December 4th, 2035

Hawthorne Castle

4:10 PM

For hundreds of years, Hawthorne Castle and the village surrounding it had stood atop the hills overlooking the City of Etron. For hundreds of years, it housed the Hawthorne Clan, its Patrician, and the Cyclops.

That era was over.

A great plume of smoke rose over Etron as hundreds died and thousands lost their homes in a great conflagration. Castle Hawthorne was surrounded by hordes of ravening beasts, and the Cyclops had been brutally killed.

The people of Etron thought their distance from the center of the Deluge would protect them from the worst of it, but the Dark Apostles brought the war to their doorstep first.

Homes burned and Goblins ran through the streets of Etron, shooting any Imperial with the misfortune of getting in their way. Even Etron’s deepwater port seemed to blaze with the inferno as the flames exploded out of the docked ships and danced over the azure water.

The refugees of Etron thought they would be safe within Castle Hawthorne. If nothing else, Beatrice Hawthorne and the Cyclops would keep them safe. Hundreds of terrified men, women, and children huddled within the great stone walls of Castle Hawthorne. With terror and despair in their eyes, they looked out and saw the inert corpse of the Cyclops - a mass larger than the largest building in Etron - suspended in the air by a dozen piercing stone spikes.

It was as if several huge stone arrows had risen out of the ground to pierce the Cyclops. Gallons of blood still trickled from the Cyclops’s open wounds. Its mouth hung open loosely, and it was elevated a hundred feet in the air so that all those within the Castle could see.

It was a blasphemy of the highest order. The Imperials' messiah had been killed with arrows, and the Cyclops’s corpse had been turned into a work of art commemorating their messiah’s death.

Dozens of magic knights and hundreds of levy soldiers stood behind the one gate into Castle Hawthorne. In a terrified voice, the Captain of the Guard shouted commands to hold fast against the monstrous horde.

The Captain was cut off, however, by the sound of a heavy blunt strike against the other side of the gate. The sound echoed throughout the entire Castle. The knights readied their weapons, and some took a step back in fear.

There was another slam.

Then another.

And another. The gate began to buckle.

Then, on the fifth strike, the gate exploded inward, sending two massive, several-ton slabs of steel flying. There were screams of pain as the doors crushed a number of levy soldiers.

The force that unshackled the doors from their housing created a massive plume of dust that prevented the Imperials hiding within Castle Hawthorne to see the mechanism that destroyed the gate. After an eternity that - mercifully - only lasted five seconds, the sound of footsteps could be heard. The footsteps were those of a single man. Slowly, with an unhurried gait, the man walked forward. Though the footsteps weren’t any louder than any other, they filled the courtyard beyond the gate like thunder.

A single unassuming man appeared from the cloud of smoke and dust. He wore a long black cloak with a hood concealing most of his face. In his hand, he wielded a long obsidian sword with silver glyphs etched on its central ridge. Though the cloak concealed his face, his shirt hung open. Upon the man’s skin was the black IV tattooed just under his collar bone.

The man was Kojiro, the Fourth Dark Apostle.

“Surrender the royal family and no one here has to die!” Kojiro shouted. “The Hawthorne Clan will become hostages at Castle Bosporus. We have no intent to harm them, one way or another.”

A murmur of hope-tinged fear spread throughout the defenders. Perhaps they could survive. Perhaps, if they just abandoned their oaths, their loyalty, and their honor, they could be spared.

The Captain managed to regain his courage after a moment. “It is our solemn duty to protect Clan Hawthorne. From birth, we have known that the day would come where we would have to lay down our lives for the royal family. We shall not surrender to you, monster!”

The defenders of the castle gained back much of their morale as the Captain spoke. A brief “Hurrah!” sounded amongst them before they once more fell into silence.

“Whatever you say,” Kojiro said, cracking his neck with the hand that didn’t hold his sword. “I’ve been slaughtering Imperials all day today. Honestly, it’s kind of become a chore. So… I’ll give you one more for you to save your own lives and save me another annoying fight with a predetermined outcome. Surrender.”

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The Captain took a step back, fear obvious on his face. After a moment, however, he rallied. He gritted his teeth and shouted, “Attack!”

The magic knights closest to Kojiro charged forward. They moved faster than any human could hope to move, but their speed was still no match for a Dark Apostle. With a sigh, Kojiro dodged their strikes and swung his sword.

The blade struck a magic knight in the chest, crumpling his armor instantaneously. The armor did its job, and the blade was not able to cut through, but the knight died anyway. Instead of acting as a razor, Kojiro’s sword acted as a club. Upon impact, the knight’s ribs shattered, and his organs exploded. The blow sent the knight flying ten yards in the air and thirty meters away. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Kojiro reserved his second strike for the Captain. The Fourth Dark Apostle bent his knees and launched himself at the Knight Captain. Within two seconds, Kojiro had traveled the thirty yards between himself and his target. Before the Captain could react, his head had been severed from his body.

Hundreds of soldiers died. Any man, regardless of status or skill, who entered the range of Kojiro’s sword was dispatched with a single strike. Without fail, Kojiro killed every person within Castle Hawthorne who tried to harm him.

Kojiro killed half of the castle’s defenders before the rest fled in terror. He made no attempt to harm the cowards, opting only to regard them with contempt as they fled on hands and knees.

A long, winding stone staircase connected the gate and the central keep. Slowly but inexorably, he walked up these stairs. Sorcerers, magic knights, and even peasants armed with butcher’s knives and pitchforks tried to stop him as he ascended the steps. They were all dispatched with the same dispassionate efficiency as everyone else.

Splattered blood painted the walls of the castle, and terrible screams rang out like a symphony of terror.

Just as Kojiro reached the end of the long stone staircase, he spotted me. He looked up at where I was perched atop the castle barracks with mild annoyance.

“Hey Enzo!” he shouted. “Why don’t you come down and help me with this? This is a two-man job, isn’t it?”

I looked down at myself for a moment. I was dressed in much the same way as Kojiro. The long black cloak concealed my face and my figure. Unlike Kojiro, however, I had buttoned my shirt to cover up my own tattoo. Placed beside me was an M4 assault rifle, and at my hip was a double-action revolver. My belt held thirty specially-made bullets, each marked with a glyph of ancient magic. Some glyphs allowed me to bypass the defensive magic of certain supernatural creatures while other glyphs caused the bullet to do something special when fired.

I picked up the assault rifle and jumped down off the building. The stone cracked under my feet as I landed. From my perspective, however, it felt like I had taken a step down the stairs. I had to extract my feet from the cobblestones. It was easy for me to forget that I weighed more than five hundred pounds now.

“You had it handled,” I said soon after I landed.

“Plus, you know I don’t like all this killing stuff,” I muttered gloomily.

Kojiro sighed and said, “I had to get paired up with the pacifist. You’re right, I did have it handled. It’s just… well… it’s like playing Dynasty Warriors. Have you ever played Dynasty Warriors?”

“A little bit,” I answered, confused.

“In Dynasty Warriors, you spend the first half of every mission slaughtering nameless goons. That part’s boring. The level only gets interesting when you start fighting the powerful enemies. Basically, I’ve been playing the first part of a Dynasty Warriors level for the past five hours. Get it?”

“I suppose I get it,” I said, looking down at a bisected peasant, his dead face contorted in an expression of terror, “but it’s a bit different here.”

“It’s a little different,” Kojiro said, following my gaze. “Plenty of games have the enemies scream in pain as they die.

“Anyway,” Kojiro tore his gaze away from the dead peasant, “I need your help to deal with the royal family. Their magic is strong enough to hurt us.”

“I understand,” I said as I slung the assault rifle behind my back and started loading bullets into my revolver. “Just remember that we’re supposed to capture and not kill them.”

“Of course, I remember that part,” Kojiro sneered. “Melkior must have said, ‘Don’t kill the Hawthornes,’ twenty times.”

An electrical signal buzzed in the back of my neck. Before my brain could catch up, I ducked down low. A half second later, I looked up and saw a blur of silver steel fly past.

I turned and saw a magic knight less than a foot away from me. Kojiro drew his sword back as I reached forward with my palm toward the enemy. I placed my palm against the magic knight’s chest and pushed at an upward angle. The force of the push concaved the knight’s chest plate slightly and sent him flying. I struck with a mere fraction of my full power, so the knight did not die instantly. Instead, he flew in an arc that ended far outside of the castle walls.

Kojiro whistled and said, “Wow, he must have flown three hundred yards. Though, he might not have died from that, you know?”

“As I said, I don’t like killing,” I said as I went back to choosing which bullets to load into my revolver.

“And yet you’re always carrying a gun,” Kojiro snickered.

“Speaking of which,” I said, changing the topic of conversation away from my pacifism, “should I bring the Elder Sign bullets or the Infernal Steel bullets?”

“We probably won’t be fighting any Divine Beasts. Bring five Elder Sign bullets and one Infernal Steel bullet just in case,” Kojiro suggested.

“Good idea,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

I loaded the bullets into my revolver and snapped it shut. I pulled the hammer back as I returned it to its holster.

Before us stood the central keep of Castle Hawthorne. Hidden inside were the cowering remnants of Clan Hawthorne. The children and grandchildren of the woman we had so recently killed were waiting, ready to attack us with the powerful magic unique to their bloodline.

As I stepped toward the central keep, I reminded myself that this was for the greater good.