The Rotting Cathedral was alive tonight. Not with prayer. Not with salvation. But with hunger.
Selene Nocturna stood at the altar, draped in shadows and power, her golden eyes flickering like dying stars. The corrupted paladin, now her Knight of Plague, knelt at her feet, his once-holy form twisted into something far more useful.
"How does it feel?" she purred, running her gloved fingers along his jaw.
His new eyes—black pools laced with crimson veins—shuddered with madness. He was changed, bound to her, a servant of rot and ruin.
"I… hunger," he rasped, his voice distorted, stretched between life and death.
Selene grinned. "Then let us feed you."
She turned her gaze to the massive iron doors of the cathedral. Beyond them, the city still breathed.
The blind and the faithful clung to their prayers, believing their gods could shield them from the creeping sickness in the streets. They whispered of the Pale Widow in hushed voices, hoping ignorance would keep her from their doors.
Selene raised a hand. The cathedral doors groaned open, revealing the fog-drenched city below.
She stepped forward, her revenant knight at her side, and the shadows followed them like an eager plague.
The streets of Black Hollow were lined with flickering lanterns, their feeble glow doing little to push back the growing darkness.
Selene walked as though she owned the very stones beneath her feet, her presence turning the air heavy with decay.
People paused as she passed—drawn to her beauty, then trapped by her horror.
One fool, a desperate priest, dared to step forward.
"Demon!" he spat, clutching a rusted holy symbol. "You will not take this city!"
Selene sighed, tilting her head. "But, dear priest… I already have."
Her breath fogged with rot, and with a flick of her wrist, the air rippled with unseen sickness.
The priest's eyes widened. A gurgling sound bubbled in his throat. He stumbled backward, hands clawing at his chest—at the thick, black veins crawling under his skin.
His prayers turned to choking gasps.
His flesh liquefied in patches.
His bones creaked like rotting wood.
A crimson mist coated the cobblestones, and from the steaming ruin, something crawled forth—a writhing, reanimated horror, half-man, half-plague.
Selene smiled as the city began to scream.
Her revenant knight stepped forward, his own hunger raging.
"Feast," Selene commanded, extending a hand to the terrified masses. "Tonight, Black Hollow dines with the forsaken."
The dead surged forward, and the feast began.