u/Shoddy-Space5772

So my mental health has been taken a downward trajectory lately and a contributing factor has been my YouTube/news intake. Definitely understand Vaush’s perspective and agree with it but it’s hard to dispute that it can feel very doom and gloom. My gf got me into a habit of replacing 1 doom scrolling channel with one she suggests. I chose vaush and replaced him with Neil the seal, a loveable elephant seal from Tasmania and I have to say it is an improvement for my mental health. I hope to come back when shit is alittle more positive in the world

Hi I own a 3bed 2 bath house in Philly suburbs, i am in walking distance to the train station that can easily get you to NYC and Philly. I have 2 dogs 1 cat and live with my GF. We have a bedroom with a queen sized bed for rent for $700 for the month. If interested please pm me

The red ascendency: inspired heavily off the Soviet red army and various communist guerrilla factions they are a founded by escaped wrenched who seek to rid the world of heaven and hell:
They are centered in Russia, Siberia, as well as various locations throughout the new world. They specialize in radiation weapons and have a particular hatered for the cult of the black grail

Key Additions:
Radiation suits layered under military coats
Lead-lined armor plating
Geiger counters integrated into chest rigs
Glowing green fissures in damaged armor
Burn-scarred, partially mutated survivors of Hell
Some veterans still carry Hell-scars:
Extra joints
Burned-out eyes
Metal grafted into bone
They are not proud of it.
They use it.

FACTION MECHANIC:
TOTAL ERASURE PROTOCOL
The Ascendancy doesn’t just kill enemies — they deny environments.
They build toward:
☢️
Contamination Levels
Low: Enemy debuffs
Medium: Terrain becomes hazardous
High: Area denial / unit collapse
Critical: Battlefield becomes uninhabitable (for everyone)
They are the only faction willing to:
Win the battle by destroying the battlefield.

Scene of a red ascendancy infiltrator detonating scide bomb in the middle of Ekron( let me know what you think)

The chains did not rattle.
That was the first thing Sergeant Mikhail Orlov noticed.
Ekron was built on noise —
hooks dragging, iron grinding, voices breaking into something less than human.
Screams were constant. Necessary.
Measured.
Cataloged.
But here, in Processing Vault 17, the rhythm had changed.

They had taken his hands first.
Standard procedure.
The Black Grail overseer — a knight-shaped thing of rusted armor and wet bone — stood over him as the attendants worked.
“Subject intact,” one of them whispered.
“Minimal fracture. Good yield.”
Mikhail said nothing.
He hadn’t spoken since they dragged him from the convoy.
He hadn’t needed to.

His eyes moved instead.
Counting.
Pillars.
Chains.
Distances.
Heat levels.
He could feel it — the way the air moved wrong here.
Not hot. Not cold.
Occupied.

A body screamed nearby.
A real scream.
Good.
That meant the system was still functioning.

The Grail Knight leaned closer, helm splitting slightly along the jawline, something inside shifting.
“You endured longer than most,” it said, voice thick with rot.
“You will serve well.”
Mikhail finally looked at it.
Really looked.
Not at the armor.
Not at the horror beneath.
At the pattern.

“Cycle,” he said quietly.
The Knight paused.
“What?”
Mikhail smiled.
A small, broken thing.
“You repeat.”

The Knight recoiled — not in fear, but confusion.
That was new.
Confusion was not part of the process.

Mikhail shifted his weight.
They hadn’t noticed.
They never did.
The Wretched learned quickly:
Hell was precise.
But it was also predictable.

He coughed.
Blood.
Good.
Still human.
Still functioning.

Deep in his chest, beneath scar tissue and grafted plating, something clicked.
A mechanical rhythm.
Not of Hell.
Of man.

The attendants leaned closer.
“Internal rupture,” one muttered.
“Stabilize—”

Mikhail exhaled slowly.
And for the first time since his capture, he spoke clearly:
“You don’t understand what we brought you.”

The Knight moved.
Too late.

There was no explosion.
Not at first.

The light went wrong.
Not brighter.
Thinner**.**
As if reality itself had been stretched too far.

Sound collapsed.
Screams cut off mid-note.
Chains hung motionless.
The air stopped processing.

Then came the heat.
Not Hell’s heat not the screaming, devouring fire of damnation.
This was different.
Clinical.
Uninterested.

The Grail Knight staggered.
Its armor began to flake — not rot, not decay —
Disintegrate**.**
The thing inside it tried to reform.
It couldn’t.
There was nothing left to work with.

All around the vault:
Bodies failed.
Not dramatically.
Not violently.
They simply… stopped.

No rot.
No transformation.
No rebirth.

Just matter.

The machinery screamed.
Not with voices.
With failure.
Gears seized.
Hooks fell.
The system — the great engine of suffering — lost its inputs.

And for the first time in Ekron’s history…
There were no screams.

In the silence, something new existed.
Not life.
Not death.

Absence**.**

Where Hell had processed souls, there was now only:
ash
inert mass
and a spreading field of nothing that could be used

Deep below, something ancient shifted.
A presence.
Watching.
Learning.

And in that moment, for the first time:
Hell felt something unfamiliar.

Not pain.
Not rage.

Fear**.**