The ashes of Tianshu Hive City had drifted on the winds of eternal night for eighty long years.
Crimson clouds of energy clung to Earth's orbit like festering scabs of blood. The spires of the Altar of Ten Thousand Bloods pierced the dense clouds, while the rusted metal walls were covered in the tortured cries of the Void's thralls. Mordecai's figure hovered above the altar. The dark crystal core of his Soul-Devouring Screech Staff greedily sucked away the last traces of consciousness on the planet's surface: those of the human refugees barely surviving in the hive city's sewers.
“The spark has gone out.” The Grand Patriarch's voice, mingled with the shrieks of the Void, rang across the lifeless earth. “Humanity will become food for the Void.”
The staff swept through the air, and a pitch-black rift tore open the clouds. Tens of thousands of Void tentacles poured down, burrowing into every crack in the hive city. In the ruins, a bullet-riddled Emberborn battle armor suddenly flickered to life. A line of blurry text appeared on the tactical visor:
“The spark endures, and humanity lives on.”
The armor's cockpit slowly opened, revealing the face of the young Arbiter. Faint golden markings left by genetic modification crossed his left eye, while his right reflected the crimson glow of the altar. Eighty years ago, his parents hid him in the armor's hibernation pod and used their last breath to write that vow. Eighty years later, he awoke from the ice, his fingertips still holding the warmth of the Ember Badge his mother had pressed into his hand.
