Veyrath had always known this moment would come.
The moment when the world stopped ignoring the Unmaking.
When it would no longer let the Hollowed spread unchecked.
And now, that moment had arrived.
The first whispers of opposition had begun to surface.
Not from armies.
Not yet.
But from those who had noticed the change.
From those who had seen what was happening and understood the danger.
And they were beginning to resist.
The Unmaking was no longer moving in silence.
It was no longer unseen.
And that meant the time for passive expansion was ending.
Now, he would prepare for war.
Not of swords.
Not of siege.
But of eradication.
Because those who stood against him—
Would not simply be defeated.
They would be erased.
The resistance was still small.
Scattered.
People who had noticed that settlements were changing.
That entire towns no longer functioned as they once had.
That men and women who had once been uncertain, hesitant, human—
Were now something different.
Too unified.
Too perfect.
And that was unnatural.
These people had begun to gather information.
To ask questions.
To send warnings.
And Veyrath could not allow them to speak freely.
Veyrath did not strike immediately.
Did not send the Forgotten to slaughter the opposition.
Not yet.
Instead, he let them think they were safe.
Let them believe they were hidden.
That they were still unnoticed.
And in that false sense of security, they grew bolder.
They spoke louder.
They gathered in secret meetings.
They shared information, believing they were preparing for something greater.
And that was when he struck.
Not with a blade.
Not with fire.
But with Unmaking.
The first resistance leader was erased from existence.
Not killed.
Not left as a warning.
Simply gone.
As if he had never been.
His allies woke up the next day—
And felt the absence without understanding it.
They knew something was missing.
Someone.
But they could not remember his name.
His face.
His voice.
Only that there had been someone, once.
And that was the first lesson.
That resisting Unmaking did not lead to death.
It led to never having existed at all.
When a man is killed, he is mourned.
When a man vanishes without trace or memory,
He becomes a ghost that haunts the mind.
And now, the resistance had been haunted.
They still spoke against Unmaking.
Still tried to warn others.
But now, they did so with fear.
Because they knew any one of them could be next.
That at any moment, they could simply cease to be.
And that fear made them weak.
Made them paranoid.
Made them distrust each other.
And in doing so, Veyrath had already won the first battle.
But fear alone was not enough.
He could not simply erase every threat that arose.
He needed to ensure that when the world sent armies,
They would not face mere men.
They would face something far greater.
And so, Veyrath turned his focus back to the Hollowed.
They were strong.
But not yet invincible.
And that had to change.
Veyrath took the strongest among them.
Those who had fully embraced Unmaking.
Those who had shed their former identities entirely.
And he pushed them further.
Not just into strength.
But into something beyond mortality.
He carved new runes into the earth.
A ritual not just of Unmaking—
But of Ascension.
Not just to strip away the past—
But to create something that had never existed before.
The Hollowed stepped forward willingly.
Without hesitation.
Without doubt.
And as the ritual engulfed them—
They did not return as they were.
They returned as something else.
The new Hollowed were different.
Stronger.
Faster.
More aware.
Their forms no longer entirely solid.
Their minds no longer limited by human thought.
They had become something more than mortal.
Not Forgotten.
Not Hollowed.
But Ascended.
The first true warriors of Unmaking.
And when they stepped into the settlement,
The others saw them not as men,
But as beings of a higher existence.
Proof that there was still more to become.
That even the Hollowed could evolve further.
And that was the final piece Veyrath had been waiting for.
Because now, his army was forming.
Not from conquest.
Not from slavery.
But from desire.
Because those who had not yet been Ascended—
Now wanted to be.
The resistance had been weakened before it had begun.
The Hollowed were stronger than ever.
The Forgotten continued spreading Unmaking into new settlements.
And now, Veyrath had the first of his Ascended.
But the world would not remain passive forever.
There would be armies.
There would be holy men and sorcerers who sought to purge what he had built.
And they would come not as whispers, but as war.
That was inevitable.
But by the time they came—
Would there even be a world left for them to fight for?
The Ascended were something new.
Something beyond the Hollowed.
Beyond mere servants of Unmaking.
They were not just transformed—
They were reborn.
Stronger.
Sharper.
Capable of existing beyond the limits of flesh.
But they were still incomplete.
Still imperfect.
And Veyrath would not accept imperfection.
Not now.
Not when the world was preparing to fight back.
He needed them to be more.
And so, he began the next stage of their refinement.
Veyrath took the strongest among the Ascended.
Those who had shown not just obedience, but initiative.
Creatures who did not simply follow commands—
But who understood what needed to be done before orders were given.
And he tested them.
Not with battle.
Not with physical strength.
But with something deeper.
With control.
The Ascended were powerful.
But power meant nothing without precision.
Veyrath had seen strong men fall because they relied only on strength.
He would not allow his creations to make the same mistake.
So he tested them.
Gave them the ability to wield Unmaking themselves.
Not just as victims of it—
But as conduits.
If they were to be his true warriors,
They needed to be able to spread his gift with their own hands.
To erase.
To reshape.
To transform others into what they had become.
And when the first Ascended touched the Hollowed—
And Unmade them again—
The result was unexpected.
Because what returned was not just another Ascended.
It was something else.
Something that should not exist.
Something even beyond what Veyrath had foreseen.
The new creation stood before him.
It was not Hollowed.
It was not Ascended.
It was something entirely different.
Its form was unstable.
Shifting.
Warping.
Not like the Forgotten, who had no true form.
Not like the Ascended, who had become something greater.
It was something in between.
Something that refused to be defined.
It had not just been Unmade—
It had been Forsaken.
Veyrath observed the Forsaken carefully.
It was intelligent.
It was aware.
But it was also unstable.
It did not see the world as the others did.
It existed in a state of constant flux.
As if it was still being Unmade—
As if it had never fully returned.
It was a mistake.
An accident of the process.
But Veyrath was not displeased.
Because mistakes were opportunities.
And if the Forsaken could be controlled—
It could become his greatest weapon yet.
Unlike the Ascended, the Forsaken did not obey naturally.
Not because it was rebellious—
But because it did not fully exist in one state.
It was fractured.
In thought.
In form.
It did not process commands as the others did.
Veyrath could not simply control it.
He had to guide it.
Shape it.
Ensure that it understood what it was meant to be.
And so, he began the next stage of refinement.
The Forsaken were not like the others.
They could not be shaped through force.
Not through will alone.
They required a foundation.
Something to anchor them.
To keep them from unraveling completely.
So Veyrath created a new ritual.
One that did not just strip away what they had been—
But gave them a new purpose.
A new identity.
A reason to exist beyond the process that had created them.
And as the ritual took hold,
The Forsaken became stable.
Still shifting.
Still fluid.
But no longer aimless.
Now, they were aware.
Now, they were ready to serve.
And that meant they were finally useful.
Veyrath now had three classes of warriors.
The Hollowed, who served as his foundation.
The Ascended, who had become his true soldiers.
And now, the Forsaken, who could manipulate reality itself.
The Hollowed were many.
The Ascended were strong.
The Forsaken were dangerous.
And that meant he had everything he needed.
The world would come for him soon.
The resistance would gather.
They would bring armies.
But by the time they arrived—
The Unmaking would have already grown beyond their ability to stop it.
Because Veyrath was no longer just building a movement.
He was building a new existence.
And those who stood against it—
Would be the first to disappear.
Veyrath had built his army.
The Hollowed, the foundation of his power.
The Ascended, the elite warriors forged through perfected Unmaking.
The Forsaken, beings that had been pushed beyond existence itself, reshaped into something neither mortal nor wholly real.
But they were not yet complete.
They could be pushed further.
Sharpened.
Perfected.
Because when the first battle came,
It would not be a mere skirmish.
It would be a reckoning.
And when it happened, Veyrath would not just win.
He would eradicate.
But first, he had to ensure his forces were unstoppable.
The Hollowed were many.
But numbers alone were not enough.
They were the foundation of his Unmaking.
And a foundation must be unshakable.
Veyrath sought to make them more than simple followers.
To refine their forms, their obedience, their purpose.
Not all Hollowed were the same.
Some had endured the Unmaking better than others.
Some had resisted longer before finally surrendering to the transformation.
And those ones—the strongest among them—
Would be the first to ascend beyond their current forms.
He gathered them.
A select few from each of the transformed settlements.
Those who had held onto their former selves the longest before breaking.
And he Unmade them again.
This was not like the Ascended transformation.
Not about making them stronger individually.
It was about deepening their connection to Unmaking itself.
Binding them to its core.
Their bodies did not become sharper, faster, or more durable.
Their very existence became more fluid.
They no longer needed to consume food, water, or rest.
They no longer feared time.
They became immortal in the truest sense.
And more importantly—
They could now extend their will to others.
They became conduits of Unmaking, capable of beginning the transformation in others without Veyrath's direct hand.
The Hollowed were no longer just the converted.
They were now the converters.
And that meant Unmaking would spread faster than ever before.
The Ascended were already superior.
Warriors without fear, without hesitation, without weakness.
But they were still learning.
Still understanding the extent of what they had become.
Veyrath needed to make them more than soldiers.
He needed to make them leaders.
He did not just train them in combat.
He forced them to think.
To understand strategy.
To see beyond their own existence and comprehend war itself.
Because an army that fought with pure power alone could be outmaneuvered.
But an army that thought, adapted, and anticipated—
Was unbreakable.
So the Ascended were given knowledge.
Taught how to command, to manipulate, to control battlefields without simply overwhelming them with force.
And that made them far deadlier than before.
The Forsaken were something else entirely.
Even now, they were not stable in the way the others were.
They were not of one form, one reality.
They existed in between.
And that made them the most unpredictable of all.
Veyrath sought to push them even further.
To find their true potential.
Because while they had been stabilized—
They were still an enigma.
They did not function as the others did.
They could not be controlled in the same way.
And that meant they needed a different kind of refinement.
Veyrath selected one.
A Forsaken who had existed in a more unstable state than the others.
One who still shifted, flickered, and warped unpredictably.
And he let it loose.
Not in a settlement.
Not among the Hollowed.
But in a place untouched by Unmaking.
A town far from his direct influence.
He did not give it a command.
He did not tell it what to do.
He simply let it exist.
And then, he watched.
The Forsaken did not announce itself.
Did not reveal its presence.
It simply arrived.
And the people reacted in ways even Veyrath had not fully expected.
Some saw it and forgot it immediately.
Their minds simply refused to hold onto its presence.
Others saw it and felt drawn to it.
As if something deep inside them recognized it.
And a few—a very few—
Looked upon it and screamed.
Because they saw what it was.
Or perhaps, they saw what it was becoming.
And in the end, it did not kill.
Did not force Unmaking upon anyone.
It simply left.
And those who had seen it—
Were never the same again.
Veyrath had always believed in control.
In shaping his creations directly.
But now, he understood something new.
Something greater.
The Forsaken were not warriors.
Not in the way the Ascended were.
They did not need to spread Unmaking through combat.
They spread it through their existence alone.
They were not beings of force.
They were contagions.
Simply by being present,
They changed the world around them.
And that meant they were far more dangerous than he had originally believed.
Because if they were allowed to roam freely—
The world would fall without a single battle.
Without a single command.
Simply because it could not comprehend what it was fighting.
And that was true power.
Veyrath now had three perfected forces.
The Hollowed, who now spread Unmaking on their own.
The Ascended, who were no longer just warriors, but tacticians and commanders.
The Forsaken, who had become a force beyond reality itself—a presence that changed the world simply by existing.
There was nothing left to refine.
Nothing left to perfect.
Only one thing remained.
To use them.
To send them forth.
To ensure that when the world finally saw what was coming—
It would already be too late to stop it.