The first sign was not the shaking.
It was the silence that came before it.
A silence so complete that every bird on every coast froze mid-call, every wave stilled as if held by unseen fingers, and even the wind hesitated — as though the world itself sensed something arriving that no language had ever prepared it for.
Then the shaking began.
It thundered through continents, splitting ceramic floors in distant villages and rattling cathedral bells in capital cities. Children ran screaming into streets; elders clutched their chests. Entire kingdoms jolted awake under the force of a tremor that seemed to come from beneath the ocean rather than from the earth.
Minutes later, the water changed.
Across the globe, oceans darkened from sapphire to ash, from ash to pitch, until it looked as if all the seas of the world had been drowned in ink. Fishermen vomited over their decks as the smell of the water shifted — metallic, heavy, ancient.
Reports traveled fast:
"The northern coast is black."
"The western strait is boiling."
"Waves are moving backward."
Panic spread faster than truth.
The rulers panicked.
The hidden organizations panicked.
Even the great clans — those who wielded the higher magics, the forbidden runes, the blood-forged arts — whispered in tight council chambers.
Something was coming.
Something bigger than any of them.
---
Far beyond sight of any shoreline, deep in the shifting dark of the open ocean, the water twisted into a whirl that would later be described by surviving sailors as "a mouth big enough to swallow the sky."
The whirl deepened.
And deepened.
Until the sea tore itself open.
A perfect, circular void — a hole into nothingness — gaped wide where waves should have been. The waters along the edge did not descend into it; they ripped upward, spiraling around the rim like black serpents thrashing in agony.
Lightning cracked across a cloudless sky.
The air grew cold.
The pressure fell to the point that it crushed fish instantly; they floated upward as pale corpses.
Then the rune appeared.
A colossus of a glyph — easily the size of a fortress — blazed open beneath the hole. Red and black, spiraling, alive. It was shaped like an eye but wrong in every way an eye could be wrong: too many rings, too many lines, movements that suggested it wasn't simply watching but studying the world itself.
Sailors far at sea saw it for a split second — and those who saw it never slept right again.
Many accounts later repeated the same terrified line:
"It looked at us like we were the mistake."
And then, out of the center of that terrible sigil, something emerged.
Not a beast.
Not a storm.
Not a monster.
Two figures.
Floating above the churning darkness and the runic eye that birthed them.
A man… and his wife.
---
Rhaziel crossed the threshold first.
His boots touched nothing — he simply glided forward, weightless, effortless. Black coat trailing behind him like a shadow that refused to obey the light. His eyes, cold and sharpened like carved steel, scanned a world he had never seen with the indifference of someone assessing prey.
No fear.
No confusion.
Only a single, quiet exhale.
He was tall, built like someone forged rather than born — and he moved with a lethal stillness, as if the world itself flinched before he shifted a muscle.
Nyxara drifted beside him.
Long hair drifting like smoke behind her, lips curved in a dangerous half-smile. There was something wickedly beautiful about her — the kind of beauty stories warned soldiers about, the kind that danced between seduction and slaughter with every breath.
Her eyes glowed faintly violet, irises shaped like fractured glass. A playful madness lived in her smirk, in the tilt of her head, in the way she leaned closer to the churning sea as though daring it to reach for her.
The ocean did not dare.
Above the colossal rune-eye, above the shredded sky, above the impossible tear in the sea — the two stood like a prophecy the world had never written, but would soon learn to fear.
"New air," Nyxara whispered, rolling her shoulders back as she inhaled sharply. "I like its taste."
Rhaziel gave no response, though a faint nod suggested agreement.
He raised a hand.
The winds shifted instantly, bowing in a circular pattern around him.
Nyxara drifted closer, brushing her fingers against his. "We made it, my cold-hearted king."
Rhaziel's voice was a low, unhurried murmur.
"Then let's see what this world thinks it can hide."
---
The moment their feet touched the surface — standing effortlessly atop the ocean's blackened skin — the rune-eye below closed.
Not slowly.
Not gently.
It snapped shut like a predator's jaw.
The whirl collapsed into itself, the hole in the sea sealing so abruptly that any nearby ships were thrown upward in the resulting wave.
And then—
Stillness.
The world exhaled again.
The waves softened.
The color returned.
The sky brightened.
Across the globe, people cheered, cried, prayed, or ran in terror — believing whatever catastrophe had happened was over.
They had no idea that the real catastrophe had just arrived.
---
Rhaziel walked forward across the water as if it were stone, Nyxara matching his steps with a lazy sway in her hips.
He studied the horizon. "This dimension is young."
"Untouched, even," Nyxara crooned, flicking her wrist. A small orb of dark purple fire bloomed above her hand before she crushed it. "Soft. Ripe. Perfect for taking."
Rhaziel's lips curved a fraction — his version of amusement.
"And their strongest?" he asked.
Nyxara closed her eyes, sensing. Threads of energy pulsed across her skin, illuminating her tattoos in dim violet glow.
"They have magic. They have runes. They have power systems scattered everywhere, all under different names."
Her smile widened.
"But nothing like ours."
He was silent for a moment, then:
"Good."
Another wave rolled, but broke quietly beneath their feet.
Nyxara leaned her head against his shoulder. "So, my love… how do we begin?"
Rhaziel lifted his gaze. A flicker of crimson shimmered in his irises — a silent reflection of the world he once conquered, the one he and Nyxara had left behind in ruin.
"We build," he said.
Nyxara purred, "Whom first?"
"We find the powerful. The ambitious. The broken. The ones with potential no one else sees."
He raised a hand. His fingers traced the air, and reality rippled faintly.
"They will come to us. They always do."
Nyxara's grin sharpened. "And the ritual?"
Rhaziel finally looked at her fully, cold eyes meeting unhinged joy.
"We improve it."
---
They walked for another ten minutes before Nyxara paused abruptly, squinting into the sky.
"Did you hear that?"
Rhaziel didn't answer — he simply turned.
From beyond the horizon, a low screech cut through the clouds. The surface of the water trembled as something massive approached.
Black wings broke the mist.
A skeletal serpentine shape soared overhead like a shadow given form. Horns curved backward like jagged blades, and its tail whipped with enough force to shear through stone.
It was the mount that had followed them across dimensions.
Their hunter.
Their guardian.
Their beast.
The Dreadwing Leviathan.
A creature large enough to blot constellations, with a body that fused dragon, bird, and void-beast into something nature never intended.
It screeched again when it saw them, spiraling downward. Nyxara extended a hand, eyes glowing with delight.
"There you are," she whispered.
The beast landed with a force that sent waves thirty feet high in every direction — but the water never touched the couple. Ripples skidded around their feet, bending around them like a bowed knee.
The Dreadwing's skull-like head lowered. Nyxara stroked its snout lovingly, pressing her forehead against it.
"You missed us."
It rumbled, wings folding tight.
Rhaziel stepped forward and touched the creature's horns. Instantly, its body pulsed with red and black light — runic markings glowing alive beneath its translucent scales.
"It survived the jump," he said. "Good."
Nyxara smiled. "Of course it did. It's built like us."
The beast growled in agreement.
Rhaziel climbed onto its back, settling between its jagged ridge-spines. Nyxara slid on behind him, arms wrapped around his waist.
The Dreadwing spread its wings.
"Where to, my love?" she whispered into his ear.
Rhaziel looked toward the distant mainland — a far-off shimmer of mountains, forests, and cities unaware they were about to be rewritten.
His answer was simple.
"Everywhere."
With a single beat of its massive wings, the Dreadwing launched upward, tearing a screaming vortex through the air.
They soared over the black sea, leaving behind nothing but faint ripples — and a world already whispering of omens.
---
LANDING
They found shore an hour later — a desolate, rocky coastline where jagged cliffs stabbed into the sky. A perfect, hidden place to anchor their first steps.
The Dreadwing set down, talons scraping against stone. Rhaziel inhaled deeply; the air here tasted different — wilder, untamed.
Nyxara hopped off first, stretching. "This land doesn't know us yet."
"But it will," Rhaziel replied.
She smirked. "Cold lines like that are why I love you."
He didn't smile, but his eyes softened barely — the closest he ever came.
---
THE FIRST SIGN OF POWER
A distant tremor echoed through the cliffs.
Rhaziel and Nyxara both turned.
Footsteps approached.
A lone man — a fisherman, judging by his worn boots — scrambled into view. He froze the moment he saw the mount. His breath hitched. His knees buckled.
Rhaziel didn't move.
Nyxara didn't blink.
The Dreadwing growled low.
The fisherman fell to his knees.
"P-please… f-forgive me… I… I didn't mean to—"
Rhaziel cut him off with a whisper.
"Calm."
The word wasn't a suggestion.
The man's terror evaporated instantly, replaced by forced serenity. His eyes glazed over as he stared up at them.
Nyxara stepped forward and knelt in front of him. "Tell me," she murmured, lifting his chin with a single finger. "Do the people here believe in omens?"
He nodded frantically, breath trembling.
Nyxara looked back at Rhaziel, grin cruel and delighted. "Perfect."
Rhaziel crouched.
"What's your name?"
"Jorin… Jorin Mavick, s-sir…"
"Jorin," Rhaziel repeated calmly, "you saw nothing tonight."
"Yes," Jorin whispered.
"You will return home with a new purpose."
Jorin's breath hitched. "What p-purpose?"
Rhaziel leaned close, voice cold enough to freeze the wind.
"To prepare the world for me."
A shiver ran through the man. Something ancient seeded itself in his mind — an idea he believed he had always held.
Nyxara kissed the man's forehead, leaving a faint violet shimmer on his skin.
"Run along now," she whispered. "The world must hear its first rumor."
The man stood, turned, and sprinted away — mind already twisting into belief.
Nyxara watched him go, eyes gleaming. "Our first follower."
Rhaziel stood. "Many more will follow."
She linked arms with him. "Then let's give them something worth following."
---
And by dawn…
The world would know a new fear.
A new whisper.
A new omen.
And two monarchs who had come to claim it.
The Monarch of the Shrouded War had begun.