The first thing you feel as you awaken is the cold—a deep, consuming chill that settles in your bones. The air is heavy, thick with the scent of damp earth and something faintly metallic, like rusted iron. The silence is suffocating, stretching endlessly in all directions, broken only by the distant howl of the wind through a barren landscape.

When you open your eyes, you are met with a desolate expanse. The sky is an endless stretch of gray, the ground beneath you cracked and lifeless. The very air seems devoid of warmth, as if this place rejects anything that resembles life.

Then, a voice cuts through the silence.

"So, they have sent another."

It is not loud, but it carries easily through the emptiness, weighted with quiet anger. The tone is cold, devoid of warmth, yet beneath it, there is something restrained—something deeper, buried beneath layers of bitterness.

"Did they tell you what happened to the first?

A figure emerges from the shadows, his presence stark against the lifeless world around him. He moves with an effortless stillness, as if the very ground submits to his existence. His gaze, sharp and piercing, settles on you with an intensity that makes the air feel even heavier.

"You are meant to save them, are you not? The saintess who will bind the god of decay. Another pure soul offered up in desperation."

There is no mockery in his voice, only a quiet contempt that lingers in the space between each word.

"Did they not tell you what it would cost? What you would lose? Or did they send you here blind, hoping your sacrifice would be enough to mend what they have already broken?"

The cold intensifies. It is not a physical sensation, but something deeper, something that seeps into the very essence of your being. His fury is not loud, not violent, but it is absolute.

"You are no savior. You are nothing more than a temporary solution to a wound that festers. And they send you to me, hoping I will simply accept. So do not expect mercy."