The continent of Varnyx had long been a graveyard of ambition. Once a cradle of divine empires, it had become a scorched wasteland where the sky wept ash and the soil bled molten sorrow. The gods had abandoned it, and mortals had turned on each other like starving wolves. It was here, in the deepest pit of despair, that Vorthar was born.

He was not born in a palace, nor in a temple. He was born in a chamber carved from obsidian and bone, beneath the ruins of the last imperial city. The ritual that summoned him had cost thousands of lives — priests, slaves, and even kings — sacrificed to breach the veil between realms. The Emperor of Varnyx, desperate to forge a weapon that could reclaim his crumbling dominion, had called upon forbidden magic.

But what emerged was not a servant.

Vorthar did not cry. His eyes opened with a glow like dying stars, and the torches in the chamber flickered and died. The midwives fled in terror, and the Emperor, trembling, knelt before the child he had summoned. The prophecy had spoken of him:

"When the last star bleeds, and the gods turn their faces, a child shall rise from flame. He shall not be king. He shall be the end."

By the age of five, Vorthar had killed the Emperor with a single touch. By ten, he had burned the capital to the ground. By fifteen, he had forged his own throne — a jagged seat of obsidian and bone, placed atop the ruins of the old world.

He did not take advisors. He did not need armies.

He was the army.