The sky was dark as if the heavens had forgotten how to shine. Frozen clouds devoured the sunlight, and the air was thick with the taste of clotted iron, as if the world itself were choking on its own blood.
Slazar stood still, eyes wide, staring at the figure that had suddenly appeared before him...
Rahigh.
He whispered, as though his breath could barely believe what his eyes beheld:
"How… how are you here? This is impossible."
Rahigh smiled, but it wasn't a human smile. It was something between pity and mockery.
He said in a strangely calm voice:
"I'll explain everything… but first, you must follow me."
Rahigh turned, and walking beside him was a young man with an eerie face—silent, yet radiating a disturbingly familiar aura.
Slazar hesitated for a moment, then followed, his steps cautious... cautious like one following the ghost of his father to an open grave.
As they crossed the barren land, where the soil breathed like rotting skin, Rahig began to speak:
"You might wonder how I'm alive, even though I wrote that I had completed my part of the ritual. The truth is… I died.
What you see before you is what's left of my soul. Something bound to your soul, and your memories. Nothing more."
Then, he gestured to the young man beside him and said:
"And this... this is your Shadow."
Slazar raised his eyebrows in shock, but the young man smiled wide, speaking with a cheerfully horrific tone:
"Now you know my name, Slazar. Are you happy?"
Slazar remained silent for a moment before speaking:
"Why was I summoned here? Into your body specifically?"
Rahigh stopped walking. They now stood at the edge of a valley whose walls breathed like lungs made of flesh.
He spoke softly, as if reciting a forbidden prayer:
"You need to understand the truth of this world first, Slazar, to know why I brought you here."
Slazar looked at him and said slowly:
"Alright... go on."
Rahig lifted his eyes toward the dead sky and began:
"Legend says the world wasn't created it was slaughtered into existence.
At the beginning of time, seven gods came together to create a new land one of purity.
But when they poured their blood into the clay, something emerged from the void...
It was neither living nor dead... it fed on concepts."
"From the body of the first god, the first Commandment was forged.
And from his sin, the first human was shaped.
Humans were born from the leftover flesh of the slaughter...
That's why we have blood, voice, and sight… but no true name.
All names are lies, for the true name of everything...
Belongs to the one who committed the First slaughtering."
Slazar felt a chill gnawing down his spine.
This wasn't a legend—it was a gaping wound in the fabric of reality.
Rahigh continued, his voice sinking into darker tones:
"The first god was not just killed his name, his voice, his identity were slaughtered.
And from his flesh… the act of butchering seeped into everything.
Every piece of meat in NARGON carries the curse of the First slaughtering.
Even souls, Slazar…
Are born afraid of the knife—before they can speak."
Shadow suddenly laughed—a sound like blades scraping bone—and said:
"Hey Rahigh , don't forget to tell him about the Commandments."
Rahigh's eyes dimmed, as if he were bleeding the truth from a wound in his soul:
"Yes… the real reason I brought you here, Slazar, is because you're the only one who can gather the Seven Commandments...
Seven shards of the First God's butchering.
Each Commandment holds the power to rewrite the laws of blood, flesh, and even the soul."
Slazar wanted to ask more, but something else silenced him.
Suddenly, a wave of nausea hit him as if his guts were trying to escape his body.
They had arrived.
The Flesh City.
Yes, it was a city but its walls were made of pulsating muscle, its gates shaped from colossal ribs, and its streets coated in raw, twisting meat.
The stench alone could drive any sane man to rip out his own lungs.
Shadow smiled, staring deep into Slazar's eyes, and said:
"Prepare yourself, Slazar…
Because here, you'll learn how to become... a true demon."
And in the distance…
There was no sun.
Only a single eye… watching…
From the rotting sky.
Waiting.