Title: Crimson Veil: Rise of the Forsaken
Genre: Dark Fantasy / Action / Drama
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Chapter 1: The Bells of Aetherfall
The night sky bled scarlet.
From the highest tower of Aetherfall, the capital of the dying world, the bells rang thirteen times — each toll shaking the hearts of those who still dared to breathe.
Beneath the cathedral's shattered glass, a boy stood alone amid the corpses of soldiers and saints. His name was Kaien Valefor — the last orphan of the Eastern War. Blood stained his white coat, his sword still humming from the last strike.
He didn't look like a hero.
He looked like a mistake the gods refused to erase.
> "They said the world would end quietly," he whispered. "But I guess the gods changed their minds."
The sky cracked open. A veil of crimson light tore reality apart — and through it, descended the Forsaken: beings once human, now twisted into monsters of divine rage. Their wings burned black, their eyes glowed like molten gold.
One of them landed before Kaien. Her face was half-beautiful, half-rotten — the mark of someone who once prayed to the gods too long.
> "Child of the fallen," she hissed. "The Bell chose you. Kneel, and be reborn in the Veil's name."
Kaien gripped his sword tighter. The weapon — Veyra — pulsed faintly, as if alive.
> "No," he said. "I don't kneel to ghosts."
He slashed upward, light exploding from the blade. The ground shattered. The Forsaken screamed as Kaien's strike tore through her chest, splitting her wings in half.
But her dying words froze him:
> "You carry the sin of the First God…"
Then, silence.
The thirteenth bell stopped ringing.
And Kaien looked up at the sky, where the Crimson Veil was spreading — swallowing the moon.
From that night onward, every child born beneath that red light would be marked by the Veil… including Kaien himself.
> "If the gods made monsters," he whispered, staring at his bloodstained hands, "then I'll become worse than all of them."
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End of Chapter 1: "The Bells of Aetherfall."