> "I do not seek justice. I do not seek peace. I only seek the taste of godflesh on my tongue."
— Nero Caelum, the First Revenant
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Three Days of Death
The city of Thal'Varrin prepared its sacred gallows with ceremonial hymns and crucifixion nails dipped in silver blessed by thirty-three archpriests.
Because what they were killing wasn't a man.
It was a Markless.
To be born without a divine sigil in this world meant you were unfinished, a stillborn soul walking, an error in the great divine script.
So when Nero Caelum was born under a red moon, silent and unsanctified, his mother was executed before she could even hold him.
And he?
He was sold to the Church.
---
They raised him in a cage under the Cathedral of White Flame, fed with rats and scripture, beaten for making noise. When he turned seven, they began the experiments. At ten, they started cutting into him without anesthesia to map his nerves.
> "If he's not marked," Bishop Caedren once said, "then we are free to make our own mark upon him."
By the time Nero turned twenty-four, he had forgotten his own voice. His body was more scar than flesh. His bones rattled when he walked.
But he did not cry.
And that made the priests furious.
---
So they made his death a lesson.
They severed his vocal cords with a rusted wire saw, not to silence him, but to make his last screams wordless.
They boiled his hands in blessed oil, so he could no longer form the heretical symbols he carved in secret.
They nailed his wrists to the wingbone of a dead angel, a relic displayed above the Church Gates.
The final act: they carved the phrase "GOD IS MERCY" into his chest — letter by letter — using scalpels soaked in powdered gold.
Then they hung him there like a tapestry of flesh and pain.
And left him for the flies.
---
The Whisper from the Void
On the third night, a storm rolled in.
But not rain. Not lightning.
Something older.
Something that didn't belong to this world.
The storm smelled of copper and rot. The winds hissed in a tongue not heard since before creation.
And as thunder cracked the sky, reality split.
From the tear, a string of impossible blackness snaked out. Not a shadow. Not smoke.
It had weight. Intention. Hunger.
It coiled through the air like a serpent and entered Nero's body through the carved wound in his chest.
---
> "You begged for death," the voice said. "But I offer you something worse."
> "A second life… of screams without end."
> "My name is Silence That Devours. My name is What Waits Between Breaths. My name is No God."
> "Let us remake you."
---
The Revenant Rises
His corpse twitched.
A finger curled. Then another.
Bones popped. Skin split.
Something was moving beneath his flesh. His organs rearranged. Black tendrils burrowed into his spine, replacing his marrow with living shadows.
His eyes burst, only to be replaced with pits of pulsing black-red flame.
His tongue slithered out, falling in chunks — replaced by a tongue made of barbed wire and ash.
His ribcage cracked open like a door, and inside, something breathed.
When he finally pulled himself free from the angel bone, his legs snapped on impact.
He stood anyway.
And walked.
---
The First Return
Festival bells rang in the city below. The Purge of the Impure was underway. In the streets, children were branded with the Mark of Purity — a hot iron pressed against their skulls.
The priests celebrated by crucifying twenty Markless in the plaza, their screams drowned by hymns.
Nero entered that same plaza without a word.
No cloak. No armor. Only exposed, rotted flesh stitched with veins of black light.
At first, no one noticed. They thought he was part of the ceremony. A prop.
Until he reached the center.
And grabbed High Priest Murn by the throat.
---
The First Butchering
The priest's eyes widened.
> "You— you were— you're dead—!"
Nero said nothing. He only grinned.
His mouth opened wider than a human jaw should.
Wider.
Wider.
Until the bone cracked. Until rows of new teeth unfolded from his gums.
And he bit through the priest's face.
Not the cheek.
The entire face.
Murn fell screaming, eyes gone, mouth flapping open like a gutted fish.
Nero straddled him. He tore off the scalp like peeling a fruit.
Dug into the skull with his bare hands.
Scooped out the brain.
And ate.
---
[CONSUMPTION COMPLETE]
> You have consumed the cerebrum of [MURN, HOLY TIER-1].
Skill acquired:
• Anathema Word – BLEED
• Faith Leech – Passive: Feed on the belief of those nearby. Grow stronger the more they pray in fear.
---
The other priests began to chant exorcisms.
Nero walked toward them, his body dripping red, steam rising from his mouth.
> "BLEED," he whispered.
It wasn't a scream.
It wasn't even loud.
But it carved through reality like a blade.
And every priest within thirty feet began to hemorrhage from their eyes.
Then their mouths.
Then their pores.
Then their souls.
They burst like rotten fruit, painting the marble plaza with chunks of sacred viscera.
---
The Birth of a Monster
By the end of it, the square was silent.
Nero stood alone, surrounded by the twitching pieces of holy men.
He reached into his own mouth and pulled free a strip of hanging intestine — someone else's — and used it to wrap his neck like a scarf.
Then he turned to the crowd of horrified worshippers.
And spoke:
> "There is no god watching you."
"There never was."
"But I'm here now."
"And I want everything they stole from me."
> "Give me your gods. I'm hungry."
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