The moon burned red.
Not just crimson — but screaming scarlet, casting its haunting glow across the lands like a wound torn open in the heavens.
The stars, once silent witnesses of eternity, now gleamed blood-red, as if they, too, wept for the world.
That night, the world began to cry.
Not in sorrow, but in fear.
From the highest thrones to the poorest villages, kings and peasants alike trembled. For they all knew the tale—an ancient prophecy whispered through generations:
> "On the night the moon bleeds and the sun is gone,
When the dead stir and cry in the wind,
A child shall be born.
The Red King shall rise."
No one knew where the prophecy came from. No one knew who first spoke the words.
But all knew its warning.
And so, for nine long years, the sun vanished.
Day became eternal twilight. The world was ruled by the red moon, suspended like a bloodstained eye above the sky.
In that time, three calamities were foretold to strike the world.
---
The First Calamity: Silence of Life
Half the animals of the world perished.
The other half turned savage, driven mad by unseen forces.
Crops withered.
Famine spread.
Kingdoms collapsed under the weight of despair.
And the world was forced to adapt… or die.
---
The Second Calamity: The Shattered Veil
The boundary between the living and the dead broke.
Spirits wandered freely.
Some wept. Others screamed. Many hungered.
The dead walked again—not as mindless husks, but as fragments of who they once were, clinging to hate, love, vengeance, or sorrow.
Cities built atop old graves became cursed grounds.
Entire regions vanished into the mists of the beyond.
And still, the Red King had not yet come.
---
The Third Calamity: The Fracturing Sky
The very heavens cracked.
Storms of black lightning tore through the skies.
Time began to falter—some places aging a century in a day, others frozen in an eternal moment.
The oceans rose and swallowed whole kingdoms.
Mountains crumbled as if made of sand.
The world itself began to unravel.
But the prophecy had remained silent on one thing:
Would the Red King bring salvation—or final ruin?
Even the Seers, those cursed with glimpses beyond fate, confessed:
> "His path is not written. The Red King walks a road untouched by destiny."
And then—on the final night of the ninth year—
As the world lay on the edge of annihilation—
He was born.
A scream pierced the sky, not of pain, but of awakening.
The red moon dimmed.
The stars shone white once more.
The dead went silent.
The world held its breath.
The Red King had come.
The world was bathed in a deep, unholy crimson.
The sky bled.
Above the clouds, the moon twisted into the shape of a scythe, curved like death's smile.
Its red glow burned through the veil between the living and the dead.
And then—
A scream shattered the silence.
It echoed through the material and spiritual planes alike.
Every creature, mortal or divine, beast or man, demon or god—heard it.
The sound was no ordinary cry. It pierced the soul. It carried with it terror, power, and the promise of change.
It was the scream of a newborn—
The first breath of the Red King.
As the sound faded, the red sky dissolved into black.
The scythe-moon dimmed.
The stars blinked into clarity, pure and white for the first time in nine years.
And all understood what this meant.
> He had come.
The child of prophecy.
The one born beyond fate.
The Red King.
---
Across continents, kings consulted oracles, mages tore open ancient scrolls, gods sent down visions—but none could find the child.
For three long years, the world searched.
And in that time… the child grew.
---
Somewhere in the North – The Silverwoods of Arktika
A forgotten place.
A land of eternal winter, snow-kissed trees, and silence so deep it could swallow the sun.
There, hidden among silver birches and frost-covered pines, stood a small wooden hut—ancient, quiet, and warm.
It was there the child had been born, not in a palace or temple, but in the bloodied, loving arms of a dying mother.
She held him even in death.
Her golden hair fell like sun-kissed silk across her shoulders, now dulled by blood and frost.
Her eyes, once as blue as the ocean at dawn, were glazed open, frozen in peace and pain.
Twenty-five winters old, she had known love and given life with her final breath.
Her skin, smooth and untouched by time, still carried the warmth of a farewell embrace.
Beside her knelt the father.
A man of twenty-seven, rugged and battle-hardened, yet crumbling in silence.
His black hair was damp with sweat and snow, his emerald eyes wide with both awe and despair.
A rough beard shadowed his sharp jaw—three days grown, like the waiting of a man unsure whether to fight or grieve.
His frame was broad and strong, forged by labor and survival in a cruel world.
But in that moment, he was just a man who had lost everything, and gained something greater than he could understand.
Cradled in his dead mother's arms, the infant screamed.
Eyes wide—glowing red like twin bloodstones, as if they remembered the sky that had heralded his birth.
He was silent no longer.
He had come.
The Red King had opened his eyes to a shattered world.