In the beginning, there was not life, but silence.
Masta Realm was a husk, an empty shell of an older world devoured by the abyss. It floated adrift in the endless dark, barren and forgotten. The void might have claimed it wholly, had not the first flame descended. No mortal hand lit it. No god claimed it. It was simply born — a spark of law in a sea of lawlessness, like a light in thick darkness.
From that flame came the First Stages. Not men. Not beasts. Stages. They were the pillars of power, etched into the blood marrow of existence. And when the first children of Masta Realm were born, some bore fragments of those pillars in their blood. They opened their eyes already burning, already marked, already above the weak shallow one's that came after them.
Thus, the law of the realm was written without ink or decree: like a fact:
Power is inheritance. Worth is birth. While weakness is death....you know the normal three hard facts.
The stages hardened into castes, and the castes hardened into families. In time, they became empires.
The first stage — Ashborn — was already greater than any hollow. To be born Ashborn was to have fire enough to fight, teeth enough to bite. So atleast they could command fear.
Just to be clear...Hollow are children born with no cultivation.
The second stage — Bloodfang — was terror. Children of Bloodfang were not simply fighters; their veins sang with crimson hunger, their flesh was as tough as iron, their voices could crack bone....yeah probably!
The third — Dreadmark — carved itself upon the body. Marks, black as curses, bloomed upon the skin of those chosen, and every line was strength stolen from heaven.
The fourth — Wyrmscourge — made men monsters. It was said that when one reached Wyrmscourge, they carried the wrath of ancient wyrms in their marrow. Their roar could split stones....yeah mountains.
The fifth — Hellforged — was agony made immortal. Cultivators of this stage were tempered like blades in the fires of torment. They knew pain as a companion, and each wound only deepened their resolve.
The last, whispered stage — Godrend — was the crown. Not many in history had ever been born to it. The few who were reached this stage became nightmares. One Godrend could erase cities, drink seas, and rend the veil between worlds.
These stages were not earned. They were not cultivated. They were not clawed toward through toil or ritual. They were bestowed at birth. The newborn babe opened its eyes and the world bowed, or turned away in disgust.
And so the cruelest truth of Masta Realm became eternal:
You are born crowned or born condemned.
---
From the law of birth arose the families — dynasties that ruled the realm like clawed tyrants, their bloodlines prized, their bastards weighed like treasure or trash.
House Falcon — The Ironfang Dynasty. Their heirs were almost always born Bloodfang or higher. They ruled the southern mountains, their banners dyed in the blood of slaves. Their family crest was a fanged skull split in half — they were cruel.... infact mercy was unknown to them.
House Fray — The Dreadmark Sovereigns. They painted their skin with black sigils to glorify the natural marks of their blood. Scholars whispered that their ancestors once carved flesh into stone and drank from its marrow.....'if that makes sense'
House Vermin — The Wyrmscourge Keepers. They bred like beasts, claiming kinship to the dragons that roamed the skies before the Abyss devoured them. Their keep was built from the bones of wyrm..... their children bore eyes like slit serpents....they were known for their cunning.
House Skull — The Hellforged Thrones. Their heirs were raised in pits of fire and sharpened with chains.... infact they train harder than any other house.To be from the Skull family was to be a weapon before being a child. They were both feared and despised, but none could rival their cruelty.
House Maverick — The Godrend Sovereigns. Few were born into this house, for their bloodline was thin, but every birth shook the realm. A Maverick heir was calamity given flesh. Kings bent their knees, enemies abandoned their wars when one appeared....for they were the strongest of all.
But they rarely show themselves.
These families warred, schemed, and slaughtered. Yet they agreed on one thing: the realm was theirs. They were the natural rulers, the chosen of birth. Others could scrape and serve, could toil as farmers or guards or slaves — but they would never ascend beyond the chain of stages given at birth.
And among their customs, none was crueler than the fate of the hollowborn.
When a child was born and the seers gathered to divine its stage, the verdict was usually swift....i mean the glow of ember veins, the hunger of blood, the crack of marks on skin, stuff like that would appear quickly. But sometimes… there was nothing. A hollow cry. A void where essence should have burned.
Such children were named Hollowborn.
The families treated them as stains. To be hollow in a noble house was to be worse than a bastard. It was to be an insult to the blood itself. Many were strangled in their cribs. Others were thrown into rivers, or abandoned in ash fields, left for scavengers and beasts.
Some were cast to the streets — stripped of their name, crest, and kin — bound to crawl among beggars until they starved.
A few were hunted for sport by their own siblings.
The families told themselves it was mercy. I mean...What use was a hollow child in a realm where wormholes tore cities open, where monstrous curses stalked the land? A hollow was no shield, no sword, no heir.
Better to throw them away.
It was better to forget them.
Such was the fate of the hollow borns.
---
Yet cruelty did not belong to men alone.
Above Masta Realm, reality itself cracked. Wormholes — jagged rents in sky and soil — yawned open without warning. From them poured terrors that men came to call the Makers' Curse.
Cause no one knew the origin of the Curse. Some claimed the wormholes were wounds left behind when the realm was torn from its parent world. Others whispered that the curses were punishment from gods long dead. A few heretics suggested that the curses were alive — that it was a consciousness spread thin, gnawing at the edges of reality, hungering for the marrow of cultivators.
But whatever their truth, the creatures of the Curse were abominations.
They took no single form. Some were towering beasts with too many limbs, eyes burning with cold flame. Others were swarms of whispering shadows that suffocated towns in silence. Some wore human faces, stitched together from the memories of the devoured.
And always, they killed. Always, they hunted. Always, they returned.
The families fought them, yes. Their staged heirs became generals and champions, wielding power to push the curses back into the wormholes. But even their victories were fleeting. The wormholes did not close forever. The curses always returned.
And it was said — though none dared confirm — that the curses had an affinity for the hollowborn. They hunted them, as if emptiness called to emptiness.
When a hollow child screamed, sometimes the wormholes screamed back...or so they thought.
---
Among such discarded children was one born to a house that will not yet be named here, for the shame was too fresh. A noble line that had drunk deep of pride. A house that once sat on thrones of gold.
But ofcourse....fate was cruel...their son was born hollow.
The midwives whispered. The seer checked twice, thrice, begging the blood to reveal even a spark of ember, a shred of mark. But there was nothing. The child's chest rose with breath, yet the realm did not answer.
The father spat. The mother wept, but her tears were not for the child — they were for the wound to her pride.
"Cast him out," they said.
And so the child was taken into the streets. He was not named. He was not blessed. He was not even given a shroud.
The realm would call him useless.
The realm would call him hollow.
The realm would call him Sané.
He grew where rats slept. He begged where dogs fought. He learned not to look at the stages, not to lift his head when the noble heirs passed.
He learned to give up.
But the realm is not merciful. The realm does not forget. And sometimes, the hollow is not absence. Sometimes, it is hunger.
Sometimes, it is a wound waiting to be filled.
And when the wormholes widen, when the Makers' Curse stretches its limbs across the skies, when the families tremble at their own forgotten sins — perhaps then, the hollow will rise.
Not as heir.
Not as king.
But as judgment.
*Sigh*