The Crimson Choir

Arc 1: The Hunter’s Awakening

The forest wasn’t silent. It sang.

Not with birds or wind, but with whispers—low, chanting voices that echoed from nowhere. The deeper Dain walked, the clearer it became. Not words… but a melody of madness.

Veyne lagged behind, eyes darting. “I don’t like this. The trees feel wrong.”

Dain didn’t respond. His hand hovered over his weapon. Each step took them further from the scorched earth of Eldermoor into a fog-laced woodland where reality bent like warped glass.

The trees here bled.

Thin streams of crimson dripped down their bark like tears. The soil was soft—wet. Not from rain. From blood. It soaked Dain’s boots as if the ground itself had been fed corpses for years.

Then they heard it.

A choir.

Dozens of voices, high and low, singing in unnatural harmony. A hymn not meant for human ears.

Dain paused at the edge of a hollow clearing. Candles lined the tree roots, hundreds of them—none had wax. Each burned from within a human skull. Their flames glowed violet, flickering with unnatural heat.

In the center stood the Crimson Choir.

Once people. Now husks.

Pale figures in tattered robes, mouths sewn shut with black wire, yet still singing. Their bodies trembled with each note, as if possessed. Blood ran from their eyes. Some floated inches off the ground, held up by invisible threads of sorcery.

And behind them…

A figure in red.

She wore a gown stitched from human skin. Her hair was long, white as snow, and moved as if underwater. No eyes—just dark sockets leaking tears of ink.

Veyne cursed. “That’s her… the Blood Siren. One of the Nine.”

Dain gritted his teeth.

The Nine Demon Heralds—servants of the Abyss, each a harbinger of destruction. He’d heard of the Siren in whispers. Said to command the souls of the tortured, twisting pain into song.

And she was here, feeding off the massacre in Eldermoor.

The Blood Siren turned toward them. Though she had no eyes, Dain felt her gaze pierce him like daggers.

The singing stopped.

All at once.

The silence cracked his mind.

Then, with a flick of her wrist, the choir screamed.

No more hymns. Just agony.

The sound ripped through the trees, shredding bark and warping air. Veyne staggered back, ears bleeding. Dain dropped to one knee, chains flaring around his arms in response.

The Siren floated toward them.

“I see you, Hellforged,” she hissed. “Your chains hum with hunger.”

Dain forced himself up. “Then feed on this.”

The cursed chains coiled like serpents and lashed forward, striking at her. But the Siren dissolved into a mist of blood, reappearing behind him. Her voice was a dagger in his ear.

“You wear Hell’s gift… but not its will.”

She pressed a hand to his chest. His heart burned.

Dain roared—and the chains erupted in full.

The Siren shrieked, blasted back into the clearing, her choir dissolving like ash in wind.

Panting, Dain stood over the scattered skulls. The candles were out.

But the song still echoed in his head.

“You okay?” Veyne wheezed.

“No,” Dain muttered. “And that wasn’t even her true form.”

He looked toward the mountains.

She was just the beginning.