1 End of the Prelude

At the ruins of an old and decrepit castle.

An old man sat down on top of a broken pillar with a serene expression on his face. His eyes glimmered and shone with intelligence and wisdom that gave him an ancient air. Contrasting this, however, his red pupils also contained a stubbornness that one would usually only see in naive youths.

'So, right now, it's make it or break it, huh?'

He smiled wryly and lifted his left hand up, showing what seemed to be simply skin and bones with no flesh. After staring at it for a while, he sighed and put his hand down and instead moved his gaze up at the sky. Memories of his past flew by as he sunk into a sleepy state, what was happening describable with the term 'life flashing before your eyes'.

"Sadly, it seems like no one will be able to bury me... Though, I suppose they wouldn't be able to scribe down a name anyways. After all, I've been in seclusion for quite a bit years now. Everyone that knew my existence, my name, would've died already."

After he finished speaking, he tapped his chest. It looked extremely strange, like an action he just randomly chose to do. Only he himself knew that the action he did was full of profound brilliance and contained the accumulation of knowledge that he had built up for tens of thousands of years.

Then, after that, he died.

Well, technically he did.

***

Naxxerus had been an underworld inspector for centuries. Amongst the many, many inspectors, he was a veteran. Yet, when he saw the soul of the person named Alure Devine, he felt a pang of fear in his heart. However, since the size of the soul was that of a bean, it was obvious that they were a mere mortal-class soul. Because of this, Naxxerus just shrugged off his fear and began to do his duty, scanning over the soul of the person in front of him.

"Let's see here. Normal commoner, born of a middle-class woman and merchant father... Personality type... Wai-...!" After an unknown amount of time, Naxxerus' face grew panicked and he let out a half-spoken yell of shock, but then his expression returned to normal. Then, he grew listless, until it was almost like an empty, soulless shell.

"Ok, pass through the yellow-grade gate." The inspector pointed to behind him, where there was something that was oddly reminiscent of an airport scanner. The orb-like soul drifted slowly towards the gate, and then, after a bit, it flew up towards the sky, vanishing into the horizon after a bit of time.

The moment the soul disappeared, Naxxerus' face became confused. For the rest of his life, he would never know of the events that just transpired a few moments ago.