There is still about an hour before the sun rises. The royal wizards cleared the fog which covered the city, revealing to the whole population what awaits them. Even though there is no sun yet, the city is no longer covered in darkness, the ambient light slowly overpowers it.

Hundreds of enforcers are walking around the city instructing everyone to gather the dead and put them on the carts, which will go to the city's graveyard. Old and young, men, women and children alike are all crying as they put their loved ones on the carts. Some of the dead are put carefully on the cart, others are just thrown as if they are sacks of potatoes. The carts moves in haste throughout the city, as they are trying to finish their task as quickly as possible and prepare for what is to come during the day.

There are few that follow the procession, carrying the dead themselves, to give the last respect to their loved ones, even if that means to putting themselves into danger.

I slowly follow the procession with a cloth covered bundle in my arms.

It is one thing when you see dead, or someone speaks about dead. But it is totally different, when someone dies in your arms, and you can feel as the body of the person you cared for, slowly grows cold.

How the alive become the dead.

The whole procession just flashed through my eyes, and before I knew it, I stood in open terrain, outside of city walls with huge forest nearby. The people who pulled the cart with the dead, start throwing the bodies into quickly growing mountains around the graveyard. The gravediggers gather together in the center of graveyard. They take out their shovels and start digging a single large graves for everyone. Others, that decided to bury their loved ones themselves, pick spots and start digging small and shallow graves.

I walk further in the direction of the forest and find a place where no graves are and softly put the bundle on the ground.

In some happy fairy tale I would find a healer or some way to revive a dead person, and after that we would live happily ever after.

But real life is different.

It was always different. Because the bundle will continue to stay dead.

Bundle...

She has a name. The name I gave her.

Luna.

Luna didn't do anything, she didn't deserve this. Why does a dark creatures like me, continues to live, while the innocent and pure ones die everyday.

Where is the righteousness in this?

Why?

TELL ME FUCKER!!

WHY DOES LIFE WORK THIS WAY!?

I KNOW THAT YOU ARE THERE!!!

If HE exists, then so do you.

Explain to me! Why?!

Why did she have to die..

What about you? Why are you silent? Where are the accusations? Where is blame? Why are you silent?

SAY SOMETHING!

[What do you want to hear?]

[She is dead. She died because of us, because she was with us.]

Is that all? After everything this is all you can say?

[WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME!? SHE IS DEAD!! DEAD BECAUSE OF US!!!]

[Why do you continue to torture me? What did I ever do to you? What did I do to deserve this? Why do you continue make me experience this horror without the possibility to change anything? Again and again. Nightmare that never ends.]

[Why did you take her with us? Why did you make me experience what warmth is? Something so pure, so innocent. Why did you show it to me so you could just take it away few moments later?]

[WHY?!]

[Leave me alone.]

[I have suffered enough.]

[You made me suffer enough.]

Please someone say something, anything. Or this silence will just swallow me whole.

As if a puppet possessed, I start digging a grave with my bare hands, my cracked fingernails cutting deep into hard earth. Slowly the pit in ground increases in size and I try my best to ignore the droplets falling into the pit from my face.

It is just sweat. Only sweat.

Before I know it the grave is ready. It is even bigger than it is required for someone so small. About meter in length, nearly the same in depth, and about half meter in width.

Tiny.

Cries of crow catch my attention, as a huge flock of them is circling around the small mountain of dead bodies in the center of graveyard, that awaits to be buried into the mass grave.

I turn back to the grave and the bundle lying near it. I slowly pick up the bundle and tenderly open it to reveal a small white face. I start to softly caress the face that feels unforgivably cold.

Just few hours ago she smiled, those sweet eyes looked at me, in expectation, in hope, as if I could make everything come true.

But these eyes have shut forever.

I am not someone who deserves those eyes, that look. Never deserved, and never will.

Just a cockroach that survived too many times.

I tenderly kiss Luna's forehead knowing well, that this is the last time I will touch her. I caress her head one last time. The body slowly descends down.

I sit one my knees before the small pit, looking down on Luna's face. Unimaginable force compels me to take her out of the pit, it screams that that this is just an illusion and that she is alive, that any moment she will open her eyes and smile back at me with the same happy and innocent smile she showed me again and again. But only now do I truly know how much those smiles were worth. If I knew how much was left I would cherish every single second.

But truth is hard.

With hands I slowly start to pour the granulated earth back into the grave. Luna's body is slowly being swallowed by earth, as if submerged into it. Until it stops when only her face is visible.

My hands become hard and immobile.

Pictures of Luna's body decomposing flash across my vision, showing grotesquely as skin and flesh rot away, leaving bones, which disappear soon after. I jump into the grave, brushing aside the earth from her body and clutching her into embrace.

But she is still cold as ice and her limbs sway around as if they belong to doll.

I sit in the grave for some time, as hot tears stream down my face, screaming in hate and powerlessness.

I wish I could blame someone for this. The life that forced this situation on me, the whole city for the hate it shows to demi-humans, the adventurers and corrupt guards that attacked me yesterday evening, the group of assassins that attacked after that, that accursed creature that shot the arrow.

But in the end it all returns to me.

My decisions, my actions, my mistakes.

I don't know how long has passed, but I continue to sit in the grave with Luna in my arms. The rising sun starts to cast few rare beams of direct sunlight across the graveyard.

I place Luna softly back into the grave and crawl out of it. My trembling hands start pouring the earth over Luna, as ground slowly swallows her.

She was mine.

Blood Brotherhood saved many, but they always were responsibility of the Brotherhood. I saved them and said goodbye, again and again.

People were only something passing to me. Like shadows, wind, or trees, you see them once and forget them instantly, as you will meet many more, nearly exactly the same.

I saved Luna.

I took Luna.

I lost Luna.

The tiny hill of ground in front of me is the only thing which will remain in this world to prove that Luna existed. No one will know who is buried underneath. They won't care who she was or what she meant.

No one will know how sweet and innocent she was.

I am the last proof, the last person who will remember her. And after I leave this place, she will be alone, again. She will continue to lie here in solitude forever.

Sorry Luna. If afterlife exists we may meet very soon.

The only people left at the graveyard are the workers still digging the mass grave and me sitting in front of the tiny hill. I take a thick and long stick lying a bit furtherer, and plunge it near the tiny hill, which will signify that person is burried here.

My eyes continue to look at the hill, imagining her small body being pressed down by the ground over her.

Sound of shovel hitting ground makes me slowly look in the direction where it came from. I find several dozen people in black cloaks standing near the mass grave, but with no old gravediggers around anymore.

Must be some kind of help.

My head starts to turn back, but sound of quick footsteps coming closer makes my head freeze. A single person in black cloak is walking in my direction and cursing, while his friends gather in circle. The cursing guy in black cloak stops in front of me and looking at me with disgust takes out a short dagger.

"Fucking cunts, just you wait... What the fuck are you staring at trash?"

The dagger in his hand flashed in the direction of my neck, but is stopped short by my hand. His confused face is quickly replaced by pained expression as his arm is ripped out with loud sound of bones breaking and flesh ripping apart

The lying heap of flesh that is screaming near my legs continues to howl, as rare curses about me escape his mouth. My left foot moves and crushes his skull, quieting the creature down forever.

Death awaits those that practice death.

Aren't you going to say that I should have accepted the dagger? That I deserve it? That it would be a fast end?

Why are you silent?

Say something.

Please.

Looking in the direction of the group, I find most of them still in circle focused on something, while few others are standing in front of them looking back at me with weapons drawn. I stand and await the next attackers, but nothing happens. They just continue stand there.

Suddenly several dead bodies twitch and start moving in the small mountain near the group. They are slowly followed by more and more, until the whole small mountain of bodies starts crawling as if heap of centipedes.

Necromancers.

I have seen few necromancer powerful enough to resurrect about few dozens, but hundreds is totally different level.

Wait.

Squinting my eyes I finally notice that nearly everyone in the group of black hooded attackers has a magical item in hand, either a skull, a grimoire or a small staff.

But more importantly in the center of the group, lies some kind of purple rock which emits ambient mana.

A group of necromancers? It can't be. They work alone, too prideful and arrogant to even consider cooperation with anyone. But it is hard to deny it, there is even magical stone overflowing with mana. But still the speed is unbelievable, something that creatures like them could brag about. Less than ten seconds have passed but all the hills of dead start crawling apart and slowly stand in front of the cloaked group, as if protecting them.

The huge crowd of undead is just standing in front of the dark cloaked group immobile, as if statues. Ground in front of them starts to shift as several severely decomposed bodies start crawling from under the ground. Before I knew the number of undead quadrupled.

Few of the undead rushed in my direction with inhuman agility and speed. As they come close enough my sword splits them apart as their decomposed innards fall out, littering the ground around.

But this is not the end. The undead closest to me, which was split apart horizontally, starts to crawls in my direction with his hands as the lower part of his body continues to run around aimlessly.

One of the most underestimated properties of undead is the fact that their limbs will continue to move, even if the main body of undead is destroyed. Only by separating all the limbs you can disable the undead. After that either the necromancer will stop feeding mana to it, or the mana in the body will dissipate, which may take several hours or days.

I have seen limbs of undead killed days later, crawling to adventurers and attacking them in their sleep.

First time experiencing it is unforgettable.

I stand still awaiting next attack. They will either send small groups to tire me up or all of them to overwhelm me. The latter choice having much more chance.

Suddenly something grabs my ankle and my impulse I swing my leg trying to get off whatever latched to my ankle. Something small in rag falls several meters away from me. It starts to slowly crawl in my direction making guttural noises.

My body freezes as I recognize what just fell in front of me.

I swing my head back looking at the tiny grave trying to deny it, trying to maintain my sanity as I can. But I find the tiny hill unearthed, as if someone crawled out of it.

My head slowly turns back to front, as I see the small rag continuing to crawl in my direction. Rag falls off and what is left is a small girl with white and black hair crawling to me. The sweet and innocent smile replaced with loosely open mouth with froth coming out of it. The sky blue eyes filled with curiosity are no more, their place taken by corrupted abomination of them, riddled with black veins.

No.

Sword falls out of my hand as my knees hit the ground.

Why.

Luna continues to crawl in my direction as the guttural growls intensify. My trembling hands stretch to her and slowly pick her up, tenderly pressing her against my chest as she start thrashing around. Cold tears start to stream down my face as I try to hug her, but the only result I get is teeth clenched into my neck.

Why?

The blood flowing down my neck doesn't stop me as I continue trying to hug Luna, or what is left of her.

Left of her.

This is not her.

I detach the small body from myself and pin her to the ground as the thrashing increases. My huge palms squeeze the tiny neck until audible crack is heard, but the body continues to thrash around gurgling something.

Tears continue streaming down my face.

I have killed her. And right now I am desecrating her dead body. Loud sobs escape my mouth.

Series of laughs coming from behind the crown makes me slowly look away from Luna.

"This never gets old. The faces the make when their loved ones attack them. Just thinking about it makes me hard."

"Killed my trash, how incompetent could Lars be. Well he's dead, so it doesn't matter."

"We need to finish it faster, we are behind the schedule."

Luna's body stops moving and falls limp. My hands slowly detach from her tiny neck. Her body is covered in dirt, while there is still blood and froth coming from her mouth. But the place my eyes are focused is the neck. There is a huge dark mark around the whole area in form of two huge bony palms.

My palms.

Several of the undead rush in my direction gurgling.

Tears continue to stream as I look into Luna's dead eyes. My sobs are replaced with sinister animalistic growls as black sheet covers my eyes.

...

I don't know how much time has passed as my mind continues to drift in sea of endless darkness until my eyelids slowly open. Assaulted by bright light my eyes protests initially, but just few seconds after they calm down. My view is divided between two contrast areas, bright blue and white which is in the upper part, and brownish red in the lower. Slowly the sharpness of the image before me increases and I see the details.

Mountains of body parts, hands, legs and heads, all lying around with different color tone, belonging to different people. Many of the limbs continue to twitch and thrash around, few of the heads near me have their jaws clenching and unclenching, trying to reach my legs.

There is only one creature in the world which is capable of such violence.

And that creature is me.

My body screams in pain but I simply ignore it away as if something unimportant and with a groans I stand up and look around, but the only thing I see is endless sea of limbs and gore. Not so far from me, my eyes find a torso in black cloak with a head and single arm still attached. The face is petrified in horror. Same expression I have seen many, many times.

Looking around I find few more black cloaks, or at least what is left of them.

Sharp and cold pain in my chest makes me look down to check if there is something embedded in it.

But there is nothing.

There is other reason for the pain.

I start looking around, shoving limbs around, trying to find her, even if it is just a tiny part, something that I can see, something that I can bury. But there is nothing. Just thousands upon thousands of body parts, guts and innards, several hills of them. I could spend days here in search and still find nothing.

But I will not be given a chance. Not just because of the hundreds of ships that are visible even from here. There is another problem. It happened again, less than a day after the previous one, and the burning of the scar has not stopped.

How much time do I actually have left? Will I be awake long enough to finish it?

No.

It doesn't matter, I don't need much, bu I can not postpone it any longer.

I couldn't even give her a proper burial. I could not give her so much...

I am coming Luna.

Just a bit more. If there is afterlife, we will see each other soon. If there is heaven and hell, then, we more likely won't ever meet again.

Because someone like you could never end up in the same place as creatures like me.

I stand up and start walking in the direction of the city.

Brothers. I am coming.

...

My screaming legs continue to move, slowly but steading they carry me through the city. The sun already rose and is shining upon the destruction across the city, the burnt and destroyed building, the looters trying to find anything valuable in empty building. Some always try to find profit even in the worst possible situation. And war is single most profitable business in the world, nothing can even remotely compare to it.

I continue to walk through the main road, which is nearly dead silent. Only few more looters and several people running up the main road, to the evacuation point more likely. I suddenly stop in front of burnt building, with the musky burnt smell still in the air.

I recognize the brothel building across of it.

Inn in which we stayed.

I slowly walk over the burnt wooden planks, not even understanding I stop in front of small hill covered with burn wooden planks. My hands shift the planks revealing a metal chest. Opening the chest I find several tiny dresses and shoes, the ones I bought for Luna. My trembling hand picks a single white dress, which Luna especially liked, and bring it closer to my face. Her soft laugh and voice is heard right in my head. "Daddy."

Luna's smell coming from it breaks my stupor as even the burnt smell can't fully make the soft and tender fragrance disappear. My tears start streaming again as I try to hungrily capture what is left of Luna. But it disappears as quickly as it appeared.

I should have buried this with her, she liked it so much. But she is dead, and it won't change. I tie the tiny white cloth around my left wrist and continue walking.

Just a bit more.

I walk for about ten more minutes until I am stopped by group of heavily equipped guards. At first they took out they weapon as if prepared to attack, but the older guard stopped them with some kind of hand gesture. He slowly approaches me and his eyes scan me until they stop at my left hand.

He makes few step closer and looks at the cloth on my left wrist. In quite and solemn voice says "I am sorry for your loss." Coming closer to me he puts both hands on my shoulders and looks into my eyes. "You need to get to evacuation point, Paletians will attack soon." after a small pause he adds "Your loved ones would want you to survive."

He releases my shoulders and gives and order to one of the younger guards. "Guide him."

Ground starts shaking as hundreds of riders on horses in plate armor run across the street, until they stop few meters in front of us. A single rider in golden plate armor comes to us, showing a beautifully chiseled face under his open helmet, looks from the top of his horse down at the guard and me with disgusted look.

"Why are you here?"

The older guard standing in front of him gives a bow with his fist to chest.

"You highness, we have been cleaning the streets from the undead coming from north graveyard, the necromancers may still be here."

"What about the south graveyard? Still no news?"

"No your highness. I have sent two of my men there, but they haven't returned yet."

Turning to me sneers and commands.

"Remove that from here. Battle will start soon." he motions to me with his nose.

The moment he finishes huge fireball hits him to the side. The horse didn't even have time to respond or react at all as it fell on side with her rider. Horse's burned body lying on ground with half of it's torso missing representing the power of spell. The rider wobbling stands up in his near undamaged armor and is instantly surrounded by many riders trying to protect him from any more possible attacks.

Magic enchantments do save lives.

Rebuilding the trajectory of the direction where the fireball came from, I find a open balcony on third floor of huge building with no one there. The riders scream to each other something, while looking around at the buildings and streets. But the absolute silence of the whole area is instantly changed, as waves of undead start pouring from all of the windows and doors of the big buildings across as if water our of broken jar.

"Protect the prince!!" shouts one of the knights as they make a wall around him.

A group in black walks out of alley and starts firing spells into the knights from afar, taking one life after another with deadly spells.

Necromancers.

They belong to same group.

They did it.

Squeezing the sword in my right hand, blood start boiling in me as mana makes my body move as if a puppet possessed by evil spirit. I leap into the wall of undead with a guttural roar. Body parts of undead start flying around, as my sword send more and more of them to rest. As if noticing that something is wrong, necromancers start firing the curses and spells at me, but I simply command the body to evade the spells, while curses hit me straight in the chest and dissipate, bringing horror across the faces of necromancers.

As soon as I got within few meters of them they attempt to retreat, to call their undead to help them, but it is too late. Moments later they are cleaved in half, crushed and dismembered. They try to bundle together to construct magical shield, but my sword breaks them as glass. One of them nearly finished wide range spell, which could deal significant damage to the area. Sadly for him, I am faster, my thrown sword sails across to him, until it plunges through his body and the pure force of it carries him across the street to the wall, until he collides with it, destroying the building in the process.

I turn to the ones that are left and one by one end them with my bare hand, ignoring their plea for mercy, crushing the skulls of the ones crawling away, grabbing the necks of the next ones that are attacking and squeezing them until audible crack is heard.

"Monster." whispers the last one.

I slowly walk to her as she start to chant a prayer to her dark gods on her knees. The green horrified eyes on her pretty porcelain face, stares back at me in defiance. Her chant becomes louder as I grab her skull. The chant ends the moment my hand clenches, as loud pop is heard and her body falls limp on the ground, spilling reddish content of her skull across the street.

This must be all.

I look at the white piece of cloth on my left left wrist, which is already fully covered in blood. Bringing it to my face I try to catch the last bits of Luna, but it is already replaced by metal smell of blood.

There is nothing left.

I let the cloth go. The cloth slowly falls down and starts absorbing more blood from the ground. Walking to the destroyed wall I find my sword and pick it up.

The utter silence of area makes me turn in the direction where the knight should be. Did they already leave? But what I find is wall of knight staring at me as their weapons still drawn out, pointing at me.

Fear.

Nothing new.

"Y-You should have left at least one for interrogation, she was human." says the knight in golden armor no longer looking at me in disgust, but more of caution.

Human?

Or was it because the human was a girl, a pretty girl?

What if she was a demi-human? What if she was ugly? What if she was he? Would your comment be the same? Before the law everyone is equal. But some are always more 'equal'.

Oh, you are pretty? Well it looks like you will get less to no punishment.

Should I kill them too?

Will someone cry over their deaths?

Each of them should have dreams, fears, family, loved ones. Someone may cry over their death.

But they won't cry over Luna.

She was just a mistake. Right?

Just a single, insignificant death. Right?

Who even cares about single demi-human? Right?

One insignificant death in endless whirlpool or chaos and suffering.

My hand squeezes on the sword's pommel, and violent desires start burning deep withing me, but I stop shortly.

No. Enough. I am slowly turning into him.

Enough.

I start walking in the direction of the dungeon ignoring the stares get from the crowd of knight. Loud crash makes my feet stop in their track and turn in the direction of the origin of that sound, which is the city port.

Attack started. The ships should have already hit the shore.

I should get to the dungeon as fast as I can. The ground troops will move quickly, I have maximum of about ten minutes before they reach here. And inhuman screech appears suddenly, and quickly increases in volume as it get closer and closer.

Several groups of flying demi-humans with bows and staffs appear from behind of the tall building, screeching and coming this direction.

That's too fast.

Was there no one to stop them at port? Where the hell are the guards?

A purple spot lights up on the horizon and quickly increases in size, abandoning everything I leap into the alleys, running away, trying to get as far from the main road as I can. Few seconds later, a huge purple beam of light explodes behind me. Turning around I find the the whole main street destroyed, stone buildings melted and no one expect the avian demi-humans circling around the area where I just was.

A calamity level ritual spell at the very beginning of siege.

Madness.

The only thing that comes to mind is "Blitzkrieg". All of the leaders always scoffed at the military tactical ideas brought by the summoned, laughing and ignoring them. What could have happened for such a major change?

Doesn't matter.

Sending mana into my barely working legs I command them to move once again. Walking through the alleys I try to evade the main road which could result a high possibility of needless confrontation. My legs continue to carry me to the dungeon entrance through the empty alleys, through rare images of destroyed building or dead bodies lying around.

Finally reaching the dungeon plaza a totally different picture stands in front of me. Endless sea of knight and warriors are fighting even more demi-humans in the center of the dungeon plaza, with constant barrage of spells from mages behind the knight and even bigger volley of arrows from harpies and gargoyles from the opposite side. The sides collide in blends of gore and violence, the collision walls shift as if a wave from one side to another, back and forth, again and again. As wave of knight overwhelms a single point they start chanting "For the kingdom", as soon as the wave switches direction the demi-humans chant "For motherland" in Patu language.

Waves of meat mass struggling against each other with dogmas of seething hatred installed deep into their beings.

A very different picture happens at the corners of plaza and alleys, small and fast groups hunt down their respective enemies, merciless stabbing in the back the injured and the ones running away.

Not so far from me a wolf demi-human pins down a female knight and rips of armor and clothes from her chest licking the face of his prey in the process with a wide grin.

"Latar! Not now! You will take her later!" screams similar looking wolf demi-human near him in Patu.

"No! Humans raped and enslaved our sisters! I will return this dept." he growls turning back to his friend.

But before he can do anything more the woman under him takes out a small dagger and with a scream slides it across his neck, painting herself red with rapidly flowing blood.

"Latar!" Screams the other wolf demi-human before being overwhelmed by a new group of knights.

The female knight throws off the body of the dead demi-human and tries to stand on her wobbly legs. Trembling she looks around as if trying to understand what is happening. The definition of war finally seeping into her.

Welcome.

Suddenly an enormous tremor travels through the ground, making many in the plaza lose their footing. Few seconds later huge explosion and clouds of smoke rush out of dungeon entrance, creating a big hole in the center of barrier. The barrier starts morphing, trying to repair itself and close the huge hole in it's center but few seconds later with a crack it falls apart sending waves of mana around.

An open path.

I was never that lucky.

A trap for sure.

But I don't have any other option than to meet it head on.

The time standing and observing the battlefield finally bites me back as several demi-humans stealthily try to take my life, like they have done with others in the corners of the plaza before.

Death to those that practice death.

The lives of sneaky attackers come to quick end as their dismembered bodies quickly fill the alley. Another wave of at least three dozen, much more dangerous looking demi-humans, notices me and leap into the alley, trying to take my life. These ones are prepared as they are not risking getting too close and are using hit-and-run tactic, surrounding me and blocking the escape path.

Every formation has a weakness or it would be called absolute.

But there are no absolute things in this world.

Charging into the a specific direction the attackers disperse, but my body does not stop and leaping into the closed wooden door I smash through it. The door explodes in shower of planks and splinters as I arrive into a small corridor of the building's first floor. The attackers follow shortly, only to be impaled by my sword thrust through the cloud of splinters. Their bodies fall down around the entrance, creating a makeshift barricade. I can use environment too. Part of attackers continues the attack only to be easily killed at the choke point, but most part simply try to circle around and find another entrance.

They may believe that they have trapped me inside if they block the all the doors, but buildings have several exits.

Running through the building I find the staircase and run up, as sound of breaking wood and footsteps reach me. The pursuers reach me shortly, but I already have the higher ground and they will have to attack one by one through another choke point. As more and more bodies litter the staircase I have to slowly move higher and higher. Few of the attackers get in from the windows of second floor but I simply climbed to third floor and made the sneaky attackers merge together with the main group. Making a stand on top, third floor I try to hold the position, but the attackers, not willing to sacrifice another life, change strategy and switch to ranged attacks, with constant volley of arrows coming out from the staircase.

Not good.

As my eyes are focused on the staircase, awaiting next wave of attackers, on side of my vision I notice huge fireball traveling at the building. The fireball hits the side wall, sending waves of force and heat across the whole area. Sound of wood breaking comes from first floor, as the whole building starts slowly tilting. Abandoning everything I command my legs to run as fast as they can in the direction of the closest window, which is closed with wooden planks, but I do not stop and leap right through them, breaking the wooden protection in the process.

In mid air I regret my to decision as the alley is very narrow and I end up hitting the wall of the building across. Falling down I hit the cold stone floor with my left side as my ribs creak.

Groaning I demand my hands and feet to start moving, trying to get the body up and ready for what is to come. Leaning on the wall I slowly stand up, after which I turn my head to scan the alley and building with my eyes. The whole building became a huge wooden mountain burning in flames, while the pursuers are no where in sight, more likely burried under the burning, wooden tomb. But I should not get my hopes high.

Manually moving my legs one after another I slowly move through the narrow alley until I exit into a much bigger one. Looking around my eyes stop on a gruesome sight. Several meters from me two knight in plate armor are sitting in a huge pool of blood. I believe them to be dead and make several steps away, until a quite whisper reaches my ears. I do not know why, but my legs stop and turning around start slowly moving on their own, until I stand in front of the pair and finally hear a quite chant 'I am sorry Lara'. Coming closer a picture I saw many times with the young brothers stands before me, a boy in his late teens is sitting in the pool of blood, hugging a girls head with long red hair. The face of the girl in his arms has exactly the same eyes as the boy, empty and dull. His lips continue to move chanting the same words.

Soul damaged.

Life is hard and unfair. Sometimes it hits people so strongly that they break. The broken may develop severe case of insomnia, caused by never ending nightmares, irrational fears and many, many more. I encountered quite few cases when a person would start hallucinating about past events and battles if specific stimulus would be applied, clash of metal or screams.

There are many broken, there was no blood brother who wasn't broken in one way or another. People adapt, survive, find a way to live with it. I am one such example.

But there are those who are broken beyond repair, they can never return to normal life, they become an empty husk of their former self. Symptoms vary from simple apathy to their own future, to quite common cases of total vegetation state, where a person is not even able to eat by himself.

There are many factors that affect what fate awaits soul damaged.

Common knight or warrior would more likely stay in this state forever, few very lucky ones could heal enough to 'exist', but they will never truly recover.

With enforcers and mages things get problematic, as they have many affinities, or bridges to other side how I call them. Darkness can seep into this world through those affinities, and because of that affected need be either healed and purified quickly, or 'sealed'. It may take some time and effort from many priests, but in the end, they may recover. Losing a skilled enforcer or mage, unlike a knight or warrior, would be a tremendous waste of resources and because of that they use any means necessary. And the most popular method is religious indoctrination.

You are not evil. You did nothing wrong. You only followed the will of the god.

Blood brotherhood is a but different. Even a tiny chance of a brother being corrupted in unacceptable. A single case long time ago was enough to make an iron clad rule. Long story short, any soul damaged brother is instantly 'released'. I did not even notice at what point my sword was already on the boy's neck, just about to take his life. Old habits die hard.

But he is not a blood brother.

And neither am I.

Just before I decide to remove the sword from boy's neck and leave him alone, my eyes notice a single thin black veins across his neck. The black veins starts to slowly grow, traveling up and down his body, as more and more black veins appear.

So you chose to give up.

I place the tip of my sword on his Adam's apple. Only thin cloth separates the tip of metal object and the soft flesh. I slowly move my hand forward. The sword slides into boy's neck with no resistance whatsoever. Blood starts to slowly flow out of the wound with near no reaction from the person himself. His head tips down causing more blood to flow down his armor, painting it red. The unmoving body slowly slides to right and the head of the girl falls out of his hands, rolling away. Corruption usually takes hours or days, but that, such speed could not be natural, there was something that was desperately trying to make connection.

With my peripheral vision I catch the sight of the pursuers finally catching up. Deciding not to wait until they gather in larger number. I turn in their direction and increase the speed of mana circulation once more, burning down whatever reserves are left in this body. My finger clench around the hilt stronger as I prepare to leap into the advancing group, to send them to the other side. My body explodes into action as a spring, but the moment my sword plunges through the first enemy's chest, something huge jumps out of the narrow alley and crashes into us, throwing everyone at the wall. As my body impact the building wall, precious air escapes my lungs. Not waiting next attack I command my body to move and leap aside, saving myself in the process as something hit the area I was a fraction of a second ago.

Using the momentum I make several rolls and reorient my body, making the final stop on the creaking legs. My eyes finally capture the new attacker in full view. White skeleton, two meters in height and four meters in length, with burning green eyes and three horns in dark cloak standing on all four, as an animal, is staring at me in pure hatred. It's bone jaw opens wide and a high pitched screech comes out of it. Few seconds later the previous attackers body start to move in very unnaturally way as they stand up.

Feral Lich.

What the actual fuck!? There are tons of dead near the dungeon entrance. Why attack here?

Wait.

It is looking specifically at me. And that hatred is directed.

The fucking lich was corrupting the boy.

And I destroyed his new vessel.

Shit.

Fighting Lich and dozen of undead in narrow alley is a fast ticket to afterlife.

But who cares?

I am tired of running around again and again. I will be there soon one way or another. Enough time was wasted in attempt to get to the dungeon quietly.

I unyieldingly stare back into the green burning eyes. Maggots start falling out of it's ribcage on the ground and crawl away. My blood starts to boil as representation of pure corruption and mindless evil stands before me.

Lich charges at me with undead following him shortly after. Squeezing the sword in my hand, I prepare for coming attack, but face of innocent smiling girl, with black and white hair, flashes through my mind, which is nearly instantly replaced by the image of her dead body trying to kill me with the same hateful eyes.

With a roar my body leaps at the enemy, at something, that must be destroyed, something, that must be erased from existence. My sword swings down vertically with colossal velocity at the incoming swipe of the undead. The sword crushes the limb of the lich and smashes against floor sending cracks in all direction from the point of impact. But I do not stop, my body moves further demanding destruction of the thing before me. The next swing with enormous strength crashes against the body of the Lich and throws it against the wall as if a doll, but something deep inside of me is demands more, much more. With another roar I leap at the creature and smash one limb after another. Lich tries to crawl away sending numerous undead around to his help, but it is useless, my sword rips them apart only increasing the power and intensity with which I send the sword crashing into the lich's body. In desperation it sends all it's mana into the bones to reinforce them and crawl up the building, but I will not allow it. Grabbing it's spine I throw it down against the stone floor. It screeches in horror and hate as my sword impact it's skulls cracking it slightly. Again and again my sword continues to assault, cracking and chipping away more and more of the skull. Ignoring the disappeared light of eyes in the skull and the bones detaching from the main body, my sword continues to fall down again and again, cracking the huge skull more and more until it finally cracks open as a broken fruit.

I feel as my chest is moving up and down consuming all the available air. Minutes later my chest still continues to move, hungrily devouring more and more air, as if an unsatisfiable beast. Looking down at the crushed and broken bones which few minutes ago were part of dangerous lich I continue to desperately devour the air. The ringing in my ears finally starts to disappear. The utter silence of the alleys contrasts to the enormous amount of sound coming from the main roads.

My eyes scan the alley finding it nearly desolated except the dismembered undead that stopped moving after the Lich was destroyed.

Alone in world of chaos again.

I need to finish this.

My legs and arms scream in pain, telling me that I overused them, but I simply block the feeling. As dictator I demand their absolute obedience and with a small hitch they start moving again, carrying me to the dungeon.

Enough.

I exit the alleys and come to the dungeon plaza from a bit different direction. The tides changed and now the area is generally overwhelmed by Paletia army, which now consist of many more sub-species than before. More and more demi-humans pour into the plaza as they chant 'For motherland'. Small groups with spears are running around and finishing any human who is lying on the ground, but is not dead yet. As the group comes near me I finally notice that it consist of kids, barely under fifteenth. One of them leaps at the warrior in leather Armour, who is crawling away and begging for help and plunges the spear through his back with a scream.

"DIE THIEVES! WE WILL TAKE MOTHERLAND BACK!"

Well he is not fully wrong. This area belonged to demi-humans a very, very long time ago. It was actually their place of origin, but after the inter-continental war they were 'displaced'.

The small group continues to walk around and killing the fleeing, until they come to a boy about the same age with missing legs crawling away with one hand. They start plunging spears into his back as he cries for help, as he cries for them to stop, but they continue to assault and torture him with shouts of delight and crazed eyes. Their fun is ended shorty by my sword which cuts them apart one by one. They try to run away, but I don't give them that opportunity.

A female demi-human appears at peripheral of my vision with a sword coming in the direction of my skull, with small movement I evade the attack and counter attack myself. As her arms split apart at the elbows a high pitched scream escapes her, notifying everyone around about an enemy. My sword plunges through her eye socket quieting her forever.

More and more demi-humans attack, but they simply follow the fate of the previous attacker as I make my way through them in the direction of dungeon entrance.

A huge fire ball exploding dozen meters away from me makes me stop in my track. My eyes catch a levitating red cloak as more and more fireballs rain down on the plaza. Demi-humans start running back, trying to escape the rain of fire, but their stampede does the opposite, as many are simply trampled to death.

After half a minute of the assault the cloaked person slowly lands on ground, a man in early thirties, he barely stands straight, breathing heavily. He takes out a blue vial and chugs it down as red glow returns to him. As if possessed he starts throw fireballs at the army of demi-humans burning them to charcoal as his hysterical laugh sounds across the plaza. His glow starts slowly decreasing again after which he chugs another vial that he took out of his cloak. The glow once more returns to him but this time blood starts flowing out of his ears, eyes and mouth, as he continues to fire the fireballs randomly. His figure slows down as his coughs are quickly replaced with choking. After a series attempts to take a breath he stops moving at all and falls down on the ground.

Overdose.

As if by a queue more and more people start pouring into the plaza from both sides, but this time the tides switch back from demi-humans to humans, as they slowly overwhelm the attackers. Many generals in lavish plate armor show up rallying the warriors and charging into the meat grinder itself. More and more hills of dead appear at the plaza. About a tenth of the whole plaza it already littered by dead bodies.

And the dead will have one more addition soon.

I resume my walk in the direction of the dungeon entrance directly through the meat grinding center, dodging when needed and countering when required. The path is littered with dead from both sides, and I add more on ever single exchange, sending to afterlife every enemy who dared to attack. After many long minutes I finally reach the stairs leading to dungeon entrance. The guard stationed on the top stairs are fighting the few brave ones that try to reach the top, but it is hard to call it a fight, as most of attackers are simply thrown off, down the long stairs. As I make several steps up the stairs a unison of screeches explodes out of the dungeon entrance. At least dozen of feral Liches pour out, and attack anyone they can find, they rip apart, crush and throw around all the guards stationed near the entrance until the top is occupied only by the liches. After a few seconds a single elder lich appears, floating about a meter above the ground and nearly twice the size of feral lich, it's blue burning eyes scan the area until they stop on me for few long seconds. The elder lich points it's bony finger at me as it's jaw opens slightly, and an ethereal voice whispers "Kill". The next instant all the feral liches turn in my direction and screech in pure hatred as if they found their ultimate enemy.

More and more obstacles.

After another unison of screeches they start running down the stairs on all four as if wild animals in frenzy, trampling every single one on their path. They reach me within seconds, but I do not wait for their attack. Pumping the mana circulation to the limit I leap into their midst, bringing my sword down on the first lich's skull, crushing it and sending cracks across the stairs in process. Not waiting anything I swing the sword to the left trying to destroy the next one, but the sword meets with an arm, raised in defense, crushing it in the process, but the momentum was already lost, and only a single small crack appears on the skull of second lich the moment it hit it. The lich screeches back as if laughing, but I do not get time to react as something from behind hits my side, sending me far in the air. The air time is short, but the distance I travel is nothing like that. My body impacts the ground and starts rolling on side, but instincts scream to evade whatever is coming. Thrusting the sword into floor I redirect my body just in time as two liches land at the area I was but a moments ago. Other liches start running in my direction as more and more undead rise around me.

Fighting a horde of liches in the middle of inter-continental war battlefield...

As the liches are about to reach me again, several yellow beams cut through the space around them, and images of melting bones is quickly replaced by silence and their ashes are blown away by wind. Turning in the direction of the origin of the beam attack I find a group in colorful armor, with huge aura around them visible even to naked eye, walking in the direction of demi-human army. One of them gives me a silent nod with a smile on his face.

Heroes.

Paletia army start a retreat trying to save themselves from the onslaughter of devastating spells, but it only results the opposite as the knights and warrior smash through the retreating armies as hot knife through butter.

This is what heroes are. Their mere presence instantly shifts the state of battle. A single spell from them and creatures which could take hundreds, thousands of lives disappears in an instant, leaving but ashes behind it.

Gods among men.

About hundred knights, in white and red armor, with golden insignia on their chest, walk through the endless sea of warriors, as the later ones step aside and make path for them. The knights arrive beside the heroes with their chins held high, basking in fear people around them have, as if the events that just happened are result of their work.

The 'new' Blood Brotherhood.

I am not sure if it is punishment of fate itself for our crimes, to have us all killed and the replacement to be exactly the opposite of what we were aspiring for. Our ideals turned inside out, and the resulting abomination taking our place as if it rightfully belonged to it.

Fate, you bitch for sure have the most twisted sense of humor out there.

Ground starts trembling as sound of very heavy footsteps become louder and louder. Suddenly it becomes very quite as all eyes turn in the direction of demi-human army and the origin of footsteps. Five giants, which are at least hundred meters tall, are walking through the city, destroying any building on their path, and stomping any enemy who dared to attack them. The kingdom knight and warriors begin whispering between themselves and after command from their leaders start retreating even faster than the Paletia army when heroes arrived.

Dozen warriors walk out of the retreating demi-human army, their tribal armor shining brightly and not losing to the heroes even a bit. They continue to walk forward taking out their weapons, as their aura starts shining much brighter.

All the heroes take out their weapons and start slowly walking in the direction of new arrival. Their auras shining brighter and brighter as they come closer to each other, until them stop about fifty meters from each other. The whole plaza is submerged into absolute silence as the parties continue to stand and stare at each other. Only the footsteps of the giants reminding that time is slowly moving.

I am sure that this is a point that will go into the annals of not just this kingdom's history, but the world's. For me though, this is just another, useless, over-glorified bar fight. My eyes finally leave the new brotherhood, which are standing about a dozen meters behind the heroes, and start climbing the stairs with the barely moving legs of mine. They scream in protest, as each step I make feels as if walking on burning coals which have razor sharp nails in them, but I simply block the feelings in my legs again. Alas my thought still return back to the brotherhood, one of not many things I truly cared about, no matter how many times I try to swat the thought away.

It does not matter anymore.

This is no longer my world, but theirs.

"Hello, fellow summoned." I hear a young loud voice from behind.

My legs stop at the very last step of the long stairs. The emptiness that filled my mind made my body stop in stupor. 'Summoned'? Turning my face back I take a closer look at the party which came out from the demi-humans army. Their auras shining just as brightly as heroes.

It can't be.

The method for summoning was lost by all except the empire, and only because the elders took great steps to ensure that it would be never lost.

Did they restore the method themselves? Replicated it? Or simply stole it?

But if demi-humans were able, maybe others will...

Enough. It does not concern me.

In a flash parties explode in action as they crash against each other as powerful spells are thrown around destroying the buildings and changing the terrain of plaza. Each one them finding an enemy as if by a queue, switching between one on one and group on group, while the brotherhood is supporting them with simple blood spells. The whole thing looks like a battle of angry gods. Everyone else simply runs away into the alleys, trying to hide from the incoming spells, hoping that a stray one won't hit them.

Some things do not change.

I resume my tortures walk to the dungeon entrance, moving one trembling leg after another, and the moment I stand before huge arc, the actual entrance into the dungeon, something hits nearby column with high velocity. The column explodes into cloud of grey and black dust as it falls apart. Sound of someone groaning and coughing comes from inside of the cloud, a second later a person's silhouette stands up and starts walking in my direction. A very pale female from the empire hero group, with white hair and yellow eyes appears out of the dust cloud, swiping blood which is flowing down her mouth with her hand. She looks in my direction and grins toothily.

The female hero disappears as if an illusion and a sudden impact throws me into a column as air escapes my lungs.

"Juicy one. So much mana in a dry skeletal body like that."

Something clamps at my neck as I feel mana and blood escaping my body. Sound of delight escapes her as she continues to suck energy out of my barely moving body.

A huge desire to sleep starts to close my eyes, until they are fully closed.

Maybe meeting my end like this will be enough.

Killed by a random hero who sucked energy out of me like-

Images of thousands of children sexually abused, sucked dry of blood and eaten alive flash through my mind, their scream for help and wails of pain, me standing in endless sea of tiny, dead bodies.

No.

Not like this.

NOT LIKE THIS.

With a roar my eyes open as my hands clamp around the ribs of the accursed blood sucker. Audible crack of bones is heard as she jolts in confusion and stops the sucking. With monstrous strength my jaws shut tight around the neck of white haired hero. She opens her mouth and tries to scream in terror, but my jaws squeeze her neck with so much force, that she can't even breath. Her limbs frail around uselessly trying to get herself away from me. Her sharp claws dig into my back, as in desperation she tries to do any damage she can, but strength slowly leaves her limbs. The blood from her artery has been dripping down my chin for some time, but most of it is going down my throat, replenishing the mana that was barely left in me. Sides change as I start sucking her dry, draining whatever liquid there is in the body in my arms.

My vision blurs, as impact with unimaginable strength crushes my very being and sends me flying through two columns. I desperately try to command my body to move, but my eyes already caught the sight of huge burning sun descended on me, sending me to world of indescribable pain as my skin and flesh melts away. I feel as if even the piece of flesh, that I ripped from the energy draining hero, is burned to crisp.

In desperation I send mana to block all senses from my body, after which world of total darkness and numbness descends on me. In this dark and empty void I slowly send mana bursts, trying to asses the status of my body. When the review finishes few seconds later I am presented with a simple answer.

This is the end.

There is nearly no mana left in this empty husk of a body. Nearly every single organ is ruptured beyond repair. The burns on my back are so severe that there is nothing except bones and muscles left there. Toxins from the burns are already seeping into the flesh, poisoning the ruptured organs underneath them.

I will not be able to heal it.

This is it.

I may be able to squeeze few minutes, but thats the limit.

I will not make it in time to the volcano.

If destruction is what the world wants, than that is what it will get.

I will drag to hell as many of you as I can.

Stopping all the healing attempts, I send mana into body to enforce my last demands.

Pain and feeling return, telling me that I am not dead, yet. The trembling limbs start moving and I stand up. My left eye went fully blind as there isn't even a spec of light it can see. I send mana into the right, cursed one, to at least orient in space. In the smoke I find my sword, near the melting rocks, and try to grab it with the trembling hand, but I fail again and again, as the muscles are not listening to me. Sending mana I make the tendons and muscles clench on the sword with death grip strength.

As I walk out of the smoke I find the two summoned parties in some kind of stalemate, looking at each other and speaking about something. My feet start to move, carrying me down the stairs, when the discussion ends shortly and they look in my direction in total silence. I continue my descent as their eyes do not leave me.

My right eye is blurry and can not tell me what exactly the atmosphere is like. But I somehow can feel two distinctive feeling present in the air. Fear and disgust.

A deep laugh from my left makes my neck slowly turn until I see a silhouette of a huge demi-human standing near the Paletia heroes walking in my direction.

"I am the luckies person alive! The FUCKING Inquisitor himself!"

The silhouette start moving quickly in my direction, faster than any human could and when he is about ten meters away he leaps and screams "Your life is mine!". As his sword is about to reach me, my hand moves and his body and sword splits in half. Spraying me with blood and innards as his body travels further hitting the stairs, painting it blood red.

There should be no clothes covering me, but I am not even sure how the symbol of the brotherhood is visible through the burned flesh.

But it does not matter.

Not waiting for the next attack, my eyes scan the area and find the silhouette of white haired female hero lying on ground with what looks like healer and a wizard in red near her. What stands between her and me is another hero with a scythe and the blood brotherhood, with their weapons drawn out in what looks like defensive stance.

Forcing my limbs to obey my demands I start moving again, to which everyone around reacts by tensing up. A single person comes out of crowd of new brotherhood, with a delighted toothy smile, and points his weapon in my direction announcing loudly with a smile.

"The cursed heretic. You have finally showed your treacherous soul. By the order of the Emperor, and my power as Inquisitor, you are sentenced to death. We-"

"Impostors." unexpectedly ghastly voice coming from me interrupts him. "Fakes." the voice continues.

His smile breaks and is instantly replaced with a scowl.

"You will regret it cursed rat!" he screams, as the members of new brotherhood leap at me, only to be cleaved by my sword one by one.

The next instant the whole group surrounds me and attacks screaming in pure hatred. I take the upper part body part of the previous attacker, lying near me, and throw it at the incoming enemy. Distracted by the body of his comrade, he does not capture my descend and the sword that ends his life. In rage I leap at one enemy after another, pumping more and more mana of what is left in this body, into my limbs. Every spell is evaded, every attack is countered, every trap is stopped before they could set it up. I rip their bodies apart, crush their skulls not holding back even a bit of strength, littering the whole area with their dismembered bodies

"Pathetic." the ghastly voice whispers as I crush skull of another moaning fake. Their inexperience and weakness exceeding even my worst expectation. I thought that they at least gathered strong ones. But it is just a facade. Group of actors using our names as if they earner it.

The new 'Inquisitor' tried to cast sever mid-tier blood spells, only for them to be countered instantly. He doesn't even know the weaknesses of those spells, where and how to use them.

Pathetic.

The leader roars in response as he tries to cast next spell only to be interrupted by my sword and sent flying dozen meters away. Innumerous enchantments on his armors creating impenetrable barrier around his neck just a moment before my sword could cleave it half. I try to take another step and finish the excuse of a warrior, but my leg freezes as if a solid rock. Flesh in the leg stops responding to all attempts to make it move, as if dead. My vision start to slowly narrow as if being slowly submerged into darkness.

No.

NO!

Just a bit longer.

A tiny bit more.

The new Inquisitor groans and standing up takes out several transparent potions. He gulps them down in one ago after which his maniac laugh sounds across the plaza as huge red aura burst out of him.

"Die remnant of past!" he screams leaping at me.

Pathetic.

Redirecting mana from the leg into my arm, and using the fact that my legs are frozen solid, the sword falls down crushing the foe against the marble floor, creating cracks around the epicenter of the hit location. His eyes stare into empty space not understanding what happened. The huge cut from his right shoulder to stomach starts heavily bleeding as red aura slowly disappears.

A moment later a hero appears above me with his scythe descending down at me. Abandoning an attempt to evade the attack as my leg would not budge, I put a half-block reorienting the path of scythe. The scythe passes my face by paper thin margin, but I do not give the hero even a moment to realize that, as my sword is already falling down in an attempt cleave the hero's neck, only for his enchanted armor to create several magic shields which explode on contact with the sword and send me flying dozen meters away.

I crash against the floor and after few twirls plunge the sword into floor and stop the travel sharply, ending on my knees. The hero with scythe looks at me in horror, as the fact that he nearly died finally sinks into him.

Heroes always have this illusion as if they would not die, as if they are immortal.

As I attempts to use my sword and arms to stand up my whole body freezes. Muscles starts to tremble as blood begins to leak from out of my mouth and eyes, telling me that there are only few breaths left.

Truly pathetic.

I look at the new heroes and say something that I should have said at the very beginning, maybe then it would not have ended this way.

Maybe then Luna would have been alive.

"V-a-i l-a-y" my ghastly voice whispers.

Taking another breath I repeat the phrase in the language of summoned.

"V-e-i l-a-i" I repeat, coughing out a glob of blood at the end.

My eyes trail the trajectory of the glob until it hits the ground merging with all the blood on the marble floor. But the glob starts to slowly moving as if alive, trailing it's path I notice that it is not the only thing moving. All the blood starts to flow in waves in a single direction as if a river, until they come to the body of new Inquisitor and disappear in it. His body melts into red goo and huge face appears out of the goo, as if trying to escape. The next instant face disappears and all red goo gathers into a small bundle, out of which feature of limbs break out. A creature with humanoid features, barely half a meter in height stands out of goo. It's blood red eyes open wide and start looking around until they stop on me. The moment it's eyes meet mine and inhuman screech escapes it as within a second it's grows into four meters tall sleek creature with razor sharp claws and fangs.

Smile breaks across my face at the appearance of avatar.

Fuck you fate.

Death by blood avatar.

Very ironic for Blood Brother.

Fuck you bitch.

The next instant the blood creature leaps at me with speed exceeding any possible biological limits. I try to send mana into my body, to move my hand with the sword and block the lunge, but I know full well that it is useless. Moment later I am sent flying through air. It could be poetic, me sailing through air with huge speed, as wind blows around my body, of course it was so until my back hit something, again, and again, and again. Expecting the impact I blocked all the feeling left in this body and the only thing I could perceive was the change in the scenery and total loss of response from some of the internal organs.

My eye slowly blinks and tries to scan the surrounding, but everything is blocked by rubble and dust cloud, and the only thing that I can see, lying on my side on the cobble stone floor is silhouette of destroyed buildings. Creature of blood appears from out of the dust cloud and scowling, voices extreme discontent at my survival with a very high pitch screech. Grabbing me by my right foot the creature swings me around, at the ground and at the walls, as if a cloth being whipped. Finally it throws me at the nearby building and my body passes through several wooden walls as they explode in clouds of splinters.

Blinking several times my eye tries to determine where I am, but the only thing I see is a totally new open square and stone cobble floor. I do not know where the strength comes from but by my command the body starts moving as they visible tremble. Wobbling on my legs and using the sword, which is still in my right hand in a death grip, I stand up. Slowly turn around my gaze meets the one from the blood creature. I am suddenly lifted up as hand made out of blood squeezes around my neck.

The creature snarls something incoherent for few seconds until I am suddenly released and fall down on my knees as sack of potatoes. The creatures screams in pain while I take few shallow breaths and notice that there is a huge purple gem coming out of it's chest. The gem starts shining bright as the form of creature ripples and turns into a blob of blood. The blood avatar tries to reforms into several wild animals and species but continues to break apart and return back to blob.

A person in white plate armor appears from thin air with his sword coming at my face, reacting by pure instinct I send all the mana available into my right hand and moves it just enough for the sword to somehow connect with the persons helmet and sends him flying several meters away. Thin yellow thread circles around me, until it makes a ring around my right arm and in a flash of light severs it. My hand falls to ground and starts bleeding. Not even a second after many javelins pierce my chest and legs, stopping all the movement dead.

Not like I could move anyway.

A few seconds later several people in white long cloth coats, which look like something that Qing priests wear, appear and walk to me, and the still reforming and breaking apart blood avatar.

"Well. Well. Well. Would you look who we have here." says a young male voice.

The young man turns to the person in white plate armor to my left, who is standing up and removing his damaged helmet. After looking at the damaged helmet his black eyes turn to be in pure hatred.

"What were you expecting attacking THE Inquisitor? Even in this burned state he is a dangerous enemy, he fought the blood chosen and is still alive. What were you even thinking?" remarks the laughing young man in white coat.

The person that attacked me comes closer and picks up my severed hand, which still has sword in it and smiles at me toothily.

"Don't play with his hand too much, the research bureau would be thrilled to get their hands on it. We need to bring it to them together with the blood chosen. Who knows, maybe some day we will be able to replicate this undying monster's body."

Several people in white come closer to the creature and start chanting an archaic spell. Avatar screams in pain as he tries to morph into something, but just slowly decreases in size.

"We are actually very grateful to you. I never thought that we could get an opportunity to capture a chosen one so easily. You did a great job distracting it for so long." says the young man in white coat with a very wide smile.

"As a form of gratitude I will tell you a small secret." he whispers making few steps closer and looking straight into my eye.

"Your beloved Sun Empire will fall very soon. While their great heroes are here, fighting a lost battle, the Sarshi Caliphate army is already within their border. And necromancers that submerged this whole city into chaos is just a small, tiny fraction, of what was sent to Empire."

"But here is the best part. Those religious morons from Caliphate will follow the Empire soon after. Because WE have been preparing for it for more than a century."

He continues to talk, but his voice becomes distant as my sight grows darker and darker, until it turns fully black.

Then suddenly a flash of pure white assaults me. The brightness is so high that I try to protect myself from it, but my hands refuse to move. Soon the intensity of light decreases and something in front of me starts to take rectangular shape.

After few long seconds it finally becomes clear.

Before me right in the thin air hangs a huge painting in a very beautiful dark wooden frame. Focusing I notice that the image in the painting is moving as if alive. The painting shows view of destroyed city with thousands upon thousands dead lying on ground, but the number of people currently fighting is many times more. What catches my attention is a huge area with waves of humans and demi-humans colliding into mass of gore and violence, with rare burst of colorful explosion.

I recognize the place, where I was just few minutes ago, but the view looks as if taken from very high point.

Is this painting of events in plaza right now?

Something itching on my back compels me take a look at what is behind me, and with a great effort my neck starts to move. But I freeze solid when I see what is exactly behind me. Countless amount of creatures, million upon million, big and small, made out of flesh, smoke and different elements and much more. With claws longer than large ships, with more fangs than there are people in a big cities.

Even the most dangerous creatures I hunted as Blood Brother before them look as harmless farm animals.

The creatures barely move, as if holding their breath back, awaiting something. All their gazes are focused on one single point, and slowly tracing in the direction, of what they are looking at, I return back to the panting.

Oh.

They are waiting my death.

So in the end I failed.

Wait.

Why was I fighting in the first place? My task was to plunge myself into the endless sea of lava at the lowest floor of the dungeon.

How did it end like that?

Mistakes. My mistakes.

All of it was my fault. Even the war was-

Wait.

No.

Was I the reason?

No.

No.

I only....

Killed the guards of north pole, leaving the North Kingdom open to raids from the creatures of North.

Attacked North Kingdom city guards as a Blood Brother, making it more suspicious of Empire, essentially leaving it alone against the Qing.

Found Sarshi Caliphate spy village, alarming them and forcing them to take immediate actions.

Was that noble from the ship important?

Killed upper echelon of two important cities in Desert Alliance, destabilizing it and leaving open for Qing and Sarshi Caliphate invasion.

Told some truth about Empire to Mozzarel King. Dooming them to the same fate as previous cities.

Are they even alive?

It was me.

Because of me continental war started.

And because of it Patu attacked, escalating the whole thing into inter-continental war.

It was me.

I am the reason for this chaos.

The white world starts to spin as if being sucked into whirlpool. The blinding light recedes and image of mages in white coats putting a red creature into a glass globe appears before me.

"Oh. You are back. I though my monologue killed you. HAHAHA. Get it? Killed you."

"Oh come on. How boring can you be. I took great risk telling you one of our secrets just to see you reaction and you don't even twitch. Truly boring."

"Sadly we are already finished here. We can't take you with us, even if we chop of all your limbs to make you compactly transportable."

"You also just don't have much time left. I don't even understand how you are still alive. But you know what? Heart of the heartless Inquisitor will be an interesting present. Don't you think so? Irony kind of. My wife will love it."

Taking out a short white dagger he makes several steps to me, and plunges his knife into my chest. He starts sawing my ribs with the short dagger, not meeting any resistance from the flesh at all, while barely any blood flows down the open wound.

Sound of something titanic colliding makes him stop and look around. Ground start trembling which cause few to lose footing. Few seconds later the buildings in the background start to fall apart. As if the earth itself cracked, volcano splits open in explosion of fire and magma and titanically enormous burning creature crawls out of the blazing volcano. It's body casts shadow over the whole city. Slowly the liquid magma and rocks start falling of it, revealing a very thin frame with extremely long white limbs.

As if by a queue series of rapid lighting fills the sky, the next instant they stop, only to return back all together with enormous flying creature made our of lighting in the center of it all.

The creatures of nightmares stare at each other for several long seconds, until they pounce on each other with speed that contradicts all rules of physics. Their roars make everyone's ears burst in blood as people fall down on ground writhing in pain. The battle of creatures before me creates wind and tornadoes that throw buildings into the sky.

During this whole chaos a deep laugh sounds across the area and I recognize it. It is my voice, but that should not be possible, there is no energy left in this body to even blink. My whole body starts to burn as if submerged into liquid metal and I start hearing a voice.

HIS voice.

The titanically big creature stop their fight and look in my direction. And nearly at the same time they start preparing huge spell directed in my location.

My vision again grows dark as I feel every bit of warmth leaving my body, seeping away as if washed by cold river.

I could do so much staff better.

But as always I made the worst possible decision. And got the worst possible result.

I doomed the world.

But there is nothing I can do anymore.

Luna. Brothers.

I am coming.

Light slowly returns as I am once again submerged into blinding light. Few seconds later the light recedes and what stands before me is the same painting frame that I saw before. But the image inside of it totally different one, it is so white that for a second I thought it was a mirror.

Looking closer I notice that there is something more inside of it. As my eyes focus, they find something, that is very hard to describe. All the creatures of nightmares that I saw before are raging, screaming and attacking each other in pure hatred and mindless violence, but upon death they do not disappear, they simply reform and appear at the same place.

Then something burning starts to fall down from the white sky, leaving trail of black smoke after it, until it hits the white floor creating a huge crater. The whole area slowly covers in black smoke, until white creature with burned wings white wings, which looks almost human, comes out of it. The white creature starts to scream and rage even more than any other creature around, ripping it's porcelain white skin, coloring the white floor with it's black blood. The white creature grows huge and with it's long and razor sharp claws swipe around cleaving through any creature in it's way. Mindlessly destroying anyone and no one at the same time. All the creatures around in response scream at it but do not attack as if afraid of it.

Raging around the white creature finally stops and looking at the sky screams in pure unhinged hatred.

The fallen.

Why is HE here?

Shouldn't HE have already been in my...

What happened?