Huang’s moderately sized town was one of many innocents caught up in the war. It took away his home and two loving parents. The town was raided and destroyed, much of it burnt down. Knocked unconscious for a bit, he woke up a little dazed with charred wood all around him and his parents nowhere to be seen, or at least not in a state he could recognise. He attempted to survive on his own for a bit, looking for scraps of food to eat and hiding under a makeshift plank shelter to sleep and hide from bandits looking for salvageable valuables. He cried for the first few days, not really at anything specifically, just in sad recognition of his situation, but at the end, he stopped, like he had been completely drained and was an empty bowl now ready to be filled with this grim new reality. Slowly, he started to become desensitised to the bloodshed and destruction left behind, such as seeing people fight each other violently to steal their resources or passing by yet another unrecognisable dead corpse. One day, he was searching a body, a man recently beaten up by bandits, when a scrappy-looking man approached without Huang hearing him first. Huang was startled and whipped out his sharpened stick in defence, but the man only asked him what he was looking for, to which Huang replied he was hoping for something to eat. The man laughed and said that there were plenty of resources around, especially in a war torn area such as this. Huang was curious, but mostly hungry. The two interacted some more, and gained trust (mostly Huang having to come to trust the man), talking about where they had come from and how they had got here. The man had his own village destroyed and was passing through this town on the way to the big city where he would join the main branch of his church. He asked Huang to come with him. In the city, most people weren’t bandits. It would be much easier to find food to eat. And the church would take him in, if he was willing to pledge his allegiance to their god and their values. Huang wanted to ask the god to protect him, to help him become strong and defend himself. He wanted to have some other purpose than just trying to stay alive, like day before, the day coming and forever onwards. As they were about to leave the town, the man took Huang’s hand and Huang felt like he was the little child that he really was, a feeling that he felt like he hadn’t experienced for so long.

The pair travelled across the country, initially passing other destroyed towns and villages. Sometimes they had to take a longer route in order to avoid active conflict. During the day, the man taught Huang how to survive. During the night, he would tell stories of his religion, what they did, what they believed in. Huang never felt repelled. They seemed strong. They knew how to live amongst death, amongst chaos. Huang was a weak little boy; would he be able to reach such heights? Soon, the towns they passed got bigger and eventually, they had made it to the big city, where the main base of the church was. As most relatively closed groups are, the church was wary of letting the outsider in, but Huang was able to show his desire to join and dedication by drinking the ritual blood as part of the initiation. He pretended the sermons were just like being in school again, and the cult members his class mates, his friends and mentors. He was quick learner – he wouldn’t have survived so long on his own in his hometown had he not been – and liked to watch higher-ups make their grisly potions and tonics. He was able to stay in a dorm sort of section of the church set aside as a refuge for other members who didn’t have another place to live. He grew up, taking on larger and more important tasks, as ordered by the cult leaders. Perhaps it was snatching someone off the street, or chasing up defectors. He prayed to his god every day, and then his god spoke to him back. Or more like he had a vision, a foggy cloud of thoughts in his mind. During a ritual, he stabbed one of the leaders and pulled out his heart as the other cult members watched still and silent in shock horror (kinda surprisingly given what they do anyway). He held it up and announced that their god wanted more than just blood. There was so much more to the human body than just the red fluid that runs through those vessels. Their god needed more. He was taken away and restrained while the cult had a meeting. Some members believed that Huang had really heard from their god and wanted to expand the cult’s activities, however, others believed he had gone crazy and wanted to execute him for murdering one of their leaders. They debated and came to the conclusion that they would merely excommunicate him, and so Huang was exiled from the church, though he continued his work and still sometimes hears the ‘voice’ of god when he prays at each night.

Huang's cult is represented by a headless deer. They believe this god rules over life force and immortality and giving the god sacrifices will bestow upon them immortality or allow them to be reincarnated as stronger being in their next life.
Can give various kinds of offerings, depending on what one seeks from their god. For example, eyes for a vision or answer to a question, or kidneys to beg forgiveness of sins, or spleen to request assistance for a difficult task.
The cult has splintered a bit, however, on how they should appease the god, how aggressive they should be in spreading, and how much they should rely on rituals.
When it comes to reincarnation, they believe everyone is born with a certain amount of life force which they slowly burn off during their life time. However, not all are fated to use all of it, and so cannibalising the others is a way of taking their strength or reaping the remaining life which they have not spent, thus granting, in theory, eventual immortality. The circle of life continues by the re-imbuing of life force to dead souls so that they may be reborn into the physical world.
Many seem to have been bestowed with very strong healing magic. In order to provide sacrifices, some have taken up the practice of keeping hostages and harvesting their bodily parts. It is more efficient than having to take many people hostage. The best are able to miraculously regrow organs, healing hostages before an organ removal becomes fatal. They can also make tonics and balms out of various body tissues and fluids.