The moonlight barely reached the ashen peaks of the mountains, casting only a faint, sickly glow upon the ruined monastery. The black spires jutted into the sky, remnants of a faith long abandoned. Amidst the rubble stood Selene Nocturna, her posture almost casual, yet her expression carried the weight of something ancient—something twisted and amused.
She cocked her head, her bloodied lips curling into a grin as she pointed two fingers to her temple, her mockery unmistakable.
"You came here believing I would be afraid," she mused, her voice laced with venomous mirth. "How quaint."
Before her knelt the Severed Priest, his once-pristine robes reduced to tatters, the silver flames he had conjured now nothing but smoldering embers at his feet. His sigils, meant to purge corruption, had been twisted—repurposed by Selene's own alchemical interference. The veins in his hands bulged, blackened and ruptured, as her new plague took root.
Selene crouched before him, tracing a clawed fingertip along his cracking mask.
"I told you," she whispered, leaning in. "Faith is a brittle thing."
A low, guttural laugh bubbled from her throat as the priest convulsed, his body shaking violently. His own prayers began unraveling him, his gods abandoning him to her embrace.
The sky above split open.
A sound—like weeping glass and shrieking metal—pierced the air. The Veil itself groaned.
Selene stood, tilting her head as she watched the rift expand. Her corruption had gnawed deep enough into reality to tear it open.
"Ah," she sighed, placing a hand over her chest in mock delight. "I do love an unexpected consequence."
From the swirling tear in existence, something vast loomed beyond—a shape without definition, yet omnipresent. It pulsed, reaching with tendrils that were both light and darkness.
The priest's final, rasping breath shuddered from his lips. His body collapsed into dust, leaving behind only his shattered mask.
Selene exhaled slowly, her smile fading into something colder.
The plague had evolved beyond flesh.
It could now fester in the fabric of existence itself.
She stretched her arms lazily, as if waking from a long, pleasurable slumber.
"Let's see how the world fares… when even reality begins to rot."
Her laughter echoed through the mountains, carried by the wind like a mocking dirge for existence itself.