The wind howled through the desolate streets of Vareth, carrying with it the foul stench of rot and despair. The once-great city lay in silent agony, its people either dead, turned, or hiding in the ruins, whispering prayers that no longer reached any god.
At the heart of it all, the cursed knight marched forward. His armor, once gleaming with honor, now bore the foul markings of undeath. His gauntlets twitched with each step, as if struggling against invisible chains. His breath, once steady with righteous fury, now came in ragged, corrupted wheezes.
And in his trembling hands, he carried the blackened box.
Selene Nocturna stood upon the balcony of The Rotting Cathedral, watching the spectacle unfold with an amused smirk. The knight moved with the urgency of a man on a mission, yet his soul was no longer his own. He was merely a vessel now—a herald of her plague.
"Do you think your king will welcome you back, I wonder?" Selene whispered to no one, her voice carried by the cursed winds.
The knight reached the palace gates, where the last of Vareth's defenders still stood. A dozen soldiers, faces gaunt with hunger and fear, raised their weapons, blocking his approach.
"Halt!" one of them barked. "Identify yourself!"
The knight did not speak.
The moment stretched, tense and uncertain, until one of the men gasped.
One of the younger soldiers staggered forward, eyes wide with disbelief. He recognized the knight.
"You were lost in the siege... We thought you were dead!"
The knight's head twitched violently, as if something inside him was struggling.
For a fleeting moment, there was something almost human in his glassy, lifeless eyes.
And then… the box snapped open.
A violent, invisible shockwave exploded outward.
The soldiers screamed as their bodies contorted unnaturally, their veins darkening beneath their skin as whispering tendrils of disease slithered through them. One by one, they collapsed, writhing as their very essence was drained into the void.
Selene tilted her head, drinking in the sight.
Where there had once been men, now stood hollow husks, their skin peeling, their mouths twisted into wide, manic grins. Their eyes burned with a sickly yellow glow, their flesh pulsating with the Plague Widow's mark.
The gates of the palace, once a symbol of power and safety, now stood unguarded.
Selene stepped down from her perch, gliding forward like a phantom.
"What a shame," she mused, stepping over the still-twitching bodies of the fallen soldiers. "All that loyalty… wasted."
Behind her, the cursed husks turned to follow.
The kingdom of Vareth would fall before the next sunrise.