The Ashborn Civil War – A World on FireThe sky burned above Ael’thar, the Ashborn homeworld, as war raged between its ruling caste and the rebellious forces of Vorgul-5, a colony that had defied the will of the High Council. Across the pnet’s molten ndscape, colossal warforms cshed, their obsidian bodies streaked with molten runes, weapons of liquid fire and thunderous shockwaves tearing through the battlefield.

  At the heart of the conflict, Arganth, the Supreme Warlord of the Ashborn, stood upon the jagged throne of Infernal Reach, the capital fortress. His iron-cracked skin pulsed with heat, his molten core casting a dull glow beneath his chitinous armor. Across the burning horizon, hordes of rebellious Ashborn charged, their bodies fused with foreign metals scavenged from Vorgul-5.

  “Fools.” Arganth’s voice rumbled like a mountain shifting in its sleep. He extended a hand, and a nearby Ashborn priest embedded glowing embers of command into his forearm, allowing him to broadcast his voice to his forces.

  “The children of Vorgul-5 have lost their way! They scavenge filth, they steal foreign metals, they mock the will of Phoboros! Burn their treachery from our homeworld! Show them what it means to defy the Forge-Masters!”

  Across the battlefield, his words resonated in the cores of his loyal warriors. Their fire veins fred, their weapons ignited with furnace-born wrath, and they surged forward with renewed fury. Obsidian spears met molten axes, warforms cshed with seismic impacts, and the war machine of the Ashborn churned onward.

  And then—everything changed.

  A pulse, like a dying star colpsing into itself, rippled across the pnet.

  For a brief moment, every Ashborn warrior, every molten tower, every weapon, and every ember of fme froze in pce. The great furnaces of war flickered, then dimmed. Arganth felt something impossible: a weightlessness, as if the pnet itself had been severed from the fabric of reality.

  Then, without warning, everything vanished.

  No sound. No warning. No struggle.

  One moment, Ael’thar burned with war. The next, it was gone.

  Mars (Current time on earth: 12:00 pm. The dice have nded.)Silence.

  Then—fire.

  The surface of Mars split open, spewing plumes of bck smoke and ember-choked winds into the thin atmosphere. The red pnet, once a barren world of dust and rock, groaned as if taking its first breath in eons. And from the shifting crust, mountains of molten metal rose, reshaping the nd to match the infernal designs of a world that did not belong here.

  The Ashborn had arrived.

  Infernal Reach, once perched atop the molten rivers of Ael’thar, now loomed upon the Martian sands, its obsidian spires dripping with the st remnants of its homeworld’s heat. Across the new horizon, towers bled magma, reshaping Mars into a newborn war-forge.

  The Ashborn staggered, confused and disoriented. Their bodies had not changed, yet something felt wrong. Arganth rose from the ground, his glowing core pulsing in confusion, his warform adjusting to the sudden shift in gravitational pull. Around him, his warriors looked to the sky—where once burned the twin moons of Ael’thar, now hung a vast, blue pnet.

  A pnet that did not belong.

  “What sorcery is this?” Arganth growled.

  His second-in-command, Tor’grul, the Forge-Master, approached, his magma-wrought armor dripping with searing-hot metal. “The battle is gone,” he said, his voice hollow. “Ael’thar is gone.”

  Arganth’s core fred. “That is impossible.”

  But as he extended his senses, reaching through the molten veins of his body to attune himself to the pnetary heat around him, he felt something horrifying—

  This world… it was waking up.

  The ground shook violently, tremors rippling outward like the heartbeat of a slumbering titan. Beneath them, the pnet’s molten veins surged, heat rising to the surface not by natural means, but by intent.

  Mars was alive.

  And it had noticed them.

  Deep beneath the surface, a great consciousness stirred. Its presence was old, ancient, forged not from gods, but from the unseen forces of the Multiverse Highnder—an event that would go beyond the understanding of even the greatest Ashborn schors.

  The pnet twisted, the ground cracking apart as new structures emerged, not built, but grown from the Martian crust. Towers of dark iron coiled upward, reshaping themselves into massive, weaponized citadels, their surfaces pulsating with raw energy.

  Then came the first sound of life—

  A deep, mechanical bellow, rolling through the ndscape like a pnetary heartbeat.

  “What is this madness? Phoboros! Are you not there?!” Arganth roared, but then the red ground split open, and a massive molten and metallic golem burst forth.

  Arganth clenched his molten fists as the titanic metal behemoth rose from the Martian surface. The ground beneath them twisted and reshaped itself, forming jagged metallic spires that pulsed with an eerie crimson glow. The entity's form was unlike anything Arganth had encountered—colossal, armored in yers of Martian ore that moved like living ptes of steel, its molten core pulsing with raw energy.

  And then, it spoke.

  "TINY BURNING VERMIN, ARE YOU THE RULER OF YOUR KIND?"

  The voice thundered across the ndscape, deep and mechanical, reverberating through the very bones of the pnet. Ashborn warriors staggered, some clutching their weapons tighter, others standing firm, their obsidian forms glowing brighter in defiance.

  Arganth stepped forward, his towering warform radiating authority. His core fred as he responded, his voice a searing inferno of power.

  "I AM ARGANTH, SUPREME WARLORD OF THE ASHBORN. I AM THE FORGE OF OUR DESTINY, THE WILL OF PHOBOROS MADE MANIFEST!"

  For a brief moment, there was silence. Then, a crackling ugh rumbled from deep within the metallic colossus.

  "THEN YOU ARE WEAK."

  A surge of energy erupted from the golem’s form as it took a thunderous step forward, the ground beneath it fracturing and reforming in an instant. Its fiery gaze locked onto Arganth.

  "I AM WARGAR, THE WORLDFORGED. I HAVE BEEN ASLEEP FOR COUNTLESS AGES, DREAMING OF THE DAY I WOULD AWAKEN TO RULE. AND YET, I FIND ONLY A FRAIL, UNTESTED KING BEFORE ME."

  Arganth’s core burned with outrage. No being, no entity, no godless machine questioned his dominion. With a flick of his wrist, the fire veins in his arms expanded, molten steel dripping from his warform. He readied his molten give, its obsidian edge burning with liquid fury.

  "If you doubt my strength, then you shall taste the fire of my wrath, Wargar!"