Chapter 1: Prologue

The world did not die quietly; it screamed.

When the second apocalypse descended, it came not with a gentle fade, but with a maddening, relentless chaos that swept across the continents like a tide of teeth and iron.

Millions perished before they even understood what had breached their walls.

The East was the first to go.

A billion voices silenced in a matter of weeks. All life lost.

Then the South crumbled, its vast kingdoms reduced to smoking, silent ash under the weight of the endless horde.

All life lost.

When the North fell, winter came with it—not to blanket the earth in peaceful white, but to freeze the dead where they lay, preserving the horror for no one left to see.

All life lost.

Now, the doom had finally arrived at the doorstep of the West.

The war against the abominations was no longer a battle; it was a slaughter.

"Fucking pests! Stand your fucking ground, comrades!" a voice tore through the air.

"FIGHT FOR OUR LAND, OUR CHILDREN"

What followed was the heavy sound of screams, screeching and blades tearing through flesh.

Hundreds of thousands of grotesque beasts rampaged through the provinces, swallowing village after village, crushing city after city beneath a storm of claws and hunger.

The streets of the realm’s final stronghold had turned to rivers of mud and deep crimson, choked so densely with corpses that the ground beneath was invisible.

Men, women, soldiers who had stood till their lungs burst—all lay drenched in their own cooling blood, devoured by monsters that knew no satiety.

Thousands of brave soldiers had been hurled into the meat grinder, deployed only to buy minutes, seconds, a single breath of time to slow the invading nightmare.

It was impossible.

The West was dying.

So, in its final, desperate hour, the West sent its Herald.

A loud, piercing shriek ripped through the dark canopy of clouds, so violent that it rattled the teeth in the jaws of the living and the dead alike.

"Dragon!! Dragon Incoming!!" a loud scream echoed through the air once again, the atmosphere shaking violently.

Below, all movement on the battlefield came to a sudden, terrible halt.

"Is that....Chaosbringer?"

"The Almighty Desolation Dragon Chaosbringer?"

"The Archduke of the Darkstar Family...he’s here!"

"We’re saved!!"

"We truly are saved!"

Human survivors and mindless abominations froze, turning their gaze toward the sky as a colossal shadow expanded, engulfing the burning ruins beneath.

A crimson scaled dragon was descending from the heavens.

And riding upon its towering crown came the last hope of a dying continent.

Archduke Craig von Darkstar.

He was draped in crimson armor, the draconic head insignia etched into his breastplate obscured by grime and gore.

His crimson hair whipped wildly in the gale of the beast’s descent, disheveled and matted, while his golden eyes flickered with a raw, agonizing flame.

That armor—once the pride of the direct Darkstar line—was caked thick with the blood of abominations, and worse, the blood of the men he had commanded, the men who had fallen trying to give him this one last shot.

His chest heaved.

Tears cut clean tracks through the ash on his face, but his eyes burned only with a hopeless, towering rage.

"DRAKARION!" he roared, the sound tearing from the bottom of his throat.

(Dragonfire)

At the ancient Darkstarian command, Chaosbringer threw back its massive neck.

The crimson dragon folded its massive wings and plunged at lightning speed.

Its jaws unhinged, exposing a furnace of blinding light, and unleashed a violent, roaring wave of crimson flames.

The fire washed over the earth, incinerating hundreds of rampaging abominations in an instant, turning blood-soaked stone to molten glass.

Craig inhaled deeply, the air thick with the stench of sulfur, burning flesh, and copper.

He stared down at the endless sea of monsters stretching to the horizon.

Deep in his bones, he knew the truth.

The end had come.

The West was doomed to fall, just like the rest of the world before it.

There were no reinforcements coming.

There was no secret weapon left to turn the tide.

He was doomed to die here.

A terrible, beautiful calm settled over him.

He drew a shuddering breath, lifted his heavy blade, and unsheathed it against the fiery glow of the sky.

If humanity was to bleed out today, he would make the world drown first.

With a deafening, primal roar that echoed over the dying screams of his comrades, Craig leapt from the dragon’s back, plunging headfirst into the raging sea of monsters below as Chaosbringer circled above, raining apocalyptic fire upon the dark.

The blood had long since lost its heat.

Every swing of Craig’s heavy blade threw a fine mist of crimson aura into the ash-choked air.

He wasn’t just fighting; he was a machine of sheer butcher’s physics, a superhuman force tearing through flesh, chitin, and bone.

Abominations lunged at him in sickening waves, only to be cleaved in half before their claws could graze his breastplate.

High above, Chaosbringer swept through the sky, unleashing relentless streams of ancient fire that turned entire streets into rivers of liquid stone.

The heat was suffocating, burning the hair from Craig’s arms and searing his lungs with every breath.

Yet, with every head he severed, every torso he split, the weight in his chest grew heavier.

It was a maddening, hollow grief.

He watched his surviving men—the few dozen who had followed him into the abyss—fall one by one behind him, swallowed by the tide of monsters.

But Craig never wavered.

He didn’t flinch as claws gouged into his thigh, nor did his hands shake as blood blinded his left eye.

He was not afraid to die.

He had accepted death the moment he leapt from Chaosbringer’s saddle.

He would bleed this horde dry until his heart simply stopped beating.

"MY LORD! COVER THE REAR!" a voice roared through the thunder of collapsing buildings.

Craig spun on his heel, his crimson aura flaring to sweep away three lunging beasts at once.

He turned toward the voice, expecting another wave of abominations pushing through the breached alleyway.

Instead, a blade of cold, crimson-hued steel drove straight through the center of his chest.

The tip burst out through the back of his draconic armor with a sickening crunch of metal and bone.

Craig froze.

The world seemed to drop its sound.

He looked down at the blade, then slowly lifted his golden eyes to the man holding the hilt.

Standing mere inches from him was a warrior draped in dazzling, untouched armor.

Etched into the center of the breastplate was the exact same emblem Craig bore—the sharp, silver crest of the Darkstar direct bloodline.

His face hidden under a ghostly white mask.

Cascading down from beneath the visor was long, crimson hair, untouched by the ash and gore coating the battlefield.

Craig’s mouth opened, his throat working frantically, but no sound came out.

Only a thick torrent of dark blood spilled over his lips.

Why? his mind screamed. Why here? Why now, when the world is burning?

"Who....Who the hell are you??"

The crimson-haired man leaned in close.

A lopsided, sickly grin stretched across his lips, his eyes dancing with a cruel, quiet triumph.

"You always fought so hard, Archduke Craig," the man whispered softly, his voice cutting through the distant roar of dragon fire.

"It’s a pity. You were always too noble for this family." ℯ

"You must die for you are a threat to our cause" he whispered.

Before Craig could utter a single word, the traitor yanked the crimson blade free and spun.

With a single, blinding stroke, the steel flashed through the air.

Archduke Craig von Darkstar did not fall to the apocalyptic monsters tearing the continent apart.

He fell to his own blood.

As his severed head tumbled into the crimson mud, his vision spun wildly toward the sky.

The last thing his fading golden eyes saw was Chaosbringer letting out an agonizing, heartbroken screech—before the dark finally claimed the West.