Chapter: Prologue: Draw Your Sword
Nothing could be worse than this.
The sky was burning, dark red clouds churning in a vortex above the heavens. Golden lightning flashed, radiating an intensely scorching heat. Howling gales swept across the land, causing the once-solid gray stone to melt back into lava.
Year 855 of the Era of Falling Stars, Naya Fortress. A man stood atop the city wall, gazing into the distance.
A massive scar ran across the corner of his right eye. His gaze was as cold as steel. A colossal suit of armor encased his burly frame, etched with crystalline, translucent runes. Strapped to his back was a greatsword as large as a human body, its blade sealed in an adamantite scabbard, covered in stains of blood that could never be washed clean.
The clouds shifted. His cloak flapped loudly in the fierce wind. The intense heat baked his skin, evaporating moisture, while gravel struck his armor and slowly slid off.
This was the Ashen Ruins, the place where stars fell, a land hotter than hell itself.
It was almost time. Thinking this, the man clenched his fists and slowly exhaled.
Whoosh. One by one, figures materialized atop the wall in flashes of silvery-white teleportation light.
They wielded various weapons, their eyes firm and resolute. They all appeared battle-hardened, an aura of blood and slaughter washing over them. Before long, a military force of over a hundred men stood on the fortress wall.
Like the man, they too raised their heads and looked toward the sky above.
"Here it comes." As these words, spoken by an unknown person, fell, the dark red vortex of clouds suddenly flared up. Countless crimson dots appeared within it. At first, they were inconspicuous, but as time passed, the dots grew more and more numerous—until everyone could see the crimson light that filled the sky, seemingly blotting out everything!
Meteors. An endless, uncountable torrent of meteors that filled the field of vision.
The man watched it all.
The falling stars scraped against the atmosphere, producing light. They dragged trails of crimson fire, filling the sky. The countless points of light crisscrossed as they descended. The friction, heat, and resistance shattered and ground away these celestial intruders, turning them into black dust. Yet, from the distant heavens, countless burning stars still howled through the clouds, one after another, crashing into the earth. This was a force that even the sturdiest walls could not withstand.
"BOOM!!!!!"
A tremor more violent than an earthquake hammered the atmosphere, turning everything between heaven and earth into blurry ripples. Black smoke rose from the distorted heat waves. The land instantly became a hellish inferno, with magma flowing, turning everything into a sea of hellfire—but this was not the end.
Accompanied by a sudden intensification of the sulfurous stench, even the meteorites that had not shattered upon descending from the sky slowly cracked apart from the inside out. Emerging from them were "monsters" with pitch-black carapaces and humanoid forms.
Flames licked their bodies. Lava splashed against their shells.
As these visitors from beyond the sky continued to arrive, the earth was torn open with massive cracks and craters, like the surface of the moon. In the man's field of vision, the number of falling stars seemed nearly infinite. At every moment, countless meteorites rained down.
Just as the prophecies of the Sages had said.
In the origin of heaven and earth, in the depths of the seas and mountains, the first spark was overturned. Thus, scorching heat and fierce winds consumed all the seas. Fire clouds and ashes obscured the sky. The stars in the heavens fell. The dark abyss opened. Mountain ridges collapsed into basins. Canyons rose into high peaks.
Stars fall, the sky tilts. All things collapse and perish. This is the end of the mortal world.
Human cities burned and fell. Human civilizations crumbled and were destroyed. Human people endured suffering. Human societies disintegrated into nothingness.
Without needing to think, he clearly understood: this was the destruction called "Demon," the end called "Chaos," the evil from the deepest depths of the Abyss.
Unable to suppress it, the man clenched his fists, unable to contain his anger... and his fighting spirit.
"Everyone, draw your swords!"
Fight against destruction and the apocalypse?
Gripping the hilt, the rune-gleaming greatsword was slowly drawn from his back. The adamantite blocks sealing the blade fell to the ground with a thunderous crash.
The man looked at the demon army surging forward like a tidal wave, gathering before him, and grinned.
"Charge!"
I love this.
And then, it was nothing but pure battle.
Until it was ended by a sword thrust from behind.