Eltair Keralan, last king of Eldoria, wept as the world ended.

When the Council of Scholars had called an emergency meeting, rousing him from his bed in the middle of the night, he thought he would be prepared for anything they had to say. His rule over Eldoria had been long and fair, but it hadn’t been without its troubles. The king of a nation had to be well prepared to handle crises, or they would not be able to rule at all. In his younger years he had marched out to handle bandit uprisings himself. In his middle years he had successfully carried the country through a famine that would have crippled the nation in its past. In his older years, he’d successfully collaborated with the rulers of the other nations in an effort to drive back the threat of the Alkahestrian Empire.

But nothing could prepare someone for the end of humanity.

They had called it the Cataclysm, a magical storm detected from the east that would sweep across the world in the span of a year, killing every human it passed over. What options did he have? The Eldorian army would be of no use, the mightiest warrior could not kill a force of nature, and the strongest wizard couldn’t repel a storm that sapped the very magic from his soul. The impending doom that had set in during that meeting had threatened to consume him, and very well almost had over the following weeks as they tried and failed to find a way to weather the approaching storm. But then there was a glimmer of hope, and Eltair Keralan now realised that the moment he had thought his reign might continue past the year, was the moment that had ensured it wouldn’t.

Eldorian scholars had come up with a solution that would have seemed ridiculous had the end of the world not been imminent. Cross dimensional travel was a field of magic that was hardly understood, and often considered too dangerous to attempt much study. But when faced with the choice of certain death or possible death, the scholars had taken their chances. A few months after the Cataclysm was unleashed, when the kingdom had just entered its final year of life, they discovered a new world, the only hope for humanity’s survival.

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This hope of an escape had driven him to orchestrate the single greatest alliance the world would ever see. He made the news of the Cataclysm public, calling to the other nations leaders to pool their resources together in an effort to save them.

And they had succeeded.

Each nation’s land was marked with a towering structure, a vast gateway into the new world that would ensure their survival. Eldoria’s had been constructed last, as their lands were the furthest away from the eastern coast of the continent, from which the Cataclysm would arrive.

Only a week ago, Eltair Keralan had been ecstatic with joy. The military had been moving civilians from all across the mountain range they called home through the portal and into the new world. He’d refused to cross through until he was sure that everyone who could be saved would be. Eldoria had had the most time to prepare, and so almost every citizen of the country had migrated to the capital within the last year, in preparation to leave. 

And then came the betrayal.

It was something he should have seen coming. He’d never been much of a mage, only using basic combat spellforms, but the fact that he knew nothing of how the portal worked should have been cause for alarm. Nevertheless, when the portal snapped shut in front of him, as he prepared to cross through with the majority of the Eldorian Army, he had no way of reopening it.

He’d watched as the once great Army crumbled before him, anger causing fights that turned deadly to flare up within them, as war mages were blamed for something they’d had no hand in. Others turned to despair, taking their own lives before the Cataclysm could take it from them. 

Now he watched with those who had chosen to accept their impending death. A few laughed, a few cried. Most were silent as they watched the deadly storm approach, multi coloured flares of magic ripping chunks from the ground. 

Eltair Keralan wept as he watched General Kastiel, a man he’d known for the better part of fifty years, be obliterated in a flash of light. He wept as men and women who’d sworn to fight with him, and who he’d told himself he would protect, died at every blink of his eyes.

He wept tears of happiness, because despite it all, Eldoria had survived.

But finally, as the Cataclysm reached him, he wept tears of despair.

For he couldn’t save himself.