Prologue — The Silence of the Gods
There was a time when the gods walked among men.
Not as symbols or as objects of faith, but as a tangible presence. Their footsteps imprinted the earth, leaving an echo so deep that men felt it in their very marrow. Their voices decided destinies, resonating like irrevocable decrees. Their names were spoken without doubt or hope: they were simply inevitable facts. In the temples, the murmurs of priests mingled with the absolute certainty of that which could not be turned back.
That time ended.
No one remembers the exact day. They only know that, from one moment to the next, the gods ceased to answer. The temples remained standing, and prayers continued to rise to the heavens, but the world fell silent. It was a heavy, unnatural, almost final silence that seeped through every crack in homes, villages, and forests. Even the rivers seemed to flow more quietly, and the wind seemed to hold its breath.
At first, men thought it a punishment. Then, a trial. After that… some preferred not to think at all. They grew accustomed to looking without seeing, to listening without expecting a reply, and to walking beneath a sky that no longer offered blessing or bane.
It was then that the portals appeared.
They opened like living wounds upon the world: impossible rifts spewing creatures that did not belong to the land of men. Violet and green lights flickered at their edges, and a cold, metallic chill bled into cities and forests. The air carried an indefinable foulness—the scent of burnt iron mixed with dead earth—a stench that triggered the primal instinct to flee. Deformed, incomplete, and weakened by the crossing, these entities were nonetheless driven by an insatiable hunger and sheer desperation. Their roars and shrieks echoed through valleys and alleyways, as if the world were screaming through them. They did not emerge with the divine strength foretold in legends—as if the world itself rejected their existence—and yet, every creature remained a tangible threat.
Some whispered that the rifts had not appeared by chance. That someone, or something, had forced them open. But there was no one to prove it, and the gods no longer answered questions.
Centuries passed. The portals became part of the landscape. Some grew until they eclipsed entire mountains; others vanished, leaving scars upon the soil that men learned to avoid. Certain creatures—those that survived long enough—claimed vast territories, becoming predators more cunning and formidable than any hero who dared face them. Entire villages were devoured, and the rumors brought by survivors spoke of horrifying scenes that no one could verify, but that everyone felt as a grim warning.
And yet, in the heart of the silence, the world had changed.
The power of the absent gods seeped into the earth, invisible but pervasive. Conscious beings began to feel it, harnessing it without fully grasping its nature. Certain objects—mundane to the untrained eye—awakened, harboring fragments of the divine. With these vestiges, civilizations found the strength to face the monsters. They survived, but only just.
And still, the gods remained absent.
Religions did not wither. They splintered into sects that disputed truths no one could corroborate. Faith did not vanish; it transformed into conflict, into fanaticism, and into shadow wars that devastated both villages and hearts. And resentment… it found fertile ground, feeding on uncertainty and despair.
A millennium after the Severing, men no longer asked why the gods had gone. They only wanted to survive. They only wanted to know if they would ever return—or if, in truth, they had never fully left.
The portals continued to tear open in the most impossible corners: in the heart of deserts, beneath the shifting seas, high within the ancient forests. Each appearance was a herald of danger and a reminder that the world was no longer under human dominion. Some villagers drew too close, only to vanish without a trace. Others told tales of creatures dragging away entire settlements, leaving nothing behind but the echo of an unearthly roar.
And in the heavens, shadows moved where no one was meant to look. The sensation of being watched grew with every heartbeat. Something waited on the other side of every rift. Something that could not be ignored, and that would one day cross back toward the world of men with renewed force and terrible purpose.
A first contact, silent and lethal, was about to change everything. And though no one could foresee it, the story beginning that day would leave its brand upon heroes, villains, and mortals alike.
