupted creatures made their nests here. Even the air shimmered unnaturally. Step in without protection, and you wouldn't last an hour.
And deeper still—
⚫ Black Zones
Forbidden.
Few had entered. Fewer had returned.
These were realms sealed by dimensional law, ruled by entities beyond comprehension—Veil Sovereigns, Emperor-Class Lords, or… worse.
Rumors whispered of walking cathedrals that bled prayers. Of storms that spoke. Of time loops that fed on memories.
The Crucible Accord forbade entry.
Most obeyed.
The foolish vanished.
Still… the question remained:
Why had Nytherion come?
No one knew.
Was it a savior? A jailer? A god? A puppeteer?
Some believed it was preparing humanity for a war beyond reality.
Others whispered that Verdaal had become… a testbed. A cosmic game board.
The only truth was this:
The Crucible persisted.
Every year, young men and women turned sixteen.
Every year, the Rite of Ascendancy was held—where Nytherion marked those it deemed worthy.
To be marked was to become a Lord.To enter the Crucible.To return changed—if you returned at all.
Some were broken.Some rose to greatness.
But all were bound.
To power.To duty.To Nytherion.
— Present Day —
Somewhere in the scarred borderlands of a Yellow Zone, beneath a cracked dome sky and the hum of rusting ward-lamps, a boy stirred in his sleep.
The dormitory was silent—rows of cots, moonlight trickling in through dusty panes.
On one of those cots, a child twisted beneath thin blankets, sweat pooling on his brow.
His name was Alaric Thorne.
And his soul—reborn and reformed—had just begun to remember what it had once been.
What it could become.
The Crucible stirred.
And soon… it would call.