NOVEL NEXT Chapter 0: The Dark Days
Chapter 0: The Dark Days
The sky, covered in dark clouds, loomed over us like an omen of death. The air was thick with tension, and the smell of iron and fear permeated every corner of the battlefield. In front of us, an endless mass of deformed and savage creatures, their guttural roars echoing like thunder, mingled with the echoes of our own screams. We had heard the generals, full of fervor, proclaiming victory. They promised us glory, that humans would prevail. And we did win!... Almost.
"Almost" is a cruel word. It’s the fragile line that separates hope from despair, life from death. It’s the margin that divides a human being with dreams and emotions from a cold, empty corpse. We almost made it home. We almost won. We almost survived. But “almost” wasn’t enough.
The battle was a frenzy of blood and iron, sweat and saliva. The clash of our swords against the beasts was like the cry of the earth itself, but every blow was met with sharp claws that tore through armor and flesh. The steel of our weapons seemed fragile against the fury of their fangs, and the fire in our blood paled before the monstrous power of their bodies. Every breath we took was filled with the nauseating stench of death.
I remember the exact moment I saw it. The monster towered over us like a living nightmare: a bear, three meters tall, with bloodshot eyes and a snout covered in chunks of human flesh. Its claws, sharp as blades, cut through men like mere leaves in the wind. Every roar was a death sentence for those too close. One by one, my comrades fell under its fury, their bodies torn apart, their screams drowned out by the deafening roar of the creature.
My jaw clattered violently, not just from the cold, but from the terror that paralyzed me. Fear consumed me as I watched strong, brave men reduced to shredded flesh under the beast’s claws. The air was thick with the scent of fresh blood and the sound of bones breaking. I felt the warm, rotting breath of the bear on my face, the remains of its victims hanging from its fangs like trophies of its destruction. My legs trembled; I didn’t know whether to run or remain frozen in place.
And then, it happened.
It wasn’t an act of heroism, nor a feat worthy of the bard’s tales. It was pure chance, the whim of chaos. A boy, barely younger than me, stood a few meters away, his spear trembling in his hands. His eyes were wide open, filled with terror and desperation. He couldn’t control the shaking in his arms, barely able to hold the weapon. The monster turned towards him, ready to finish off another one of us, and then... the spear pierced its chest.
The beast stopped for a moment. The growl in its throat was choked into a rough gasp of surprise. The spear had gone straight through its heart, killing it instantly. It fell to the ground with a dull thud, raising a cloud of dust and blood. The boy... the boy couldn’t believe it. His breathing was erratic, his face pale as the moon. But when he approached, when his still trembling hands tried to pull out the spear, he saw it. He hadn’t only impaled the monster.
In his terror, he had also impaled his fellow soldier, another young man who had charged at the beast in a desperate attempt to save him. The spear had pierced the man right in the side, deep enough to be fatal. The boy immediately let go of the spear, stepping back with blood-stained hands. His eyes, wide and horrified, weren’t focused on the monster he had killed, but on the friend he had accidentally impaled.
The boy’s hands shook uncontrollably. He fell to his knees, unable to process what he had done, as the life drained from his companion’s body beside him. There were no heroes in that battle. There was only fear, death, and the cruel irony of fate.
The wind kept blowing, carrying with it the stench of the massacre and the fading echo of screams. We had fought. We had almost won. But "almost" wasn’t enough to save us. The price of the battle was too high, and in the field of lost victory, nothing remained but the cold embrace of despair.
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Fragment: The Horror of Battle
The icy wind blew fiercely, carrying with it the acrid smell of blood and decay. Every step felt heavier than the last, as if the earth itself was trying to swallow the few who remained standing. Young Ashran, barely 16 years old, moved forward through the fallen bodies, his sword trembling in his hand. His chest rose and fell with difficulty, the air thick with death and despair.
He had never seen anything like this. Around him, men, women, and children lay motionless, their vacant eyes fixed on the gray sky. Many had been warriors, others mere peasants. None were prepared for what had come from the north, a horde of deformed, tireless creatures, as if hell itself had opened its gates. For weeks, the world had been falling apart, and now, in this nameless battlefield, Ashran knew there would be no return.
He hadn’t slept for days, his leather armor torn and covered in dried mud. The sound of clashing steel had ceased hours ago, but the echo of screams still reverberated in his head. He looked around, searching for someone, anyone, but only found familiar faces, now turned into lifeless corpses. He felt the air grow heavier with every passing second. The silence of the battlefield was not a relief, but a sentence.
The promise of victory had been a lie. The army, his village, his friends... everything had been devoured by chaos. The strongest soldiers had fallen quickly, their bodies torn apart by beasts that defied any logic. Even the skies seemed to have turned against them, covered in dark clouds, as if the world itself wept for the fallen.
Ashran looked at his sword, trembling in his hand. He no longer remembered how many times he had raised it, how many times it had pierced flesh and bone. But none of that mattered now. The blood covering his blade seemed alive, pulsing, as if the steel itself had absorbed the souls of the dead. He wanted to run, to flee from this cursed place, but his legs barely responded. The cold was seeping into his bones, and with every second, he felt the warmth leaving him.
"Why?" he murmured, his voice breaking as he gazed at the horizon.
The previous days had been a whirlwind of chaos. Villages, one by one, had been reduced to ashes. The council, desperate, had gathered all the young for a final defense, a futile resistance against forces they neither understood nor could face. Ashran thought of his mother, in the small cabin at the edge of the forest, where they used to sit in the evenings, watching the sunset. "She’ll be fine," he repeated to himself over and over, trying to convince himself. "She’ll be fine."
But deep down, he knew it wasn’t true. He knew that what remained of his world was crumbling quickly, like sand slipping through his fingers.
A deafening roar echoed in the distance, and Ashran turned his head in desperation. One of those creatures was approaching, dragging a body behind it, tearing apart everything in its path. He tried to lift his sword, but his arms were too exhausted, too weak. His muscles wouldn’t respond.
When the beast passed by him, it didn’t even see him. It was as if he were already dead in its eyes. He let the sword drop to the ground, the metal softly clinking against the stones. The sound seemed distant, as if everything was happening in another world, one where life still made sense.
Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through his abdomen. He looked down and saw the wound in his side, blood pouring out in a warm, dark torrent. The pain brought him to his knees, his body trembling as his hands futilely tried to stop the flow of blood. The cold quickly overtook him, replacing the pain with a feeling of numbness.
He fell onto his back in the mud, staring up at the gray sky. The clouds moved slowly, indifferent to the suffering below them. Everything felt distant now. The screams, the roars, the death... Everything seemed to fade away.
Ashran was breathing with difficulty, the air gurgling in his throat. He was drowning in his own blood. But it didn’t matter. Only one image occupied his mind: his mother, smiling as she served him a warm plate of stew. The scent of freshly baked bread filled the air in his memory. He wondered if she was okay, if the creatures had reached their village. No, he couldn’t think about that. He needed to believe she was safe, even if it was a lie.
A solitary tear rolled down his cheek, lost in the earth and blood around him.
“Mom...” he whispered with his last breath, as the cold consumed him completely.
And in that field of corpses, Ashran lay still, staring at the sky that gave him no answers, as the pain faded and the silence became eternal.
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Fragment: The Birth of the First Venerable
The battlefield was a sea of blood and shattered bodies, the ground soaked with the tragedy of the fallen. The agonizing cries of those still breathing, mixed with the inhuman growls of the beasts lurking in the shadows, seemed to stretch across the entire plain. The human forces had been nearly annihilated, their hope crushed under the weight of brutality. Chaos reigned uncontrollably.
And then, something changed.
In the distance, amidst the shadows of destruction, a lone figure appeared. A young man, barely in the Golden Core Realm, someone who should not have been capable of standing against the hordes. His presence, insignificant at first, began to grow palpable. He walked among the corpses and monsters with an unnatural calm. His eyes, fixed on the horizon, showed neither fear nor anger. Only a cold, pure determination. Around him, a faint white flame began to manifest, like an ethereal halo covering his body.
On that day, Atheron was born for the second time.
He had arrived on the battlefield as a boy, with a heart full of doubts and trembling fists. Barely seventeen, yet to experience the life and glory he had dreamed of since childhood. But the war, with its shroud of death and despair, transformed him. Under the sky darkened by ashes and the screams of the dying, Atheron ceased to be just a young man. His rebirth was forged in iron and fire, on the edge of desperation.
In times of crisis, heroes are born. But a hero is not the noble figure of stories; he is not one who craves fame or seeks recognition. A hero is the one who, when standing at the abyss, when surrounded by darkness and consumed by fear, chooses to fight. He fights not for glory, but because there is no other choice. He fights because the survival of his people rests on his shoulders.
That was Atheron. He did not fight out of bravery or for honor. In the midst of chaos, he discovered something more primal, something deeper: a silent fury, a connection to the blood that surrounded him, and an unshakable need to annihilate the enemies of his people. His hands, stained with the lives he took, moved as if instinct had replaced fear. Every strike, every thrust was precise, ruthless, as if he had been born for that sole purpose.
And then, Atheron understood the truth of his destiny: he was not a warrior, not a leader. He would be good for nothing else in his life, except for one thing: killing. He did not build, he did not heal, he did not lead. His skill lay in undoing, in cutting, in ripping the life from those who dared to face his people.
But in times of chaos, in a world drowning in blood and destruction, that was a blessing. A curse for him, perhaps, but a blessing for his people. While others fell, while despair gripped the hearts of the strongest, he stood firm, without hesitation, without retreat. Atheron, born of fear, became the shadow that brought death.
On that day, on that field of corpses and ashes, Atheron did not find heroism. What he found was something much darker, but infinitely more useful: a skill that few possessed, a gift that set him apart from everyone else. The gift of death, the ability to end life with a cold precision the world desperately needed.
And so, in the midst of chaos and despair, Atheron was reborn. Not as a frightened boy, not as a promising warrior. But as the bearer of death.
What followed was swift, too swift to be understood by those watching from afar. Every step the young man took seemed to cut the distance between him and the beasts. The creatures, drawn to his energy, charged at him ferociously, fangs and claws eager to tear him apart. But they never even got close.
With a slight movement of his arm, a storm of iron and white fire was unleashed. His hands, moving with an almost mechanical precision, sliced through the air, and every cut was fatal. The bodies of the beasts fell around him like leaves under the blade of a scythe. It wasn’t a battle; it was a massacre. The creatures could barely react before being consumed by the white flames emanating from his body. Those flames didn’t just burn flesh; they purified everything in their path, reducing to ashes any impure being that dared to cross him.
The young man’s movements were minimal, almost as if performing a ritual, each gesture deadlier than the last. The air around him crackled with energy. The flames danced in the wind, illuminating the darkness with a white glow that turned night into day, blinding the beasts and terrifying those that remained alive.
It was as if death itself had taken the form of that young man.
One of the largest creatures, a colossal beast with twisted horns and eyes burning with hatred, lunged at him, certain it would crush him under its enormous weight. But the young man didn’t even blink. With a single, almost imperceptible motion, he raised his hand, and a sword of pure energy, forged from the white flames, sprang from his fingers. The beast was suspended in the air, its body split in two before it could even comprehend what had happened.
The battlefield, which minutes before had been teeming with monsters, was now a desert of ashes and charred bodies. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. What remained of the hordes of terror retreated, not by choice, but by sheer survival instinct, knowing there was no escape if they stayed.
Chaos had been severed, not by the army, not by the generals, but by a single young man. The battle that had promised glory and victory for humanity ended with the intervention of a force beyond imagination. Silence fell over the field, broken only by the crackling of flames still consuming what little remained of the beasts.
And so, on that day, chaos was annihilated by a light that emerged from the darkness.
The name of that young man was etched into history from that moment: Atheron.
What he did that day was not just a victory; it was the beginning of an era. The era of the Venerables, those who would transform the destiny of humanity with their unmatched power.
But in that instant, Atheron was just a young man. One who, unknowingly, had ended chaos and marked the beginning of a new legend.