Prologue

 

3037 AD

Earth was dying. Mankind and wildlife could barely continue their existence on the cancerous planet. The planet’s descent into extinction was gradual and unavoidable. The life of man and beast was nasty, brutish and short.

The earth’s vegetation reduced to ash and charcoal. The air smelled of decaying flesh filled with thick poisonous fumes that clouded the blood-red sun. Cities and towns stood like bodies without souls. Oceans and rivers transformed into pools of ruin and rust.

Corpses were mannequins on the ground, limbs at anatomically impossible angles, held in such a manner that they could not be possibly sleeping. These remains, that once housed living beings, were now abandoned lifeless hollows that filled deserted streets.

Nuclear warfare had laid waste to mankind.

For the first time in history, other worlds, dimensions parallel to earth, made its presence known and reached out an outstretched hand.  Some worlds had the aliens, others had mythical beasts while others were simply parallel universes, but they all had something in common: there were a limited number of pods, a limited number of immigrants they could carry.

Desperate to survive, humans fought one another just to get these earth pods that would carry them to a whole new world. Lives were lost in the battle of survival.  

Age did not matter neither did position nor other human attributes. All that mattered was how fast one could get to the pod and stop others trying to do same.

By any means necessary.

Parents abandoned their children, spouses abandoned each other, mankind was reduced to beastly animals.  For this moment of madness and brutality, mankind earned the name, “The Fallen Race.”

The battle of survival began.

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“I'm sorry, ma'am, but there are no earth pods left.” The robot said. The speaker was from a world where artificial intelligence ruled. He was dressed in black, a privately hired army contractor.

 

When it became clear how cruel humans became in the battle of survival, someone had to maintain order in chaos. Various worlds sent their representatives to ensure orderliness. It was rather ironic that order was restored only after chaos had already wiped out more than half of The Fallen.

 

“No, wait, take my grandson instead! Please! He is all I have left. I have already lost my daughter and son-in-law! Please! I beg you!” the elderly woman pleaded, a malnourished teen held protectively in her arms. The eyes of the mute teenager spoke volumes of the horrors he had seen and the pain he had endured. A boy who never had the chance to be a child.

 

The man-machine considered all options, and then he looked at her as he said, “There's an earth pod, nobody knows the world it's from, no introduction by any species was made, you could be transported it could be in the time of dinosaurs or war, anything. You might meet unfriendly species.”

 

“Let me in, I'll take my chances. Anything is better than letting this boy die.”

 

And take her chances she did.

And So began the legend of the Hero-Slayer, who was without mercy, who would attack his opponents at their weakest and destroy everything they held dear. Rumors had it that none of those who attacked him ever lived to tell the tale. It was said that he had the power to take down thousands without lifting a finger.

Multiple retellings declared that he had sold his soul for magic most vile, killed so many heroes and gotten the title, ‘The Hero-Slayer.’ Some of them he killed as they claimed they were true heroes, some cowards, others fools. In the end, the color of their blood was still red and spilled with reckless abandon.

Others speculated that he dwelt in a secret place filled with long-lost magic and magical creatures protected his secret lair. Rumor has it that a strong Dryad spirit had a temple there. Stories said that if you rang a bell at the seventh hour on the seventh day, your body would never again be found for that was the hour that the Hero-Slayer walked through the dark, taking souls to feed his power.

Needless to say he was the Villain, The Boogeyman, The Big Bad. The Dragon who defeated the Knight and killed the princess. This is his story. The story in which the dark side won.

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

The Sacred Forest, located at the outskirts of The Homeland was such a cliché name. Yeah, magical fantastical races existed, but really, couldn’t anyone come up with a better name?

It was sacred to only magical creatures and forbidden to the human inhabitants of the Homeland (I, as well as the inhabitants of The West Homeland were exceptions to this rule for some reason). It became an autonomous neutral territory for all sentient magical non-human creatures after The Divide.

There used to be a time when everyone could enter the Sacred Forest, those were days when man and creature stood side by side as equals, dragons protected castles and when the Dryads still existed.

But, alas all good things must come to an end. The end came by the hand of a necromancer searching for power. He stumbled upon the darkest of magics, that ending lives made him stronger, the stronger the creature killed, the greater his power.

The man began with killing the greatest of them all, dragons. His actions began the spark that ignited the human-creature war. Creatures angered by the death of one of their own attacked humans, humans in turn attacked creatures and so the cycle of revenge led to a full-scale war known as The Divide.

Eventually, when the red mist of blood cleared from their eyes and when bloodlust made them vomit, the warring sides made a truce, then a cease-fire and eventually a peace-treaty.

Humans and creatures only signed a peace-treaty because the man who started it all was caught and sealed away. They discovered that they had been played as pawns, the necromancer had set them against the other and he had used the power of who died to grant himself power and immortality-for every blood spilled in war, he became stronger. So great was his power that it took the all the magic of every Dryad in existence to seal him, for he had, due to the power he absorbed from bloodshed, become an invincible immortal.