In an age, long since passed, there was a world encased in war and ruled by tyrants, here a hero rose unlike any before him. For he was not born of prophecy, nor was he trained in the ways of kings. Holding no divine blood, wielding no enchanted blade.

Yet when faced in battle, none could stand before him.

For Korin was a phantom unknowing of weakness.

He did not believe he could die.

And so, for a time, he did not.

The Birth of a Legend

Korin was not born into greatness. He was a nameless peasant from the outskirts of a fallen village raised in the ash of once bountiful fields. His family, like countless others, had been destroyed by the wars ravaging the planet.

Unshielded from the evils of the world he lacked the chance to be just a boy.

Not in his own mind.

“I am meant for more”

It began as a whisper in his thoughts, each day growing louder.

“ I am unbreakable”

He chanted. It becoming his truth, even when he was wounded.

“I am meant to be remembered”

And the world, cruel and indifferent, could not argue.

Not at first.

A Man Untouched

Violence found the ruins of his village as it found all places in those dark days. The King of Flames Immoral, a powerful tyrant of smoke and steel, sent his armies to pillage the lands and extort the weak.

Korin did not flee.

Faced with the warlord’s armies he stood unarmed, unarmored, and unafraid.

With a voice dauntless he spoke

“Your blades nor your spears can harm me”

And the soldiers —— hardened, merciless —— laughed.

Quickly they struck him down, leaving him bleeding in the mud as they turned unsparing of even a glance for the boy they had beaten.

Despite the state they had placed him in the day previous, Korin walked into the war camp, untouched.

Standing before the very same soldiers he uttered,

“Your blades nor your spears can harm me”

Stolen story; please report.

They struck him again, harder this time aiming to kill.

Yet the next morning, he walked through their gates once more unscathed.

And they began to fear.

For no man or beast could endure such wounds. No man could defy death so.

So they stopped trying to fight.

“He can’t be harmed” they whispered as if one stray word may spell their ends.

“He is beyond death”

“He’s more than a mere man” the dared mutter

And in time, the warlord’s army knelt before him.

The Phantom’s Rise

Each battle grew the legend. Tales crossed the land of how he’d strode through fires unburnt, took thousands of arrows without the slightest scratch, walked through wailing storms and left them silenced.

Wherever Korin went, the people swore they saw an aura of shadow, an unseen force that turned away blades and beat back death.

However, Korin wielded no magic, no armor, no blessing of the divine.

His only weapon was his truth. A truth so certain, so absolute, that the world itself had no choice but to warp and shape reality around him.

He became the Phantom, a warrior untouched. A legend who could never die.

And legends? They do not need proof, only belief.

The War Against the Gods

For years, Korin conquered.

Not with strategy or might but with his certainty.

Legions surrendered before the first charge, casting down their swords without a second thought. Empires fell as he advanced not because he was unstoppable, but because they believed he was. The planet as a whole decided that Korin could not be beaten.

So for ten years, he wasn’t. Until the gods noticed his reign. For the heavens are unforgiving to the paths of mortals. Not suffering them to walk unhindered.

The gods above long forgotten and silent looked at the Phantom and were afraid.

Knowing that with belief came power, Korin’s legend had grown too strong to leave alone. If he couldn’t die, then he had already become immortal unallowable for those yet to reach divinity.

So the gods sent forth a champion— a warrior ordained in celestial armor golden and powerful. Armed with a sword imbued with light, singing with the power of divine will— to strike him down.

“Korin the Phantom King,” the chosen of the gods spoke, “your reign ends.”

Knowingly Korin only smiled.

“You cannot harm me,” he ushered.

Heaven Will

Without hesitation the god’s champion blurred into action.

He struck, blade humming with power, as Korin stood unwavering.

He did not dodge.

He did not fight.

He did not even raise a hand in defense.

Because he knew as he had always known that no blade would touch him.He was certain because that was his truth his reality.

And yet—

For the first time in his life—

Reality did not bend to his beliefs. Stunned, the sword struck his chest cutting deeply.

And in that moment the world went silent.

The Fall of a Dream

Korin dazed started to staggered. Wearly he began to look down at his hands his own blood stained them not making sense of what happened.

“I can’t be harmed” he said desperate for relief. The world that had at one point seemed so large once, shrink. The weight of the sky seeming pressed down on him holding him down, air that used to beg to be taken in hard to come by, the pull of gravity not a suggestion.

For the first time, he felt them all. He felt human.

“I am untouchable”, he tried but the pain did not fade.

The whispers of all those present stopped. Quickly the soldiers that once knelt before him and the people who worshipped ran because they understood. They had saw his blood.

Korin wasn’t unkillable. Korin was not invincible. Korin was just a man like them. And if he was just a man, then he too could be defeated.

And so, we was.

In that moment the dam against the chaos that once plagued the world that Korin’s strength provided shattered. His people turned their back on him leaving him all alone. In the ruins of his mighty empire, Korin, a man who shaped reality to his will vanished.

The Whispered Truth

Around campfires, in night times reading of old wives tales, in the dead of night to an unreceptive ear its sometimes said that no body was found.

That maybe he still walks the world.

That somewhere in the multiverse, in the forgotten places, there is still a man who believes so strongly in his own legend that the world has no choice but to agree.

Some even say that if you dare —even for a moment— believe, that the Phantom will rise again. And this time …. Perhaps the world will not doubt him.