Ravenous, combative, finessed.
During the Apex era, the bloodiest period of the war, the Nephilim Veritas valiantly commanded his troops to dislodge the Pantheon from their entrenched defences, pouring his followers into the battle.
Their choice of location was the flameswept universe of Halith. The Pantheon forces stationed there spilled around the canyons and crusted ridges, kin to the growing flames, and clashed wildly with the invading Vanguard. In a flaming, rocky cauldron, embattled by magma and geysers of flame, Veritas met the Pantheon general Rose, wielding her infamous sword, the Thorn.
As the flames swept and crashed around them, Veritas and Rose battled inside the cauldron. The superior Nephilim fatally underestimated the viciously skilled general, who danced around his futile attempts to fight, gaining the upperhand with masterful ease. Her blade leeched the Nephilim’s cosmic strength, weakening him as the fight continued, feeding Rose with temporary power beyond ordinary limits.
Rose felled Veritas with a fatal slice through his body, and her cosmically-powered Thorn was powerful enough to sever his connection to this form. The Pantheon would go on to conquer Halith and Rose was regarded a hero, as few had ever defeated a Nephilim in single combat.
Later in the Apex era, Rose was assassinated by the Shynoi Rook Sofia. Recognising she wouldn’t survive this assassination, she performed the first immolation, ensuring that Sofia would not walk away with her life.
Stabbing herself through the chest with Thorn as she died, Rose allowed the blade to feed off her, leeching her own strength to feed the blade, which fed it back to her in kind. The loop empowered Rose with unstoppable ferocity and endurance, enhanced strength and speed, and she easily overpowered Sofia. But with their symbiotic bond destroyed, Thorn drained its wielder entirely and Rose withered quickly to her blade.
Her legendary skills inspired the Pantheon to form the Thorns in her memory, installing them as direct opposition to the Shynoi. Since then, they have been ruled by the monarchs of the Thorn, rulers hand-selected from the previous monarch’s lineage — their lineage traced the same way as Vanguard descendants, from tutor to pupil — and although there are usually only two monarchs at a time, they have been known to operate with more or fewer.
The current monarchs, the Queen and King of Thorns, are Celeste and Dante, respectively.
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