Novels2Search
The Dread Requiem
Prologue: The Old World’s Requiem

Prologue: The Old World’s Requiem

The sky was bleeding.

A crimson wash of dying light stretched across the horizon, staining the clouds like torn flesh. Beneath it, the battlefield sprawled—an endless expanse of broken bodies, shattered weapons, and the sickly stench of blood baked into the scorched earth. The cries of the dying had faded into whispers, swallowed by the oppressive silence that followed only the most absolute of massacres.

The land seemed wounded, its surface cracked and seeping with the dark ichor of ancient beings. The air was thick with ash and the faint, metallic tang of blood, mingling with the sickly sweet rot of decaying flesh. Twisted monstrosities lay strewn among the corpses—creatures not born of nature but of divine cruelty. Their forms were grotesque parodies of life: elongated limbs, hollow eyes, and gaping maws filled with teeth that seemed carved from bone and sorrow. Undead legions, animated by lingering divine malice, twitched and spasmed in the dirt, their corrupted bodies refusing to accept death even as their masters had fallen.

Among the ruin, the remnants of once-proud elven legions lay shattered. Their ethereal armor, dulled and broken, glinted faintly beneath layers of blood and ash. They had fought not for gods, but against them, their grace and magic no match for the relentless tide of divine wrath.

And at the center of it all stood him.

His figure was carved from shadow, tall and lithe, wrapped in the tatters of what had once been regal armor. Now, it clung to him like the memory of a kingdom long dead. Beneath the ruined metal, the faint outline of lean, sculpted muscle spoke of a body honed not by vanity but by centuries of battle—a form both graceful and lethal, carved with subtle precision. His black hair, matted with gore, fell in dark, silken waves around a face of otherworldly beauty. High, sharp cheekbones framed features so symmetrical they seemed carved from marble—an ethereal elegance that hinted at elvish ancestry, untouched by time or mortality. His hollowed eyes burned a deep, unnatural crimson—the last embers of a fire that had consumed gods and men alike. His skin, pale as bone beneath streaks of dried blood, seemed flawless yet lifeless, with veins like faint cracks running beneath the surface, pulsing faintly with dark, ancient power. His presence was a void, drawing all light and warmth inward, leaving only cold and dread in his wake.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Before him knelt the last of the divine.

Not a god as mortals might imagine—no radiant being of light, no figure of benevolence. This was a thing made of brittle bones and withered skin, its divine essence flickering like the final breath of a dying flame. Its form was grotesque, twisted by the very power it hoarded, bloated with stolen vitality from mortals who had prayed for salvation and received only torment. Its existence was a parasite, feeding endlessly, giving nothing in return.

It spoke not with words, but with the sound of rot, its voice carried on the wind like ash.

“You cannot kill what is eternal.”

He stepped forward, his expression void of triumph, of rage, of anything at all. His sword—a jagged relic forged from the marrow of ancient beasts—dragged through the dirt behind him, humming with the echoes of countless souls devoured by its edge. The blade itself was rotting, veins of dark corrosion creeping along its length, the metal pulsing as if infected with the very decay it delivered.

“Eternal?” His voice was a whisper, yet it carried across the desolation like a commandment. He tilted his head, studying the god with the cold curiosity of a man inspecting a broken artefact. “No. You are just another corpse waiting to be claimed.”

With a single motion, he drove the blade through the god's chest.

It did not scream.

Instead, it smiled.

“Then be cursed by what you have broken,” it whispered, its words sinking into the marrow of the world itself. “Your power will rot. Your heart will hollow. You will feast and never be sated. Slaughter and never feel. You will walk through ages as nothing but a requiem for all you have destroyed.”

He ripped the blade free, letting the god collapse into the dirt, its divine ichor seeping into the ground like poison. The earth shuddered beneath him as if the world itself recoiled from what had just transpired. He stood there for a moment, unmoved, watching as the last deity of the old world withered into dust.

But as the wind howled and the ash began to fall, he felt it.

An emptiness.

A gnawing void where once there had been fire.

He clenched his fists, blood slick against his palms, but the sensation did not fade. No triumph. No satisfaction. Just… nothing.

And for the first time in his existence, he wondered if he had truly won

Previous Chapter
Next Chapter