# Chapter Zero
"Aaaaah!" The scream tore from the young man's throat, raw and desperate. His eyes stared into nothing, lifeless as winter stones. Blood seeped from countless wounds across his pale body, each drop a testament to battles fought and lost. He tried to move his trembling hands to feel the surface beneath him, but a gentle whistling sound drifted from somewhere beyond his vision.
Summoning what little strength remained, he forced his eyes open. Through the haze of pain, he glimpsed a figure standing at the far end of what appeared to be a small boat.
"You're finally awake," the figure said.
An old man approached slowly, his footsteps measured by the rhythmic tap of a cane against wooden planks. His presence carried an otherworldly intensity that would have killed any ordinary mortal. Ancient texts in a forgotten script adorned his flowing robes, while his silver hair gleamed like moonlight cutting through eternal darkness. Though his eyes were veiled, the young man felt certain this stranger could see and sense everything around him.
"Where am I?" the wounded man asked, managing a pained laugh. "Is this what they call paradise?"
The place felt different—peaceful in a way that seemed impossible. The sensation washed over him like a half-remembered dream, and for a moment, he forgot his agony. *When was the last time I felt this?* he wondered.
An image materialized before him: a young woman with kind eyes that had once warmed his heart like a hearth fire. In her presence, he had known safety.
"Oh, Mother," he whispered, tears cutting tracks through the dirt and blood on his cheeks. "I forgot how you looked—your beautiful smile, your gentle embrace. Please... save me."
This pain cut deeper than any blade. It carved through what remained of his heart with surgical precision. The woman's smile began to fade, and warm droplets splattered against his face. Drip. Drip. Drip. The blood mixed with his tears as her loving hands slowly closed around his throat.
"I failed you, Mother," he choked out, driving his dagger into her neck.
Her grip loosened. Her form shifted and twisted until the beloved face became the rotting visage of a draugr, its dead eyes accusatory even in defeat.
"Very well done," said the old man, extending a weathered hand to pull him from the water into the boat. "I am Icar, the Merchant of Death. You now drift upon the Ocean of a Thousand Dreams—the realm between the living and the dead."
The young man looked around in wonder. A vast ocean stretched endlessly in all directions, its surface so still it might have been polished glass. The water reflected not just the sky above, but what seemed like the entire universe—stars and galaxies swirling in perfect, silent harmony. Never in his blood-soaked life had he witnessed such beauty.
"What your eyes see are lies," Icar said, placing a gentle hand on his back. "Look with your soul. Take another look into the water."
When he gazed down again, a shiver of pure horror raced up his spine. The starlit reflection vanished, replaced by an ocean of blood thick with floating corpses. The peaceful surface now churned with the remnants of countless souls.
"Mortals are pathetic creatures," Icar observed with clinical detachment. "Once they reach this place, they eagerly trade their souls for happy memories—a moment's peace before journeying to the Nether. But I haven't encountered a soul like yours since the fall of the Great Libra. Your spirit burns strong."
Looking around, the young man now saw dozens of other boats drifting through the crimson waters. Their passengers wept as they cast their bodies into the ocean, willingly imprisoning their souls in exchange for the false paradise Icar offered.
But he remained standing, unbroken, his soul intact.
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*This is the foreshadowing of the final great war. The figure in the Ocean is the main character's brother, who will later recruit an army of the dead to fight in the coming conflict.*