ã€ŠRise of the Immortalsã€‹


 Death and Birth [part 1]

    Puchi*

    I stumble and fall, dirt covering my arms and clothes. Fresh blood slowly starts to leak out of the arrow that pierced my upper left leg. I grind my teeth from the pain, but I bear with it, snap the arrow and yank it out from my leg, and keep running.

    "I got him! He won''t be able to run as fast, we''ll catch up soon!"

    I hear the bastard who shot the arrow talk gleefully to his comrades. As I see in the distance the sadistic smiles of the bandits who plan to kill me, a deep hatred forms within me.

    Torathul, the name of this planet, has five continents. There''s the Mainland, ruled by various human kingdoms and beasts that lurk within; the Great Forest, filled with many trees--as the name implies--ruled by the elves. The Deadlands, which used to be full of colonization by humanity, is now a graveyard of what was left after the Demon King invaded it in the second Great War. The Demon Continent, ruled by the Demon King and Devils, and the Draconic Isle, a faraway continent filled with dragons and other similarly-divine creatures.

    As my scenario implies, I am a human. In the Mainland, there are 3 factions: the Kingdom of Carthage, the Eastern Empire, and the Holy Temple. From the second Great War, the three factions, after many bloodshed over different disputes and beliefs, made an alliance to band together all of humanity, in order to be able to face enemies like the Demon King in the future.

    However, peace is far from being obtained between humanity. I once aspired to be a paladin. To fight for the glory and benefit of mankind, under the banner of the God of Light, Helios, and vanquish the evil of the world. As I look back from it now, I realize just how foolish I truly was.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    I used to live in Uthernan, which was the Deadlands before the Demon King invaded. I lived in an outer city of the colonies, and because of the unknown territory that we were in, many extra precautions were made in building the defense of our homes. Walls surrounded the city, and two gates, one front and back, were constructed. The front in order to keep enemies out, and the back to escape. They did this because our city was surrounded by mountains, as it was the only mountain pass between the Tyrad Range, which stretched almost throughout the entire continent. This is exactly the reason why we were the first to be attacked.

    Creek*

    I walk into the front room of my home, and drag my feet across the wooden floor.

    "Selius, you''re home again this late at night? You should stop tiring yourself out so much, if you work yourself too hard, I worry you''ll overexhaust yourself!"

    I turn my head back as I close the front door, to see my mother, a 5''7 woman with dark, long hair stretching to her waist. Her eyes shine with a violet light, and she had a face that would tell one that she couldn''t ever be wrong. She wore a brown tunic which stretched almost to the floor. Her usually calm face showed signs of anger and worry. My heart warmed at the sight.

    "I must do what I have to, in order to prepare for the examination mother."

    "Again with the Paladin examination, you have trained enough! As soon as you wake up, all you do is train, train, and train! Haven''t you had enough to take at least one day as a break?"

    As I start to walk towards my bedroom, I feel my entire body scream out in pain.

    Tch*

    "What did I tell you, I can see you''ve already exhausted yourself far too much!"

    I didn''t bother to hear what my mother had to say, for I''ve already heard it countless times. I opened the door to my room, shut it behind me, and fell onto my bed. I instantly fell asleep.

 Death and Birth [part 2]

    I woke up to the sound of a loud, ear-piercing chime of a bell ringing ceasesly throughout the city.

    It''s the city alarm bell, what the hell is going on?

    As I slowly start to get out of my bed, my mom barges into my room.

    "Selius, get up, we have to go now!"

    "Why mom, what happened? Why did the alarm go off?"

    Without answering my question, she starts grabbing my stuff around the room, and drags it into the frontroom, where she put it all in a giant, black sackbag sitting in the middle of the room.

    "Mom, tell me, WHAT HAPPENED!"

    With all of these unsual things that my mom is doing and seeing the look on her face, I start to worry. She finally stops, turns to me, and says:

    "Demons. We have to leave, Selius, now."

    "D-Demons? Why are they here, in Uthernan?"

    My mother began again to take things out of my room very quickly, and I helped her. I didn''t bother asking the question again, for I already knew the answer to it. Humans and Demons are mortal enemies. Many wars have been waged between the two races because of different beliefs, and moreso because of the appearance of demons. With their horns and not-so-friendly looking faces and bodies, they''re characterized as what humans describe as pure evil. The actions of demons, however, completely agree with that belief: due to their racial tendency to slaughter their enemies, and the overall brutal nature of their race.

    Due to the unceasing conflict between the two, they very quickly developed a natural hatred towards one another. They would not let the other rise in power. Once the other started gaining military strength that threatened to be more powerful than the former, the one who''s power was being threatened would invade. They do this because of the fact that they know who they will use that power against first: each other.

    With the colonization of Uthernan, the Unknown Continent, new resources were steadily increasing in its motherland, Mainland. Of course, the Demons saw this and didn''t want humanity to grow stronger, so they decided to attack. I deduced all of this fairly quickly, since it''s common knowledge: the hatred between our two races, of course.

    When we finally finished packing our things, I, with my superior strength, decide to carry the giant, black sack filled with our necessary things. My mom opens the door, and I walk through it.

    In the dark of the night, flames spew across the skies. The alarm still ringing, people frantically come out of their homes and sprint towards the direction of the escape gate.

    "EVERYONE STAY CALM AND HEAD TOWARDS THE GATE!"

    Armored guards, spear and shield in hand, try to calm down the situation and reduce the chaos. I can see the walls from here due to its sheer height, about 30 meters high, and demons storming the wall with an innumerable amount of forces.It seems this is their main force. They''re desperate to take over this city.

    I don''t really care about the city, all I care about is my mom''s safety. I turn back around, and with the sack across my back, I start running with my mother towards the gate.

    BOOM*

    It seems they''ve cast a great spell in order to destroy the forces defending the gates. Fireballs fell from the sky and set the wall ablaze. The guards that were holding out the demons by a thread were instantly turned to ash. Demons, of course, were also caught in the flames, but they are resistant to fire, so barely any of their forces were killed in the crossfire.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    At the sight, the guards no longer could hold the fear of the citizens and chaos ensued. People, left and right of us, couldn''t keep up in the frantic running of each other and were trampled. In the chaos, bones were broken, and the people who were left that were trampled in the dirt were eventually slaughtered by the oncoming demons.

    The armored guards fought to their last breath, but it wasn''t anything to account for. The best one of them could hold was at least five seconds, the numbers were just too large. There were only about 5000 guards within the city, but the Demon''s forces were estimated to be over 500,000, more than 100 times that number. One guard would have to face 100 demons by himself and win in order for the city to be saved. I didn''t bother to look back. I clenched my teeth, held onto my mother''s hand, and we ran as fast as we could.

    As I trained to become a paladin, of course, I was well more developed than the average person. My mother was a retired adventurer, the occupation similar to a mercenary, except hired for things such as beast subjugations, bandit hunting, and the like, rather than for wars. Because of this, we quickly ran through the crowd, and pushed our way through to the gate. When it was within our sights, we still didn''t slow down. There were 100 or so guards protecting the gates, and escorting the civilians to safety behind it. People pushed their way through, and we did the same.

    Screams could be heard in the distance. It seemed the demons have caught up.

    "EVERYONE, TO THE GATE! MEN, WITH ME!"

    An armored-guard, seemingly about a foot taller than the rest, carried a battle axe over his shoulder. Looking at the badge carved into his shoulder plate, he should be the guard captain. They were going to sacrifice themselves in order to give us time to be able to retreat into the other side of the range, and that triggered something inside of me that strengthened my outlook of humanity. I tightened the grip on my mom, and without saying a word, she looked at me for a moment.

    "We have to go."

    We soon entered through the gate, and when I looked back, the guard-captain was taking on 10 or so of them at once. The rest of them were separated from each other, and were quickly being mercilessly killed. It seems, with their numbers, their tactic was to divide and conquer. If they were in a densely-packed formation, demons would sacrifice themselves to grab ahold of them and throw them into an area, which countless of its brethren would hack them to pieces with their bloodied swords.

    "CLOSE THE GATES!"

    With the guard-captain''s last command, he made a battle-roar, which pushed the demons away 10 meters. Ahead, waves of demons could be seen sprinting towards the gate, trying to catch whoever they could. The gaurd captain charged into the mass herd of demons, and wasn''t seen again. As the gates slowly closed, the remaining guards went into a densely-packed shield formation. 50 or so shields packed together formed a wall that the demons couldn''t get across. Whenever they were close enough, and tried to grab at them, spears would penetrate their bodies, impaling them and killing them instantly.

    It lasted for about a good 12 seconds, then they were absolutely overrun. Cries of anguish were heard across the gate, as they were slaughtered. They gave us enough time for the gate to close, and slams from the other side from swords and fireballs could be heard. The floor shaked from the pressure.

    "Don''t worry, this gate''s been enchanted by 12 different divine-tier magicians, they won''t be able to break it in another 10 years!"

    I turned around to the voice to see a chubby, short man surrounded by tall, muscular men carrying luggage across their backs.Must be a knowledgeable merchant that came to find rare goods in Uthernan..

    I no longer paid him any heed, and finally letting lose the grip I had on my mother''s hand, I started to head away from the loud crowd and to a more spacious area.

    "Selius, we couldn''t have fought those demons."

    I hear my mother''s voice behind me.

    "I know, but the fact that we couldn''t do anything is the exact reason why I aspire to be a paladin mother. Justice needs to be done, and the paladins are the only ones that have the power to do so."

    I look around me. Satisfied with the surroundings, I set the sack down and lie on the ground with my head on it. My mother sits beside me. We''re on a hill, about a mile away from the gate. We can see the capital from here, a tiny speck in the distance. The ground near the gate still occasionally trembles, but it shows no sign of breaking. By this time, the sun starts to rise, and its sunlight pierces through the dark of the night across all of our faces. At that time, I close my eyes and pray silently to Helios for the ones that were killed that night.

 Death and birth [part 3]

    Leaves crunched under the weight of my feet as I sped through the forest.

    Hiss*

    I hear arrows behind me and instantly roll behind the safety of a tree. As the arrows hit against it¡¯s hard bark, I didn¡¯t waste any time and started running again.

    ¡±You can¡¯t run forever, boy!¡±

    ¡±Stop running and we¡¯ll make it quick!¡±

    The bandits began to mock me, their voices only a distant away.

    Tch*

    I click my tongue, and seeing that I¡¯m finally out of their sight, quickly climb up into the branches of a tree.

    Shrouded in leaves, I unsheathed the dagger at my hip and wait silently.

    Crunch crunch*

    Footsteps steadily make way towards me, and 7 men adorned in leather and cut up clothing appeared in my sight. Three of them stretched the bowstring of the bows they held, glancing in the places they thought I would be.

    The other four brandished their swords, and some began hacking at the grass and small branches in amusement.

    Time passes by, and not seeing or hearing me, they grow impatient.

    ¡±Fuck, where the hell is the bastard!¡±

    One of the bandits holding a sword couldn¡¯t suppress his frustration any longer and blurted out.

    ¡±Don¡¯t worry, I got him in the leg; the blood¡¯ll show us right to the fucker.¡±

    One of the swordsmen leads the rest of the ones with blades to search for my blood.

    The rest of the bandits with bows stayed behind and slowly began to walk cautiously towards the direction of my tree, looking everywhere except where I was. Then one of them couldn¡¯t stand the tension any longer.

    ¡±Come out and play, boy, before I go back and do another round on that whore¡¯s corpse!¡±

    As the voice of the bandit entered my eardrums, my eyes turned bloodshot and the grip on my blade tightened until I felt the blood from my hands flow down from my nails penetrating my flesh. I tried to suprress my rage, but I couldn¡¯t wait a second longer.

    I leapt from the tree and aimed for the archers first.

    ¡°SHOOT HIM!¡±

    As soon as I leapt out, they turned their bows towards me and released their arrows. Two out of the three arrows I managed to dodge in the air by maneuvering my body around them, and the last one I cut down with my blade.

    ¡°The bastard¡¯s like the whore, watch out!¡±

    As the archers quickly tried to nock another arrow, I was already aiming for the one closest to me.

    Still in midair, I drove my knife through his neck and used his body to cushion my fall. His eyes opened wide in surprise as he slid across the grass and dirt. His neck snapped in the impact, and as his body went limp, I leapt off his corpse and set my eyes on the next one closest to me.

    ¡±Die!¡±

    The second bandit archer I aimed for had enough time to nock an arrow, and at this range, I didn¡¯t have enough room to dodge.

    I moved to my right as fast as I could, but the arrow still struck my left shoulder.

    ¡±RAH!¡±

    My rage easily overcame the pain I felt in my shoulder, and with my blade in my right hand, I leapt towards him and struck his head downwards in a diagonal angle at the left side of his head.

    Blood spurted from his wound into the air, and another arrow shot through it. As the blood from his now dead comrade covered the arrow, I grabbed the corpse and used it as a body-shield against it.

    Pcht*Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    I kicked it at him as hard as I could, and the corpse flung at him and hit him, toppling him over a couple feet. I heard his ribs break from the impact, and he coughed a mouthful of blood.

    ¡±DIE BASTARD!¡±

    I turned around to see one of the swordsmen in the air, about to cleave me in two with his broadsword. It looks like they came back rather quick.

    I force my body around and sidestep to the left. In the place where I was, dirt sprung into the air due to the sheer impact of his blade. A hole around a foot deep was sliced into the ground. If I had tried to face it head on, I would¡¯ve been cut in half.

    When I landed, two more bandits, to the left and right of me, appeared. They both swung towards me with their blades, and I aimed for the one on the left. I dodged his sword and sliced his throat, but before I could dodge again, I felt a sticky sensation on the back of my shirt. He had the opportunity to slash the middle of my back, and blood gushed out from the wound. When he was about to swing again, I rolled away from him.

    As I landed, another bandit came from behind me and lunged his sword towards me. I barely got to turn around and try to counterattack, but he was too quick and I was caught off guard.

    Puchi*

    I felt my ribs snap as the blade penetrated my flesh, aiming for my left lung. I barely had enough time to stop the blade with my left hand, now bleeding from the grip on the sharp blade.

    "Quit struggling, bitch, and go see that whore in the afterlife!"

    The bandit gave me a sadistic smirk and used both of his hands to push the blade deeper into me.

    I coughed out a moutful of blood onto him as my lung got pierced by the tip of the blade. The pain was unbearable, and unable to stop the sword any further, I let it pierce through my body. As the blood poured out from my body like a fountain, I decided I was going to take this bastard with me.

    "DIE!!"

    Blood poured out from my mouth as I let out a roar, and I drove my knife through his throat. His face showed astonishment and fear as his body slowly went limp and fell to the ground. I grabbed the handle of the sword stuck inside of me, grit my teeth, and yanked it out. Blood spurted across the grass.

    "Just die motherfucker!"

    The strong bandit with the broad sword swung at me from behind, and I didn''t have enough time or strength to move out of the way. I held the two swords in front of me, and when the weapons clashed, both of my swords broke, and I was sent flying until I crashed into a nearby tree.

    Barely able to open my eyes, I saw with hazy vision the two remaining bandits walk towards me. With gleeful smiles on their faces, they stepped over the corpses of the bandits I killed without any shred of remorse.

    "That bastard Ewell paid a fuckload for you, boy! I can see the fuck why too!"

    The taller, scar-faced bandit with the bulging muscles and giant broadsword on his shoulder spoke first. I didn''t pay much attention to how they looked before while I was running, but it looks like he was the leader.

    "That bitch of a whore was trouble too, took more than half of the guys just to take care of one fucking whore."

    The other one, one of average build and height, smirked.

    I didn''t have the strength to talk back, so I coughed blood in his face.

    "Can''t wait to die, huh bastard!?"

    I smiled was I saw the anger on his face.

    He kicked the side of my face, teeth and blood flew out of my mouth.

    "No more wasting time."

    The leader shoved him out of the way with one hand, and with the other, he took the broadsword off of his shoulders.

    He swung his blade at me, and on the impact, I flew in the air and landed hard on the ground. The tree I crashed into before snapped in two, and crashed to the floor. I lifted my arms up to block it, but the bones broke as soon as the two collided and it didn''t stop there, cutting half of my left arm off and mutilating my right hand. My legs and ribs cracked when I touched the ground from the fall.

    As I lay face-first onto the now bloody and dirty grass, I hear the bandits walk away.

    Tears flowed and mixed with the blood pouring from my broken skull.

    Forgive me, mother, for I wasn''t strong enough

    As I thought about the past, and how foolish I was to aspire to become a paladin, I laughed inside of my head. All of them are the same. Demons, humans, dragons, beasts, they have no difference. All of them are just a different type of evil.

    After my mother and I survived the first attack in the second Great War, we headed towards the capital''s docks in order to safely arrive in Mainland, away from all of the chaos.

    Three months later, we eventually arrived there, and on the same boat was the merchant that I saw from before with his underlings. Occassionally, I would see the lustful look on his face that he showed whenever he looked towards my mother''s direction.

    It angered me, but I didn''t do anything, for most men would look at my mother like that. They would try to flirt with her, for she is beautiful. But in the end, she would beat them to a pulp by herself if they tried anything. I should''ve killed him then and there.

    He was unceasingly desperate. He would talk to my mother every chance he could get, and she would always shoo him away.

    Overtime, he got more and more frustrated at the fact that a woman would keep rejecting his confessions. One night, he told my mother she should be honored to be his wife, blessed by the gods to have a husband with money like him.

    He was beat to a pulp, and his men had to save him from almost drowning when he was thrown overboard. As he was pulled back into the water, his entire attitude changed. He gave my mother and I a hateful look as we laughed at his humiliation, and since then, he hasn''t bothered my mother the entire time back.

    As the land finally came into view, the captain spoke to us and the others on the ship.

    "We''re at our destination, Prehg! Get your things and get ready to board the docks!"

    The ship finally came to a stop. Prehg was one of the main trading center of the Alligned Kingdoms. We grabbed our stuff, and one by one the passengers of the ship came off the boat onto the docks of Mainland. Hundreds of other ships could be seen coming in and out of the docks, people and soldiers coming in and out.

    Looks like the war started.

    At the time, I thought of what happened in Miudard, the city that my mother and I survived the attack, and I clenched my fists. I was going to apply for the paladin examinations.

 Death and birth [part 4]

    I needed to get stronger in order to protect my mother, I didn''t want to face the same situation as Miudard. Not able to do anything but watch people die, not able to save them or fight back without certain death. The way to do that, was to become a paladin.

    The most renowned force of humanity, feared by the demons and devils of the Demon Continent. In many of the wars, they, blessed with the flames of Helios, vanquished all evil that opposed them. One of them could easily wipe out an entire legion of the demon army.

    My mother and I stayed at a local inn not too far from the main district, where most of the trade happened at. As she was a retired adventurer, a B class at that, we weren''t charged for the stay.

    Adventurers had many benefits. Ranging from F all the way to A, the Alligned Kingdom would provide freedoms such as not having to pay to enter areas, free to stay at certain-ranked inns, (inns are ranked from 1-star to 5-star) and even being up to requesting an audience with one of the kings of the Alliance.

    When my mom and I entered the 3-star Falling Leaf Inn, the first thing that we were greeted by a warm, soft fragrance of nature.

    "Smells nice in here, Selius! What do you think?"

    "I think it''s fine, mom."

    She smiled and we walked over to the registration counter. I looked around at our surroundings.

    It was about a 80 by 200 feet open, spacious room with many tables and chairs inhabiting it. People sat in them, laughing and drinking, and telling stories of different events that occured in their lives. It was lively here.

    There was a man at the reception desk, and when we came to him, he smiled.

    "Hello, it seems you are new here! Are you here to stay for the night?"

    "Yes, indeed -- we''ll be here for a while, can you tell me what rooms are available?"

    My mother flashed her silver adventurer card at the receptionist. His eyes sparkled for a moment, and his smile seemingly became more lively.

    "Of course! For you, we have a special room solely designed for adventurers like yourself. We have a two-bed room with magic-installed showers in the bathroom. With an open balcony, one is able to see the entire city and more from the view. This is the best open room we have as of now. There are others, but they are taken."

    When I heard him describe the room we would be staying in, I was pleased. I couldn''t wait to take a shower! I haven''t stayed at a inn as well as this for a while, and cleaning yourself with cold water in a tub in Miudard just can''t be compared with the warm water of a clean shower!

    "That will suffice, thank you very much."

    "My pleasure! We have food ready to be cooked anytime, so if you want to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner, just come down and our cooks will make you something to eat!"

    We started to walk towards the stairs, and headed to the 3rd floor. The key have the number 36 on it, and the receptionist told us that the first digit (3) indicated the floor, while the second one (6) was the room number on that floor.

    We walked down the hallway, reading the numbers on various wooden doors.

    "1...2...3...4.."Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    We finally stopped at the number 6, and my mom inserted the key, turned the knob, and pulled it. She walked in, and I followed her.

    The polished floor shined at us, reflecting the sunlight coming from the glass door that blocked the entrance to the open balcony. Silver-colored carpets covered most of it, and in the corner, a large, king-sized bed layed there. The room was about 30 by 50 feet, and magic-induced lights came to life as we walked inside. I closed the door on the way in.

    "You can have this bed, I''ll take the other one."

    There was a wooden door engraved with silver on the opposite side of the bed, and my mom walked in it. I fell on the bed on my back.

    I needed to rest my body for the upcoming day tomorrow, examinations would be held for the youths that aspired to join the Paladin Order of the Holy Temple. I also needed to tell my mom that I was going.

    Time passed, and it was getting dark. We walked down to the lobby to get something to eat.

    There were waiters that served us a dish that had cooked boar meat. The smell alone made my mouth water. There were two plates, for the both of us.

    On them, nicely cut boar meat with a sauce poured over it. Herbs were sprinkled on top. I quickly finished my plate, and asked for seconds. My mother laughed, and knowing that I would be staying here for a while, told me that she would take the first shower and headed to our room.

    After another five servings, I was finally stuffed to the brim. One of the cooks came out from the kitchen behind the reception desk and talked to a group of waiters standing near the reception something, and one of the waiters smirked and looked in my direction.

    The chef followed his gaze and locked eyes with me.

    "I am a chef of this fine establishment my good sir, Jorneuse Horduni! May I know your name?"

    He walked up to me and asked, with his hands behind his back in an imposing manner. The waiter who pointed, and also served my food, stood behind him.

    "The name''s Selius, Selius Prax."

    "Mr. Prax, if you may please do the honor, I request that you not order anymore than two servings; the supplies needed to entertain our other guests will be insufficient if everyone were to order more than enough amount of food for each person. Please understand, if you are to eat so much, other gluttonous people will follow suit and the entire supply will be gone before the rest of the people that wish to eat have their fill!"

    He talked very quickly, spit flying everywhere.

    I grabbed a napkin from the table and wiped my face with it. I looked around and saw many other people still eating their food, tables filled to the brim with plates of various sizes. He was obviously lying to me, and humiliating me infront of these people. Some glanced towards me, laughed, and turned back to what they were doing. My face slowly got hotter from my rising anger.

    This cook, I am guessing is the one that cooked the food we were served.

    It was good, but it wasn''t even what we first ordered! We didn''t pay it any attention, for we didn''t want to make drama out of a situation that didn''t really matter, the food was good anyways. Yet the plates that held the meal were but a third of the size of the same plate of the same dish that other people at other tables had!

    My mother had a small appetite in the first place, so it didn''t bother her much, but the only reason why I ordered five servings was because it was so small to barely fill in my teeth! I have a more than average sized appetite.

    He was clearly and openly not giving me or my mother any face, and my hands began to shake in the anger that I felt towards this scrawny old man.

    "If you would give us the same sized plate as other guests, I would not have to ask for more servings."

    I barely managely to not scream in his face and surprisingly forged a sentence in a calm demeanor, but my eyes showed the frustration I was feeling.

    "Same sized plate? Mr Prax, surely you jest!"

    He made a look of surprise, and said to me:

    "We only have one sized plate for our guests, and they are all the same! The only smaller plates we have are served to the pets that guests sometimes bring to our establishment. Surely that wasn''t the case?"

    He turned around, with a grin on his face, towards the waiter.

    "I might have mixed them up, oh kind sir, do forgive this incompetent waiter. I will try my best for it not to happen again."

    He emphasized the last word, clearly hinting that I would be given dog-plates to eat on every time I ordered food. He smiled and laughed with the chef, and he wasn''t finished.

    "There is another matter you should know, oh kind sir, I seem to have just now rembered that the cleaners forgot to wash the pet-plates for tonight! AHAHAHAHA!"

    Their laughs became harder. They started to walk back towards the reception desk.

    I instantly got up from my seat, knocking the chair down and pushing the table a bit away. My entire body felt like it was on fire, I could barely contain the rage I felt.

    This was going to be a long night.

 Death and birth [part 5]

    The noise from me getting up was heard by the two men walking towards the reception desk, and they turned around.

    By the time they did, I already engraved my fist into the chef¡¯s face, sending him, with a broken nose, crashing into the reception desk. The waiter, bewildered at my sudden aggression, panicked and shivered from fear.

    With the chef knocked unconscious and bleeding from his head from the impact, he slid into the floor. I grabbed the waiter by the collar and slammed him to the ground, and put my foot on his neck.

    ¡±You dare do this to me and my mother? I''ll make sure you regret ever crossing me."

    I lifted my foot high in the air, ready to strike it down onto his face.

    "N-no, wait! Please, wait! I didn''t want to do it, someone told us to! You have to believe me, please, don''t hurt me!"

    The waiter cowered and formed himself into a ball, frantically spouting about everything he could tell me in order to save him from pain.

    "What are you talking about? Who told you to do this to me?"

    I was surprised. There wasn''t anyone I could remember that would hold a grudge even to hire people in order to infuriate me, humiliating my mother and I. They would have to be nearby as well, in order to tell the waiter and chef to do what they did.. Wait a minute..

    "It was a prosperous man, he had many tall, muscular men around him! H-he.. he was shorter, stout, and spoke sharply and with anger regarding you two e-esteemed guests and offered a hefty sum in order to humiliate you in front of your guests."

    He quickly spoke everything he knew about this ''prosperous man'', and I instantly knew who it was. It seems whenever cowards are in danger, they are quick to do anything in order to save themselves. I slowly lowered my leg from above his face, and he relaxed. Then I kicked him across the room, and he too fell unconscious as he crashed near the chef into the reception desk.

    The people eating were watching, but it seemed things like this were a rather normal occurence, so they wanted to enjoy the show. I apologized to the receptionist, who only gave me a light smile, and assured me the two would be handled with. It seems things such as bribery and interfering with a guest''s food and/or plate was not tolerated. They were dragged into the kitchen, and I went up to warn my mom about the threat that damn merchant Ewell gave us.

    I opened the door to our room, then walked in and entered my mother''s.

    "Finally done? Took you longer than I thought! Did your stomache grow even bigger? Where does that stuff even go?"

    "Mom, we have to leave this place."

    "Why? We just got here, what happened?"

    "That perv bastard, Ewell, he bribed the staff to mess with our food. I think we should head out, before something worse happens in the future."

    "What about your examinations tomorrow?"

    "Don''t worry about it, after I complete the examination, if I pass, then I''ll tell the order about him, and we can deal with him. But if I fail, we can just leave. We shouldn''t get ourselves into too much trouble."

    "Alright, let''s just stay for this last night, then we''ll leave in the morning. I''ll get everything packed, and after your done with the examinations, meet me in the outside district near the east gate, I''ll be waiting."

    With that, I nodded, and went back to my room. I fell onto my bed, contemplating the recent occurences that we had with this man Ewell.

    It seemed he was a bigshot in this city, a well-named trader and merchant who owned many properties throughout the inner district. He was an arrogant, stuck-up man who was in his own little world, where everything needed to go his way. It seemed he held a grudge, just because he got what he deserved for insulting my mother. I would have beat him even harder, he deserved as much.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    I woke up out of my bed, and opened the door to my mother''s room. Of course, she was no where to be found. My mother wakes up surprisingly early, right when the sun starts to rise. Like clockwork, no matter when she sleeps, she wakes up right at that time. I always wondered how she did it, for I am a very late waker. I need my sleep, and more.

    Today was the day of the examination. It was going to be held in the center of the inner district, held by representatives of the Paladin Order of the Holy Temple. Not many of the big shots were there, but it was an annual thing held every year by the Holy Temple in order to seek out jades that they could polish and shine with the light of Helios. Many talented geniuses that trained in their own combat, seeked out to pass the examinations.

    It was examined by various 1st-tier paladins (1st being the lowest and 10th the best). One of them could take on 50 to a 200 normal infantry, so even though they were ranked the lowest, none dared to disrespect them.

    It consisted of a test of affinity with Helios, in order to see who was more destined to be a paladin. The examined were also tested with willpower, essential wisdom and tactics in battle, and there was a competition at the end between the remaining in order to see who was stronger than who in terms of combat. It was a tournament, first place was said to gain a apprenticeship under a 3-star paladin, which is basically almost priceless to people, as they would be ahead of their peers and also would gain advanced knowledge and skill of the ways of the paladin.

    The tiers were arranged by power and how close they were to achieving Perfect Purification. All living things had their own aura, and the purer a paladin''s aura, the more strength their body wielded, and the more stronger was their affinity was with Helios. High ranked paladins, such as 8 and 9, were said to be able to speak with the God, and request his power in order to smite their foes.

    There wasn''t even a ranked 7 paladin for the last 5 centuries, for many were vanquished and sacrificed themselves during the first Great War, between all of the races, which in turn split apart the world that wasonce one giant piece of land.

    There are many gods, Helios, god of Light, Gaia, goddess of nature, Tartarus, god of hell, Eloh, god of darkness, and many others.

    They were split into two factions, which believed that the world should be how they wanted it to be. So, the two waged war against each other, and sought out to destroy one another.

    One was led by Helios, and the other by Eloh.

    The world was destroyed many times, and seeing that they were getting nowhere with senseless battles, they came up with another idea. They would split the world, where each god got to make their own species they wanted and how they wanted. Helios created man, Tartarus created the demons and devils, Gaia created the Elves, faeries, and fae, and Eloh created the different beasts and dragons.

    The different races waged war against each other instead of the gods, and whoever won would represent their god and that god would be the victor and their hand over the world would be strengthened. They would pick people to harness their power, in order to ensure their victory. The war was waged, and many fell.

    In the climax of the war the ones left were, the human Elijah, the Chosen Paladin who was the herald of Helios, the devil Asmodan, the herald of Tartarus, the elf Vilven, herald of Gaia, and the dragon Yjh''ar, herald of Eloh. Due to their final battle, with the powers of the gods within them, the earth split, and different continents were form from the heavy quakes that threatened to shatter the world apart.

    In the end, all perished, and with one victor, the remaining gods were the ones with the most power over the world, and had a bigger influence over the other weak and small gods, who''s heralds and races were wiped out without a trace, in the unforgiving war. They were removed of their titles of gods, and are now known to this day as the fallen, for they had fallen from their previous might and power. The gods have not waged war on each other since then. Now, the only wars are between the different races and their own quarrels.

    I walked down the steps and into the lobby, and left.

    Passing through the busy streets of the inner district, I finally arrived at the entrance to the Hall of Order, the place where the examination would be held. There were many people walking in after being checked by a guard for weapons and the like. Unless you were participating, weapons weren''t allowed. I got in line, and finally, after waiting for a while, handed the guard my sheathed dagger at my side, and told him I would be participating.

    "What is your name?"

    "I am Selius, Selius Prax."

    "So it''s you. huh.."

    "What do you mean?"

    "I have been told there was a man who beat up staff at an exclusive 4-star inn that dared to try and infect the Order with his crimes against the innocent! Your kind are not allowed here, vermin! Our Order will not be corrupted by criminals like you, and we will not stand by and let one such as your self remain free. To have the audaciity to come here, boy.."

    More guards came out from inside the entrance, and surrounded Selius.

    "You will have your judgement, here and now!"

 Death and birth [part 6]

    The guards encircled me, and drew their swords from their sheaths.

    "This is a misunderstanding, they weren''t innocent! They were bribed to humiliate my mother and I, so I retaliated!"

    ''You dare spout lies in the midst of your judgement? Truly a coward, trying all you can to save your skin!"

    One of the guards yelled, and their encirclement got smaller and smaller. The people watched curiously and were intrigued at the sight of a man being reprimanded by the guards.

    "A criminal trying to become a paladin? Of course he would get caught!"

    "Now I wonder if there''s any actual paladin who has a criminal record."

    As the tension grew more and more, I could feel my forehead starting to sweat from it. This is the work of that Ewell bastard!

    Tch*

    Before they could make a move on me, I ran to the nearest guard. His face showed a flash of surprise, but he still didn''t panick and plunged his sword in my direction. I dove over him and his sword, rolled on the floor, and bolted.

    "He''s nimble! Don''t let the criminal get away!"

    The guards chased after me as I ran away from the entrance. I could feel them catching up behind me. If I didn''t do something, they were going to catch me. I ran through an alleyway, and saw the busy streets of the inner district. I decided to hide inside of a nearby trash bin as I heard foot steps around the corner. I made myself as quiet as possible as I saw the guards coming into view through a hole from inside.

    "He got away.. we won''t be able to find him in this crowd."

    Tch*

    The guards, one by one, after deciding they wouldn''t be able to catch me, unsheathed their swords.

    "I wonder why Ewell hates this kid so much.. the bastard looked eager to be a paladin."

    "You gotta be kidding, that kid a paladin? He should sign up to be a bandit instead!"

    The guards laughed for a while.

    "Yeah, he was pretty desperate to make his life a living hell, the money''s proof."

    "Poor kid."

    "He won''t last another day."

    The guards slowly made their way back to the Hall of Order. When they were out of sight, I came out of the trash bin.

    I clenched my fists. First it was the staff at the inn, now the guards at the Hall of Order. I wondered to myself who wasn''t corrupted in this city. I need to make sure mom''s safe.

    I took one last look towards the direction the guards went to, and ran into the massive crowd.

    She told me to meet her in the outer district, near the east gate. I pushed my way through the crowd, and made my way through the alleyways into the outer district. Since the examinations were happening, most of the outer district was quieter and emptier than usual. Please be alright.

    I ran through the empty street, towards the direction of the east gate. There were still some shady looking traders on the street, looking at me with a strange smile as I ran past them. The gate in view, I stopped and looked around in search of her. Nowhere to be found, I ran over to the guard of the gate and asked if they saw any signs of a woman with a giant sack around here. Normally there would be more, but with the examination, most were assigned to make sure the event was under control.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

    He replied with a smile.

    "What''s your name, kid?"

    I took a two steps back, and grit my teeth. This guy''s in his pocket too..

    I lunged at him and sank my fist on his face. He was sent tumbling back, surprised at my sudden attack. Before he could react, I sprinted over to him and grabbed the blade from his hip. I went ontop of him and held the tip of it at his neck. Blood started to slowly flow from his skin getting pierced, and I yelled in his face.

    "WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MOTHER!"

    The guard''s face went white.

    "T-they took her behind the building over t-there! Please, don''t kill me!"

    The guard quickly spoke, not sparing any time in order to save his life. I didn''t care.

    I sank the blade deep into his throat, until it came out from the other end.

    Truth is, I''m not a good person. I''m 19 years old, but by the time I was 12, I already took the life of more than twenty men. In the capital of Uthernan, many people wanted to take advantage of my mother. Even though she''s strong, people don''t fear her. She''s been an adventurer and has killed many bandits and the like, but she''s put that all away and told herself she wouldn''t kill anymore. She retired early, the bloodshed was too much for her to make a living out of. The Adventurer Guild she signed up in, on Mainland, thought it was a waste. I was nothing like her.

    My mother is beautiful, and people look at her with lustful gazes and try to flirt with her all the time. Even though they''re beat up every time, she still goes easy on them. But once I noticed they were planning to force my mother, I gave them a death sentence. There were many people like that in Miudard, mostly part of gangs and bandit groups. It was a poor city.

    The first one I killed was when I was eight. There was a guy eyeing my mom, one of the guards of the city. He would persist daily, and it seemed he wouldn''t take no for an answer. I gave him the death sentence when he tried to grab at my mother and was kicked in the face. Instead of stopping, he was about to unsheathe his sword when the other guards came and asked what the commotion was about.

    He would get off at the night shift, and while my mother was asleep, I grabbed the kitchen knife and went towards his home. I found that out by trailing him one day, and once I arrived, I picked the door and made my way in. It was dark inside, no lights were on. I went to his bedroom, and he lay soundly asleep. I drove the knife into his heart with all my strength. He instantly opened his eyes, and looked at me with bloodshot eyes as he vomited a mouthful of blood. He died a few moments after, and his body went limp.

    They found his body in the morning in a nearby alley.

    Again and again, the process repeated itself. Bastards wouldn''t give up, push too far, and I killed them. My mother didn''t know about it. I admired the paladins, the heroes of justice that I heard in the various stories of various wars against the demons. I aspired to be like them, and I knew that they wouldn''t kill people. I eventually came to terms with myself, and I decided to stop. So I trained, again and again, both my body and mind. I would always kill them at night, in their weakest and unsuspecting mindset, because I was too weak to fight them head-on. I was quick to anger.

    I trained myself to let out my anger instead of pent it up, and made my body able to face them head-on in a fight, and beat the shit out of them in front of my mother, instead of my hatred building up inside of me, and outright killing them when I couldn''t contain it anymore. I was an insane kid.

    Then the invasion happened, and all hell broke loose. It was the first time I saw innocent people die. The ones I killed were all some type of corruption, a plague and disease that needed to be dealt with. But the people who died that day were neighbours, friends. They didn''t deserve to die.

    But these people did. They threatened me and my mother''s life, and I had to kill them. Ewell needed to die, and everyone who interacted with him.

    I took the blade out of his throat, and the blood splashed on me. I hadn''t had this feeling in a while.

    I ran into the direction the guard pointed to, an alleyway nearby that lead to behind the building he was talking about. The shady traders on the street were perplexed at the sight of the murder for a moment, then went back to what they were doing.

    As I neared the end of the alleyway, I turned behind the building. Surrounded by a group of men, my mother''s body lied on the dirty floor, her lifeless eyes staring straight at me. Several corpses were all over the place, and many wounds were seen all over her dead body.

    "This fucking whore had a lot of fight in her.."

    "We''re not done yet boys, Ewell wants the kid too."

    The one who spoke, a tall, muscular bandit with a broadsword behind his back, turned around and faced me.

    "Speak of the devil."

 Death and birth [part 7]

    I didn''t have the strength to move, and my lungs and internal organs crushed, I couldn''t breathe. I could feel the blood leaking out from within me as I lay on the now bloody dirt.

    If I knew I was going to die anyways, I would''ve fought those bastards right when I saw them surrounding my mother''s corpse. But I didn''t, and I couldn''t face them when I saw the gleam in my mother''s lifeless eyes, telling me to live, to flee and fight for another day, her last thoughts praying for my safety and survival in this dangerous ordeal.

    My rage dissipated at that moment, and tears flowed down my face as I ran from where i came, the bandits chasing after me. I went through the gate, and into the forest. The rest is already known.

    I lay here, my only view a sideways glance of the forest. My vision grows more and more blurry, and darkness slowly engulfs my entire being. Yet, I refuse to welcome death. With the bastards that killed my mother and I still roaming this earth, with the corrupted still living their care-free, disgusting lives, I refused to let us both die in vain. I''ll kill them.. I''ll kill EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!

    That was my last thought, one of pure hatred and utter rage, before my body and consciousness collapsed, seemingly never to wake again.

    -----------------

    Where am I?

    Around me, darkness. I couldn''t feel, breath, or move.

    "You are in Limbo."Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    A voice says to me within my consciousness.

    "Who are you? Aren''t I dead? What is this place you speak of, Limbo?"

    A figure enters my vision in the pitch-black darkness. Adorned with a black cloak that stretched, seemingly as long as his spine, a ghastly entity appeared before me. All I see is eternal darkness as I look at the ''face'' within the hood of its cloak. Darker than the darkness surrounding it, I couldn''t even begin to fathom what this thing could possibly be, other than a god.

    "I am Death. And yes, you are dead. Limbo, young soul, is where all of the souls go, before they are judged and decided where to be put, in the pits of Hell, or the heights of Heaven. However, you are a peculiar one, and thus, I have decided to use you in order for my own uses."

    "You are.. death? I have heard of many gods, but yours is new to me. To use myself for your own uses, I beseech you to spare me from your wrath! Whatever I have done to earn so, please, enlighten me on the matter!"

    I fearfully spoke to the god named death.

    "Yes, I am death indeed. Many, if not all mortals do not know my name, for mostly those that were in the Great War were recorded. However, I am not one of those gods. The reason for that, there was no soul worthy of beind my herald in order for me to participate in the ordeal. Death cannot create life, and thus, I cannot create my own race like the other gods do. I can, however, change them."

    "You are the first worthy soul, filled with so much hatred, at the time of your death. You have rebuked your fellow race, and all of the others. For this, the god of your people, Helios, has abandoned you with disgust at your endless hatred and darkness that he felt within your soul. You refused to die, unwilling to bow between the cycle of life and death. Your personality and drive of eternal hatred, along with the disdain of the rest of the gods, is the exact thing that I wish for, mortal."

    "Now, for that you have already been judged by the echelons of Heaven, you only have two choices to make."

    Death appeared right infront of me, his face covering up my entire vision in his eternal darkness.

    "Become my herald, boy.. or face eternal torment in the depths of hell."

 Vengeance [part 1]

    Death looked me directly in the face as he gave me only one choice I could make.

    "I will become your herald, and bring my enemies to their deaths."

    "Then it has begun. Go, my herald, and show the world the fear of Death."

    He held up his hand, and the darkness all around us began to swell up into a ball at the center of it. It condensed more and more, until all that could be seen was an endless abyss of cold darkness. He pushed the sphere inside of me, and to my surprise, instead of pain, all I could feel was the cold. I felt nothing but the soothing peace of death, the only peace I would feel for a very long time, for I knew that I would not rest, my hatred and sorrow that the world gave me wouldn''t allow it. My vision, once again, blurred into nothingness, until I awoke in the middle of the forest which I died.

    I lay in the same position which I died in, with a sideways glance towards the forest, the side of my face touching the blood-stained dirt. I slowly lifted my head off of the dirt, and as I was about to prompt myself up, I look at my body. My hands, bones, covered with dirt and my own blood. I am a monster? No, I am but myself. This is who I need to be.

    I accepted what I was now, a skeleton. A living skeleton, but not living. Dead, but not quite dead. I am.. undead, then? My bones were surrounded by what seemed to be a black mist. I presumed it to be part of the power Death had bestowed upon me. I was calm and collected, for but a brief moment.

    Those bastards.. they need to pay.. I WILL KILL THEM!

    "RuAoAAoOAHH!!"

    Birds flew away into the open air in fear as I let out only a fraction of the rage that I felt within me. Within the next moment, the rage intensified, and I longed to see the torment and pain of my oppressors, of my murderers. My roar echoed throughout the dark of the forest, it now being night on the same day I was slain.

    I felt an attraction to the earth, a sensation that I could only describe as a longing for home. I knelt down to the floor, and put my boney hands onto the blood-stained dirt, and I felt it. I felt them. Countless corpses, bodies, bones -- all abandoned and forgotten by the living. Thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions, just beneath this forest. Many of them wished for rest, for peace, but my hatred flowed into their souls. I showed them my despair, and they were enraged. I called out to them, and they answered.

    I felt them crawling, inching their way towards the surface. The black mist within me was sent down into the earth, and spread out to help them escape the confines of it. I rose on my feet, and with the air of a monarch, I spoke.

    "Rise."

    Crack*

    The ground cracked as one by one, bones started to protrude out of the ground. It seemed I didn''t have the power as of yet to force out all of my brethren sleeping beneath the earth, but this was enough to quench my bloodthirst, and seek out vengeance. Throughout the dense forest, of the many millions upon millions of dead, only a hundred or so is what my power can handle as of yet. I could feel what they felt, wherever they touched, I touched. What they saw, I could see. This is the power he has given me.. how godly.

    Most of their bones were rotten, broken, and crushed beneath the earth, but when the black mist washed over them, they were reinforced and were made stronger than they were when they were alive. All of them, reconstructed to be 2 meters tall, knelt around me.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

    "Bring me my murderers, give me them so that I may crush their skulls beneath my feet as I hear their cries of agony.. bring them alive, for I want their first death to be from my own hands."

    Half of them disappeared into the darkness at my order, and as they conducted the beginning of my vengeance, I began to test out the limits of my newfound body. The trees around me seemed shorter than when I was alive. Standing around 3 meters tall, I towered above my brethren. Their bones were a strong white, covered in the black mist of death. I walked to a nearby tree, and threw a punch at it.

    Poosh*

    A hole carved its way into it, tearing it in half as the top half of the tree spun into the air from the impact. When it crashed onto the floor, wood was spread along the ground, and the bottom half of the tree was bent outward, most of its roots pulled from within the earth.

    I was surprised at the power. I could easily bend steel with this might, and no normal weapons could even scratch me without being broken themselves. Just at the start of gaining the power of Death, I was already more than a match than the majority of the renown paladins.

    Ewell paid us a hefty sum, ten thousand silver coins to be exact, for the life of that whore and her bastard son. I saw why, too. As I sat down in the Moonlight bar with Lui, the only one left of my former bandit group, I contemplated if it was really worth the deaths. It''ll take me awhile to find replacements, but in the end, I didn''t feel regret. We decided to split it, I got 7,000, and Lui got 3,000. With this, I could live without worry for another 6 or 7 years! I smiled gleefully as I gulped down another bottle of alcohol and set it down hard upon the wooden table.

    It was dark out now, and the barmaid told me to get out. She didn''t look too bad. If this wasn''t Inner Prehg, I''d have myself a good time.. I licked my lips as my lower body reacted to the thought, and suppressing my urges, I walked out the door.

    The cold wind greeted me, the streets of the Inner District now seemingly barren compared to the day, where it was overcrowded at the excitement of the examinations for the new paladins. It was quiet, and something inside of me told me that it was the bad kind of quiet.

    My right hand wrapped around the handle of my broadsword at my shoulder as I walked down the street. I made my way into the outer district. Still, not a person in sight. The occasional patrol of guards walked through the road, but most people were asleep at this time. I should be one of them.

    That''s when I heard it. Footsteps, crackling of what seemed like bone against dirt. It was too many to be exact, but there was alot. At first I thought I drank a little too much, but then the patrol that passed by me reacted to the sound as well. They turned around to the sound, and I did with them. My body froze in fear at the sight of skeletons, twice as tall as the average man, seemingly sprinted towards me. Their flaming eyes showed absolute hatred that sparked terror from within my soul.

    When I first saw them, they were coming from the east gate. I was frozen in fear for a good ten seconds, but my instincts screamed at me to run as fast as I could away from them. I grit my teeth and forced my body to move, and by that time, they were already halfway to me. I sprinted with all my might towards the alleyways into the inner district, not bothering to look at the still frozen in place guards.

    Tears and snot flowed out from my face as I screamed and ran desperately from those monsters.

    "AAAAAAAAAAAHH!!"

    I screamed as I looked back and saw them right behind me. They were fast, too fast. My legs started to scream in pain, but they only ran faster. I was almost at the end of the long alleyway. RUN FASTER! RUN, RUN! GET AWAY!

    For the first time in my life, I prayed to Helios to save me from these monsters, to ensure my safety, to let me live my life. I desperately promised every possible promise I could ever think of at that moment.

    Then, I felt a cold sensation grip the back of my shirt. I frantically screamed, kicked, and bashed my sword into the surrounding skeletons, but to no avail. My arms were broken, and my body eventually collapsed as I began to lose consciousness. I could feel my body being dragged against the ground and the muffled screams of Lui in the distance, before I blacked out.

 Vengeance [part 2]

    When I gained back my consciousness, I was surrounded by the skeletal monstrosities that kidnapped Lui and I. I was still being dragged, it seemed I only blacked out for a short amount of time.

    We were in the forest outside of the east gate of the outer district, the trees I looked at as I was being dragged were somewhat familiar. I didn''t have the time nor the ability to think about trivial things such as that, however.

    Lui was in a worse state than I was.

    His arms and legs were mangled, and his face was brutally beaten -- I could barely recognize him. He would scream his head off for a while as we were being dragged, faint, and repeat the same thing when he woke up. By the third time he woke up, he stopped screaming and just let himself be dragged.

    We stopped, and were thrown into an open space.

    I hit the dirt, my face brushing against it. I looked at my hands, and noticed on the ground was dried with blood. It seemed someone was killed here, but why would they bring us here? What did those monsters want with us? As I slowly adjusted to the throw and waited for the concussion I faced from the impact to fade away, I slowly lifted up my head.

    Utter terror. That''s what I felt when I looked at the thing infront of me, resembling death incarnate. The rest of the skeletons were a white with strange, dark mist around them, but this one was a giant, standing 3 meters tall, and had dark, black bones that radiated a deathly aura. Its flaming eyes burned a dark, crimson red while the others burned blue.

    Clearly, this one was the leader.

    My body was frozen stiff from the fear, I didn''t bother to even think about looking at how Lui was doing. All I could think about is how I would die, and how I could not possibly escape. As his eyes seemingly pierced into my soul, I shuddered.

    "Do you know why you are here, mortals?"

    The monster spoke, seemingly with a majestic air around it.

    "P-please, don''t kill us, we don''t know why we''re here, please just let us go.."

    Lui spoke, no, barely whispered, as if praying to the monster to not savagely mutilate us. It heard him, and turned its head towards him.

    "It seems you do not remember me."

    "W-what do you mean?"

    Lui shuddered, and spoke louder, in a slightly lower than normal volume of his normal voice.

    "Look around you, is this place not familiar to you?"This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    I looked around, and it hit me. I felt my face turn white at the thought, and I almost instantly deemed it to be impossible. It seemed Lui agreed.

    "I-impossible! You can''t be him, we killed him this day!"

    "And so I came back, this day. And so your judgement, and your execution, will be fulfilled, on this very night."

    Lui said no more, and stayed silent.

    I gripped my hand full of the blood-stained dirt. What god did I fucking piss off to earn this fucking dog shit of luck?! I cursed myself for having the worst of luck. Killing a random fucking greenhorn for money, then just as I was about to enjoy the reward, gets fucking murdered by the same bastard that I killed! How the hell was I supposed to know he had the ability to fucking ressurrect as an all-powerful fucking skeletal demon son-of-a-bitch!

    Tears fell from my eyes as I realized my fate.

    "YOU SLAUGHTERED MY MOTHER, AND LEFT ME TO DIE!!"

    "MY LIFE, THE LIFE OF MY MOTHER, WORTH ONLY CHINKS TO YOU!!"

    Auther sidenote: *chinks* refers to the sound coins make when they collide, representing money

    I roared across the forest once again, letting loose all of my anger. I realize the black mist started to grow around me, and immediately subtracted some of my rage. I didn''t want them to die this easily.

    I started with the skinnier one.

    I grabbed his face and lifted his entire body up into the air with one hand as he screamed frantically for his mother. How FUCKING IRONIC, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!

    "Know torment."

    I sent the black mist towards his face, and his skin peeled. His face decaying at the touch as he screamed louder. Even his blood seemingly evaporated into nothingness.

    All the way ''til I could see his bone, I sent more and more at him. As the mist ate away at his flesh, I could feel myself growing in power.

    There was something else, deep inside of him, a bright light that desperately tried to escape out of his body when he died. His soul.. this will be fun.

    I surrounded it with the black mist, and grabbed hold of his soul with it, bounding him. He squirmed desperately, but it was futile. I crushed the soul ever slowly, and felt myself growing in power yet again. The light got dimmer and dimmer, until his soul was no more. It seems the power of death does not just reach out to the flesh, but to the soul as well..

    I could also see his memories as I destroyed his existence, and his knowledge was added inside of me. I could see the countless women that he raped, people he killed, and many other sinful acts he committed. I didn''t feel a shred of guilt at utterly tormenting his soul, before destroying his entire being.

    It was already a mercy destroying him, rather than letting him be eternally in pain in hell.

    I grinned inwardly, and looked at the one who was the cause of my death. It seems that as I was killing the other one, he realized what would happen, and took a chance at trying to escape. However, over a hundred of my brethren were surrounding me. Trapped in the tight encirclement, all he accomplished was getting pummeled by them and thrown back at my feet, in a worse state.

    I did the same to him, his screams pleasing to my ears as I decayed his flesh and slowly crushed his soul into nothing.

    At first, I had planed to kill the skinnier one, then slowly torture the bigger one. He seemed to be the leader of the bandit group, and he would have the most information regarding their ''client'', Ewell. I was prepared to ''ask'' him as to where he last saw Ewell. But thanks to my newfound abilities of practically absorbing his soul and anything I touch with the black mist of death, I didn''t have to go through the chore of doing that.

    Ewell was still inside of the city, in the hearts of his territory of the inner district. He would soon taste the feeling of true death.

    My vengeance was not over, it had only just begun.

 Vengeance [part 3]

    I looked upon the remains of the bandits who killed my mother and I, and made them into two more of my brethren. Their bones slowly attached to each other, melded, and two more undead rose up on their feet. I looked up at the moonlight. The night was still young, much more to be done. Ewell will pay for what happened this day, on this very night. I already decided to purge out the trash of this city as well.

    However, there was a problem. My undead brethren were unarmed, with only their hands and teeth for weapons. Their bones were durable and could easily be used to kill, but they needed something much more efficient. Then, I heard a familiar voice echo into my non-existent ears.

    My herald, you seem to be able to make a simple use of your powers.. but you still have yet to grasp the true power of death.

    Death? You are inside of my head, but how? What do you mean by the true power of death?

    Always many questions.. but alas, I shall answer them. Simple telepathy, my herald, lets the gods and other powerful beings relay messages and speak to whoever they so desire, as long as it is within their power to do so.

    The black mist of death, its uses are countless. The more you understand of its power, the more you will be able to use it. It grows from hatred, sorrow, and every other negative emotion that living things are able to feel, and aren''t.

    It can be used, of course, to bring out the dead into the realm of the living, so to speak. The souls that are still in limbo, and not yet in hell or heaven, are yours to command. Once you grow stronger, you will be able to call upon the greater beings that have died, including other heralds of other gods. In the end, none will be able to refute your will, for no one can escape Death.

    I shall help you briefly by imparting you knowledge of the abilities of your current power. I will watch over you, like I have all others, and call upon you when the need arises.

    I felt a surge inside of my skull for a while, a numbing sensation in my non-existant brain. I felt refreshed.

    Many things that I didn''t previously know about the black mist of death uncovered itself so I can see it.

    The mist was not just a mist, it had many capabilities. It had the power of decay, could manipulate and absorb souls, and solidify itself as well, along with other abilities.

    I commanded many bones to sprout from within the ground. I molded one into a blade, forged from the corpses of my brethren. I strengthened it with the mist, until its former white color obtained a dark tint. The mist carried it into my black, skeletal hand. The hilt of the blade carved itself into a menacing skull with jagged teeth, the blade seemingly protruded itself out of its mouth. Its eye sockets burst with a red flame, indicating its autonomy.

    "I shall name you.. Purge, for you will help me in my conquest to purge this world of the filth that resides in it."

    Its flames burned with a higher intensity, as it gave a clear excitement to its name. I held it up to the sky, and the same red flames that made its eyes quickly began to cover the blade coming out of its jagged teeth. The entire structure of its skull grew, its canine teeth growing longer and sharper. The blade, now covered in red flame, also grew longer.

    It seems names are a powerful thing. Just after giving the name, I could feel my power diminish greatly. The aura of mist surrounding me lessened.

    I felt the connection between Purge and I very clearly, it was more clear than the ones between the undead and I. Its flames, I could control with ease, and I could attack in the air with it without having to wield it in my hands. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

    I commanded it to shrink back in size, and the blade retracted back into its mouth. I covered it with the mist, and it seemingly disappeared from sight, but I still knew where it was. I didn''t want my position to be easily found out because of the flames, and make the city guards on patrol become alert.

    I repeated the process, but in a smaller degree of power.

    Purge drained a lot of power to create, it seemed the mist was a form of mana for me to use. Whenever I distributed it to make more undead, the aura of mist surrounding me would lessen. Death told me that the way I could raise it would be to feed and absorb from negative emotions that the living feel. I could also absorb their bodies and souls as a form of nutrient as well. Now, with all of the undead equipped with skeletal swords, it was time to start.

    "Go, and make this city kneel before me. Bring out my murderer, for he too shall know true death."

    I gave my command, and they complied.

    I began to walk behind a group of 40 undead, while the rest quickly ran, sword in hand, into the direction of the east gate. After a while, it came into view.

    I could still know what the undead were doing and what they did on my way to the gate, so I wasn''t surprised when I was met with the sight of the bloody corpses of a group of guards as I made my way into the outer district. The undead surrounding me received my order, and lined up orderly around me. As I approached the bodies, six of them grabbed ahold of them and presented them at my feet. The mist devoured their flesh, and I grew in strength. It was a pity that their souls already escaped into limbo, otherwise I would be able to devour it as well.

    It seemed that the only reason I was able to absorb the souls of the two bandits was because I was present when they first died. Before it could fade away into limbo and escape me, I absorbed them. The problem, however, was easily solved by me.

    I just advanced the orders that I gave the undead, and told them to devour the souls before they could escape. The undead soldiers could devour it with the mist I gave them, and in turn, grow stronger. I waved my hand, and six more undead were added to my escort. I also added that newly-made undead were smaller and weaker than their peers. The longer their bones were integrated with the mist, the stronger they became.

    I could see, in the eyes of the rest of the undead, guards getting slaughtered, along with whoever was unlucky to be out in the streets at this time of day. They were already at the building that Ewell resided in, and one of them kicked down the door with its massive frame.

    Everyone inside was slaughtered like a pig, the guards inside able to do nothing but die in the face of despair. Ewell was dragged out of his bed, as he was caught ravaging a naked woman who was torn in half from a blade after Ewell was thrown off of her. The blood sprayed across the room, and her soul was absorbed by the undead who slew her. Ewell screamed like a pig as he was dragged by his hair down the stairs of his three floor estate. His belly wobbled up and down, along with the steps. The blood of the hooker covering his naked body, it painted the streets of the inner district as he was dragged through it.

    I finally saw him, with my own vision, layed in front of me. Beaten and bruised, covered in blood, and teeth flying on the impact as he was thrown at my feet. I lifted my skeletal foot above his face and stepped on his jaw, slowly crushing it as he yet out screams of agony. The sensation of his bones breaking and knowing that he felt the pain gave me a rejuvenating sensation.

    I retracted my foot from his broken jaw, and lifted him up by the neck. He screamed in pain and fear as tears ran down his fat cheeks. I roared.

    "DO YOU RECOGNIZE ME, EWELL? HOW DOES IT FEEL, TO FINALLY TASTE A FRACTION OF THE PAIN YOU GIVE TO YOUR VICTIMS?!"

    I calmed myself down. My roar echoed across the inner district, and more guards would definitely be alerted from inside various halls, including the Hall of Order. I ordered my brethren to prolong them, for my vengeance was something that needed to be finished. Tonight.

    "You murdered me, and my mother, on this very day.. you know who I am. You know what awaits your pitiful soul. Now, you shall know true death."

    I took my time craving his screams as the mist ate away at his flesh. He screamed and kicked, until his vocal cords broke, and he could scream no more. I dropped his skeletal corpse like the trash he was, and grabbed at his soul before it could escape. I crushed the last of the trash that ruined our lives with my own hand, and felt something inside of me disappear.

 Redemption

    As my vengeance was finally over, I felt something within me vanish. I felt clearer, and I could finally think more effectively and base my actions more on reason, rather than emotion. With the infinite hatred that never ceased to stop swelling up inside of me, I could barely hold on to rational thought and cling onto my sanity.

    Now, however, that hatred within me has decreased dramatically, and it is only a mere hatred for corrupted mortals as a whole, rather than everything I set my eyes upon. Ever since I died and became the Herald of Death, my mind has opened up to a perspective outlooking life as a whole. I no longer judge people individually, I judge all living beings as a whole. I see the evil in the world, and how uneffective they''ve been at destroying it.

    My mind is almost instantaneously calmed, and I now see things clearer than crystal. Within me, an arrogance is born, and I proudly stand tall at what I am, who I am. I am immortal.

    My brethren easily fended off the oncoming guards, slaughtering most of them, until I tell them to stop.

    I see through their eyes, the surviving guards that were not prepared to die yet, shaking their swords in their hands. When they cease their attack, they stand there scared and confused, until I speak through one of the undead.

    "Mortals, this city belongs to us. All resistance will be dealt with by death. Lay down your weapons and surrender, or we will take them from your corpse."

    "M-monsters! Of course we won''t surrender, you''ll kill us all if we do! Don''t believe it, the Hall of Order paladins are in this very city! They''ll save us all, defend the people until they arrive!"

    A guard with a hammer carved into the center of his chestplate and shoulderguards screams at his peers, kicks one of the still-shaken guards towards me, and sprints in the other direction, dropping all of his weapons as he does so. His words and actions contradict each other so much, my impression of humanity tumbles down when I believed it couldn''t be any lower. I, with the undead in my control, brandish the skeletal sword above me, and hurl it towards the fleeing coward. It penetrates the back of his skull, and comes out through his mouth, killing him instantly.

    His body plops onto the floor, blood surrounding his corpse which is only 5 meters away from where he first ran from.

    "Surrender."

    Tink*

    The guards drop their weapons, and I relinquish control of the undead. I prepare to order the rest of the undead surrounding me to go into every house, and wake up all those who aren''t already awake. I give them the orders in my mind.

    On my command, go into every inn, hall, and trade area, and if they resist, kill them.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    They will bring them into the heart of the inner district, the Hall of Order, when I command them to.

    The undead that I ordered await my command and stay near the houses and buildings of the inner and outer districts. One of my brethren could take on 5 or more guards, so I didn''t fear any of the opposing forces. I spread them out within the inner and outer districts, and they covered a quarter of the outer district, and more than half of the inner. Once I was finished with the evil that is the Hall of Order, I would command the rest of my brethren to take care of the townsfolk as well.

    I began adopting the outlook of a superior race, which I am, and walked majestically towards the heart of the Inner District. My forces were already upon the entrance, the entrance guards that tried to reprimand me earlier already lost their lives and absorbed to make the undead stronger. When it was clear, they formed two lines uniformly to my left and right, wielding their swords facing the air, their bodies facing me.

    Creak*

    I walked to the gate, and it slowly opened.

    An army of elite knights with a cross insignia adorning their shields greeted me. They stood in a phalanx, their sharp swords seemingly shining even without sunlight in the dark of the night. Their silver armor stood like the sun as the torches of inside the Hall bounced off of them. Templars. I recognized them with a glance.

    They were the elite knights under the command of the Paladins, and were the Holy Temple''s silver, if the paladins were their gold.

    One of them stood in the front, wielding a golden sword that gleamed in from the moonlight and torch surrounding him. He wore no helmet, unlike the rest, and wore golden armor. His blonde hair flew as a wind breezed through the opposing force. His blue eyes held an unyielding defiance as they attempted to peer through me.

    However, as his eyes laid upon me, his face contorted for a brief moment.

    "I have seen many creatures of darkness and have slain many demons, monsters, but you are the first of your kind. You have slaughtered the innocent, and you dare transgress the lands of humanity! For that, you will be vanquished, by the power of Helios!"

    The men behind him roar a battle cry.

    "You appear to be the leader of these skeletal fiends, so I will destroy you first! If you have the capacity to think, mongrel, I challenge you to a duel!"

    I appeared unmoved, but inside, I was flabbergasted at how much this fool could speak. I thought he would charge his forces right in after seeing my form, but instead of immediately attacking and using the element of surprise, the fool instead offers me to a duel. It seems he takes the herald of death as something not within the range of a threat.

    My red flames burn as I glare at the fool. I begin to walk towards him, my forces surrounding my left, right, and also being behind me as I enter the entrance. I speak to him with disdain in my voice.

    "What is your name, boy."

    He grips the handle of his blade with intensity as his face turns into a scowl.

    "You dare address me with contempt, a mere fiend?! I am Antonius, the 3-star templar of the Hall of Order! I am the commander of this legion, and you dare take me for a coward?! I WILL SLAY YOU HERE AND NOW!"

    It seems this mortal has anger issues. I laugh hysterically inside at how easily the fool could be manipulated as he charges straight towards me. His forces don''t even flinch, it seems they are used to his behavior, but surprisingly they trust in his abilities. I capture a smirk underneath one of the templar''s helmets.

 Slaughter

    He wields his golden blade above his head as he leaps in the air, and prepares to cut me in two. I don''t even bother to dodge, and take the blow head-on.

    Clink*

    It seems he put all of his strength and weight into the attack, for it shattered like glass once it touched the base of my skull. Before he could react, my skeletal hand lifts him up in the air by the neck. I slowly begin to strengthen my grip.

    "A mere mortal believes he can best me in combat.. I will show the world true death, true suffering, true sorrow, then they will all fear me. And unfortunately, mortal, it starts with you."

    He struggles to gasp for air as I press harder and harder on his throat.

    "W-WAI-"

    Before he could repeat the same process as all the others before him and struggle to ask for forgiveness and mercy, I crush his throat instantly, and let his body fall to the floor. He lies on the floor clawing at his throat, his eyes bloodshot. The blood pours onto the ground and his once shiny, golden armor is now coated in his own blood. He dies a tragic death. One fit for a fool.

    The templar army is completely baffled by how easily I slaughtered the vermin. I glare at them with my burning eyes, and they quiver in fear.

    All of them.. a waste of space on this planet.

    "Leave not one alive."

    My brethren rush in, blades in hand, and began assaulting the now shaken templar army. With their leader easily killed, their morale plummeted. No one could assume command, so their once admirable phalanx that they greeted me with was nowhere to be seen. Some tried to fight at first, but once they realised the power of the undead, they scattered about like roaches in a desperate attempt to flee. Templars were the elite, so they were much stronger than the average guard, but they weren''t a match for my brethren.

    Two of them could take on one of the undead without getting slaughtered, but overtime, they tired out. We never tire, and as cuts get across their bodies, the ticks on my brethren''s bones easily gets repaired by the black mist of death. Overtime, their defenses break, and none of them even think about defending against the attackers.

    "R-retreat!"

    One of them screams and runs into the inner parts of the Hall of Order.

    The undead line up in front of me in a military order, and they escort me deeper inside.

    Extravagant designs embellish the inside of the Hall, with many different golds and silvers to express the wealth and power of the Paladin Order. I don''t take a second glance at them, and take large strides towards the main hall. Once this Hall is taken, I will give the command to the other undead. I see the remnants of the surviving templars, only a couple dozen of them left.

    They surround five people adorned with armor that would give the golden mortal a run for his money. I see them look at me with an arrogant face, and I already know what type of mortal these paladins fall in.

    The ones that will die in agony.

    My undead swarm them. They are outnumbers by a large margin. While their forces were decimated, I haven''t lost one of my brethren. However, once they start to swarm the enemies, one of the paladins, a tall, youth-faced man with a glowing sword and silver-lined shield takes a swing at one of the undead, and it manages to slice the undead''s head off with one swing, decapitating it. He takes on more than 10 of my brethren at once, and the rest of them divide themselves to fend off the other areas with the templars.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    All of the ones that get strucken down eventually rise back up, and I know overtime, they will weaken. Their strength will crumble, and once it does, they will die and be absorbed by my brothers, making them stronger.

    I look upon them and watch as the undead gets broken down again and again, never ceasing to stop. One of them realizes their fate, and shouts to the others.

    "We won''t win this way, we must destroy the leader in order to stop these skeletons from regenerating. If we keep on with this, sooner or later, we will die."

    "You''re right Ordias, that fiend dares to look down on us!"

    The other paladins agree with the youth-faced man, Ordias, and they all group up together to blitz me. The templars now struggle to ward off the other undead, but I am defenseless, with none of my brothers to protect me.

    Like I need it..

    One of them, a brute in armor wielding a large war hammer, strikes first. I dodge his blow and it creates a crater at the places I was. I don''t even bother to pull out Purge, and strike a punch towards his abdomen. His armor makes way for my fist like punching a pillow, and his body flies across the area.

    A duel-wielding paladin comes next, her long red hair flies behind her as she prepares to stab me from behind. I twist my body around and backslap her face before she could react, and I hear her neck snap as her corpse flies as well.

    The others'' faces contort into fear as I reveal my power. Ordias, the one that looks to be the strongest, speaks to me.

    "You are strong, monster, but you will not prevail! By the light of HELIOS, I will avenge my fallen brethren! Come, we must fight him together to destroy him!"

    They all come at me at once. One wore gauntlets in each hand, and threw a punch to my left. Ordias attacked from the right, aiming for my leg. The last one, with a broadsword, leaped in the air behind me, aiming to slice off my skull from my body. My eyes burn with an intense red.

    BOOM*

    I release the black mist and push all of them away with the sudden change in atmosphere that resulted in an explosion. They all at once flew across the area, and Ordias was the only one to survive. The others weren''t prepared for the blast, and their bodies, along with their souls, were already aten from the mist. Their bodies and armor withered to nothingness as they collided with the floor.

    Ordias struggles to get up, and finally manages to get back onto his feet. Blood leaks from within his armor, and his youth-face now slowly begins to wither away as the mist eats at his flesh.

    He must be at least a 5-star paladin.. he shouldn''t be here.

    "You should not be here, mortal. A five-star paladin is a valuable asset to the order, it would be a tragic loss to them if you were to die already."

    Tch*

    He clicks his tongue and clenches his teeth to embrace through the pain, and begins to walk towards me, blade in hand.

    "I-i was assigned to look over the examinations for the newer paladins.. what luck I have, to meet a monster such as you.."

    "You already know you cannot win, why do you persist to fight? Why stand again, when there is no hope for you?"

    He stops, and looks up at bright lights and decorations of the inner hall.

    "I was meant to die, but by the light of Helios, I was saved.. my life belongs to him, and if I were to die, I will stand on my feet, and use the last of my strength.. to vanquish demon-spawn like you, that threaten to engulf the world in darkness.."

    His face grows pale, and when I thought he would collapse, he charges straight towards me. His shield was obliterated in defending him against the black mist, so he focused all his efforts on offense. I dodge his attacks, again and again, and decide to humor him. He yells and cleaves his blade towards me, and I pull out Purge from the void. The entire inner hall lights in a bright, crimson light, and I smash the living blade against Ordias'' sword.

    It shattered, and Purge expands. The sword doesn''t stop, and slices him in half. Its flames start to rapidly cover his body, and his face looks at me with a last glance of astonishment as his body is turned to ash. The flames, however, do not stop, and greedily devour the ashes as well, until there is nothing left. I grip onto his soul, and give him the honor of being absorbed by me. He was a loyal fool, but he was still loyal and unyielding in the face of death. He deserved as much. The templars are slaughtered by now, and I choose four undead to absorb the souls of the dead paladins, unable to flee due to the black mist constricting them of movement.

    They absorb them, and gain a huge boost in power. A torrent of black mist spawns from them, and their bones slowly turn black. Their flaming eyes turn from blue to green, and they kneel before me. To my amazement, they speak to me in unison.

    "We are at your command, my liege."

 Fear

    I was partially shocked at the new-found intellect of the four chosen undead. It seemed that my brethren would eventually gain their own natural self-awareness and essentially ''evolve'' whenever they gained enough power from their fallen foes. I tapped into their conscious to try and see the limits of their sentience, but there were none. It seemed that they had the capacity to learn and grow ever-stronger. This was essential in what I aspired to do, for I cannot be many places at once in my conquest for the purging of corruption in this world. I yearned to make my subordinates stronger, and I decided to make these four my generals, to command sections of the army that I will build to show the world true death.

    "You four have pleased me with the results of your evolution. Thus, I will bestow upon you a name. You will be first. Come, my loyal subject."

    One of the four, the farthest to the left, comes closer and kneels before me. I take out Purge and take a stance, similar to how the human royalty would do a knighting ceremony.

    "From this day forth, you will be known to all as Uriel."

    The undead, now known as Uriel, quivered as I placed my sword on his left and right shoulder. I felt a portion of my power disappear from within me, and it went straight inside of him. His eyes glared with a stronger light and his body grew. The former black mist around him turned into a brighter green hue, and his flames changed to a more pure green color, lighting up the area evermore. When the transformation was finished, he suddenly banged his head onto the floor, causing a crack filled with small green flames to appear on the impact.

    "I pledge eternal allegiance to the Sovereign and Herald of Death!"

    "Rise, and await your orders."

    Uriel rose up and waited as his bright green eyes burned with passion.

    They came from left to right, and I named them in that order. After they were named, they all had their respected colors assigned to them. Uriel''s flames were emerald green, Falkor''s were amethyst purple, Genithul''s were a golden yellow, and Mareth''s were a dark, seemingly void of light, black.

    They all were of similar height, all grew an entire two feet taller than their peers, only a small margin shorter than my own stature.

    "Go, and deal with the rest of this corrupted city. This will be your first commands, do not fail me."

    """"Yes, my liege!""""

    They gathered up the rest of the undead within the Hall of Order, and divided them respectively in four groups. As they marched off into the distance, I yearned myself for more power.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Only fools stop increasing their own strength, I must do the same. There are more stronger than me, and to show all true death, I, myself, must become it.

    Death told me that in order to increase my strength, I must harness hatred within me and outside of my body, from outside forces, and absorb them. Souls and bodies, anything that has to do with living beings and concepts, I am able to absorb. As I think of a way to increase my strength, I play the words of Death into my mind.

    No one can escape death.

    I spread my arms across from me, and lift my head high. I further clear my mind, and feel the air around me. I feel the ground beneath me. I feel the flickers of the torches and lights reflecting across the room. Then, I feel it.

    All of the life around me, all of the breath and existence inside of all the particles and matter surrounding me. The flames that flicker, the lights that reflect, and the stones that make this very hall, I feel the life inside all of them.

    I take it all away. The black mist expands greatly, until it covers the entire Hall of Order. Onlookers, brought in by the four generals, gasp in horror and shock as not even the gates of the estate are spared. The very stones wither away until not even dust remains. The lights and flames immediately snuffed out, leaving me in the total darkness of the now-crumbling hall. The process takes hours, and as the sun rises, light starts to pour in. As it touches the radius of the mist, not even that is spared, leaving a gigantic dome of total darkness. Not a single shred of light is able to penetrate before being devoured, making the various townspeople, merchants, and occasional nobles not able to see anything.

    My body grew and never ceased to stop. I concentrated the mist around me more and more as I grew stronger by the second, instead of spreading it further. I didn''t want to devour the civilians as well, for no reason. I could use the light itself as a source of power, their corpses were no longer needed. I had the ability to absorb it all this time, I just never tried to. The enlightenment that I achieved during my yearn for power gave me a near infinite source of rapid strength.

    I could still see the area surrounding me, and when the buildings of the city began to look the size of benches to me, I knew I had to stop growing, or it would prove troublesome. I stood a little more than 50 meters tall, and focused on shrinking my bones back to a more suitable size. I condensed my bones more and more, focusing them to become stronger and stronger, denser and denser, until my body shrank back to a more suitable 3-to-4 meter range of height.

    I began to retract my aura, and as I did, in the eyes of the undead I saw the onlookers wearing faces of bewilderment. Those that tried to resist were slaughtered, but many still harbored rebellious thoughts. They first categorized my brethren as monsters and in the same category as demons. But, as my aura retracted and they were finally able to see the utter disappearance of the Hall of Order, they knew they were not a match.

    The sun''s light gleamed throughout the now wide, empty space that was the Hall of Order. The only thing unscathed was the ground.

    The generals had the thousands of people kneel before me, and at the display of my power, only the blindly-devoted people of the Holy Temple still decided to rebel. They were slain on the spot, and the blood spewed across the nearby civilians, traumatizing those that haven''t seen death. They watched as their corpses withered away as they were absorbed by the undead. Some people in the arts of magic showed faces of despair as they could see the very souls of the fools being crushed and devoured by my brethren.

    All thoughts of resistance were utterly destroyed.

 Proclamation

    The past fearful yet inwardly rebellious townspeople such as various merchants, nobles, and soldiers that didn''t resist at contact now appear before me, trying their best to seem as small as possible as they lower their heads and kneel before me, until their heads touch the ground. Various undead around them watched intently at every one of them, their fiery gazes causing the backs of many to sweat in fear. They wielded their skeletal blades, waiting for an excuse to cut them to pieces, and devour their souls.

    The mages who witnessed the souls of the deceased be absorbed by my brethren had the most fearful looks on their faces out of the entire townspeople. They were spread out from eachother, but I could know their identities by the symbol of the Hall of Magic, under the Kingdom of Carthage. With the golden symbol of a lion''s head, commonly known to be the royal family of Carthage''s family crest, on their long robes, their affiliaition was easily discerned.

    With the townspeople quivering in fear infront of me, I finally spoke after a moment of silence.

    "Mortals.. you may lift your heads."

    Those that had their heads onto the ground, fearful of going against my orders, slowly but surely raised their faces to look at me. I looked through their faces, only to see nothing but fearful eyes not daring to look into my own.

    It is time to judge these mortals.

    I sent a message to the generals to make the townspeople form uniformly in lines for each general. Four lines potruded out and stretched to within the depths of the city. I had the undead surround key parts of every line, so that they couldn''t escape.

    The first four people were completely unaware of what was going to happen to them. The generals had them kneel, and one of them thinking they were going to be executed, screamed out.

    "PLEASE, DON''T KILL ME, I DON''T RESIST!!"

    It was a poorer man that seemed to live in the slums of the outer district. His crooked and missing teeth could be seen as he pleaded for his life. Uriel spoke to the man.

    "If you are worthy of life, you will have it, mortal."

    He then put his skeletal hands over the man''s scalp, and his green flames traveled across the man''s body, yet he didn''t scream from pain, and his body didn''t seem to burn. All of the generals, and even myself, had the ability to make certain ''laws'' to our auras and powers. I recently discovered from the enlightenment that I acquired in search for power, that death does not just mean an end, but a judgement. All souls do not fear death just because of the pain, but of the fear of being condemned to eternal torment in hell for their sins.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    They were able to command their flames to burn only thosecorrupted and only what is evil inside of their hearts. Of course, if it was an enemy, it didn''t matter if they were corrupted or not, for all who stood in the way of my global purge will be destroyed. The various auras react to our will, so it will burn only if we wish it to.

    The general''s auras differed from mine, theirs were no longer a mist, but a flame surrounding them. They could direct it wherever they wanted it to, and essential ''turn it on'' or ''turn it off'' whenever they wanted. My former black mist was now completely densed into a thick fog that one could barely see through, if they were as close as possible. It was possible to change the appearance of it, but I didn''t deem it necessary at the moment, so I had my aura invisible to the naked eye.

    All of them were judged eventually by the flames of my generals, and of all the thousands of townspeople, only a couple hundred remained. The rest, absorbed from the flames of the generals, now know true death. Surprisingly, all of the mages from before came out unscathed. When the judgement was done, they were commanded to kneel back down by the generals, which they promptly did.

    "Again, you may raise your heads."

    The remnants of the townspeople raised their heads, trying best they could to stay alive.

    "I understand many of you wish to know what we are, and why we are here."

    My voice sounded throughout their ears as the morning light covered the city and their fearful faces.

    "We are the immortals, an undying race with superior attributes over all others. You all are the first of many that will know your place in this world. For too long, you have corrupted this earth with your hypocritical ideals, while you go against your own beliefs and gods within the depths of your own homes. Humanity and all other of the mortal races have been too arrogant and selfish in their own worthless lives, sending the plague of their sins across the globe, destroying the very things you claim to protect, and the very earth you live upon."

    "We are the incarnation of your very sins, we are the wrongs you have done to eachother and to this earth. We are the corruption inside of all of you, and we have been created to show you how evil you¡¯ve already become. I am the Immortal King, the herald of Death, and all the trash of this world will know true death, by my hands."

    ¡±But I am no mindless murderer, so those of you who aren¡¯t yet plagued by the corruption of your brethren will send this message to all nations of this continent:

    The Immortals are coming¡±

    As I made my proclamation, the undead made way for the townspeople to flee to their respective countries.

    This would remembered as the day the Immortals were uncovered to the various powers of the human race, and the Herald of Death that would bring despair to the world world that led them.

 Winter

    Capital of Carthage, Gornum

    The daylight pierced through the clouds in the sky and radiated the people of Carthage. Youths ran back and forth within the streets of Gornum, traders and various merchants opened their shops, and the townspeople went about their business. That would be how a normal day in Gornum would be, however, today was not a normal day. News of the Immortals spread across Mainland like wildfire once the survivors of Prehg reached their various countries.

    The king of Carthage peered outside of his carriage as it made its way through the streets of Gornum. He contemplated the new threat that is the Immortals, and what should be done in order to destroy them. The Holy Temple was specialized in this particular field, and since one of their Halls were destroyed during the attack, he suspected they would be happy to eradicate them.

    He was headed to Teras, the allied capital of Mainland. There was a mandatory meeting being held, with all various leaders of the three nations required to attend. The monstrosities have taken over the ports of Prehg, where most of the trade from various continents are sent out and shipped in. Many different evacuations that have took place in the second Great War have already ended, but the army itself of the three nations hasn''t yet recovered from the blow. The only one that will be able to afford handling the Immortals, supposing that they have an army with adequate size to our own, is the Holy Temple.

    The survivors in question, various officials, civilians, and guards who all did not resist and were spared, spoke of skeletal beings with undescribable power and brutality. If the rumors of the enemy are true, then the paladins would be the only true force that could be a threat to them. But then again, none of them had an actual gauge of their power: to a mere peasant, the aura of a 3-star is practically akin to a deity to them.

    As the sunlight pierced through the clear window of the royal carriage, the king looked out of it. The grass shined with a lucent green, the leaves of trees ever so softly swaying from the gentle breeze carrying the life of the beings in Mainland from Fall to the dreadful Winter that is to come. As the carriage went deeper and deeper into the lush forest, the leaves began to turn from its dark orange to no leaves at all. Snow began to drop from the outside, surprising the king at the sudden change of weather.

    Its white droplets of chill soon covered the trees, the grass, and mildly making a layer of frost over the window. He eventually loses interest and looks to the front compartment of the carriage, where the driver along with various guards beside him lay on watch.

    ¡±How much longer, Oswald?¡±

    The driver, one that the king himself came accustomed to over the long years he¡¯s been in charge of both driving the king¡¯s carriage and planning his safety throughout the travel, turned back slightly in his direction. With a light smirk, he answered.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°Not much longer, my liege.¡±

    He dismissed Oswald¡¯s mildly eccentric behavior and peered back outside the window. Greeted with a fully blocked view from the frost that encompasses the glass, he frowns. With a wave of his hands, the frost starts to drip from the heat radiated by the king of Carthage.

    Now able to see the outside forest again, he smiles. He¡¯s always liked the view of nature, seemingly unaffected by the harsh wars and destruction around it. As the world advances and destroys itself again and again, the forests and various other things of nature remains the same.

    His face contorts to an aghast expression.

    What is this dark magic?

    The once pure snow is completely black, and the trees crush and wither away from the dark substance. Harsh winds crash across the carriage, making the glass splot and sizzle as it slowly gets eaten through by the black snow that was flicked from the ground.

    ¡±Oswald, GUARDS, WHAT IS THIS CURSED MAGIC?!¡±

    He scoots away from the dangerous snow as it falls inside of the carriage. He turned to look at the driver, finding a grim picture.

    Oswald sits there, seemingly unable to notice his flesh melting away until there¡¯s nothing left but bone. The blood of Oswald and the guards drift away from their previous owners and slowly slide away towards the king.

    His face slowly turns pale from fear. He was never a fighter, the only abilities he has is small displays with low-tier magic.

    The blood contorts and melds itself slowly into a skeletal being darker than the black snow threatening to melt his flesh beside him. Its black flames for eyes burn with intensity as the monster glares into the soul of the Carthage king. Face to face with the monster, it lets out a fiery exhale onto the king¡¯s face, giving him a burn. He feels the pain but refuses to move or let out a noise, thefear of this entity easily outweighing the pain. It spoke.

    ¡±The Immortals come for you, king of Carthage.. your days, along with the days of your kingdom, are numbered..¡±

    It twisted its head so that its sharp canines practically touch the ear of the scared man quietly praying to Helios.

    ¡±Helios cannot save you. Remember this, mortal¡ªremember this fear and know the agony you will soon face.. my liege will enjoy your screams as he slowly destroys your soul.¡±

    The king gasps for breath. The sunlight still shines through the window and warms his face. He hurriedly turns to Oswald, finding him and the guards fully intact.

    ¡±Are you alright, my liege?¡±

    He touches his face, feeling for the burn. Nothing but his smooth skin and rough beard makes contact with his hand.

    ¡±Oswald, send a message to my son.¡±

    One of the guards takes over the reigns of the carriage horses as Oswald turns back and sits beside the king.

    ¡±What is it you wish me to send, my liege?¡±

    ¡±We.. will not participate in this upcoming war with the Immortal ones.¡±

    Oswald makes a surprised expression and quickly turns it back into his normal face.

    ¡±I understand.¡±

    He walks back out into the front compartment and a raven comes to his whistle and lands to his shoulder. It grabs the letter with the royal seal in his hand into its beak, and fliesoff back into the direction they came.

    The king bows his head and prays to the god of light.

    I fear for this harsh winter that will soon fall upon us.. Helios, save us all..

 Preparation

    A week had passed since the capture of Prehg.

    I sat in my newly-adorned throne, made of various bones from various races. When the mortals fled, I ordered my brethren to reconstruct the city to a more war-ready fortress. The powers of the generals helped immensely with the construction, them taking part in forming the intimidating walls of dark bones and skulls surrounding Prehg.

    In the center of the newly-built fortress, the newly constructed Eternal Palace overlooked it. It replaced the nothingness that was the Hall of Order, after I destroyed it. My powers stretched across the entire fortress, symbolized by the dark, stormy clouds that would greedily eat up and block the sun''s rays before it could ever break through them.

    By the second, my power grows stronger and stronger. For now, the black mist of death that is the clouds will absorb and condense the sun''s rays, but whenever I need it, I will call upon the immense power being stored inside.

    Inside the throne room of the Eternal Palace, a blackness of a shadow stretched across the floor. Out of it appeared Mareth, one of my generals. When he fully emerged from the floor, he knelt down before me.

    "My liege, it is done. The mortal king of Carthage now knows the fear of death."

    "Good."

    I rose from my throne and stepped off of the steps that led to it. Mareth followed by my side as I walked out of the throne room. The plan was one that appears many times in the history of mankind, divide and conquer. Although I know of my strength, I am no fool. For only a fool would let the enemy attack at their strongest. The alliance of the humans is a dangerous thing, but even if it''s just one less faction standing up to me, it will make a world of difference in the upcoming war.

    I could always send Mareth to assassinate the various leaders, but the strength of the other two factions'' leaders are not as feeble as the king of Carthage. The Eastern Empire''s sun emperor, for example, is renown throughout the Mainland for his 5-star strength. He alone could destroy my entire army, if my generals didn''t combine their might to destroy him.

    The High Priest of the Holy Temple is the most powerful. No one clearly knows of his strength, but stories have described his power as the last high-tiered priest of mankind. All know that every high-tiered being has to have 6-stars of strength, at the minimum. That kind of power, only I, alone, could face.

    The many skeletal soldiers knelt whenever they felt my presence around them. I walked through the remade east gate of the fortress, into the forest. Many boats and ships came into the ports, I was somewhat lucky as it was only the occasional merchant or transport ship of people from the Deadlands, nothing my forces couldn''t handle. However, I cannot be reliant on mereluck alone, I must increase my forces immediately. There''s only two hundred or so of my brethren under my command,nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of humans in the armies of Mainland alone, not to mention the other billions of mortals that walk Torathul. It was time to raise an army.

    My 8-foot skeletal frame faced the forest, and I radiated my power to it. The black mist of death came like a tidal wave as it plunged itself against the forest, devouring all the life it could touch. Trees and grass decayed, animals tried to flee as they sensed the danger, but they weren''t fast enough as the black mist ate at their flesh until there was nothing but bone. The once lush forest now had a spacious and baren wasteland where many trees once were. The forest was large, so I didn''t want to destroy the entire environment, but nonetheless, the wastelands stretched 10 miles into the forest.

    I, like I did before, placed my boney hand down to the earth as I knelt down to the black dirt. I felt them, the corpses and fossils buried here throughout the many milleniums this world has had sentient life. I called to them, and they answered.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    Bones melded together underneath the earth as millions upon millions of long-dead fossils and decaying bodies got touched by my power. The black mist seeped into the ground, ate at their flesh if they had any left, fixed them up and melded them into the form of my desire, which in this case was the standard skeleton soldier, and they started to dig their way up to the surface as flames awoke within their eyes and burned menacingly.

    A loud rumble reverborated throughout the fortress and the ground shook as boney arms sprouted from the earth. Many holes that stretched more than the average eye could see littered across the baren wasteland. Covered with dirt, the mist surrounding them cleansed them as their auras slowly wiped it off of their skeletal bodies.The once empty wasteland was now crowded with my brethren.

    I mentally called for the generals to come, and they appeared beside me.

    "This is but an appetizer of what the mortals will face in our conquest. Divide them among you, and prepare them for the upcoming war." They all knelt as I turned away to head back into the walls of the fortress. "The mortals shall know true death.."

    ""Yes, my lord.""

    Carthage Kingdom

    Sunlight peered through the stained glass windows, lighting up the serene hallway which was the throne room. An old and feeble man sat with his arms in his armrests, slouched off to one side, his head supported by his right hand. His short, white hair reflected the light coming from the outside, his old and wrinkled face covered behind an emotionless mask.

    The king of Carthage was waiting. His fear was immense from the brief encounter he had with thething which sent him the death threat from the Immortals. Many, if not all, noticed the abrupt change in their king''s behavior, but he didn''t let them know he was afraid. A sign of weakness, even in his own country, would be one''s downfall. His son was ready to become king, but what he wasn''t ready for, however, was the Immortals. An anomaly of this world, a new rise of power of an unknown race that will change the hierarchy of the world powers forever.

    The emotional facade of his was the only thing that kept him from shivering in fear at the thought of what would happen when they would come for him, for his kingdom, for his family and country. He would have to make the proper preparations for when the day would come, so that his family would be able to escape in the chaos.

    Now, however, he would witness the destruction of his former adversaries. He was somewhat lucky to be chosen out of the three factions to be sent the message personally. He knew he was the only one due to the fact that neither the Empire nor the Temple hesitated in preparing their armies, whatsoever. They showed no sign of feeling danger from the Immortals, all they have done was mock Carthage for deciding to stay out of the upcoming war. Once they were done with the Immortals, the Temple would not be pleased with him for deciding to not vanquish the ''enemies of humanity'' that were the undead. First it was the demons, but now it is the new race of living but non-living creatures, the undead. What next will it be, the elves? Dragons? The king of Carthage scoffed at the blindly-followed ideals of the Holy Temple.

    Putting humanity on a pedastal above the rest of the races of the world, they forget the fact that we are not the only ones created by a god, created by our own god, by that matter. The Immortals.. he wondered where they came from, what god created such terrifying monstrosities. And their leader.. it seemed that a new era had risen. This would be the third Great War.. a winter that would stretch across the globe, leaving not one race untouched. He just hoped that his own family would survive and be forgotten by them.

    "Your majesty, Oswald has requested an audience."

    I looked to the royal guard briefly then focused my vision on the doors.

    "Very well."

    The tall doors leading to the throne room opened, and Oswald, accompanied by two of his subordinates, walked inside and knelt before him.

    "Your majesty, the allied army between the Empire and Holy Temple, according to my information, will be attacking the city of Prehg in two days."

    Oswald did not waste time, and got straight to the point of what he wanted to let his king know.

    The king of Carthage lifted his eyes from Oswald and looked outside of one of the windows. Dark clouds appeared seemingly from nothing and slowly blotted out the sun. The sunlight that warmed his face was gone, day turned to night. As the king watched the dark foreboding occur infront of his eyes, he spoke in the faintest whisper, but since the room was quiet, they were able to hear.

    "It seems.. the winter has come.."

 The March to Prehg

    One day later, 60 miles South of Prehg

    The past five days were, to put it simply, uneasy for the aligned army of Mainland. Ever since the news of the capture of Prehg by the new faction of evil described by the survivors who witnessed it, the Holy Temple declared a crusade be made in order to wipe out this new brand of darkness threatening to plague the homeland of mankind.

    The Holy Temple''s authority over the two other nations were undoubtedly absolute, given the fact that many, if not all of humanity, shared the same religious belief of worshipping the god who created them, Helios. There were also many small and various cults of different beliefs who worshipped other gods that were often, if found, executed publicly in the name of Helios. Due to this, many of them have chosen to operate in secret.

    The Holy Temple was a symbol of Helios, a symbol of the ones chosen by the god who created them. The High Priest of the Holy Temple was akin to the standing of Helios himself in the eyes of the people, for he was the one who had the highest connection to him throughout all of the mortals on Mainland. The people from all nations revered him far and wide, and because of this, what he said was law no matter what nation you were from.

    They also housed the strongest humanity had to offer, the Paladins. Each one was akin to an average army''s strength themselves. Legends of man, they were under the direct command of the High Priest.

    When the King of Carthage decided to not join the alliance in the fight against the Immortals, however, the other nations of Mainland were baffled. He did nothing but send them a severe warning: the Immortals were not something humanity could afford to offend.

    The Holy Temple questioned the King of Carthage''s allegiance to Helios, and the Emperor of the Eastern Empire proclaimed that once the Immortals were wiped from Torathul, the king should pass his crown over to his son, who would be more courageous than him in the face of war.

    The expedition then began, and the aligned army started to march towards the city of Prehg.

    The first two days were of little tension. Many veterans of the second Great War were in the army, and the two nations were used to working together. They were familiar with the terrain of Prehg, for they have been there many times going to what was now the Deadlands in order to fight the armies of the Demon King. Due to this, the different commanders of the aligned army had a clear confidence in their victory.

    As they made their way closer to their destination however, the soldiers of the aligned army started to notice many peculiar things. It started small: men having troubling sleeping and waking up with little sleep for no apparent reason, clouds being passed overhead for hours on end without sunlight ever shining on their faces, little snowflakes falling down the sky and seemingly disappearing as they made contact with the soldiers, not even the moist texture of water or any hint of coldness able to be felt. That started on the second day.

    The third day was when everything changed.

    Soldiers were woken up with the feeling of intense cold. Snow was seen everywhere; only a thin sheet covering the ground but alas, snow indeed it was. The clouds above turned darker as time went by that day. It seemed they were marching into the night, for when some looked behind them, they could see in the far distance a speckle of sunlight telling them to come back. When night came, that light was to never be seen again.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

    Men awoke with screams in the dead of the night. Drenched with sweat and giddy with agitation, no one could sleep but the templars and few paladins of the Holy Temple and some of the more elite portions of the Eastern Empire''s army.

    Even they, however, could feel the darkness gnawing at the edge of their mindscapes, threatening to penetrate into their subconsciousness and make them have visions of what they feared most.

    On the fourth day, a faint aura of death lingered throughout the campsite of the aligned army. All could smell traces of corpses and blood, and the more sensitive and powerful ones of the army could feel the faintest waft of killing intent. Not once in their entire lives have they felt this way far from an enemy, so the ones with high authority and power within the army believed an ambush would arise that day, but alas, it never came.

    As they edged closer and closer to Prehg, the clouds grew darker and darker and the killing intent rose more and more, until the average soldier stood on guard all hours of the day and refused to even take leaks alone. The difference between day and night was incomprehensible, the only light allowing them to see in front of them was the torches that blazed brightly from magic since no sunlight was able to pierce through the dark cloud which seemed to cover the skies. The once thin sheet of snow was now more than a few inches deep and soldiers grew more and more tired and frantic as time passed on and many felt a form of disconnection to their god of light, Helios.

    On the fifth day, the blizzard came.

    It was in the middle of the routine marches. The soldiers in front and commanders on horseback could see the giant storm heading straight for them. The head Paladin of the Holy Temple assigned to lead the aligned army, Gahariet, shouted to them when some voiced their opinions to let the storm pass:

    "BRACE THROUGH THE STORM! WE MUST MAKE HASTE TO PREHG AND DESTROY THE VERMIN THERE; WE HAVE DELAYED HUMANITY OF THEIR VICTORY FAR ENOUGH WITH YOUR LOUSY MARCHING AND PETTY FEARS! WE WILL SEE THE CITY, AND ONLY THEN WILL WE REST! NOW, ONWARD!"

    When Gahariet, the head commander and Paladin of the aligned army, finally saw Prehg through his holy abilities that let him see through the blizzard, he abruptly stopped and shouted for the rest of the army to stop as well. Only the faintest light could be seen from many red flames, thought to be torches, burning from the distance.

    The men stopped and caught their breaths, struggling to sleep but not being able to. They cursed the evil ''Immortals'' that were giving them this hell of a march, but there was also a great fear in many of the soldiers, a question that they didn''t dare ask themselves:

    "If all of this could be done before we make contact.. what in the name of Helios will happen on the battlefield?"

    They could not help but occasionally think it in their minds, only to force it back into the far stretches of their subconscious, lest they lose their courage and commit desertion; they didn''t want to be executed. The veterans of the second Great War had it even worse, however -- the fearful question popping up more and more for them than for the ones who haven''t fought against the demons, for even the demons did not give the soldiers of the aligned army of Mainland as much a fear as the unknown threat known as the Immortals is giving them now.

    Gahariet told the aligned army they would be attacking in two days. Some while later, the blizzard came to an end.

    The next day the soldiers of the aligned army of Mainland awoke to see a sight of snow, black as night itself.

 Weak

    Eternal Palace, Prehg

    The mortals were here, and their power disappointed me.

    I had made all of these preparations in order to deal with the incoming threat, raised an entire army in order to deal with their numbers, but frankly, it was unneeded. The highest of their abilities would threaten my generals at best, and few of them were on that level.

    They numbered 250,000. Not one soul would be left untouched if I simply willed it to be and forced my mist of Death onto them. I would use these mortals as a test to my generals, to make them and my army stronger and more experienced in battle.

    The moment they took a step into my territory, they had already lost their lives. They just didn''t know it yet.

    Camp of the Aligned Army of Mainland

    The black snow that appeared before the soldiers of the aligned army took away all of their proud confidence which they had at the start of the expedition. Even the temples and elites of the Eastern Empire were not unaffected. The killing intent, nightmares, and all of the other things which affected the average soldier only grew stronger and stronger. Only the paladins and Gahariet, the head paladin, could resist the pressure, but it only got harder to do so.

    Gahariet appeared before the army.

    "I know many of you have already succumbed to the fear of this unknown threat called the Immortals. All of the things which have been done to us throughout this journey here have shown us how formidable this evil will be on the battle tomorrow.

    Look around you. The landscape itself is but a black death, not one plant or tree or any sign of life or light in sight.

    Will you wish to live in a world such as this? Will you let this evil near your home countries and homes of your families? Your wives, children, friends, brothers, sisters?

    WILL YOU LET THIS EVIL DESTROY WHAT HUMANITY HAS BUIlT?! WHAT OUR GOD, HELIOS, HAS BESTOWED UPON US?! WILL YOU LET THEM TOUCH THOSE THAT WE FIGHT TO PROTECT?!!"

    The army roared, the fire in the hearts of the soldiers relit from the words of Gahariet.

    "Then tomorrow, we shall wipe this evil from the face of Torathul, so that our loved ones will never have to face such evil. We shall fight this corruption, so that the ones we cherish most won''t be corrupted. WE SHALL FIGHT THROUGH THIS FEAR IN OUR HEARTS, SO THAT THE ONES WE PROTECT WILL NEVER HAVE TO FEEL IT!!!!"

    A louder battle roar sounded throughout the camp.

    "TOMORROW, WE WILL RID THE WORLD OF ANOTHER EVIL!"

    The next day

    The sun was nowhere to be seen as the aligned army of Mainland marched onward towards the gates of Prehg. The only light source that led them to be able to see as if it was daylight was the red flames protruding from the fortress which was now Prehg.

    "THAT is Prehg?! I have been to Prehg many times, and it was not as fortified as this!"

    "I agree with you, friend. The Immortals have known of our expedition, they have prepared for this battle, but it will only lead in their demise."

    "Yes, but it will not be without cost.. look at the walls themselves... countless bones and skulls make its structure.."

    "A sign of evil that we must destroy."

    "You are right.. I wouldn''t want my daughter seeing a sight such as this."

    The army stopped about a mile away from the towering walls. The gate itself was not one like the human fortresses. It was a giant skull with large and sharp canines which had its jaw closed.

    A loud horn sounded from the fortress and into the ears of the soldiers.

    The eyes of the skull gate burned to life with a crimson flame and it slowly opened its maw, letting the first sight of the Immortals enter the eyes of the aligned army of Mainland.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

    Skeletal warriors with red flames for eyes signifying their burning hatred for those that dared threaten their homes stepped in a militaristic march. They wielded khopesh swords made from bone and had a height of 2 meters. They all looked completely identical, and so did their glares filled with malice.

    They quickly filled into ranks infront of Prehg with a number of 145,000.

    "CHAAAAAAAAARGE!!!!"

    Before the soldiers'' hearts could fully be grasped by their own fear, Gahariet issued the command to attack.

    *RAAAAGHH*

    The men issued a war cry as they ran towards the Immortals.

    The immortals stood there in line calmy, their gaze still burning with the same hateful glare. Then, from the depths of the Immortal army, a golden flame appeared ontop of the fortresses'' walls. A golden skeleton with a massive height of 10 feet appeared in a burst of flame. This was Genithul, one of the four generals of the Immortals.

    The Golden Giant spread his arms and flames appeared on each of his hands. He then, with a shout, clasped them together in the direction of the aligned army. The flames within his hands burst from the force of his clap and the fire stretched all the way to the aligned army.

    Screams of agony were heard everywhere as the smell of burnt flesh wafted in the air. Then, the Immortals charged.

    The templars and paladins then took charge into the fight as well. All of the elites of the aligned army realised that if they didn''t focus an attack now, all would be lost. The Immortals needed to be pushed back, or the city of Prehg would never be taken over. They had to get inside.

    The templars and Immortals clashed, the templars easily being pushed back by the unnatural strength of the skeletons, the black mist surrounding them eating at their armor and flesh as well. The paladins would join in and use their abilities and take charge against the Immortals. At contact, the Immortals were slaughtering the aligned army. All of the normal soldiers were out of the fight, they would only be slaughtered if they tried to face an Immortal. Only the templars, paladins, and elites of the Eastern Empire could face them.

    The Immortals now outnumbered the army greatly due to the first attack of the Golden Giant Genithul and not one Immortal would fall, the black mist only regenerating their bones. After a while, a fallen Immortal would only stand once again, and plunge into the battle.

    Explosions of fire sounded throughout the battlefield, blood splattered across the black snow, and bones were crushed again and again from the holy weapons of the Templars and Paladins, and the exquisite weapons of the Eastern Empire.

    Time slowly passed and the battlefield still raged on. The soldiers grew tired and the Paladins grew wary as the Immortals never ceased their attacks. The Paladins would destroy many thousands of immortals by themselves, only for them to come back again.

    "DAMN THESE SKELETONS!! WHY DON''T YOU ALL JUST DIE ALREADY!!"

    "AAGH!!"

    *slash*

    The aligned army was already overwhelmed and dying out quickly. Genithul looked around himself and saw the broken and shattered bones of the Immortals he just destroyed slowly but surely reconstruct themselves yet again, this being the 4623rd time he''s destroyed them in the course of the mere 30 minutes the battle has ensued.

    He then looked at the soldiers. The templars were out of order, paladins desperate to simply destroy those around them in order to save others and their own skin. The elites of the Eastern Empire were simply corpses on the battlefield, completely slaughtered as the course of time went by. In a mere 30 minutes, the aligned army of Mainland was reduced to a small number of 13,000. Gahariet grit his teeth.

    "RETREEEAT!!!!"

    The horn of retreat sounded throughout the battlefield as Gahariet blew on it. He, for the last time, waved his greatsword with all his strength infront of him, pushing into the air countless Immortals insight with a giant wave of energy.

    When the soldiers finally heard the signal of retreat, they ran with all their might back to the camp. As the survivors of the aligned army started to run back before the Immortals could regenerate themselves and chase after them, however, all of the survivors of the aligned army alike felt an intense killing intent that stopped them dead in their tracks. Even Gahariet himself could only move his body after forcefully stabbing himself in the hand to get his mind off of the fear he felt, running faster than he''s ever done in his entire life.

    "You truly believed that I would simply let you mortals leave here alive, after daring to attack my domain?"

    A deep voice filled with malice bellowed into the ears of all the survivors. In the way of the fleeing survivors, a giant skull formed within the dark clouds above. Its eyes exploded with fire, emitting an intense glare with a killing intent that not even Gahariet had ever felt in his entire life. Demons would simply be angry toddlers in the face of such hatred.

    The skull, along with the dark clouds themselves, slowly descended down halfway to the ground, staring at the survivors. Not one dared hold a weapon any longer, for it would do them no good against a being such as this.

    What god is this? Oh helios, save us all..

    "When I first caught wisp of the aura of you mortals, I decided it to be a suitable task for my generals to handle. However, you are not even worth being a stepping stone for my brethen. One effortless attack from one of my Generals overcame you. If even one of them tried with all of their power, in one attack, to end you, you would be dead. You are nothing to me."

    Gahariet was completely flabbergasted and struck with fear at what he heard. He just then realised that from the moment the aligned army took their first step towards Prehg, their deaths were already written.

    "And so, wastes of life, for being so pathetic and daring to cross the Immortals, know true Death."

    The skull opened its maw and let out a giant wave of crimson flame that turned the survivors of the aligned army into ash. The screams lasted but a fleeting breath, and the last thing Gahariet saw before his world faded to black, was a black skeletal hand grasp his face and pull him into a pit of darkness.

 Transmission

    3 days later

    The various powers of Mainland waited anxiously for the reports of the aligned expedition to come.

    Citizens of the powers which sent their soldiers out to destroy another evil for Mankind and Helios were waiting desperately for their loved ones -- their family, friends, and heroes of the second Great War -- to come back. The average person in Mainland wouldn''t doubt the victory of the aligned army, however the higher ranked individuals of the various powers knew better. This one wasn''t going to be an easy victory for Mainland.

    Before the expedition started, many spells were cast in order for high ranked officials to be able to see the entirety of the expedition as it progressed. A few days after the aligned army of Mainland marched onward to Prehg however, all of the spells were interfered with by an outside force which rendered the spells useless. No one knew at that time what the enemy would be like, but all the higher powers of Mainland knew they were against an enemy much more than the average foe.

    Head Commander Jolstein''s Quarters,Eastern Empire

    Jolstein had worked to ensure the protection of the Eastern Empire and Mainland as a whole for a little more than 37 years. His intuitive mind had, too many times to count, saved the army of the Eastern Empire and gave them multiple wins in terms of battles and wars overall for the aligned army as well.

    He too had a bad feeling about the Immortals. Right when the war with the demons and finally come to an end, another enemy had seemed to appear out of thin air, right under the noses of humanity.

    He was sure that the expedition would be a success at first, but with the king of Carthage''s refusal of participating and his own doubts, he knew that there was something more to the Immortals than a small faction that would be crushed easily. He felt that if the aligned army won, it would come at a price.

    The door to his quarters opened and slammed shut rapidly as an informant ran through with ragged breath. The unnamed informant quickly struggled to gather it.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    "C-Commander, the transmissions from the spy spells are picking back up!"

    "What?!"

    The door to the transmissions room was kicked open hurriedly by the Head Commander. This was something that they shouldn¡¯t miss, lest the signal is disrupted again.

    All of the workers within the transmissions room quickly saluted at the sight of Jolstein. He roared into the room, unbefitting of his normally calm demeanor, but this was a too important matter for any lack of professionalism.

    ¡±I want those transmissions into the main systems, NOW!¡±

    The workers hurriedly powered up the fluctuation receiver, a large mirror which would render the perspective of the spells used for reconnaissance visible on it.

    All present focused their eyes on the mirror as its reflectiveness faded and was replaced with a view other than a simple reflection.

    The first thing seen on the receiver was a barren land filled with a black snow. Flames lighted the area around the spell¡¯s perspective, giving light to the ash which covered everywhere the watchers could see. After a few minutes of nothing but the sound of flames flickering from the torches which lit the area, a deep voice, seemingly filled with malice, spoke.

    "Mortals of Mainland, we are the Immortals. We are unkillable, our forces unstoppable, and our might unparalleled throughout Torathul.

    Your kind and its foolish band of weaklings have plagued the world for far too long. You have only hastened your painful deaths from your futile attempt to destroy us with a pathetic excuse for an army.

    Look around you and see what''s left of your mighty aligned army, sent to destroy us. Burn the image into your minds. Imagine their screams and faces as their bodies turned to ash. They were given mercy.

    You won''t."

    The audio turned silent and the live feed on the mirror stopped as the transmission signal abruptly ended. Jolstein''s breath quickened and his fingers occassionally twitched as the room went silent for a few minutes, waiting for his further orders.

    "We have this transmission in the database, correct?"

    "Y-yes, commander."

    "...send this to His Highness immediately, he must know of this."

    Jolstein unceremonially fell back on his chair in the back center of the room, facing the mirror. As he stared at the last image burned onto the mirror, he contemplated retiring early. Red, flaming eyes stared back at him.

 The Opening

    Streets of Banvar, Holy Kingdom

    The sun used to shine brightly almost every single day in the Holy Kingdom, its territory built upon a highly elevated plateau which further increased its radiance to the people, in order to "be closer to the Sun God Helios", which would only be beneficial to them. Banvar was a well-known city, one of the many trading districts of the Kingdom. The economy within the Holy Kingdom was immense, the donations and other money sources coming from the church focused on helping with the environment for the people, things such as streets, buildings, and other things in that category.

    Most of Mainland follows the Sun God Helios, pledging their allegiance and utter devotion to him. Not all of humanity, however, thinks that way. I am one of the few that isn''t brainwashed by the church and have the capability for wanting to carve my own future and destiny. Of course, if the church knew of that, I wouldn''t be here for long. Which is why they don''t.

    I am just one of the many people who feel caged in this society that forces its beliefs onto us. Only few do something about it, plan for change and act how we wish to, without fear of the consequences it may bring. It is better to die on your feet for what you believe than to rot away in a cage, fearing for your life at any moment.

    They call us the weeds, needing to be ripped out from where we hide within the confines of unknowing believers and destroyed. Most of the population in Mainland has been corrupted and brainwashed by the church, turning neighbours and families against one another in order to ''get rid of the infection before it spreads'', a bounty also being placed for every weed that you find and report to the church.

    I walk down the mainstreet of the inner district of Banvar. Many people used to negotiate and haggle trades from various merchants of exquisite items across the globe, including various foods, jewels, weapons, and artifacts. Now, however, there is only an eerie quietness as a much fewer people wander around Banvar, doing their daily tasks and necessities such as shopping for foodstuff, setting or opening shops, and students of the church heading forward Banvar Academy.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    I abruptly make a sharp left turn into a dark alleyway.

    As I walk down it with methodolic steps, I make more turns as I traverse myself through the pathways of the other side of Banvar, the slums. People with rags for clothes greet my familiar appearance with a brief nod and turn back their heads after they''ve done the basic need of acknowledgement, sitting on the piss and shit stained ground they all were forced to call home.

    After a while, I came to a stop. A black door made of a pristine metal not fitting to be on a wall in a place as mundane as this was before me. A small opening enclosed from the other side was in my line of sight. I knocked, and it opened abruptly. A pair of wary eyes greeted me.

    "What the fuck do you want, shi-"

    "I am here to bargain."

    The once wary eyes that threatened to morph to anger quickly transformed into one of a tranquil nature, containing an eerie calmness that would make even the most bravest of men feel a cold sweat on their back.

    "What is your bargain?"

    A much deeper and powerful voice sounded from the opening of the black door.

    "I will give you the answer."

    The eerie eyes squinted as it discerned me for any movements or signs of weakness. It peered through me and seemed to scan throughout my soul, judging me, ready to condemn me to a nightmarish fate.

    "What is the purpose of life?"

    The words were slowly and carefully spoken by the watchful eyes behind the opening. I felt the killing intent surrounding me from countless individuals, waiting for any signal by the being behind the doorway so that they could shred me to pieces. I responded with no hesitation, for hesitation is for the weak, and the weak are not welcome here.

    "The purpose of life is death."

    The door opened ominously with a loud and foreboding screech. The killing intent abruptly vanished, as if it was never there in the first place. I looked before me and nothing but black reached my eyes. The man behind the opening was nowhere to be found. I walked through the door and heard it shut behind me with a bang. As I continued walking, the blackness surrounding me continued to get darker and darker, until I was engulfed in complete and utter darkness.

 Omen

    The Eastern Empire is a place where only the strong are truly respected. The weak are cast out by society and looked at with disdain, their entire culture revolving around war. That was not always the case, however. It used to be a society where the people were separated by the more common way societies are separated -- their prestige and their wealth.

    That all changed when the current Emperor of the Eastern Empire took over. Surpressed by the higher classes and their former Emperor, the masses retaliated in what is now known as the Bloody Rebellion, led by Brutus Xernadad who became the new Emperor.

    Imperial Palace, Eastern Empire

    The Imperial Palace was truly a sight to behold. Made of polished gold, it shined out to the people as a reminder of who they are and how great their Empire is even in the darkest of nights.

    With the alliance of the three great nations, the High Priest of the Holy Kingdom visited the Imperial Palace many times, blessing it along the way as the relationship between the two improved over the years. The blessings of a High Priest of Helios along with the palace''s natural shine resulted in an ethereal glow which could be felt by the soul as the people of the Eastern Empire looked upon it with admiration and reverence.

    Today however, that glow was nowhere to be seen. Clouds darker than night itself appeared seemingly out of thin air in the middle of a sunny day. Soon, the entire capital was engulfed in a period of never-ending darkness. It was believed the eerie clouds would soon pass by within the hour. That was two days ago.

    A man of large stature could be seen looking over a balcony in the Imperial Palace. Dressed in armour forged of goldsteel and draped with a crimson cape that fluttered as wind rushed by, the Emperor of the Eastern Empire, Brutus Xernadad, watched his capital from overhead.

    "What troubles you, my liege?"

    An ethereal voice like no other reverborated softly across the balcony. A feminine figure which would swoon many of the opposite sex walked toward and stood beside her husband.

    "I feel as if this is an omen, a foreboding, for what is to come."Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    A rough voice sounded from the Emperor''s mouth.

    "We are ready for anything the Gods may throw at us."

    The confidence and national pride she had was evident in her tone. The Emperor no longer replied, but instead continued to stare off into the distance, watching the magical lights which lit up the capital and the people as they continued on with their lives, most of them heading home from a day of work to their families. After a few moments of silence, he spoke.

    "I will be here for a while, go back to sleep."

    The Empress looked at her husband with unwillingness, but eventually kissed him on the cheek and started to walk back into the Palace. The Emperor continued to look at his capital for a while when eventually a strange happening garnered his attention.

    A black somethingstarted to fall from the clouds. It seemed to be slow in its travel towards the capital below, but before long, the streets of Xernadad, the capital of the Eastern Empire, were filled with inches of this black substance. One small piece of it floated down softly onto the hand of the Emperor.

    It feels like...

    ¡°...Snow?¡±

    One Day Later

    Throne Room of the Imperial Palace, Eastern Empire

    A regal, unmoving figure could be seen sitting majestically in the throne of the Eastern Empire. This, of course, is the current Emperor of the Eastern Empire, Brutus Xernadad. It had reached three days since the estimated time the aligned army of Mainland would reach the corrupted and overrun city of Prehg, where the Immortals reside.

    Magically-powered light sources lit the room, the sky still under the ominous clouds of the day before. Ever since the start of the black snow, the capital had been in a state of anxiety all around, many residents taking this the same way their Emperor did the day before.

    Suddenly, the large doors of the throne room were pushed open by the Royal Guards outside. A servant raced in and quickly prostrated on the floor.

    ¡±Y-Your majesty, a transmission has been received from Prehg! And the aligned army is¡ªis¡ª¡°

    The servant desperately tried to collect his breath.

    ¡±Is what? Speak!¡±

    ¡±Is¡ªthe aligned army of Mainland is no more!!¡±

    ¡±What?!!¡±

    In his mind however, the Emperor of the Eastern Empire was not surprised. He was only fearful of what was to come. He would never allow something like fear appear upon his face however, for he was the symbol of his people.

    News would spread throughout Mainland about the decimation of the aligned army, and the entire world would take notice of the new threat known as the Immortals.

    Somewhere on Torathul

    ¡°Mainland is now weakened¡ªit is time we made our move.¡±

    ¡±But sire, what of the threat that destroyed the aligned army? The Immortals?¡±

    A large, dark silhouette sat upon a grotesque throne. A heavy air could be felt surrounding it as the being looked down at its subordinate.

    ¡±What of them?¡±