The world above the ash was dead.
Eli knew this because he had never heard birdsong. Never tasted fruit. Never seen the sun, not truly. The light that filtered through the shattered stained glass was grey and cold, like a dying candle smothered by centuries of dust.
The church stood still — buried in silence and soot. It had no name now. Its saints were broken, its prayers forgotten, its god long gone.
Eli swept the bones from the pews like he always did. He lit candles that didn't burn, stared at icons that didn't blink. This was his world.
Alone.
Mostly.
Sometimes he heard things outside, scratching through the ash dunes — the Wretched, they were called in the old texts. Twisted things that roamed what remained of creation.
But they never entered the church.
Nothing ever did.
Until the altar bled.
---
It began with a sound. Faint. Wet.
A heartbeat — thump… thump… thump… — rising from beneath the altar.
Eli froze.
He stepped closer.
The air above the stone slab shimmered faintly, as if heat had returned to a place that had long forgotten warmth.
He reached out, hesitated… and touched it.
Stone shouldn't be warm.
Stone shouldn't pulse.
Then — it cut him.
A thin line opened across his palm. His blood dripped onto the altar, running like a river through ancient cracks in the marble.
The heartbeat stopped.
A grinding sound followed — stone against stone — and the slab began to move.
Slowly, a square compartment opened in the center, revealing a relic hidden in the hollow beneath.
A book.
Not made of parchment, but veins and gold and stitched flesh.
It hummed, alive with something ancient.
Eli stared.
Then, the voice spoke inside his mind — clear, cold, final:
[Oathbound Pact Established: Devilblood Codex]
[First Commandment: Kill in the Name of Azelreth]
Eli staggered back, clutching his bleeding hand. The Codex hovered before him now, pages rustling though there was no wind.
The air had shifted.
The silence was gone.
The church had awakened.
The gods had not returned.
But something worse had.