The Golden Warden's Stand Against the End of the World

Aurion Vale  "The Golden Warden"

In the shattered wastes of Amia, where the Devourer’s touch has turned stone to screaming meat and sky to dripping hunger, Aurion Vale rides alone. Clad in ancient relic armor of gold and argent, crowned by a helm of sweeping celestial horns, he is the last sworn knight of the Radiant Order, a living banner of defiance against the flesh apocalypse that the world now calls salvation.

Dawnbringer’s hooves sank deep into the warm, quivering flesh that had once been solid rock.
Steam rose from the white warhorse’s nostrils as it snorted in revulsion, golden barding catching the sickly crimson light like a dying star.
All around them stretched an endless nightmare of tumorous ridges and pulsing veins.

Aurion leaned forward in the saddle, sword gripped tight. Far ahead, the colossal Devourer still hung over the Eternal Basilica like a second, bleeding moon.
Its tendrils brushed the spires, turning marble to glistening meat while the faithful below lifted their hands in worship.

He had heard Cardinal Thorne’s sermon.
He had watched brothers-in-arms melt into the living mass with smiles on their faces.

Aurion’s voice cracked the silence like a breaking bell.

“Not while one true light remains.”

He spurred Dawnbringer into a gallop.
Golden armor blazed. Blue cape snapped behind him like a war banner.
The corrupted ground tore at the horse’s legs, but the knight did not slow, a single shining figure riding straight into the heart of the apocalypse, sword raised high against the sky of mouths and eyes.

In Amia, the gods had come to collect.

Aurion Vale had come to refuse them.