When the Holy Rain poured from the glowing silver clouds, the world seemed reborn. Warm, luminous drops fell like liquid light, washing away the scars of war and fire. Charred forests bloomed with vibrant green shoots, rivers once choked with ash ran clear again, and cracked earth softened beneath the gentle touch of the divine downpour. Villages that had been reduced to rubble began to stir with life, as if the very breath of the gods whispered hope back into existence.
For a time, the land sang with renewal. The merciless fires that had ravaged the Dragonborn’s enemies were doused, and the angry hearts of those fierce warriors were soothed into peace. The skies cleared, the air grew sweet with the scent of blossoms, and all seemed destined for a new age of harmony.
Yet, in the shadow of this miracle, a darker truth began to emerge.

Months passed, and whispers began to ripple through the villages and towns once touched by the Holy Rain. Reports came from the borderlands—stark, chilling tales of new corruption spreading, more insidious and relentless than ever before. The Undead Blight, thought diminished by the Dragonborn’s fiery wrath, was rising anew.
Where the rain had fallen warm and gentle, now the earth cracked open in places, spilling forth shadows blacker than night. Twisted vines, pulsating with dark energy, writhed over the once-healed soil, choking life from the roots of trees and withering crops before they could grow. The Blight’s creeping tendrils spread like a poison, turning fertile fields into desolate wastelands where no light dared linger.
No one could explain this resurgence. The Dragonborn’s fire had torn through the Blight’s ranks like a blade, yet somehow the corruption had only grown stronger in the aftermath of the Holy Rain’s blessing. Scholars and seers alike debated this troubling paradox, some whispering that the Holy Rain had awakened something ancient and terrible beneath the earth—something that fed on both destruction and rebirth.

Travelers spoke in hushed tones of strange lights glowing beneath the corrupted land—faint, eerie glimmers that pulsed like a heartbeat of darkness. Shadows moved with a will of their own, and those who ventured too close to the spreading Blight sometimes returned changed, their eyes hollow and their spirits broken.
The Blight was no longer just a creeping plague; it had become a force hungry for dominion, growing stronger in the very soil blessed by gods. The balance between light and shadow had shifted, and the world trembled on the edge of an uncertain fate.

Photos from WoH’25 by Jelena | Support the Photographer