1 Chapter One

My eyes are heavy...

My head feels hazy and each thought grinds harshly against my head…

I feel tired... W–where am I?

Forcing my eyes to focus on what is before me, I realize that I'm in a sitting position, supporting myself on what feels like a boulder.

Hmm, what's this?

Looking beyond myself, I spot an unclear silhouette in motion ahead of me. I still can't see it clearly but... Is that a bird? A black bird I think...

Hmm? It looks like it's eating something...

"..."

The image before my eyes continuously blurs in an out of focus, making the outline difficult to understand.

"It is eating..." I voice out croakily in a hoarse tone.

...An eye?

A moment of realization hits me, and I take another glance around me as the series of blurring images begin to settle into grotesque scenes... That's right, I know where I am...This smell, these insects buzzing around happily... The man lying peacefully beside me... Even the dullness of the sun as it stares solemnly at us. Combining the characteristics of the environment around me, my foggy memories begin to settle into clarity.

It is a battlefield.

No, that's wrong...

"The aftermath of what was a battle," I mumble with a disgruntled expression as the visceral recollection of the events during the battle returns.

How long have I been here? I don't remember... but I remember my purpose here –the reason I'm the only one still alive here...

I pick up a muddy broad sword laying down beside me –the handle has a strange sigil embedded , Probably the signature of the original holder– I begin walking, through hundreds of thousands of corpses, stretching on for as far as I can see.

Years ago, when I was a child, a strange meteor fell from the sky and landed in the uninhabited, mountainous areas of the western kingdom of LORDAN. It created a huge crater of about sixty-two kilometers. And in the middle of all that, was a multicolored glowing rock just about the size of a human head.

The king of LORDAN, Grewart II, ordered the royal army to retrieve the strange rock and bring it to the castle, where the scholars and researchers of the kingdom carried out various experiments, But they had never seen, or heard of anything like it, and could not come up with even the vaguest clue of what it could be themselves.

So, the king went for the next option, Divine understanding. He ordered the Priests of TERA to pray to their god, so that he may reveal what the stone was. And so the priests locked themselves in the king's prayer chamber and began their communion. It wasn't until after three days, that the priests returned with an answer;

"My lord, we have prayed as you commanded and the god of creation has graced us with a revelation." Said the head priest, looking forlorn "The meteor is TERA'S SAPPHAIX, and it shall save the world from darkness."

The King was confused, but after they gave no more explanation, he panicked at the realization that their reply was a literal foretelling of doom, and asked if TERA revealed what this darkness was, but the priests knew nothing more, it was all the information TERA was willing to give to even after an extra seven days of communing. So, the king decided to hold a council with his closest aids and officials for advice on the matter.

After debating over the matter for days, the wise men of the king's council advised him to meet with the kings of the other kingdoms on the Continent of  NORLANDIER, and make them aware of the impending doom. Approving the idea, the king sent out messengers on the fastest horses he could assemble, and in a few days, there were already responses from the Kingdoms of ROHNIN on the north-central part of the continent, MELDOM which borders Lordan on the north-western part of the continent, LINMELEOT on the north-east, and the empire of LORHINAN occupying the most of the south. These replies all carried the seals of the different kings and that of the emperor.

The following weeks featured various meetings between the rulers who were all on allied terms, and although they could not come to a definite conclusion on the unsettling purpose of the SAPPHAIX, they all agreed that its existence should be kept confidential to avoid a nationwide panic. But that was not all, they also concurred to keep it a secret from the hostile nations of the three other continents.

"But the bastard gods had a different idea," I mumble, kicking away a rat so large, it could not move in time to scurry away from my path.

During the harvest season, rumors spread among returning fishermen that priests from the empire on the LEVWIN mainland had received some kind of revelation from the gods... And of course, that was the beginning of the chaos... First, the King received a letter from the Emperor of the Northern empire of SAORUMAM, a war-hungry nation controlling the whole northern continent of SRHUSIA, requesting an audience, of course, he knew perfectly well what was to come. So, he set a date for a meeting with the Emperor, while at the same time, he sent out word to his allies, asking them to prepare for the worst, the worst obviously being an intercontinental war.

Soon, letters arrived from the Monarch of the southern people of the continent PANWEI, and the Emperor of REXINGARD representing the kingdoms of the eastern LEVWIN mainland, all of which he gave a reply to scheduling a grand meeting four months later.

The meeting went on for days with no conclusion and little to no progress made, as what king Grewart feared the most, 'human greed', slowly but surely revealed its heinous fangs. Every continent wanted to be the one who held the SAPPHAIX while they wait for a revelation of the foretold darkness, it was like a firework with a lit fuse, discontentment was brewing, and slowly, like the flame travels up the rope, it kept on rising, it didn't even come as a shock when, 'BOOM!!', there was a huge disagreement between the representatives of the various nations, even someone both blind and deaf would be able to behold the magnificence of the explosion.

It wasn't even up to a year later that the continent of NORLANDIER's shoreline territories fell under various attacks from the combined invasion of the other continents...

...my village was one of those territories...

I can still hear their screams...

my mother...

my little sister...

my father...

My village was burnt down by NASHI warriors during one of the first raids, my life was ruined by the war.

Since then I have had only one purpose for living

"Destroy it, destroy the toy of the bastards who ruined this world!"

Darkness? What bullshit. The only darkness I see is the one they caused themselves...

But I'll end it

My steps come to a halt, but my one thought still lingers even as I stare down at a cluster of maimed corpses.

I'll end this stupid game!

I proceed to rummage through the corpse of a well-armored man who from the look of his armor, must have been a lordanish war general. Multiple arrows have pierced him, one through the chain mail on the right side of his chest which must have punctured his lung, one through his lower abdomen, multiple through his legs, and one just below his neck, a little to the left in between his collar bone and his rib cage

"Haha...finally found it."

I heave a bag out from the dirt and blood behind the man,

"To think he would try to bury it... Even in his last moments…,what loyalty."

That's right, king Grewart II, after Waring endlessly against other nations and organizations -some of which he didn't even know existed before then- for years and losing a lot of his territory to the endless raids, lost faith in the gods and decided that it was pointless to keep the SAPPHAIX anymore, while not even knowing what it was for. So, in agreement with the king of ROHNIN, he gave it to one of his generals and sent him off to the edges of the remaining shoreline territories,at the kingdom of EDOMIA, with a large coalition army. But the king of ROHNIN had his spies in the other continents spread the word that the king of LORDAN had given his general the SAPPHAIX because the gods revealed that it would grant them victory, plotting to steal it for himself during the chaos

As my recall reaches this point, I let out a loud hiss at the dirty bag, "the only thing it granted was an all-out slaughter..."

I open the bag to reveal a multicolored glow,

"..."

"Heh... how beautiful, even for a cursed object."

I turn the bag upside down, and a head-sized "rock" falls to the grimy floor. The SAPPHAIX.

Although I call it a rock, if I consider the fact that it weighs next to nothing, even with its size, and the fact that each of its innumerable, uneven facets glows of a different color, there is no way this thing could be a rock... No, should something like this even exist in the first place?

"Those scholars of the Kingdom... I wonder if they tried hitting it during their experiments…?"

At these words, I tighten my grip on the sword handle and, with both hands, I raise it high above my head, as a big shit eating grin couldn't help but make its way onto my face.

"Time to do some experiments of my own."

My sword comes down with such speed it makes a beautiful sliver arc as it slices across the air and clashes with the SAPPHAIX, a deafening sound resounding upon impact, and all the scavenger birds in the vicinity take to the skies in unison. Almost as suddenly, an explosion of bright white light illuminates the whole area.

"Ack! Wh-what the hell!!" I scream as the sword in my hand is completely vapourised, It was so bright and hot, for a moment I had the illusion of being right in-front of the sun.

But it doesn't end with just the sword, the skin and flesh on my fingers disintegrate next, leaving only bones, then bones become dust, and the process continues forward, eating me away quickly, and excruciatingly.

"IT HURTS!! IT'S BURNING ME!! RAAAAHHH!!!!"

"WAAAHHHH!!!!" An abrupt scream escapes from my throat, sounding oddly muffled to me, but before my brain registers it, I find out i'm slowly suffocating, unable to breathe or open my eyes, about to let out another, the sensation of softness associated with my favorite drool pillow makes it's way to my panic-stricken brain, hurriedly i turn around, sitting up.

I clutch onto the chest area of my sweat-drenched pajamas, shivering at the feeling of death still wrenching my heart as goosebumps spread all over my skin.

"Huff!"

Each breath I take carries the weight of my whole existence, like a small animal that had just survived what should have been certain death in the hands of a predator.

"Huff!"

I scan around my bedroom through strained breaths, from my huge brown wardrobe to my bookshelf and the portable davenport at the corner.

"Haa!!"

"Haa..."

My breathing gradually calms as I confirm my current location, my bedroom.

"..."

Now calm, I silently loosen my grip on my shirt.

"...Its—" pausing on my words as if I was about to speak an abominable word in front of a crowd, I take another deep breath.

"Just that dream again."

Sighing, I stand up, and move to the window by the bed, opening it.

I look at the clock on my desk, letting out a longer stressed sigh, it's 6 am In the morning and the sun is about to come up.

A new day. Fuck.

Check out our Discord page for info on releases, general world preview and character art.

https://discord.gg/7Tx4s4zMa7