*Ghana, 1023 AD – The Golden Dunes of the Forgotten Empire**
The sand remembered blood.
Scorpio King Adjo the Unbroken stood atop the dune, his golden armor glinting under the wrathful sun. Behind him, ten thousand warriors knelt in silence, their spears plunged into the earth like a forest of steel and loyalty. Before him, the Olympic Imperium's forces stretched across the horizon—an ocean of silver-clad soldiers, their banners flapping like the wings of carrion birds.
They had come for his head.
And they would fail.
Adjo tightened his grip on **Osebo's Fang**, his obsidian staff, its surface etched with the sins of fallen kings. The weapon hummed in his palm, sensing the coming slaughter.
*"You should have bowed when you had the chance,"* hissed a voice.
General Kwame, the **Imperial Knight**, emerged from the ranks. Once, he had been Adjo's blood brother. Now, his armor—a mockery of Adjo's own—shone with stolen gold.
Adjo spat into the sand. **"You bring foreigners to kill your own?"**
Kwame's smile was a dagger. **"The Goddess promised me your throne."**
---
### **The Battle of the Severed Oath**
The first arrow flew.
Adjo moved like a sandstorm. Osebo's Fang became a blur, shattering shafts midair. His warriors roared, crashing into the Imperium's lines.
**But something was wrong.**
His own men… *hesitated*. Blades faltered. Shields dipped.
Kwame's laugh cut through the chaos. **"They know the truth! You are no god—just a man who forgot his place!"**
Adjo's crimson eyes found the traitors—his captains, their wrists marked with the **Goddess's sigil**.
*Betrayal.*
---
### **The Sting of Death**
A spear took Adjo in the back.
He staggered, warmth spreading down his spine. Not silver. *Poison.*
Kwame loomed over him, pressing a boot to his throat. **"The Goddess wants your soul. I just wanted you to watch your empire burn."**
The sand drank Adjo's blood as the Imperium's torches lit the sky.
His last sight? The **Goddess of Reincarnation**, her bone-white hands reaching for him.
*"You will rise again,"* she whispered. *"Through fire. Through a mother's cursed womb."*
---
### **Modern Day – Kumasi, Ghana (1975)**
**A pregnant girl drank bitter tea.**
Sixteen, orphaned, and desperate, Ama clutched her stomach as the abortion herbs clawed at her insides. She didn't want this child. Not after the father abandoned her. Not after the village called it a *demon* for the cleft lip the midwife predicted.
*"Die,"* she sobbed to the thing inside her. *"Just die."*
Then—**lightning.**
Ama's scream tore through the night as something *ancient* seized the dying fetus.
Far away, in America, Grandma Ama jerked awake, her dream filled with **scorpions and a laughing warrior.**