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The gong resonated through the chamber, a call to war. Tremors interrupted the dust on the black stone walls of the ancient temple vaults, rarely disturbed by mortals, shook the fading tapestries of battle scenes, sent ripples through the cauldron of blood that should have coagulated and dried long ago, had it not been for His aura, ever changing, ever moving, always thirsty. A raven in the rafters woke up and cried out in rhythm. War had been called.A red eye opened, the dull crimson light inside it blinking into existence like a hooded lantern only just lit. It was followed by a second. A second great rumbling, punctuated by metal creaking and rhythmic thuds of colossal footfalls, crushing rock underfoot as something on the far side of the underground shrine, previously a slightly larger, thicker, more threatening shadow than the other things hidden away here, started moving. The Revenant had awoken. The eternal black iron disciple, His soul renewed by a thousand sacrifices, was about to take to the battlefield. His aid was costly but the situation had become desperate and it was the only way to turn the tide. A shower of dust and rubble flew up when he swept his arms around, testing his movement, and let out a low, inquisitive growl that sounded like strained metal. Himself, he was spotless, apart from the dents of the last fight that couldn't quite be ironed out; There had been mage-priests on the opposite side as well, who knew how to damage him, but he had survived. He scanned his memories, searching for the words that were his most recent orders, the ones that awoke him. Time was hard to process when you were both immortal and ever renewed, identity hard to distinguish from the others, from the machine itself, from the God in whose name you were bound.Oh, he remembered that all too well, like it had happened mere moments ago. He could still feel the caress of Morgan the Red, the Great Primal Lord of Wrath, the claw-like nails of his giant, strong hands drawing blood as he grabbed his most recent sacrifice by the neck, drawing him closer so he could be inspected, his worth and suitability judged. A shudder had gone down his spine, his breathing slow and heavy, sudden uncomfortable tightness in his groin at the dark thoughts of forbidden surrender to an unimaginably vast transforming power, morbid curiosity, fear that was fascination at the same time, all coursing through him like red lightning, tripping every switch in his brain at once, causing reactions he couldn't hope to control. His mind was wrapped in a deep darkness populated only by himself, hovering, pinned to the air as if nailed to nothing, and two feral eyes full of rising flames, illuminating suggestions of a pair of wickedly sharp horns, of thick, silver, shaggy goat-like hair, a thin line of a mouth that was constantly testing and judging, hiding a deceptive tactical cunning for something older than humanity by far, probably as old as the stars, as old as anything had ever been in conflict with anything else until fires broke out. His body, meanwhile, still convulsed as it died, its soul removed by the cowled, robed war-priest’s sacrificial dagger. Alchemical runes glowed around him as blood collected in rivulets around the arcane machinery. His altar was wired up to the Armoured Golem he would inhabit as a Revenant, also bristling with runes of activation, control, fortification and a thousand other things, currently all active at once in a nauseating stream of bright colours. Soon, the old physical shell would be unnecessary, whether he passed and transcended or failed and just plain died. He’d passed, he supposed, or at least, he’d been sufficient. He was one of the youngest in recorded history, being pulled out of training when his grades went over a certain threshold. He’d endured special training that included a lot of gruelling routines and memorisation of endless tactical data but also a few things that were weirder, periods of ritual fasting and purification where he’d be taught spells that were nothing to do with being fast-tracked to an Officer rank, which he’d assumed this was all about, and more to do with specific inner mysteries that he definitely had no authority to know anything about. Sometimes he’d just sit still a lot and have spells cast on him. It reminded him of the urban myths, the horror stories – if you failed any tests in the Academy badly enough, things would happen to you and you wouldn’t be seen again, ever, but there was a level past which you couldn’t advance without other things happening to you. He’d been fascinated, of course – he’d always been the sort to poke his nose into everything, to want to learn everything, not to back down from any challenge given to him. It had sounded too much like complete fabrication, though, something that would waste his time when he should be studying and training.As he emerged from his crypt, the Revenant Reinhardt tried to ignore the incessant chatter of the ants milling around him, mortals who cried out pathetically for him to win this and that battle, to save some specific group of humans he was supposed to even remember the names of, never mind care about. It amused him, although his iron visor had no way to express it beyond a brief flicker in the flames in his eye sockets, that they professed to represent Morgan but still sincerely believed that the War God cared about them specifically, cared about humanity or even this world in particular, when so many other realms were far more likely to win a battle and, in fact, had more of His followers inhabiting them. This was all just fuel to him, this bloodshed, the raw emotions and the chaotic winds of destiny, the stream of souls to harvest, the constant barrages of destructive magic that were taking their toll on the world’s balance. He wasn’t even one of the stronger deities out there, and would readily admit it, realising that it was foolish not to, but he knew how to feed and grow stronger, how to rest when needed and conserve his energy, how to suddenly strike when he had awakened fully. Reinhardt wasn’t even sure if the world was destined to survive that. All he knew was that he’d done his part, made his sacrifice, and his soul would ride in the armies of the Red God forever, whether inside or outside the perfect engine of war he had become.