"...The mage... has awakened... The heir who inherited the power of Bathsheba, long asleep, has opened his eyes..."

"Oh! Master! I shall find him and destroy him!"

"Your... strength is not enough... Raise an altar full of curses and the cry of blood... Hold yourselves back... Spread the seeds of evil across this land seething with grudges and rage... And then summon them... my servants... Wake them from the dark..."

"I obey my master's command!!!"

Thud, thud, thud!

Mujahid, elder of the Assassins, struck his forehead against the floor.

A temple, deep underground.

Red smoke billowed, and the smell of blood hung thick in the air.

Mujahid didn't dare look ahead.

On the altar before him spread a great pentagram, a magic circle that had always filled him with awe.

Mujahid's master, and his master's masters before him, had worshipped it.

It was where the prophet slept—the one who would one day wake, destroy the world and create it anew.

At some point, the prophet's voice had begun to speak again.

The lost arts of the past had come back to life.

The Assassins' elite warriors had been born again.

The Assassins had begun for religious reasons, but they were corrupt now.

They had become servants waiting for their master.

He was the one they'd chosen as the prophet to be reborn.

He was the great teacher who had created the Assassins—their creator.

"The gods have begun to wake... Their partial love... use it thoroughly... Let hatred and enmity bloom... There, paradise on earth shall come... And so I too... shall rise again from my long sleep..."

"Oh! Master... rise again, swiftly!!!"

"When the terror of hundreds of millions spreads across the sky... a new world... shall open... My servant... until you are victorious, become a cunning serpent... The laurel wreath... has come before you."

"Khh... Master! I offer you the glory of victory!"

Pa-sss-sss-sst.

Answering the elder's fervent devotion, red incense rose from the blood magic circle and spread in every direction.

"Raise warriors... I shall give you power..."

"Ohhhh!"

Waves of red energy, soaking into the blind elder's…