Chapter One

In this existence lies a central point: a place where the conjuncture between good and evil occurs, the two forces intermingling with one another until life gains its fullest brilliance. To many philosophers and wise folk, this conflict took place within the very essence of what could be considered the soul, the innermost part of ourselves where one could look within. To the scientists and curious people, there had been a rumour that it was, indeed, at the very center of the galaxy, a cold and barren place where one could see such a godly exchange with awe-inspired eyes. For centuries, millennia even, countless souls sought this answer with unrelenting fervour and near zealous passion. What ever it took to find it, they would be willing to do it. For what else was there to do after doing that life had to offer?

And it was after quite some time, written inside of records which had long since returned to the dust from whence they came, that they actually found their answer. It was there that they finally found out... just what they were. However, in a cruel twist, it was that whatever they had found in such a place... did not matter. For it was not long after had they unleashed... something truly awful. No one was sure, then, and no one was sure how it all began or who it was that opened the gates to the unholy flood that came through.

But that did not matter.

Not anymore.

Now, naught but the growing multitude of weeping martyrs, cowards, and the bloodthirsty linger in the ashen aftermath of a 'utopia' ravaged by horrors of galactic war. So now, only one question remained: where does one go from here? This damned, cursed place of no respite and perpetual torment. A domain ruled only by the mad and decadent offspring of the egotistical and traumatized who were the cause of such cosmic destruction. How does one think about leaving such a hellish domain, where evil runs rampant in all of its forms?

Is such a thing even possible? Could it be that death is the only escape from the unleashed eldritch hells?

And would that even be the end? Could the seeping corruption in life's distress potentially have even stained the domain of the dead with its newfound putrid nature, tainting and raping it beyond equal repair? For the war-weary and maddened denizens of the Andromedan Galaxy, it wasn't that they had lost the hope to imagine such a beautiful ending to all the madness, but rather they simply... could not.

Not anymore.

Everyone, from the smallest critter, to the woeful Transcendents not slain in the War For Heaven, could feel it in their bones. Something in the very fabric of the universe and all its dimensions had its roots ripped up and tossed aside in the wake of cataclysmic tragedy. Something essential to the balance of all.

And so it was that the natural order had been broken to its very core. The sanctity of the fundamental laws of balance slain and its figurative corpse, violated.

But even then, after the great kingdoms of old and their plentitude of eldritch foes perished in the War's inferno... there were still some that said they could hear how they roared and scratched at the doors of their imprisonment, demanding to be let loose once more.

It was even said that their filth still permeates freely in dark corners of the Outer Rims, spoken about on the trembling tongues of rogue traders and scarred mercenaries who had regretfully happened across their great tombs of old.

But the matter of a few abominations was of no importance, at least not while they remained entombed within their orbits and dark, damp caves. In the power vacuum caused by the sudden extinguishment of the empires and kingdoms of old, it was to be that a new dark age would rise, as perverted as the one that came before it. Kings against queens, clans against clans, one family against another. In the name of fear and survival, it didn't matter what they had to do to survive even a day longer.

Higher powers plot and scheme from their luxiarous ivory towers and tunnels while the countless masses have known nothing but civil war and exploitation for untold millennia. Slavers ravage the lands and people in their endless greed, desperate enough to throw away any trace of the morals they may have once had. The hundreds of trillions of lives stuck in the seemingly endless conflict raging on since time immemorial would have no recourse. Justice as it was had long since passed in the churning fires of lawlessness and murderous zeal produced by the sins of their fathers and their forefathers before them. The leftover survivors would fight and fight, growing ever smaller and smaller until... nothing would remain. As was foretold it would many, many years ago...

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Wherever you went, it was all the same, just more well-hidden. From the inner sanctum of the Framichian Palace, a mansion as decadent and overwhelming as the drunken king who ruled it, to the furthest reaches of the Outer Rims, whose planets had been forgotten to time. It was no different in the farthest reaches of the Outer Rims: the domain of perpetual nihilism and a place where kingdoms sprouted as quickly as they were subjugated.

It was no different in the desolate solar system where Xeidan resided. If there was any place in the galaxy that perfectly encapuslated all of the wretchedness and desperation this galaxy had to offer, it was the tundra world of Xeidan whose control had only been wrested by the wicked hands of the Unisance Guild, a slaver empire as on the cusp of becoming a superpower in its own right as it was from becoming just another festering corpse in the pile the mighty husk of a nation that the Framichian Dominion had been building.

It was a cold, desolate land, a tundra planet, with the only thing being more jagged than its very own sharp mountains looming being the souls and minds of those so far from their homes. The sun was just close enough that faint patches of shrubbery could grow, but far away enough that it offered no respite or warmth from the cold stabbing winds that blew through the primitive slave camps of loose fabric and uninsulated brick that dotted its now resource-ravaged surface. If it wasn't like it before, no more did the planet's appearance looked like something that could host a surprising amount of fauna and flora. Now, with its sparse few mountains and forests exploited as they were, now, it was as if the planet was never intended to support life, its harsh conditions unappealing for even the hardiest and most stubborn.

But in a forgotten pit deep in the dead, raped, exploited woods, where not one prayer from the congregation of slaves gathered escaped from the cold mud... something extraordinary was growing. Something the galaxy hadn't seen before in all of its histories. A seed planted by the unknown hands of fate itself, it should've had no chance to survive the harsh climate like so many others before it. Yet, surprisingly enough... something sprouted in the dead soil of Xeidan, watered by the sweat of resolve.

And what had come from that seed was of neither hope nor horror but rather... something else entirely. Something as alien as its own origins, with not a single record of the two-legged beast to be found. Guards and servants alike had only ever seen anything like him once before. A being of bone and flesh, yet stronger than most of the cybernetical enhanced. A mammal of such stature and majesty that he commanded respect with nothing more than its mere posture and dagger-like eyes. But it was amidst the clash of steel against unstoppable chitin, under the roar of the bloodthirsty crowd egging both on, that only one thought came into the mind of the exhausted alien so far from home.

He dodged and tripped and rolled away from each blow of the murderous black beast before him, his breath and heart heavy with fear, confusion, and disgust as the mixture of dry sand and wet mud weighed him down.

The Nameless human didn't care what he may have been or what he was to become as he rolled onto his knees, his body coursing with adrenaline. All that mattered to him at that moment was that he saw, through a dark cloud of dust, the killer's rectangular blue eyes staring him down behind its impenetrable armour and its fist the size of a boulder meaning to punch a hole right through his stomach as it swung upwards.

The only thought he had as his body acted on its own, using the hilt of his shattered sword to barely prevent himself from becoming a doughnut when the black beast's suddenly roared out in its ancient, alien tongue as it uppercut him into the air, was this.

How did I end up like this?

Time had slowed down for Nameless as he stared down into the arena below, his recollecting and retreat into his mind making the few painful seconds of his forced ascension stretched out into eternity. His blood mixed together was drops of dark blue, as it wasn't long since he had become infected with a parasite of unknown origin. As it was wrapped around his heart, both his and its blood burst from his mouth as ribs cracked. They remained suspended in the air like frozen in ice. Nameless' brain went into overdrive as it futilely tried to make sense of his bizarre, cruel surroundings. This... isn't right. None of this is!

But try as he did, the human deep down in his soul knew that there was no chance that he would be able to do such a thing. Far too much had happened in the last day of consciousness for him to discern what was illusion or reality.

It also didn't help that he had no recollection of who... or even WHAT he was. Indeed, Nameless was exactly as his title--not name-- suggested: nameless. Nameless in all the regards that someone could think of. He could put no name on himself, nor could he paint a picture of what he once used to be before he was plunged into the dark madness of the Andromeda Galaxy.

He didn't even know what his own race was called.

Nameless... through and through.

He cried out into the jeering crowd giving drawn-out hoots and hollers, guffawing at his agony, the only emotion he could express on his face. But the torturous, sadistic crowd of Uniscen neglected to see one thing in their short-sighted behaviour; that on his face barely visibly through his long hair being blown about by the harsh winds of Xeidan... His eyes still showcased the resolve he felt.

Resolved to piece together even a little bit of what his current iteration had lived through into something... tangible. Something that would allow him to understand how this all came to pass. Even if it that meant all he could do was go back to this morning, back to the moment he was dragged into court and condemned to hell, he would do just that. After all, it was all this lonely human could bear to do.

It may not have been the right place or way to begin his search for answers, but for one in his situation, where he could feel his mind shattering from the events and sights of the last day alone... it was a start.

But little did he know that such an innocent desire would soon set him down a path of trials and tribulations that only a few others had gone down before. On it, he would only find as much hope as he could take for himself and his loved ones. And the burden of life would only become heavier as he went on.

Indeed, for what he truly yearns for is not of this land... or the one after that. That has been locked away forever by a select burdened few, taking it upon themselves never to let such a horrendous thing be seen by mortal eyes again lest the galaxy become doomed once more by powers of the ignorant and folly.

Indeed, it was there in the galaxy's hidden corners long lost to time that his answers lay in patient waiting. Waiting for the ambitious to become drawn by its luring call once more...

However long it is to be until that day comes to pass, no one knew. And so it is that hidden inside the intricacies of flesh and bone...

In this existence covered by the blood and ash of sorrowful generations past...

Amidst the clash of stone and metal between the bloodthirsty and chaotic...

That one human will seek answers...