The Demon King is dead. Its fragments fell into the mortal world and took root in the soil of a chaotic age.
Amid humanity's struggles for power and profit, it gave birth to endless desire.
In the deepest, yet unspoken, love, it awakened a wisdom of universal compassion.
In the earth's ever-present ley lines, eternal and undying, it forged the backbone that upholds the world's order.
Among the remains buried beneath the cold shallows of the prehuman Cold War, it awakened the pioneer of the worm virus, the Hand of Authority.
Amid a riot of colorful things, it silently chose five heroes and named them the Fingers of Calamity.
From the blood-soaked struggle between the Gauls and the undead, it nurtured a generations-long, heart-rending hatred, the Shadow of All Life.
From the hopeful sparks of Donghua and the Man people, it brought forth the devouring force that would unite all nations.
In the boundless rice paddies, the countryside that follows the seasons, and sincere faith, it kept watch over the Daoist arts that cared for all living things.
In the endless sands, the devouring desert and the fever of invasion, it clung to the dying breath of a force that swallowed up territory.
In the Rhine Federation, which rose to the pinnacle of the world in a century, it composed the laws that accelerated the wheels of time.
In the frozen northern frontier, where the permafrost never thaws and snow falls for thousands of miles, it wrote the rules of creation without order.
In the abyss of chaos, amid raging seas and boundless darkness, it multiplied its tentacles of scorn.
Among soaring dragons and waves consumed by fire, in the crimson lava, it played the angry beat of a heart.
Its will continues to expand, and its story continues to unfold. It will never truly die, for it established an imperishable order. The fate of this land has endured and flourished, stretching into the present.
That story can begin with a rather dull knight's tale...
