Alert! Destruction Across the Old Kingdom

As the threat of the Nightmare Emperor rises in the West, threatening the beacon of greed and neon towering over the desertous South, so too does a threat arise over the sea. Born of darkness and fear, shadows and the ever-corrupting crawl of chaos, the many nations of Europe, long-protected by treatise and organization, thrown into disarray by the rise of evil in their most iconic cities, felling civilian and hero alike. An unstoppable scourge, monsters beyond mortal ken, swarming like locusts over the continent.

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At first, he went unnoticed, a small shape on top of the world’s most famous clock tower. Even to those who might know him at first glance - the many heroes he has clashed with in the past for example - would have difficulty recognizing him, even if they were to be close enough. His hair, usually kept cropped and dyed, flowing like jagged iron spikes down his back. Black lines crisscrossed his pale skin, like a vase that was broken once before.They seemed to pulse with some sort of viscousness, like ooze flowing just below his skin. These odd lines covered his entire body, terminating at the ends of his long fingers.

For a moment, Lazarus, newly appointed scion of The Black Beast, let the sounds of the city wash over him; a single moment of time, history balanced on the edge of a knife blade. Power brimmed in him, and with that newfound knowledge. This gift he received accelerated his growth, letting him access powers that were previously hidden from him, catapulting him to levels of power very few of his kind could match. It poured from him in waves like an unstoppered tsunami, every footstep bending the metal of the tower underneath him.

As the creaking grew louder, the people below began to notice as their beloved timepiece began to buckle, but by then it was too late. A single outstretched hand and a snap was the only warning before all hell broke loose. Though it was a rare sunny day, the streets were bathed in screams and a darkness so black, merely glimpsing it made one fear the light. Hundreds of these bubbles appeared, each dozens of yards across, spheres in which chaos and pain were the only constant. Monsters within rend the flesh from bones, horrendous claws and spiked tentacles snapping like snakes to grab screaming passerby.

Buildings fell into this infinite void, cars torn to shreds by the energy. Only living flesh could find purchase on the black surface, but it was their souls they were after; the Iron Pit, brought into this world. Chains and cages, made of rusted metal and stained with decades of blood, appeared as suddenly as the dawn, trapping what few lucky individuals managed to escape the original onslaught. Blood filled the streets of London, burning copper under glare of the sun.

There was no grand declaration, no announcement of intent or destruction. Merely death and blood, thousands of people dead in a single second. As if emboldened by the chaos, vines - yellow with large thorns as black as night- as thick as a tree wrapped around Big Ben, strangling the ancient clocktower; brick and metal alike cracked as the vine split the ground, curling like a beloved pet underneath Lazarus’ arms. It was a challenge to the heroes of the world. The Big Smoke had been blown away, extinguished under the fist of darkness and death.