Prologue: The Descent of Darkness

The Border of Chaos, Wildlands of the Four Realms.

Jeramy walked through the thick, almost tangible nameless mist. Beneath the cracked leather of his battered army boots, the rotting, spongy earth glimmered with an unnatural luster. Within the darkness, chaos-tainted fiends whispered in chilling, sibilant voices—but he strode forward without fear. This rough-hewn man was as wild and untamed as the beast pelts he wore, his flaxen hair a tangled mane down his back, his exposed skin weathered and ruined like ancient leather. Only his black eyes shone, bright as the star-strewn night sky.

“Too quiet,” he said, exhaling a ring of smoke into the fog.

As one of the Night Watchers, Jeramy was more familiar with the Wildlands than any other. The Evernight Wall, erected by the Forebears as the first bastion against darkness and chaos, had indeed served to some extent as a barrier between order and chaos. Yet the wall alone could never fully hold back the nameless horrors that crawled within the chaos. Even the beacons of order, burning eternally, could not disperse the palpable mist.

Thus a second line of defense was born.

The Flame.

The Flame was civilization, hope, and the incarnation of order. The war between chaos and order began in a past so distant it defied memory, in the age of the Forebears. It is said that in the beginning, there was no order—only blind, ignorant chaos—until the Forebears came from the light, their steadfast will illuminating the path ahead, their tempered swords cleaving the darkness that barred the way. From light was born fire; the blaze of order swept away the chaos, and its warmth lit every human heart.

Thus, fire birthed civilization.

The age of order began.

But as the Forebears faded from the earth, the strength of the Flame waned with the passage of time. When the nameless chaos began to stir, the construction of the Evernight Wall was set in motion. This wall, forged from the wisdom of the Forebears, did not betray those hopes. For tens of thousands of years, it withstood countless tides of darkness, becoming the demarcation line between order and chaos.

Until the coming of the nameless mist—dense, murky, and corporeal—that seeped past the wall, corrupting the once-fertile lands of order, where the living were consumed by pestilence and the dead awakened from the decaying earth. In the borderlands where order and chaos blurred, unspeakable fiends were born, tearing through the world of men. Vast farmlands were abandoned, tens of thousands perished, and human civilization was plunged into chaos.

It was in those dark times that the Night Watchers emerged.

Cities built around the Flame protected the necessary population and fields; warriors, willing to become blades, hunted fiends in the wilds; kings and knights rode across the four realms, mercilessly eradicating the claws of chaos.

Yet—

It was all in vain.

The fiends multiplied like crops—harvest one wave, and another would follow, endless and inexhaustible. Only by eradicating the nameless mist that had invaded the lands of order could the root of the problem be cut out. But with the passing of the last Forebear, humanity had long since lost the forbidden knowledge of order and chaos. The nameless mist became an incurable plague.

And so, it was decided to abandon the vast wilds altogether. The sovereign of all humanity issued the supreme command: cities rose around the Flame, the Wildlands were utterly forsaken, and, under the transformation of the mist, became a breeding ground for fiends—a nail of chaos driven into the heart of order.

Even a fool would know this was intolerable evil.

But kings are no fools. Yet fate does not always leave room for choice. Even the wisest, cleverest soul could only strive not to appear utterly foolish in such times. Thus, the wall was garrisoned by the most elite soldiers; the hunting of fiends was left to the most skilled professionals—the Night Watchers.

The Night Watchers, standing on the front lines against chaos, undoubtedly held a noble calling. Yet from ancient days to now, these guardians of civilization have always been the least welcome, and there is no exception. Only the Flame can withstand corruption, and the mist devours not only the land, but all who pass through it—including humans, including those Night Watchers who guard the wall and scour the Wildlands for fiends. Living in the very shadow of chaos, they are the most susceptible to its influence; every year, hundreds go mad, die, or transform into fiends themselves. When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

It is a burden few are willing to bear.

Yet some do embrace it of their own will—youths craving blood and vengeance, young men seeking glory and power, middle-aged outcasts fleeing guilt or vengeance, the old defying loneliness and offering up their final years. All sorts, with disparate aims, come to the Evernight Wall, enduring endless isolation and torment, quietly giving their lives in this bitter land.

Jeramy was one such volunteer, but his reasons diverged from most. He did not seek vengeance, nor glory, nor power, nor did he flee some unpardonable crime. What he sought was the exhilarating rush found on the knife-edge between life and death, and the savage pleasure of unrestrained slaughter. The taint or honor of his role concerned him not at all.

He cared only for killing—free and unfettered killing. Perhaps it was for this reason that, in less than three years, he had become the most seasoned hunter among thirty-six thousand Night Watchers, moving unimpeded through the fiend-haunted Wildlands, gathering intelligence amidst the corrupted earth, serving as the trusted eyes and ears of the Watchers, investigating the latest fiendish unrest.

Fiends are the claws of chaos; their unrest is ever entwined with the shifting tides of chaos.

“It seems Ulysses was right—a new tide is coming.”

Gazing over the empty fields, Mickey’s scar-crossed, timeworn face betrayed rare unease. Of the blind and ignorant chaos beyond the wall, even one so experienced as he could form no true conception—only that it was a monster vast beyond human reckoning, before which a mortal would go mad from a single glance. From whence the Forebears came, how they braved the chaos and kindled the Flame, remains a riddle that vexes every scholar to this day.

Human investigation into chaos has long since stalled. The Evernight Wall is at once a bulwark and an immense cage. Explorers venturing beyond, no matter how prepared, lose all form the moment they step outside the reach of the beacons’ light, dissolving into dreadful darkness. And to turn back is no easy matter: the mist confounds the senses of those unshielded by order, driving them to hysteria. In thousands of years, only a handful of explorers ever returned—only to become fiends, mad and monstrous, before the eyes of men.

What lies beyond the wall?

The sea—a sea of darkness, a sea of chaos. Only with the Forebears’ records can people imagine the horrors beyond the known world.

But a sea has its tides, its ebb and flow. For humans, such changes may not come even once in many generations, but measured against all of civilization, the tides are inevitable. Recorded history tells of nearly ten such tides, each marked by the fall of a king.

The king is sovereign of humanity, an undying sage, fused with the Flame, one with the light of order—the guardian deity of the world, humanity’s final refuge. When the dark tide surges across the sea of chaos, the lands of order, lit by the Flame, become but a lone, trembling island amidst the flood. Without king or Flame, humanity would long since have vanished like dust in the unending dark.

And now… perhaps the moment of life and death has truly come.

Because—

The king is gone.

Recalling the news from the capital, the Night Watcher could not help but frown. He could not, would not believe that the one in question could be a king-slayer. Yet disbelief and suspicion were useless; now, he had to face the fact—the old king was dead, and a new king had yet to rise.

Not all are recognized by the Flame. To become king, one must first possess the bloodline of the Forebears, then journey to Prometheus, the royal city, to endure the Trial of the Flamebearer. Only by proving their courage and wisdom before the original fire, kindled by the first Forebears, may one be crowned. Undoubtedly, only the truly chosen can overcome such trials and ascend to rule all humankind.

But that… takes time.

And does humanity have time? He did not know, and perhaps no one did. For blind, mindless chaos never halts its advance for want of vigilance.

Time was running short.

So he thought—and then, the world lost its light.

This was—

His eyes flew wide. He tried to speak, but no words came.

—For consciousness was already swallowed by darkness.
—Before anyone could react, chaos's tide had devoured all in its path.
—An age of darkness had descended.