The Old God

Kyra Mensha Khaine, god of murder, violence, destruction, and war.

In the ancient myths of the Eldar, he was the brother of Asuryan, the supreme god, the embodied manifestation of the Eldar's passion for war.

Yet Kyra Mensha was not actually part of Khaine's name, but one of his titles. It roughly meant [Covered in Blood], for the blood of Eldanesh, the ancient Eldar hero slain by Khaine, would forever drip from his hands.

His rune also represented murder within Eldar society, because Asuryan wished every Eldar to forever remember that utterly inglorious murder.

In Diego's view, this god had not been particularly merciful toward his own people.

Yet no matter how majestic this idol had once been, it had now been destroyed by supernatural decay.

Its once-grand divine body had strode across the world; now, only a shell remained, struggling to crawl.

As he narrowed his eyes and surveyed the afterimages around it, Diego could almost truly see its former glory.

A body clad in armor plates like the earth itself, its eyes filled with white flame, its heart beating as it poured immense quantities of lava over an unburnable Blackstone skeleton.

It was the magnificent earthly embodiment of wrath and sacred fire—

Diego saw that image within the swirling, soaring dust around the shell, while the wind now gathered another false halo around it—a feeble echo of another former splendor.

Had this idol managed to stand, it would have towered over humanity's so-called Titans.

Even prone and ruined, it remained a colossal thing, leaving the imprint of its curled form in the sand.

"Of wrath, of blood, Kyra Mensha Khaine—"

Reciting an ancient ballad as he watched the battered embodiment of a god, Diego almost began to pity it.

Its black skin had faded into dim charcoal, thin