The Night of the Hundred Screams

It began with Kessel, chained and maimed, tearing a path out of his captors with one hand gone and the other full of teeth. He wore them on his soles for a decade, each step crunching memory. Only hunger into ritual, and violence stitched into the city’s shadow.

When they kill, it is too close. When they die, it is too loud.

Ledger of Teeth
1,000 teeth embedded in boots
213 faces gnawed
76 masks left hanging in alleys.
48 riots sparked by their howling.
9 prisons emptied, then burned.
0 victories recognized.
1 myth that will not stop walking.

They are hated by all. By Souflims who watched addicts in hyena masks butcher their kin. By Mornthodox who name them blasphemers without relics. By the Ashidhim, who whisper they are Kessel’s parody of sacred warriors. Even by Jurhoma elders, who see in them only shame, not tradition.

They are not soldiers. They are provocations in black robes. Send them into any street and you guarantee a riot. Keep them away, and nothing burns.

That is why they are universally hated: not because they are cruel, but because they are mediocre in their cruelty. They are cowardice given a uniform.

They do not fight; they obey. They do not march; they stumble. They burned the Souflim wosques and called it order.
They riddled Jurhom caravans with buckshot and called it peace.
But they scatter like rats the second they meet someone who actually knows how to fight.

Awesome

“He smiled at me once. It felt like being blessed and buried at the same time.”
— Aubeline Grace-Laroche, on her first and only audience with Popchek Boris Hercule Lipopulist

Second relic from the Codex of Nue Staregrade.
(The Triptych nears completion. Third face approaching: Abe Noire.)

The Tristian Court calls him “Saint of the Final Signal.”
The Souflims call him “The Mouth That Forgot Silence.”
The Jurhoma call him nothing—because naming demons gives them power.

He walks barefoot into holy war, robes stitched with circuitry and sin.
His scepter broadcasts command. His cherubombs sing obedience.
His Benevoles chant hymns with loaded shotguns.

To hear his voice is to kneel, weep, or explode.

Mornthodox Security Bulletin #408: “Extreme Threat”
“Do not approach. Do not provoke. Do not attempt arrest unless you’ve made peace with your Maker. This one does not believe in surrender, or in Hell. He brings his own.”

To whomever still reads relics:

First recovered image from the codex.
Ytzhak Kessel. Known as “The Body.”
Leader of the Maka-B.
Barefoot. Blood-fed. Brother to no one.

He disappeared in fire. He returned in teeth.

More fragments to follow. If the servers hold.