Anlyth woke, an unusual sense of refreshment coursing through her veins. Ever since she had become a champion, she dueled night after night in her dreams, always facing that strange woman—the one who cimed she had taken Ezad’s life. But that couldn’t be right, could it? No, that damn vampire had killed Ezad... And yet, doubt lingered like a shadow she couldn’t quite shake. Something about Aurelia’s dress that night her love died—the way it seemed to writhe, almost alive—struck her as odd, but she pushed the thought away, her mind drifting back to her nightly battles.
Sometimes, she triumphed, smiting the vile creature with Holy magic until nothing remained but ash and silence. Other nights, she tasted only bitter defeat, succumbing to vivid nightmares—visions of her body torn apart, dismembered piece by piece, agonizingly slow, until she was left as nothing more than a broken husk.
But st night—st night, she tasted victory again. The sweetness of it lingered, mingling with the morning chill, giving her hope where once there had only been despair. Though she would never say it aloud, Anlyth found herself craving the thrill of those nightmares—the struggle, the raw, desperate battle to overcome. It was terrifying, yes, but also intoxicating. Each night’s ordeal made her stronger, forged her resolve, sharpened her skills. They made her a better champion.
Anlyth put those thoughts aside as she meticulously adorned herself in her new armor—a resplendent gift from the Ascended Empire, marking her status as a champion. She had never heard of her benefactor—J?rmun, an unknown ascended god—but she wore the armor nonetheless. Forged from pure mithril and adorned with golden accents, it settled differently compared to her old set, which had been scratched, battered, and stained by years of battle. She almost missed it. The ceremonial wings carved into the shoulder guards glimmered in the light filtering through her tent—though she decided to leave them off, preferring the unrestrained movement of her arms.
Nostalgia tugged at her heart—the old armor held memories of shared battles, ughter, and fear, and of the man who had once fought beside her. Now, she wore the armor of the ascended—brilliant and pristine, a shining symbol, or perhaps a tool, of the empire. It was a reminder that she was no longer fighting her own battles but theirs, as much an emblem of their power as a shield and sword for them to wield.
A hint of bitterness touched her thoughts, her shoulders sagging as she tore her gaze away from the mirror. But the movement froze mid-turn, her heart suddenly skipping a beat—she wasn’t alone. In the corner of her tent, a dark figure lounged in her chair, his features concealed behind shifting yers of shadows that twisted and writhed, as though undecided on what they wished to reveal.
“J?rmun!” she gasped, the name escaping her in a startled breath. Immediately, she dropped to one knee, head bowing low before the god. Her pulse pounded in her ears, her thoughts scrambling, tangled with the endless possibilities of why he might be here.
“Your fellow champions, of the other… ascended,” he said, his hesitation on that st term not escaping Anlyth’s notice, “will finally bring an end to Sethia’s little war with the beastkin of this moon today. You may accompany them, but do not interfere—just watch, listen, and learn,” he finished, leaving her bewildered.
Anlyth’s head shot up, staring at the god in disbelief—but he was gone. She spun around, scanning every shadowed corner of her tent, but she was alone.
Stepping outside, she was greeted by the cmorous rhythm of soldiers preparing for the day. Their hurried voices merged into a monotonous backdrop, punctuated by the clinking of armor, the barked orders of commanders, and the distant screams of their prisoners.
J?rmun’s decree gnawed at her, an unsettling echo she couldn’t shake. It was clear he was pying a deeper game, a ploy whose rules eluded her. She wished she knew what it was—and what part she was meant to py. But J?rmun was a mystery, even among the pantheon. Forgotten, unnoticed, or perhaps recently arisen—either way, his name was little more than a footnote. Yet it didn’t matter. The Ascended Empire’s pantheon was vast, and only her service mattered.
She made her way toward the other champions, bracing herself. Anylth had never dealt with them much, but from what she had heard, both Orith and Einarr were intent on extinguishing the st embers of the Beastveil Kingdom—ending it here, at their capital.
The war had paused unexpectedly after the battle with the vampires at Elsternwick and the disaster at Ockpool Dungeon, allowing the beastkin time to fortify their final stronghold. Many who supported the strategy of waging wars on multiple fronts argued that Sethia had stretched itself too thin, even with the empire’s support. Originally, the pn had been for Sethia to press forward, conquering territory after territory, sweeping through Nyxoria with the empire’s aid.
But after the dungeon debacle, the Ascended Empire had taken full control of the campaign. It was the only reason her friends, Craycroft and Gimona, remained imprisoned—Sethia still needed scapegoats to save face, even after she had been named a champion.
The war itself had once been a cause she believed in—a cause he had believed in, to eradicate all feral, soulless monsters and the races that bred them. Her te love had joined the military with an eager heart, determined to carve righteousness out of chaos. Ezad had risen quickly, wearing the insignia of a General before she could blink. He was her pride.
But nothing good endures—even in the face of immortality. Before long, the war took a dark turn, shifting focus to races and kingdoms that simply opposed their holy crusade. For if the Ascended were anything, it was ruthless.
Anlyth clenched her fists, trying to summon back that fleeting sense of triumph. All she craved now was another night of victorious dreams—a chance to see that nightmare woman, that monstrous murderer, engulfed in divine fmes, screaming as the light consumed her. It wasn’t a noble desire—it was desperate, ugly, but it kept her sane. And somewhere in that twisted longing, she almost adored the monster for giving her a reason to keep going.
Better that, she thought, than the alternative.
Better the imagined, comforting victory over her nightmares than the waking horrors—the shrill, pleading cries of the beastkin echoing endlessly through camp. She avoided the pyres when she could, but it didn’t matter—the screams carried, their agony weighing down the air, thick and suffocating. Man or woman, all were impaled, limbs twitching as their voices dwindled to pitiful gasps, death a mercy that came far too te.
Anlyth pressed her lips into a tight line, her jaw clenching against the bitterness threatening to overwhelm her. Her footsteps carried her across the camp, though her mind was elsewhere—lost in the inescapable loop of her nightmares, anything to avoid thinking about J?rmun and his twisted game, or the cries echoing around her.
“How could it be,” she whispered, the words barely escaping her lips, “that night after night, dying—and occasionally triumphing—against the monster that cims to have taken my love is more comforting than the waking nightmare I face each day?”
The camp bustled around her, oblivious to her thoughts, and she envied their ignorance as preparations for the final push into the Beastveil Kingdom’s capital began.
The capital trembled as screams echoed beneath the eclipse of V?luspá, mingling with the crackle of wild, uncontrolled magic. Amid the chaos, Orith’s ughter rang out—crazed, almost inhumyn. Her golden-scaled dress shimmered in shifting hues of red and green, catching each flicker of fme.
Several months had passed since the camity at Ockpool Dungeon, the mana cataclysm that had left Orith broken. Yet fate twisted again when Zarathos, the Dragon God, granted her a draconic blessing. The transformation was absolute: flesh turned to scale, wings sprouted, horns crowned her—she was no longer simply humyn but something far more sinister, a melding of humyn and dragonic essence.
Orith reveled in her dance of fire and fury, the dread she invoked rippling across the kingdom. She streaked through the sky like a bzing omen of doom, weaving among the newly arrived imperial airships that filled the heavens under her command. Her transformation had become a beacon, luring the dragonkin to the Ascended’s cause—their wings beating in unison with hers, casting formidable shadows over the capital.
Trailing her were two other champions, harbingers of ruin in their own right. Einarr, the dwarf champion of Khyron, the Abyssal Stone God, reveled in the annihition of his foes. His beard, a vivid cascade of red, seemed almost alive, flowing over dark mithril armor traced with gold. His war hammer swung in wide arcs, each blow a judgment, each sptter a stanza in his grim song. Beastkin pleas fell on deaf ears, their cries swallowed by his ughter. To Einarr, the discord of battle—the wails, the impact of his hammer, the visceral sptter—was a symphony. Each impact drove him into a deeper dance of destruction, carving his path through the streets.
Anlyth followed in their wake, her sword sheathed and shield strapped to her back—a symbolic gesture, as she could manifest her weapons from holy light. She watched in awe as Orith and Einarr id waste to the kingdom, the capital crumbling beneath their might. Somewhere, the strongest champion, Galen, was occupied with imperial duties on some distant moon. She neither knew nor cared. She served by watching, as J?rmun had commanded. That was enough, wasn’t it?
Anylth froze, her gaze locking onto a battered beastkin woman sprawled on the roadside. Goat-like horns crowned her head, her features almost elf-like. Her eyes—those eyes—reminded Anylth of herself. Bloodstreaked moans slipped from her lips as she writhed, her body convulsing in agony. Einarr approached, his chuckle low and dark, a sound that twisted into something far more monstrous as he neared. He ughed harder as he brought his hammer down on her legs. The sickening crunch echoed, her screams slicing through the air, cutting through the chaos. Anylth looked away, her stomach twisting, bile rising, as the other champion reveled in his cruel sport.
“Oi, ssie, ye goin’ t’ swing that sword or just stand there gawkin’?” Einarr bellowed, his voice echoing across the chaos. The beastkin woman’s sobs were reduced to a few short, rattling breaths before the light faded from her eyes, her body battered beyond recognition.
“My god commanded me to only watch and observe,” Anylth replied, exhaling a long, controlled breath, forcing down the bile that threatened to rise. “When he decides, I will gdly sy the unjust,” she finished, her voice steady but tinged with forced calm, her gaze narrowing slightly despite her efforts to remain composed.
“Still a bit odd, havin’ ‘is champion hold back,” Einarr grunted, turning his gaze back to the battle. “Stranger still, ‘e hasn’t commanded ye t’ grow ‘is followin’,” he added, punctuating his words by crushing a reptile-like beastkin’s skull beneath his hammer. “The gods need followers t’ grow in power. Tha’s why all the Ascended ‘ave champions.” He paused, his brow furrowing in thought. “Still, there’s plenty o’ Moons in V?luspá, so maybe this…” he trailed off, struggling for a name.
“J?rmun,” Anylth corrected, her voice strained as she tried to follow the dwarf’s heavy accent.
That was the thing about the Moons of V?luspá: even those not decreed as USERS—or what the gods called Champions—unknowingly had some access to the System, gaining a passive skill called Polyglot that transted the countless nguages of the realms. Without it, the sea of moons would be a cacophony of incomprehensible tongues. Yet somehow, dwarves—of all beings—seemed to slip through the System’s precision. Their dialect often evaded perfect transtion, fading in and out at times, which made many hate conversing with the bearded race.
“Aye, him.” Einarr shrugged, lifting his massive hammer with an ease that seemed comically out of pce for his stature. “Maybe he’s a big shot on one o’ the other moons.”
Anylth cast her gaze skyward, captivated by the spectacle of Orith gliding through the sky. With each elegant weave around the hovering airships, she’d swoop down in a deadly dance, setting rows of homes abze. The ensuing smoke and fmes cast a haunting glow upon the night, rendering the dragonkin and airships into menacing silhouettes against the dark sky. Within those vessels, thousands of soldiers y in wait, ready to descend—but it was the champions who led the vanguard, bound by divine duty to bring the adversaries of their gods to their knees. The soldiers and knights would follow in their wake, tasked to cleanse whatever remnants of resistance lingered.
Yet despite the ordained sequence of warfare, Anylth found herself wincing at each anguished cry that pierced the night—every scream of a child caught by Orith’s merciless fmes, every brutal thud of Einarr’s hammer sealing a grim fate. The discord between the surreal beauty of the fiery skies and the grotesque reality on the ground gnawed at her conscience. Each crackling fme and mournful cry was a stark reminder of the savage nature of their divine mission.
“Oi, we’re breachin’ the castle from here,” Einarr announced, his grin wicked. “Heard there’s a fetchin’ queen within these walls. It’s always a holy delight to humble the high and mighty in front o’ each other,” he chuckled.
In moments like this, Anylth yearned for the camaraderie of her dear friends—Craycroft, the wise old wizard (though, to be fair, they were all old and ancient, but he certainly looked the part)—and Gimona, the boisterous dwarven woman. Ever since the Mana Cataclysm at the dungeon siege, life had never been the same.
Yet amidst the ashes of despair, she clung to a shard of hope. By emerging as a righteous champion in the eyes of the kingdom—no, it was the empire she served now as a champion—she hoped to pave a path for her friends’ release. Or, at the very least, negotiate a discreet and dignified excommunication that would free them from the unjust shackles of bme—ugh, how she hated politics.
The aristocrats within the Kingdom of Sethia had always held themselves in high regard, but their allegiance—or rather, their fear—of the Ascended, like many other kingdoms within the Moons of V?luspá, granted them a sanctified arrogance. Despite her internal conflict, Anylth bowed to their judgment, recognizing the celestial mandate that overshadowed all worldly whims.
However, she knew that the swiftest path to vindication y in the capture or extermination of the nefarious vampire who had once plunged Sethia into chaos. Anylth specuted that all the devastation, the shattered airships, and the fallen warriors during the cataclysm might have been forgiven, had they not lost the prized captive they’d once ensnared—the vampire, Aurelia herself.
Yet now, Anylth couldn’t shake her dreams, or rather, her nightmares. They haunted her, gnawing at her resolve, as if the line between dreams and waking reality was slowly unraveling.
“Oi, ssie, quit yer daydreamin’ and get tha’ fine elven rear up here. We’ve got t’ set the example for the soldiers, and there’s a beast queen in need of a good dwarven rumpin’,” Einarr bellowed.
Anylth could only hope those thick words had been said in jest.
Trailing behind the dwarf, Anylth, the padin champion, entered the castle just as the airships above began their descent. Fresh reinforcements—knights, barbarians, padins, and mages—poured onto the scorched battlefield, a nd that had once thrived as a vibrant jungle city. This conquest was but one stop in a long series of battles, aimed at purging all non-enlightened and feral-breeding races from the realm—a cause the Ascended Gods deemed righteous.
Orith swooped down, nding beside Anylth without so much as a gnce her way. Her eyes were fixed forward, her expression indomitable. She held her head high, exuding an air of superiority, as if everyone and everything were beneath her. Even Anylth, who had faced countless horrors, felt a wave of trepidation and menace emanating from Orith. Anylth suspected that she possessed some skill projecting a dragon’s aura of intimidation—making her seem far more fearsome than she already was.
“Halt! You shall not pass!” roared a beastkin royal guard, his porcupine-like quills bristling.
Orith snapped her fingers, and instantly the beastkin ignited in fmes, his screams cutting short as he was consumed by fire.
Einarr spun around, a look of frustration on his face. “Oi, tha’ one was mine,” he grumbled.
“I shan’t lower myself to partake in your dwarven trifles,” Orith sneered, folding her wings neatly behind her. “If you seek amusement in sying games, perhaps the fledgling,” she gestured toward Anylth dismissively, “will oblige. She’s scarcely proven herself thus far.”
“Aye, that,” the dwarf said, scratching his red beard. “But ‘er god told ‘er t’ watch and learn fer now, so nothin’ can be done about it,” he added.
“Watch and learn?” Orith clicked her tongue in disgust, her eyes narrowing at Anylth’s discomfort. “I didn’t realize our pantheon harbored such weakling gods.”
The dwarf nodded in agreement, swinging his hammer with lethal precision and obliterating several royal guards who emerged to bar their way. Finally, they stood before a pair of massive doors leading to the throne room.
With a powerful kick from Einarr’s stout leg, the double doors yielded, tumbling from their ornate, leaf-engraved hinges into the throne room. They crashed atop the st remnants of the royal guards, silencing their anxious cries—the final line of defense, breached without effort.
The king stood tall, his bearing formidable, with the unmistakable lion features of a beastkin—a regal cascade of golden mane crowning his head. Beside him, the queen possessed an ethereal elven grace, blended seamlessly with feline traits, her bck cat ears twitching atop her head. Yet it wasn’t the king or queen that froze Anylth to the core.
Clinging to the queen’s dress were two terrified catkin children, identical in every way, their tear-streaked faces pressed against her. Twins! The mere sight of children was rare enough, but twins? In all her centuries, Anylth had never heard of twins being born here. The only twins she knew of had come through a convergence from another world.
“Whence comes this onsught?” the king thundered, his voice trembling through the hollow grandeur of the throne room. “What purpose bears such heedless ruin? Surely your deities don’t harbor such venom, such malice.”
But his words fell on deaf ears. None of the champions offered a reply—not even Anylth, whose gaze remained fixed on the two trembling figures.
Anylth caught a soft snicker from Einarr as his eyes roved over the queen. He adjusted his crotch, then hoisted his war hammer onto his shoulder, advancing with a wicked grin. The tension stretched unbearably until Orith’s sigh cut through the silence. With a snap of her fingers, an inferno erupted, engulfing the royal family in searing fmes.
Anylth choked back a sob as the children screamed, their cries blending with their mother’s as the fmes consumed them.
Einarr whirled around, fury bzing in his eyes. “Oi, I’d already called dibs on the queen!” he bellowed, his voice thundering through the room.
“We don’t have time for your games. High Priest Nelzar awaits us aboard the Skyborne,” Orith retorted, her voice as cold and indifferent as ice.
“Pfft, wha’ does tha’ gnome wan’ wi’ us now?” Einarr grumbled, scratching his beard in irritation. “Besides, I’m amazed the Skyborne is even skyworthy after its crash durin’ the cataclysm,” he added with a snort, gncing back at the ashes with a long pout as he adjusted his crotch one st time.
“It’s a living vessel, with a dryad seed from the Great Tree of Life on Yaddith housed within,” Orith said, waving a hand dismissively at the dwarf’s ignorance while her eyes scanned the horizon for their next conquest. “It’s the st of its kind, its creator having vanished from Sethia around the time Aurelia’s legend began—when she burned the kingdom down with a horde of undead. But that’s beside the point. We are to meet with the high priest. Our duty here is done; it’s time to set our sights on the next battle.”
“Apparently, there’s been talk of a growing undead army to the north,” Orith muttered to Einarr, though Anylth missed the rest.
Anylth cast one st gnce at the charred remains of the king, queen, and... their children—the ashes swirling in the breeze that swept through the demolished throne room doors—a harsh reminder of the cruelty she had just witnessed. With a heavy heart, she turned away, her steps leaden as she followed her fellow champions out of the desote throne room, unaware of the faint flicker of a white glow that lingered—a spark of magic that had not come from any of the champions.
~
Deep within the catacombs of the fallen Beastveil Kingdom, Nico awoke from a recurring nightmare that clung to him like a damp shroud, refusing to fade into the suffocating darkness. He tried to ignore the sniveling and crying of those who had taken refuge alongside him. In the distance, the healer moved among the huddled masses, who chewed on what little scraps of food they had left, their faces already hollowed from the weeks-long siege that had finally ended.
He wasn’t beastkin himself, but he’d found a home here long ago, welcomed with open arms by the community. That was the thing about beastkin—they were kind and accepting, always welcoming outsiders so long as they stayed true to their word and posed no threat. It was that very kindness that had drawn them into this war; they simply refused to take part in the Ascended’s campaign of genocide. Besides, Nico always had a soft spot for fur and bunny ears.
That was the thing with Nico—he had reincarnated into this realm nearly two hundred years ago. He never could figure out why or how, but his research eventually uncovered something strange—something had happened to the veil between realms. He suspected that a summoning ritual had been performed, and his soul had been pulled along for the ride. The more he tried to unravel the mystery, the more convoluted his equations became. It was as if time didn’t flow properly between realms—not that it moved backward, but rather expanded and contracted at strange, extreme, and unpredictable rates, like an accordion. It threw off every calcution he attempted. Stranger still, he felt an inexplicable presence, as though all the mana in the realm was alive—not merely observing the phenomenon, but actively seeking the origin of his arrival, searching for Earth.
Eventually, Nico gave up trying to unravel the mystery and returned to his true passion from his past life: engineering, albeit with magic!
Fiddling with his test invention, Nico carved intricate runes into the curved wooden handle, embedding a spent mana crystal into the iron mechanism he had forged from scrap—junk he’d found lying around. Mithril would have been ideal, but that was far out of reach.
One of the strange things about this realm was how technology simply didn’t mesh well with magic. Some worlds that arrived through convergence had technology far beyond even airpnes and cellphones—advancements that made his old life on Earth, before reincarnation, seem like the Stone Age. And yet, as with all worlds that found their way here, none of it worked. Not even guns—he suspected that issue y more with the chemistry than with the engineering.
His invention wouldn’t work for just anyone; for most, it would be a single-use weapon, expelling all its magic in a single burst. It was far too costly to waste a mana crystal on a one-shot device when the same crystal could power a wand for thousands of spells, each supplemented by a caster’s innate mana.
But Nico had a unique gift. Though he had never learned to wield magic, he could effortlessly use ambient mana to recharge crystals. This talent had earned him both a solid reputation and quite a fortune. The crystal he was working with now could be recharged in mere seconds, making his so-called “crystal lock pistol” ideal for his purposes.
The idea had come to him in dreams—or rather, it had been dragged out of his nightmares, those relentless visions that haunted him night after night. He shuddered at the memory—brutal scenes of strangers being murdered in endless, horrific cycles. Shaking his head, he forced the images away, focusing instead on his work. He let the intricacy of his carvings steady his trembling hands, pouring his concentration into each rune to keep the nightmares at bay.
His gaze drifted back to the healer, Asherah. She radiated a warmth that seemed almost otherworldly—like that of an angel, though she bore neither wings nor halo. To Nico, she was nothing short of divine: her obsidian beauty transcendent, her compassion boundless. She tucked a glowing white lock of hair behind her ear, and when her luminescent eyes met his, all fear and despair seemed to vanish. For a fleeting moment, her radiant gaze pierced the gloom of the catacombs, filling it with a divine warmth that seemed to promise hope.
As the healer stepped out of the chamber, Nico couldn’t help but follow. He rose to his feet, his tiny gnome legs still unfamiliar to him, even after reincarnating into this reality. Making his way down a long corridor, he passed beastkin huddled against the walls, their sobs echoing in the narrow space. It wasn’t until he entered a rger chamber—one that resembled a church with an altar rge enough to be a table—that he noticed Asherah standing before it. Her hands rested ft against its surface, and white light began to emanate from beneath her palms, growing in intensity until Nico had to turn away, the brightness overwhelming.
The light slowly began to fade as Nico peeked back, still shielding his eyes, to see Asherah stumbling away from the altar, exhaustion etched across her face. He was about to rush forward to catch her when he froze at the sound of gasps and sobbing. Tearing his gaze from the weary healer—who barely managed to stay upright—he saw them: three figures upon the altar. A catkin woman and two children.
“A respawn,” he whispered, awe coloring his voice.
He had only ever heard of respawn altars within dungeons. But what was even more impressive was that Asherah had powered it on her own—without a dungeon core. The sheer power required for such a feat was on par with... well, beyond even that of the Ascended.
1
Like what you read? Wait—you actually did? Well, hot damn! I thought I was the only one with mental issues!
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