Prologue: The End of All

When the ominous forebode the vast blue skies in a sea of rumbling clouds. Tides raged, hurricanes arose, and a chaotic storm rushed frenzied seas to fill a gaping wound. The maelstrom between the two coiling continents of Eswhar.

Be they children who cowered beside the long skirt, clutching onto their stiffened guardian whom dropped their basket filled with fruits.

Or be they herbivores who treaded towards their arch nemesis carnivores, standing an inch beside the only one they could trust.

Or be they the last dozens of the humanoid demons. Beings born ablaze with molten cracked skin. A distinct pair of goat horns, a tail, and strength beyond man, where a mere glance from their reptile eyes succumbs man to kneel.

Yet atop of a hill surrounded by vast rich green, forests and enormous roots covered in curtains of vines. The last demons were chained beside what mankind revered as the Yggdrasil. The grave of their brethrens, and the holy tree that branched out and pierced the skies, as it reside on what was left of a castle. A ruin from where it spanned its roots across nations.

From all around the world. Torrid deserts, the cold north or beneath the abyss itself. It matters not from where. All beings from the size of the wisest dragons to the tiniest ant, gazed with sorrow at what beseeched the world in darkness and beckoned the fall of all creations.

Streaks of light, scorching flames that crackled as they soared with an trail of coal blackened smoke. Bringers of catastrophe, which illuminated clouds between in searing red, as their fall whistled their siren of demise.

Out of the sea of gloominess they plummeted, tightened muscles and raced weak hearted to cardiac arrest. And for those unfortunate to survive the chilling wind between their goosebumps. A bath of warmth unfroze their paralyze, and collapse from suffocation some did. Knees splattered the steaming puddle, eyes closed from what they wished were a dream, and palms together as they prayed for the gods. Prayed for the great beings whom had forsaken this world.

For when cries and wails of armageddon dared them to pry open their sight and satisfy their curiosity. Regret imprinted them with boulders paving ruins of death. Towers toppling from the skies, showers of bricks plunging into wooden rooftops, and despaired people screaming until crushed dead silent.

A nightmare for those who dragged their pain uphill. A painting of hell, where each stroke from the brush of red paint, engulfed banners and left inferno at its wake.

But the people kept trudging, even crawling through crackling glass with bare bloody palm. For the ray of hope still shone at what gave the five separated districts, the citizens a sense of hope. An envy of kingdoms, so powerful at the wrong hands. Not only did they burn the knowledge of recreation, the creators erased it from every single mind, including themselves.

They were the five pillars carved by the ancient and almighty magicians with their very soul. Pillars that reside within the five great towers, enormous structures with banners of the four great clans suspended for all to see. Towers which formed the five corners of a star, with a wall that connected them all as they encircled the central palace.

Fire, water, air, earth and the harmonious darkness and light. Each element of affinity coiled above each of the five pillar like a living snake. In harmony, they strengthened each letter, each words, each meaning, and each sentences chanted by the robed magicians encircled before the ancient stones.

Undisturbed by the wavering candles, tremors and dust pouring from the crackling branched out crevices above. The mutters and chant manifested specks of light out of thin air. A source of mana, energy which danced around the room as they gathered into one and illuminated all.

The light pulsated. Grew in size. So much until the mana shone so bright, it bursted into thousands of light and followed the straightened out hands to assimilate with the carvings of each pillar.

Meanwhile at the dim alleyways of Aftenheim. The warm blood dripped, rippled as the nearby inferno bathed its flames. And for each prolonged step which left a trail on the pavement of stone. The glinting glass crackled, the fuzzy vision tilted left and right, and the rising smokes that escaped the broken down windows stung the teary eyes not covered by the red sleeves.

Yet even with plain dress ripped and stained in blood. Her will did not falter. Even when she frowned from each time her right leg limped through the alleyway. She never paused for a breather, at least, not until a peculiar sound finally broke through her aching headache.

Suffice to say, her feets slowed to a stop while the echoes of steps caught her gaze. She called out, but how could she forget? Her impatience, once again did it strike at what hurts the most.

Her throat burned, the smoke caught her feeble voice between dry coughs. And even when the steps grew so loud that one could assume as having already passed by. She still reached out her delicate fingers in hope for those who neared to notice.

But as seconds passed, what felt like minutes went by with a single shove. The wall warmed her rosy cheeks. Embraced her cold petite body as the blood tingled down from her dirtied chestnut colored hair, and accumulated at the tip of her delicate porcelain fingers.

Tired, numb and heavy, but not deaf. Her eyelashes flickered when her accursed thoughts escaped with the echoes of steps, which grew more quiet the further they ventured into the burning smokes.

Is this what he meant? The blood dripped, rippled the welled up sea of sadness that drowned her suffocating maiden heart.

She wiped off her tears, for she knew that it all could have been a misunderstanding. Yet even so, she could not prevent a tear to fall and shatter into thousands of stars. The mistakes, the decisive decisions that changed it all. Memories of the past which still haunts her till this day.

Surrounded by the smoldering smokes, still she leaned towards her only friend. Cold and chilling, all while her friend crumbled from its layers of bricks. Flames which crackled, wooden support which shrieked until it broke and slammed the floor.

But when a surge of energy erupted, it brightened her celery green eyes filled with ocean blue. Bewitching compared to others, yet like many survivors, her eyes were also caught by the five beacons of light. Beams that extinguished all inferno across the city with a force that even blew away all smoke. They pierced through the black clouds and teared open chasms, joining together as one and erupted forth a barrier.

Time gave no breather. For her tensed lungs held breath, careful to not extinguish her wavering torch of hope, as her sorrowful gaze followed what once hid behind ominous clouds. Thousands if not billions of stars. A beautiful scenery, were they not coursing towards her beloved world, Eshwar.

Never would anyone whom climbed the path towards the great towers had thought, the previous clusters of catastrophe was only the beginning.

For when the sirens of demise grew so loud, time froze life to silence. And before anyone could complete the puzzle or answer the question of how this could be. A white light flashed, so bright, it even seeped past fingers and arms covering eyes.

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Explosions thundered across the world, leaves and wheat fluttered from the gust of wind. Forest burned from its diseases, and farmland ablaze from its insects.

But the barrier stood tall, unscathed by the calamity as every blast on the water like surface, only rippled series of waves. Leaving nothing more of the boulders which scraped against the hemisphere. Not even pebbles or grains of dust, as if the barrier served as a portal to another dimension.

It all brightened many ashened frown and turned their distress into a wide smile. But only hers, the beauty within the celery green filled with ocean blue, closed itself from her world bestowed with the name of Eswhar.

For her hope… Only resides within one person.

The meteors collided, cracks branched out, and shattered the expectations as explosions thundered across the crimson lit clouds. From golden plains ablaze forced to dance in waves, to beyond the mountain ridges, where an desolate land stretched so far till eyes could not see.

Though truly barren it was not, as it was accompanied by two massive armies which filled the whole land. An orchestra of steel rivets that clattered against one another. Frail beings with shields buckled forward and swords raised. They who pushed their metallic sabatons against the grains of gravel and charged with clouds of dust at their wake.

For all that remained, there was only so much left alive.

For what seemed like hours, they closed the gaps with few steps.

For what seemed like minutes, tears of regret faded within a blink of an eye.

And for what seemed like seconds, all memories of their families and existence flashed by and dispersed within all the bashes of shields.

The rows of sparks grinded, blades swung, and if shield did not meet, jets of blood dyed the gravel in gruesome paint. And from both sides, balls of fire soared, lightning web twisted and chunks of earth arced across with arrows pouring from the skies.

The projectiles pierced through chainmail like butter, elements incinerated shield and man alike into ashes, while earth bent limbs of those who stood in its path.

So destructive, so many lost to the wave of cavalries that trampled and pierced through the formations with their bloody lance.

Yet it could not compare to what thundered across the night skies from beyond the border of mountain ridges. Where lush land ruptured in havoc, dormant volcanoes awoke, and seas dried up from destruction.

Even when blood permeated the air, horses laying sideways, piles of bodies and rivers of blood. The soldiers continued to slash, hack and cast magic at their foe. Ignoring the sparks and volcanic ashes that rolled across the skies with its smoldering clouds. That which blackened the already darkened clouds further till crackling pitch black, causing thunders to havoc and acid rain to spatter the red streams and puddles of blood.

There was no good and there was no bad. For there was no fluttering banner the last two armies of the world fought for. Only their beliefs, only as an ally or against the lies of the gods whom shed no tear.

Thus as each men and women fought, clueless for the reason they firmly held their sword. It took them one thrust to puncture through the soft skin and through the lungs of the one they once called friend. It took them one pull to have their once called love, begging on their knees.

The gambeson soaked itself in warm red, lungs and throat clogged itself with iron taste. Suffocating and painful. Yet even with knees resting on the puddle and blade raised before their last scenery of hell. Only the crimson light which seeped past the heavens could bring their eyes wide.

Waves of heat, so intense it rolled the beads of rain and blood down their burning skin like the heatstroke of summer.

Yet how much they wish it really were, the world was never fair. For in the mercy of the uplifting pebbles, burst of waves erupted craters and plowed devastation at their path.

In the midst of all clattering steel that fought for their beliefs. No care for the magic that blasted away, no care for the meteorites, which carved paths of death. A sword echoed its splash with the puddles, and the owner slumped down onto his steel clad knees.

So young, yet burdened with a weight on his bloodied pauldrons far greater than any alive. For fate had his pendant shaped like a sword, fall out from his cuirass as he threw his cracked helmet rolling across the battlefield. Actions, which revealed his messy black hair, as he frowned in disbelief at the blurred figure before him.

He shook the bloodied body, shook with care, yet hasty multiple times before his tears rolled down and cleaned his dirtied cheeks. What he saw cleared to a blond man. Someone around the same age as he, a dream he had admired and followed till this day. An ideal that kept him from straying from his path. A leader and a friend and a classmate who had sacrificed his own arm for his life.

With throat sore, mouth dry like a desert, he mustered past the thick stones and said, “Ch-charles… you… you cannot die… Not like this!”

But no matter how many tears fell, no matter how much he wished. Charles needed a miracle, truth laid with all the spears embedded into his broken armor that nailed his soul next to the border of life and death.

And when his brown iris watched the trembling fingers raise, he frowned upon his wavering will. And when they fell with a stroke of blood on his blackened pendant, too weak to reach his cheeks. It depraved him of his torch, the reason he had lived till this forsaken day.

“Don’t hesitate… Don’t wait…” Charles mustered and continued, but the clashes of swords and magic soaring across the battlefield muffled his sentences. “I’m sorry…”

“What do you mean? I can’t hea-r” the words stuck in his mouth, he could not understand the hope behind the words, and the light that lingered in Charles clear ocean blue...

But time did not wait, it was too late. For like the agony of wailing cries around. The torment of pain succumbed his decelerating throbs, and it clogged his mouth with a rustic iron taste. His mind went blank like a clean slate, eyes wide from the point of a sword dyed in crimson red.

How? From what he recall, only his allies, only friends whom he had trusted could come- It hit him, but so did a kick of betrayal, which scraped his cheeks against the bloodied gravel as the sword withdrew clean from his chest. Yet, where was the pain? Swords and magic fought, yet where was the sound? Only darkness crawled closer, usurping the colors, which kept it at bay.

He finally understood. Her words were true, he should have accepted, but no laugh could he muster, no thoughts of how to save this world. Only vengeance for he whom had stained his footprints red, only when he skewer through the one who had forced him to the corner, could the meaning of his birth fill the hole in his heart.

Alas, these thoughts held no meaning, since darkness finally grasped hold of his sight.