As Ivan, Lucy and Eileen threaded slowly threaded back to Visereal, their hearts were heavy. For they knew that they had just committed a great betrayal. A crime, to kill a man who trusted them. A man who had chosen to fight by their side for so many years, and they had chosen to stab him in the back. All in the name of a greater cause.

They agreed to not speak of their crime, and so they walked in silence as guilt filled their hearts. Quietly, the pair of moons up in the sky stared down upon them, slowly following their steps.

And then they suddenly felt it.

“What the hell is that?” Lucy turned around, towards the direction that they had come from.

“Magnus?” Ivan whispered.

“He’s… dead,” Eileen shook her head. “We… finished… him.”

Whatever it was, it was coming towards them. They could feel the forest pulsating to its movement, almost like the two were connected in some way. And in the distance, they could see the trees moving, making way for the vile presence to reach them.

Ivan, Lucy and Eileen, named the bravest of Nobunaga’s army and heroes of the Southern Kingdom of Visereal suddenly didn’t feel so brave. Their knees began to shake, and their arms trembled.

Never before had they felt such bloodlust before. A bloodlust so great that even as the source of it appeared before them, it took them a moment to remember to defend themselves.

“What the hell…” Ivan drew his spear, shaking. “What is that.”

From the forests emerged a humanoid quite a bit taller than your average person. The trees almost twisted and turned, making a path connecting them. A figure entirely shrouded in black, giving off a vile and repulsive sensation as he slowly walked towards Ivan. The figure in question was slouched, like the upper part of his body wasn’t working and his legs moved slowly. There was no sound to his movement. No sound of him breathing, no indication that he was a part of the world itself. Like a nightmare that had found its way into the wrong world, the creature crawled across the land slowly, the rays of moonlight finally illuminated the creature as a whole.

It was blacker than the night, its flesh was saggy and had holes in its arm and body, like it had just been torn apart and stitched together. Several eyes lined the side of its head and body, each of them looking a different direction. But most dominating of its features was simply the amount of bloodlust that it exuded. Even as it did nothing but walk across the ground, all three of them could feel a primal rage from within. A rage unmatched by anything they had ever felt before. A rage that was directed towards them with great prejudice.

“Magnus?” Ivan whispered. He could feel that it was him, but was still uncertain.

The humanoid creature didn’t react to the name.

“What is that thing?” Lucy was sweating heavily, and for the first time in many years she had begun shivering.

The unknown creature didn’t even move, it didn’t do anything. But even with its mere presence it exuded a pressure of almost malignant evil that was unrivaled by anything that they had ever encountered. A creature born of pure hatred that they knew would demolish the world as they knew it.

“Ivan,” Lucy whispered. “Ivan.”

But unbeknownst to Lucy, Ivan and the creature had already begun their battle.

Unlike Lucy and Eileen who spent their battles in the rear guard, Ivan had to get his hands dirty and handle things up close and personal. Unlike the others, he knew what it meant to kill someone while looking them in the eye. To look upon the fear of another human, and to go through with the act of taking a life, knowing the heavy consequences of his actions.

And he knew that whatever this creature was… it was born from Magnus. Ivan knew that inconsequentially, that they were the ones that had created this malignant monster that stood before them. The creature’s flesh was torn and saggy, and although Ivan wasn’t the smartest man in the team he could tell that whatever it was, it was incomplete.

Many years ago he remembered meeting Magnus. How a little boy had sent chills down his spine as Ivan saw his eyes. The eyes of someone that killed dozens of people without hesitation, even though he had ripped his own skin to remove a slave mark and he looked as if he was right before death’s door. Yet those eyes weren’t those of someone that was ready to die.

The same fear was inflicted upon him now. And he knew that no matter what it cost, that he had to discard this monster that had appeared, or else his kingdom would be doomed.

The air was torn apart as Ivan’s sharp spear began to swing across the air, and the creature travelled across the ground on all fours, using sharp claws in an attempt to scratch Ivan. Dust and sediment began to fly everywhere as Ivan’s steps shattered the ground. Eileen tried to get a mark on her target while Ivan and the unknown creature began ravaging the forest. The ground shook and the trees fell as the two exchanged attack after attack. Ivan with his mighty spear swiped across the air, sending waves of air splicing across the air.

The creature responded in kind, matching Ivan’s inhuman force with its own. Its beastly limbs swiped unnaturally, like a wild beast trying to mimic human movement. Its limbs and body were severely injured blow after blow, but it showed no signs of slowing down as its blood spilled all across the floor.

The two brawled face to face, but Ivan could feel the creature getting stronger and stronger. The more and more they fought the more Ivan was pushed back. Luckily it didn’t seem to be too intelligent either. It lacked a mouth so it couldn’t bite like most other creatures. It used both of its arms to try to overpower Ivan, giving him a chance to hold it back with brute strength.

Then suddenly Ivan saw glimpses of light from underneath and did a quick backstep, walls of flames poured from the ground underneath the creature and set it ablaze. Lucy’s spells began to melt the rocks nearby, creating molten lava as hundreds of daggers began flying from all directions into the flames, and Ivan covered his eyes from the blinding light.

The flames erupted for a minute or so, before Lucy stopped channeling. She was already tired, but Ivan could tell that she was shaken beforehand.

As the heat died out and what remained at the center was a pile of molten steel as Eileen’s daggers had melted and pelted the creature with liquid metal.

“Is it… dead?” Eileen shouted.

Just as she had asked the liquid metal flew apart. A single hand burst from the molten mess, and the black creature triumphantly crawled out of the mess, looking completely unfazed by the flesh-melting heat. It crawled out, crashing into the nearby trees as it squirmed, all before standing up once more. Some of the liquid metal was still hot but some had cooled down into its flesh, becoming a part of its body.

Flesh from the creature’s chest began to crawl up, up towards its face. The three watched as the flesh wrapped around the side of its face away from its eyes, two lips opening and a black tongue rolled out of its newly formed mouth.

A scream so ear-piercing and loud pierced the air, causing the trees around it to splinter and Lucy, Eileen and Ivan’s eardrums to shatter. Everyone covered their ears from the scream of pain as the creature began to almost melt and morph. Its flesh crawled all over itself, the metal that had encased into its body moving alongside. In a way parts of its flesh seemed to transform into the metal, sending veins of red hot liquid down its limbs and body, like the way blood would flow down from the head to the toes. Its arms grew shorter, and the holes in its body magically patched themselves up, regenerating in a way that they had seen before.

The creature lunged forward, this time faster than before. Ivan stood in its path, blocking the creature. Only this time instead of randomly swiping it tried to stop Ivan’s spear with only a single arm. However its strength was not great enough to stop Ivan, its body was struck by the tip and was knocked off its feet. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Ivan stepped atop it, the ground caving in as he stomped on the creature. It screeched in pain, but Ivan’s ears had already been damaged. All he could hear was a constant ring as he continued to stab the creature down.

But as he did the flesh of the creature warped once again. The metal began to gleam, turning black as parts of it travelled down its face and up its legs, forming a plate right at the chest where Ivan was striking. Within a split second, it found the strength to swipe up and sent both Ivan and his spear across the air. Unable to block it, he took the full brunt of the attack. He flew far away, landing among the trees with half the bones in his body broken and barely alive, leaving Lucy and Eileen to deal with the enemy.

The creature began to get up, the injuries sustained healing once more. Smokes blew up everywhere around it, and just as quickly as the flesh had healed scratches and cuts appeared all over its body. Right underneath the joints where the limbs connected to the bodies, the back of the neck and whenever it turned, areas that it as blind to. Eileen’s daggers silently left marks on the creature, preventing it from moving as she threw poisonous smokes into its face.

It became slower, blindingly swinging its arms through the fumes without thinking. More daggers with razor sharp strings attached to them dug into its body, and as healed and stood up, it ran into the wires and cut itself once more. A maze of steel wires had been set up, completely surrounding the creature in an attempt to immobilize it.

Eileen watched from above standing on top of a single string, waiting for it to continue flailing. And the creature was shoved back and forth, it fell deeper into the maze until it was directly below Eileen.

And at that moment Eileen tightened every rope, pulling all of them together to condense them all at a single point. All the wires suddenly pulled in towards the center, cutting all the branches and trees in its trajectory, tying up the creature in sharp, steel-hard wires that immobilized it.

Outside, Lucy had begun channeling a new spell. Her previous spell did nothing but slow down the creature. So she knew that no matter how much fire she pelted at it, that it wouldn’t do anything to truly stop it. So the conclusion was that she needed a spell of greater magnitude and intensity. So every single last ounce of her strength and mana went into one final spell. A flame that would rival the sun itself, one so great that it would have to be created hundreds of meters above the sky so that she wouldn’t be burnt by it. It started as nothing more than small embers. Then as it floated further and further up, Lucy began to pour more and more complex incantations into its creation. It grew larger and larger, like a tree growing rapidly until it became as large as a small house. The growth of its size slowed down, and she knew that for the spell to finish it could take much longer.

The steel wires that held down the creature began to break. Already, it had begun healing and there was nothing left to slow it down. Eileen was an assassin, not a warrior. Nothing she did would be able to stop it down, and both of them knew it. The creature peeled apart the daggers and tore the strings, trees falling down as he did. The smokes had dispersed, and Lucy and Eileen saw a change. Chunks of the creature’s flesh fell off, like it was shedding. It peeled apart, turning into a black dust that seeped into the ground, leaving behind a small humanoid creature that reminded them very much of Magnus.

And from it they felt one thing only.

A ruthless, pure anger.

Eileen kept throwing her daggers at it but now black shields had appeared in the air, blocking them all. And from within the small gaps a single black spear twisted through space, jutting straight into Eileen’s face as her body went limp and fell to the ground.

“EILEEN!” Lucy screamed.

Lucy’s sun was growing larger and larger, but at the rate that it was growing it wouldn’t be completed. At least not to the magnitude that she desired to eliminate the threat in one blow. The creature had begun to pick up on her plan, and slowly moved towards her without any opposition.

Until a blue light pierced the dark forests from behind it.

Ivan wasn’t a mage. He had no great spells to rely on, he had nothing more than his trust spear. He wasn’t the sharpest person either. In fact, he wasn’t able to read because he had a certain condition that caused the letters on books to seemingly float around and reassemble itself. Physicians told him that it was a rare birth defect. Something completely out of his control. But Ivan didn’t mind, because he was a man of action. He didn’t have magic, so what? He would stand at the front to beat the shit out of his enemies. He didn’t have the brains, so what? He would put his faith in Nobunaga, and execute his grand schemes to the letter.

And for his loyalty, Nobunaga studied him and found a way for him to use magic. Ancient magic, more powerful than anything Lucy would be able to achieve in several lifetimes. Power that came at a great cost, and so he swore to never use it until a time where it was absolutely necessary.

As Ivan walked towards the black creature, a dazzling blue light followed him and behind him, turned into an illusion of a legendary spirit. His spear glowed golden, and suddenly the very air around him began to spin and stop at his command as he invoked the spirit of an otherworldly hero by the name of Lu Bu. The Flying General who commanded temperamental winds and wielded a heavy glaive.

And as Ivan transformed into the vessel of Lu Bu, the black creature lost all interest in Lucy, turning towards Ivan.

The two approached each other, each evolving to a different level of power. Both fueled by otherworldly magic, one fed on the power of a long forgotten human general, the other feasted on the fallen gardens of life and the vengeful spirit of a single man.

Ivan’s spirit transformed his armor into a saintly cloak and the black creature’s flesh turned harder than enchanted metal, both shaping the world around them and creating an artificial arena of rock and earth.

Before the two even fought the land was torn apart by their presence. The winds spurred out of control, the ground cracked with a black disease, and as the two finally met in a single point their powers collided to ravage the land with destruction. The wind tore apart rocks and hills, the black disease turning the world into extensions of the dark creature. A clash between two beings that were just one step away from godhood.

Ivan’s hearing had returned, and just as before the creature was as silent as ever. Not a single word, nothing to indicate that it even had a shred of human intelligence within it.

Ivan had been bored for a long time. Ever since the war ended, he had been waiting. Waiting for instructions and directions as to what his purpose in life was now. His life passed by with nothing but whores and alcohol as he thought that his skillset was no longer required. He was useless in times of peace. And now, he had been given an opponent that he could not rival. A monster that he could not defeat.

And as the two clashed, their bodies moved faster than sound. The earth broke and shook as the two exchanged blows that caused the air to explode. The storm clashed against the earth that rose up in response, both sending pellets of small sharp rocks to fly everywhere. As if the forests itself obeyed, branches and roots pierced the ground and twisted to protect the dark creature. As Ivan created hundreds of tunnels of wind behind him, hundreds of blades forged itself into existence behind the black creature. The same blades that Magnus once created.

Everything flew towards each other all at the same time. Blasts of winds were cut by swords and sharp blades were shattered by the tempest, everything colliding and mixing and at the very center of the chaos were two beings, fighting a duel to the death. Unlike before the black creature didn’t fight like an animal. It stood on its legs, like a human would. But its movements were strange, like a part of it wasn’t in this world. Ivan began to realize that some of the attacks that he thought were connecting were passing straight through it. It had another trick up its sleeve, and Ivan had no idea how to fight against it. But there was no point in thinking about it, or stopping now. The two maintained the same ferocity that they had displayed before, a fight between two beings that were ready to tear apart the world with their bare hands.

As the wind weakened and the blades shattered, both of them became faster, moving through the forests at inhuman speeds. Watching from afar Lucy could only see dust storms and two shadows rampaging through the forests, destroying the environment as they moved. And for a split moment, they arrived back in front of her.

Ivan had blocked a hundred meter spear that escaped even her sight. Lucy was shaking, she hadn’t been prepared to give up her life in pursuit of Magnus. Her life was spent in the rear guard, protected by Ivan and Magnus themselves. She had been prepared to fight, but not with her life on the line. And it scared her.

But she stood still, holding the wrath of the sun in her hands. No matter what, they couldn’t let this creature go. Holding her ground, she prepared for the worst as the two monsters beside her clashed, leaving scars on the world itself. All she could see through her eyes were two shades, one a beautiful golden and one a deep black that ate away at the light around it. The two bolts blitzed around her, sword and spear clashing with such force that she could feel the air ripple around her.

Ivan and the black creature were evenly matched in brute strength. Neither stepped down in strength, and both were still growing at a rapid rate. Ivan’s spirit seemed to grow larger, and the illusion of the warrior that followed him had begun to become flesh and bone. On the other hand, the black creature had adapted and grown to match Ivan’s pure physical strength. It focused less and less on its magic and more so on its movement. In some ways, Ivan felt like it was trying to mimic him.

Both stepped away from each other for a single moment, observing each other. Behind Ivan, the spirit of the warrior no longer was a bystander. A large spear materialized out of the air, and the avatar of Lu Bu entered the fight itself.

Behind the black creature, black matter rose from the earth, turning iron and diamonds into black crystals and steel. The metals and gems twisted and turned until it turned into a colossal golem, giving material form to a twisted, blind creature that slammed the ground as it came into the world.

The two colossi clashed, destroying the mountains that they stood upon. Below was a fight between sword and spear, and above was a duel between saint and monster.

An unstoppable force met an immovable obstacle.

For what felt like an eternity both were trapped in perpetual stalemate. Every attack was countered, for if a single attack landed then it would mean the death of the other. No projectiles were able to reach their target, and every attempt at a new tactic was met with the other evolving to match each other’s strengths. Even as the forest and ground obeyed the black creature, the skies and wind moved for Ivan. But there was one thing that differentiated Ivan from his adversary. The black creature was constantly growing and regenerating, seemingly drawing its power from a different realm. And Ivan knew that if this were to drag on for eternity, that he would be the one to lose this fight.

Ivan could no longer see or hear anything through the dust and the sound of the storm. Every move he made was based on instinct alone. Never before had he felt such adrenaline that fueled him, forcing him to speed up beyond his limits.

So fast that the space around him seemed to warp and twist.

And in that split second he became stronger. Stronger than the one that gave him power, stronger than the black creature that stood before him. A human that for a second, stood at the pinnacle of mankind’s strength.

The black creature was pushed down to the ground, and Ivan tore away at him. His spear cut away at limbs, slicing all of its armor into small chunks. Even as it seemed to re-grow itself into existence, Ivan kept slicing until his spear disappeared. All he could see was the afterimage of his arms and the tip of the spear as he swung a hundred slashes in a second. The avatar above him had destroyed the golem, and now struck its spear into the black creature. Everything came to a standstill as Ivan prepared for the final blow.

Hundreds of wind tunnels twisted in the air, condensing and spiraling, ready to tear the black creature apart into pieces so small that it would never regenerate again.

And then Ivan saw what remained of the black creature. As its shell fell apart and layers and layers of its armor turned into dust, among the fading remains laid a single boy with a familiar face. It was black and dark, but he could tell.

His face was dark, but it looked just like Magnus. It remained at the center, laying still on the ground.

The kid that he had fought alongside for half a decade. The kid that he had tried to look after like a little brother. And Ivan had been the one to stab him through the chest. To look him in the eyes, to commit a sin that opposed his beliefs and scarred himself so great that he knew that it would haunt him for the years to come. Ivan was a warrior, not an assassin. To fight a war was one thing, but to lie and murder a friend in cold blood was something else entirely.

Ivan’s heart felt like it had been torn into a thousand pieces, and he lost his strength. The winds stopped turning. The avatar behind him had slowly but surely turned into nothingness once more. Ivan’s arms turned thin and frail, his hair white. His whole body shrunk and shriveled as the strongest and wildest soldier of Visereal aged several decades within the frame of a second.

The saint of war had taken his compensation. Several decades of Ivan’s life faded from his body as he paid the price for ultimate power. To be possessed by the power of a great tyrant was no small feat, and it had taken its toll on Ivan. He had hesitated, and now it would cost him dearly.

The dark creature stood up very slowly due to its injuries. It was not clear whether he was conscious or not, but all Ivan could feel was pure hatred emanating from him. Hatred that Ivan knew that he deserved.

Ivan knelt onto the ground, ready to accept his fate. When one wishes to kill another, they must be prepared to give their life as well. Unlike Lucy, Ivan knew that well. And unlike her, he faced death with honor.

The black creature seemed to be too worn out to move. The two locked eyes as Ivan saw the rising of a sun. Had it been that long since they had started fighting?

Ivan saw Lucy, in the distance. Her arms had melted off as she controlled the sun above her hands, sending it down to the ground. The three could do nothing but watch as the small star crashed into the mountain on where they stood.

Perhaps if Ivan had tried to escape, he would have been able to avoid the spell. But deep down Ivan had wished to be punished for what they had done to their friend. So he said nothing and watched as the flames consumed everything around them, and all life ceased to exist where they stood.

And that was where the fated four met their end.