The Descent Of Fire

The world had not always burned.

There was a time before the sky was scarred with light, before the Hallowed Ones roamed, before the Lifted stood above the rest.

But that time was gone.

It began with the Descent.

No one knew where it started. Some claimed it was a divine reckoning, a test from gods long abandoned. Others whispered of something far worse—something that had been slumbering beneath the skin of the world, finally stirring awake.

What was known was simple: the sky opened, and fire rained down.

Not fire as in flame, not something that could be doused with water or smothered with earth. This was something else.

Something alive.

It fell in streaks of gold and crimson, carving through cities, tearing apart landscapes, reshaping reality itself. Those caught in the storm were changed. Some perished instantly, their bodies unable to withstand the sheer force of what had descended. Others… survived.

But they were no longer the same.

The world named it Searing Providence.

The fire that judged. The fire that chose.

Those who endured the flames without being consumed became something more. They awoke to power—the Lifted, beings who now walked above humanity, their bodies strengthened, their abilities unnatural.

But not everyone chosen by Providence survived it unchanged.

For every Lifted, there were those who failed to endure. The ones whose souls had been hollowed out by the trial, their minds and bodies twisted into something worse than death.

The Hallowed Ones.

They were not alive. Not in any way that mattered.

They were shadows of what could have been, broken echoes of those who had reached for power and had been left with only emptiness. Mindless. Hunting. Feasting.

The world had barely begun to recover before it became clear—there was no undoing what had happened.

There was no returning to the way things were.

So the world split.

The Lifted rose to power, shaping what remained of civilization, dividing those who were touched by Providence from those who were not. The non-gifted were left to fend for themselves in the ruins of the old world, trapped in the Outskirts, forgotten.

The boy had been born long after the Descent. He had never seen the sky before it burned. Never known a world without the monsters that lurked in the dark or the people who had deemed themselves gods.

He had only ever known this world.

And in this world, he was nothing.The Trial of Ascendance

To become Lifted was to defy death itself.

Searing Providence did not gift its power freely. It was not kind, nor merciful. It was a force beyond human comprehension—a fire that judged, a trial that consumed.

Those who wished to Ascend had to face it.

The process was called the Trial of Ascendance. It was not a ritual, nor a ceremony. There were no guarantees, no second chances.

To take the Trial was to gamble with one's very existence.

The Trial

It began with the Offering.

A would-be Lifted had to enter a Providence Rift—a scar upon the world left behind by the Descent. These rifts were unstable, chaotic places where reality had been twisted by the raw presence of Searing Providence itself.

Inside, the air burned without heat. The ground cracked beneath steps, whispering with echoes of those who had failed before.

And at the center of every Rift lay the Core Flame.

A fragment of the original fire that had reshaped the world.

To claim it, one had to reach into the flame with their bare hands.

This was the first test. The first judgment.

Those who were unworthy would burn—not just their flesh, but their very soul. Their bodies would blacken, their minds would collapse, and they would emerge as something less than human.

The Hallowed Ones.

But those who endured?

They would survive the first fire.

They would hear it.

A voice that did not speak with words, yet filled every corner of their being.

It was not a gift. It was a demand.

It asked one question, and one question only:

"What will you become?"

And then the true Trial would begin.

The Judgment

The survivor would be pulled into a battle unlike any other—not of flesh, but of will.

Inside the Rift, the Core Flame would manifest a trial unique to each person. A nightmare drawn from their past, their greatest fears, their deepest regrets.

They would be forced to fight.

Not with weapons, not with strength, but with conviction.

For some, it was a battle against their worst enemy—themselves. A twisted, perfected version of who they could have been, wielding all their potential, all their untapped fury.

For others, it was something else entirely. The weight of their sins. The faces of those they had failed.

The Rift would push them to their limits, tearing them apart from the inside.

If they faltered, if their will broke, they would become Hallowed.

But if they endured?

If they stood against the fire and did not flinch?

They would emerge as Lifted.

The Awakening

Those who survived the Trial were forever changed.

The Core Flame would become a part of them, reshaping their very being. Their bodies would grow stronger, faster, able to withstand forces no normal human could survive.

And more than that—they would wield power.

The Providence

Each Lifted's abilities were unique, shaped by the fire's judgment and the trial they had overcome. Some controlled elements, bending the world to their will. Others became something more terrifying, twisting the very concept of reality.

But all of them carried the same mark: The Fire in Their Eyes.

A faint glow, just beneath the surface, barely visible unless one looked close enough.

A reminder.

That they had been judged. That they had survived.

That they were Lifted.