One day before the Ascension

Avant - Heim, Citadel of the sky

Avant-Heim, the capital city of the celestials, was a humongous floating island in constant move, being the largest city in the world in term of size and wealth. From a far, it looked like a giant pyramid-like citadel with nine different levels. Each level had their own purpose, from living quarters to magic research. One could only believe that such a wonder can only exist in the realms of the god.

The celestials themselves were a peculiar bunch among all races. Characterized by their symbolic wings on their back, celestials highly valued order and stability, seeking balance between all races. They saw themselves as the guardian and watcher of the world. Perhaps because they were the first race to have been created by the Gods. It gave them a major confidence in their own ability as they were the servants of the Gods, give out judgement in their place.

Celestials had a particular hatred toward demons. To the celestials who were the most faithful worshippers of the Gods, demons were seen as a living sin as they were not originally a race created by the Gods and therefore must be eradicated.

In time of war, the celestials usually secluded themselves from the rest of the world, only intervened when the war threatened the existence of the world itself. But even in those time, they only gave out hints and directions or did things behind the scene. Never had they openly participated in a war at the front line, not because they were weak. On the contrary they were one of the most powerful races, second only to the dragons. Celestials just thought that the affairs of mortals were below them and only intervened when things were at their worst. But even so, they were respected across the world for their neutrality and were often invited to serve as an arbiter in important events. One of the few occasions where the celestials went to war was when a demon lord appears, such as ten years ago. However aside from that, they always remained in the background, sometimes pulling strings in some events. And as always, behind the scenes. Until now…

A celestial was running across the halls of the seventh level of Avant-Heim. Quite special for a celestial such as her: blue haired with white wings. The woman was in her late twenties, at least in appearance. She wore a white long coat and on her back a two-meter crystal long claymore. The sword itself emitted a terrifying yet divine aura. The lady finally stopped in front of a giant door with two guards standing in front of them.

“Hold! Only those who have received the Calling from the Overseer may proceed.” Said one of the guards.

“I have been summoned by the Heralds to participate in the Calling. The name is Executor Ikarus Salem.”, Ikarus replied while placing her left hand on her chest proudly.

The guards brought out a small crystal the size of a pebble. From it emitted blue light scanning the Executor. After a few seconds, the guards nodded and made ways for Ikarus.

“You may proceed, Executor. The Heralds have already arrived. You are the last to have come.”

‘Tchh. No need to remind me that I am late’ Ikarus thought face to the sarcasm of the guards.

Without any delay, Ikarus entered the gate. She went across a long hall before reaching the end of the corridor. Opening its gate, she saw six others celestials already present sitting around a large round but hollow table. She apologized for the delay and quickly took a sit.

The Council of Heralds. Consisted of six members, each was referred as a Herald. They managed the affairs of Avant-Heim, from internal politics to foreign affairs. In short they were the leaders of the celestials. One of the six celestials, a blond man in his thirties, began to talk.

“As you all know; we are all here for the Calling of the High Overseer. Let us not make him wait any longer!” The man threw a glare at Ikarus before resuming.

A bright light flashed in the room. It began to materialize as a person in hood. His wings seemed like they have seen better days with their greyish color, to the point as if they were withering. While Ikarus didn’t see the person face because she was only seeing their back and the person was wearing a hood, she knew immediately that the person in front of her must be incredibly old due to their voice.

“It has been a while, young Mikael. I see that everyone else is here.” The old man turned his heads around to look at everyone’s face. He stopped at Ikarus. “And you must be Executor Ikarus.” Putting his right arm to his back, he began to watch Ikarus from head to toe, analyzing every inch of her. “Hum impressive for a common celestial but nothing that special either. Then why ….. no no there must be something else.” The old man then mumbled something but Ikarus cannot heard it. But she felt a little uncomfortable with someone staring at her like that. The awkward silence was broken by Mikael.

“Ahem. Greetings High Overseer. It’s an honor to meet you.” Finally, Mikael managed to have the old Overseer’s attention. “Let us go back to the reason why we are all here. Please tell us the reason why you have made this Calling.”

Mikael seems tensed, as all others Heralds inside the room. Of course they had plenty of reasons to. Last time the Calling was made, a demon invasion took place. What could possible await them this time?

“Ah yes yes. Ehem. I have summoned all of you here because I have seen a vision. And a troubling one at that. In two days, in the eastern part of the Kingdom Ceadric, a calamity will take place. In my vision, I have seen a young human boy. From him, the calamity will spread and it will consume our world. And that’s the reasons I have summoned you all here. You the Heralds are the strongest of our race. You are to be sent there and stopped the calamity to happen. If possible, I want you to bring the boy back to me alive.”

The words shocked everyone in the room. A calamity would happen unless they acted immediately. But this was too sudden and the prophecy itself raised a question among the crowds.

“And may I ask: what exactly am I doing here then?” asked Ikarus. Everyone turned their attention to her. ‘Yes why would we need her in this meeting?’ must be what Ikarus thought what everyone was thinking right now.

The old man chuckled. “No need to rush things young celestial. For I have not revealed all of the vision yet. You see in my vision I saw you, Executor.”

“What? What am I doing there? You can’t be thinking that I have something to do with this?”, Ikarus shouted, hitting the table angrily.

“No no of course I am not suggesting anything. However, since I saw you there, I believe it would be better for you to accompany the Heralds in this mission, just in case. My vision only shows me a fraction of the future. You never know the future completely.” Laughed the High Overseer loudly.

“Very well. We shall do as you said High Overseer. Everyone please prepare yourself. We leave in three hours. And Ikarus, I expect you will in time this time. I now conclude this Calling.”, announced Mikael before glancing at Ikarus.

Everyone began to stand up and leave the room through the door. The last one remaining was Mikael. As he began to stand up, the old man spoke to him.

“I did not mention this earlier but at the end of my vision, amidst this calamity I saw a small, or should I say a tiny little flame surrounded by darkness. I have not said this because I don’t know its meaning yet. But keep it in your mind Mikael.”

Mikael nodded in respect. Just as he was going out, he was stopped by the Overseer’s words.

“Be careful young Mikael. Actions bring repercussions. But remember that sometimes inaction itself may have dire consequences.”

Mikael, stunned by those words, turned back but the Overseer was no longer there. He stood there silently, reminiscing something in his mind before moving out.

* * *

Alastor's POV

I always knew that I was not like the others. Why you asked? Because either I was mentally crazy or I had people living in my head. People, at least, that was what I thought they were. Ever since I could remember, I have had these strange dreams where I was in a dark place, surrounded by these shadows people. Every now and then, only one of them showed up, others time a dozen. I have tried talking to them but it was very hard to distinguish one from the other as they all looked the same to me. Well, the shape of each one was slightly different but in this dark place, managing to see them was already an accomplishment. Sometimes I just bumped into one when I tried to walk my way out of the dream. A futile effort from personal experience so I just waited for it to end.

Occasionally a shadow would talk to me. Oddly I was not afraid. Weird wasn't it? I knew next to nothing about these people who kept appearing in my dream and here I was, talking to them. I was not the kind of kids with lots of friends. From times to times when Alice and me sneaked out of our house to play with the kids from the village, even though mother forbid it for some reasons, I had a lot of trouble trying to talk to the other kids. I just felt .... different from them. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I had no mana at all.

While kids would not be able to cast fireball at our age, the least we could do was making spark. But I could not. Not a single thing. I was afraid that I would be a disappointment. But mother and grandpa just smiled at me and comforted me. What surprised me the most was Alice. I thought she would make fun of me like every other thing but she did no such thing. Instead she volunteered to teach, to help me train, to no avail but she continued. When others kids laughed at me, she would jump and punch them to their faces. Well she was always the kind with muscle for brain so I was not surprised about that but still, it made me happy, happy that I had people who cared about me.

Then again perhaps it was true that I was different. Last time I checked, human kids did not have a gemstone on their chest, or anywhere else on their body. But I had one. A black gemstone as dark as night on my chest. At first it was the size of a bean then it just kept growing with me as I grew older. It must have doubled its size by now.

Back to the weird shadows in my dream, you would expect me to try to run from them but somehow I felt close to these people as if we had something in common. They would tell me stories of great kingdoms, ferocious monsters they defeated. At first I thought they were joking as I have never heard the name of the kingdoms they mentioned. Grandpa had a lot of history books in the storage and since I would rather stay inside than going out, I just read all of them one by one. But as I continued to listen to their stories, I was convinced that these were definitely not lies. I was fascinated.

After all these years, I started recognizing some of the shadows. There was one woman called Asmodeus. At least I think "she" was a woman because of her feminine voice and bosom. She always teased me for being small and how she wanted me to be her little brother.

Another shadow called Beelzebub or Belz for short, a very friendly one I supposed. He was a rather big guy, bigger than most of the shadows here. He was the first shadow I talked to. We shook hands when we first met but the moment my hands touched his, I fainted and woke up.

Since then I learnt that touching the shadows with my hands will wake me up instantly but I felt greatly tired after that. There was also a guy called Belphegor but all he did was sleeping. Well at least when I was in the dream. Of course I talked with a lot of others shadow but these three were the ones I talked to the most, well at least that was the case for Asmodeus and Belz.

Now why did I start thinking about all of these? Because at this moment I was being surrounded by at least a hundred of these shadow people. Suddenly I heard a voice I did not recognize in my head.

"Let the Ascension begin!"

While I stood there baffled by all of these, a shadow approached me. It was Belz.

"It's time young Alastor."

"What? What do you mean Belz? What is going on?" I started to panic. I could feel that Belz was not in his usual mood. He was serious. For the first time I was scared of being here. I took a few steps back, only to bump into another familiar shadow.

"Forgive me, little brother!" It was Asmodeus. I felt as if she was sad.

All of the sudden, all the shadows reached out to the gemstone on my chest. When a shadow touched it, the gemstone seemingly absorbed it. One after another. Each time I felt an intense pain in my chest, my vision darker as if the world around me was ending. But I could not move. The darkness in this place was holding me down. I started hearing whispers. The whispers became louder and louder.

"KILL THEM!!!"

"Why did this have to happen?"

"I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU !!!"

"Why do I have to kill?"

"SLAY THEM ALL!"

"Forgive me everyone!"

There were so many voices. Children, man, woman. All mixed together. I felt sick listening to these sounds. But one voice had my attention.

"LAKIUS!!!!" this particular voice had a male accent. It was filled with anger and hatred. Could it be?

Because I could speak a word, I felt an enormous presence. I tried to look around. The shadows were all gone but above now lied a giant dark sphere. I could barely make out the outline of this sphere but it was enormous. Then I heard that voice again, the one talking about Ascension.

"Possession has been completed. The vessel is now ready for the final phase of Ascension. We will now proceed with the Kindling."

A red light began to shine inside the dark sphere. It looked almost like an eye. I could feel the enormous pressure from it. I tried to move but I could not. And before I could even scream, chains started to come out of the gemstone on my chest. They pierced the sphere and then they started to pull it toward me.

"IT HURTS!!! IT HURTS !!!!" I scream out. After a while I submitted to the pain and fainted.

....

....

....

"Ascension completed. The Dark welcomes you, Demon Lord Alastor !"

* * *

Same time somewhere else

Inside a room lit only by candles, a large figure in a black robe was sitting in front of a crystal orb. The figure was chanting some kind of spell but nothing happened. He clenched his fist so hard it would any man bleed by now. But the man did not bleed. Of course he could not bleed if he did not have any blood or skin. The figure was a lich.

Lich could be described as a skeleton wielding magic. They were intelligent and not mindless undead, unlike zombies and simple skeletons. Although their form was basically a skeleton wearing a mage robe. However, this was not just any normal lich but an elder lich, the strongest magic caster compared to any kind of undead. But alas, his spell did not work. The spell he was casting allowed one to find a specific person from anywhere in the world but it did not work for the last ten years he has been trying. Filled with anger, he shattered the crystal orb to the ground. His efforts did not pay any result. All these years for nothing. But he would not give up. Not now, not ever. He sat down, looking at the candle, thinking about the next spell which could probably help him find the person he was searching for. Suddenly he felt a small disturbance in the mana flow inside the castle he was in. Someone or something was emitting mana from the vault.

Curious he decided to check what was the source of this mana. He took his staff and went out of the room. A moment later he found himself in front of the vault. The vault was where every magical item not being used was stored, whether because they were useless or they were too dangerous to use. It was protected by a barrier no one could cross unless they had the password. Could it be there were intruders inside the vault? Impossible only four person had the password and the barrier was still here, which meant no one has used the password yet. Whatever the case he could not leave this situation persisted.

The lich raised his staff and cast a spell. The barriers reacted to the words spoken and vanished into thin air. The lich stepped inside the vault. It was very dark inside but the undead could perfectly see in the dark just as human during the day. From the outside the vault looked like the size of a small room but inside it was as large as a castle court with different levels. Thankfully, the lich could perfectly sense the direction of the mysterious mana source and just walked toward that direction. Inside his head, or what was left of it, since it was only a skull, he wondered about the mana source. Could it be an ancient artifact being activated after so long? Or really some powerful intruder had managed to sneak inside this castle without being detected? He considered many possibilities. Until he met a dead end. He knew this section of the vault. Just some old dust-gathering weird machines left by the old Artificer.

Not convinced, he looked around for more clues. Until he met eyes with a peculiar object: a doll inside a glass box. If he remembered correctly, this was one of the last creation of the old Artificer. The old guy wanted to create a living doll, with its own feelings and conscience. In other words, a doll with a soul. Everyone laughed at the idea at that time but the artificer continued his work. In the end the doll did not even move an inch and he passed away without ever seeing his creation coming to life. The lich looked carefully at the doll. Sure at a glance the doll looked just like a young human girl. Short white haired in a white dress, she had however a peculiar gemstone sticking out of her chest. The lich approached the glass to look at the gemstone. Suddenly his eyes met her opening eyes. The mage was startled and jumped back before pointing his staff toward the doll to prepare a spell.

The sound of gears pressing again each other echoed inside the silent vault as the doll started shaking. Then she spoke a half broken sentence

"As....cen...si...on...As...cen...sion..I....fo..und...you"