Phoenix Kade grew up in the Shatterlands, a place where mutants hunt the living and hope dies fast. He should have died too. The First World’s nuclear apocalypse was supposed to wipe out every human outside the Celestial Marches. Yet Ashen survived, and the secret behind that survival is something the gods never wanted uncovered. When a band of mercenaries drags him into their fight, Ashen is thrown into a world filled with Netherborn monsters, metahuman killers, and the warring powers of Solmir Peak and the Voidspire. Determined to rise above the ruins of his birth, he claws his way into Aurion’s Gate, the shining capital of the Celestial Marches, protected by the Temple of the Skyfather. The city is paradise on the surface. In truth, its light hides corruption deeper than anything in the wastes. Phoenix endures brutal training, becomes a junior demon hunter, and finally earns a place in a world that hates him. Then the real chaos begins. The Nullstar Sect, the Red Covenant, and agents of the Voidspire all strike from the shadows. War erupts between the Celestial Marches and the Shatterlands, and Lord Vaelen Stroud seizes control of the holy armies. Phoenix must choose who he is. A weapon of the Marches, or a son of the Shatterlands. Broken but unyielding, he returns home and builds Evergreen Bastion, a last haven for anyone the gods left behind. But Aurion’s Gate wants the Shatterlands crushed before they rise again, and the armies of the Radiant Concord are already marching. Phoenix Kade will stand alone if he must. Against gods. Against monsters. Against fate itself. Because the Shatterlands are done kneeling.

I spent three years building the most brutal game ever made. No respawns. No mercy. No way out. I was proud of it. Then I woke up inside it with seven lives and the sickening realization that every trap I designed — I designed for myself.