[First Year of the Nightmare Spell]

The first year of the Nightmare Spell was nothing short of despair.

It was anything but peaceful. It was bleak.

Ruined.

Chaotic.

But even before that, humanity had long tossed aside morale and had dealt with their own chaos in the world.

At first, humans exchanged a dance of bombs and warfare. Their adversity seemed to have no bounds even as to neglect the innocent lives they so claimed to have fought for.

But their own violence proved to be too much that even nature felt inclined to join.

A violence of its own that was a force to be reckoned with.

Much of the earth gave up and showed no mercy to its inhabitants. Oceans swelled and swallowed the coasts, lands with cracked open jaws consumed much of valleys and mountains, nuclear winters sullied the world in a period of darkness, and long after, the skies continued to shed its ashes.

Even by some miracle humanity found stability amidst this chaos, the universe had different plans for it.

The Nightmare Spell.

No prayer could save them from this inevitable event.

An arcane magic system, a forbidden creation, and a doomed future was fated to plague the world with an unforgiving game of survival.

But one must wonder, did humanity find some solace in this mayhem?

***

[Tenth Year of the Nightmare Spell]

The number of Awakened had finally increased. Their Aspect abilities assisted them in fighting back the monsters who invaded their homelands. A combination of combat and utility powers were used and explored. A new understanding of this new magic given by the Spell had been studied, theorized, and adapted too.

The heavy darkness that filled their hearts at the beginning of it all was now starting to clear. Human civilizations slowly started to rise out of the forlorn ashes; militias regained their wits and strength to face the profaned beasts; the Spell wasn't only a threat but a challenge to their prowess.

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But most of all, Immortal Flame's legacy had begun.

The first Awakened had become a Master.

He was the white knight.

The hero.

The symbol of humanity.

Like himself, the news spread like wildfire. The hope and glory of what humanity could achieve was presented around like some mythical fable.

Such hope spread throughout the world. Such faith on this newly Ascended warrior.

To the far south where the last remaining Icelandic structure remained, to the other ends of the earth across vast oceans on distant lands, to even the slums and hidden crevices of the settlements, his ascendance was made known to all. The responsibility that he took upon his shoulders showed humanity a future full of promise.

The possibility to conquer the world from the Nightmares altogether.

The Immortal Flame.

But then one early day, a boy was born.

In a home far from the renewed civilizations, a place distant from many of the other Quadrants, in a settlement that had built their own laws for stability, there was a small family that begun their own new life.

Through all of these propagated tales of the Immortal Flame, a boy cried when he entered the world. Yet his mother smiled. As well as his father and brother. A few years later, his sister would also be born and the smiles would cycle again.

But even so, the boy cried nonstop. Unaware of all these new joys and ambitions that sparked the hearts of many, his tears flowed out like a stream. He took his first breath into this new strange world in contrast to his family's pleasantry smiles at his new birth.

This new life.

This new promise of what was to come and what could be, all because of one man.

The Immortal Flame.

"For the glory of humanity," people chanted.

The boy's blue eyes glistened with tears, stinging from the glaring lights overhead and enclosed cold atmosphere. It was so shiny and illuminating above he thought it would rain down on him. Yet he could also see dark blurry silhouette figures towering at the ends of his vision. Their bodies loomed over him as if keeping a watchful eye on his existence.

Where their heads shined like halos, their faces were all but mere shadows.

Did he know them?

Were they danger?

No longer was he trapped in a cushioned womb, or weighed with an immense pressure on his chest, but now he felt naked and bruised.

"....oh...Ho..p..e...What a lo.....vely....n..a.me..."

He heard strange words spoken from afar and felt foreign hands grasp hold of him.

A strange contact.

It felt raw, sore, and painful against his exposed skin.

Who were they? Why was he here? What was glory?

What was this world?

Why was he even born into it?

Ba bump. Ba bump. Ba bump. Ba bump.

Ah. A much more comforting familiarity.

The mother softly kissed the baby's fair hair and hugged him closer to her breast. She leaned down and pressed her forehead against his as she looked into his eyes.

Her eyes...what color were they? They were but warm pools that stared into his. Whether it was a mother's secret knowledge or an intuition, it seemed she could stare deep into his own soul.

Her hot breath tingled his skin as she spoke.

"For the glory of humanity," the boy's mother whispered.

Poor boy.

Named after a burden he didn't know of.

Born to a world that seemed long forsaken by the gods.