Year – 7002 A.A | Location: Valoria – Capital District, Eastern Quarter
The capital of Valoria had become a living nightmare.
Once-proud marble streets now lay fractured and scorched, their veins of white stone split open like the bones of a wounded beast. The delicate spires, which had once caught the morning sun in dazzling brilliance, were now veiled in a choking haze of smoke and ash. Every explosion carried with it not only the sound of destruction but the scent of it—the acrid tang of burning timber and shattered mana-stone, mingled with the metallic bitterness of blood.
Cries rang out from every quarter—anguished, defiant, terrified. The wounded called for aid; the dying whispered for loved ones who were not there. Somewhere to the west, the clang of steel on steel blended with the keening wail of a tracient's death throes. The city was a symphony of chaos, and yet in its center, amid the carnage and ruin, one figure stood utterly still.
Darius.
The Bull King.
The first among Hazël.
He stood as if the world's storms had no sway over him—his massive frame rooted like a mountain's base, his brown-and-cream fur catching the flicker of firelight in a way that made it seem like the flames themselves bowed before him. In his stillness, there was not weakness, but terrible intent—like the quiet before a landslide.
Across from him, Trask the Horrible shifted his insectoid weight from one gleaming leg to another, his joints creaking faintly, his mandibles clicking in a rhythm that betrayed his anticipation. His compound eyes, reflecting both Darius' towering figure and the red smear of the burning sky, darted with predatory calculation.
"So the big guy decides to intervene himself… Number One," Trask said at last, his voice trying to straddle the line between taunt and caution. The timbre was smug, but the undertone—just faint enough to be missed by most—was nervous. He wet his mandibles in a twitching motion, then added with a thin smirk, "I was wondering when you'd show up. I was just playing tag with your El back there."
Behind Darius, the sound of shuffling and a faint groan drew attention. Kopa was rising.
The Viceroy's posture was defiant, though his body bore the marks of battle. His side still bled freely from the gouge Trask had inflicted earlier, the deep wound pulsing faintly where poison had kissed the blood. Yet his expression was calm—almost serene—as if willing himself to be unmoved in front of both his King and his foe.
"I'm fine, my Lord," Kopa said, brushing aside the pain in his voice. He straightened his shoulders, though it was clear that every movement was measured, deliberate—an effort not to reveal how much his body protested. "Shall we dispatch this vermin together?"
Darius' gaze softened for the briefest of moments. It was a subtle shift, but to those who knew him well, it was enough to speak volumes.
"Negative, Viceroy," he replied, the softness tempered almost immediately into command. "You are to withdraw and ensure that the civilians are completely evacuated from the capital. Lord Jeth is already securing our extraction position."
Kopa's ears twitched in protest. "But, Darius—"
"This is an order, Kopa."
The words were not loud, but they fell with the weight of stone upon stone. The authority in them was more than rank—it was the unyielding resolve of a man who had already counted the cost of this day. The moment Darius spoke them, the air seemed heavier, as though the very city walls bowed to the weight of his will.
"I don't want to lose more people than I already have today."
Those words, quiet though they were, struck deeper than any command. Kopa felt them settle into his chest like a cold stone. His mind flickered—unbidden—through the faces of those they had lost already. Soldiers he had trained beside. Friends. Brothers and sisters in arms.
His hands clenched into fists, hooves biting into his palms. He opened his mouth, but the weight of the King's gaze told him there was no argument that could stand against this moment.
After a heartbeat of silence, Kopa bowed his head. "…Understood, my Lord."
Darius gave a single, steady nod. "Thank you, my friend. And please—" his voice dropped, almost becoming personal, "—try to locate Lord Adam if you can. His Arcem would be most favorable to us at the moment."
Kopa's lips pressed into a thin line, but he nodded. "I will."
Already, his body began to shift, the mana of his Arcem calling to the earth. His form dissolved into a flurry of emerald leaves, each one catching the firelight as if flecked with gold. The wind seized them gently, scattering them upward into the haze.
Yet before the last leaf could vanish into the air, Kopa's voice carried back over the crackle of distant flames.
"I will come back for you, Darius. When I can. Promise me you'll endure until then, brother."
Darius' lips curved—barely, but enough to be called a smile. It was not one of triumph, nor bravado. It was a smile of quiet understanding, of men who had seen too many wars to waste breath on false promises.
"I promise, brother."
The last of the leaves slipped away on the wind, leaving only the faintest scent of crushed green behind—a reminder that the Viceroy had been there at all.
And so it was that the King and the Horrible stood alone in the ruined street.
Trask's compound eyes shifted slightly, his gaze still lingering on where the leaves had vanished. His mind was quick—always probing for weakness, for openings—but what he had just witnessed unsettled him. That exchange had not been merely military formalities. There had been something in it… something personal. He was not certain if that made Darius more dangerous or simply more irritating.
But then the King's eyes locked on him—steady, unblinking, and utterly without fear.
"That was a touching scene," Trask said with a mockery as sharp as his blades, his mandibles clicking together like the snapping of bone. The insectoid's voice carried that strange, metallic resonance unique to his kind—a sound that seemed to scrape across the ears like rusted iron. "I might have even shed a tear if I could. But I must say, I expected more from ArchenLand. For years, Razik struggled with you, but I can't see why. You're all talk."
The plaza still smelt of smoke and blood—smoke from the city, blood from Kopa's wounds, and now the faint coppery tang from the thin cuts Trask had already carved into the stone beneath them with his restless limbs.
Darius stood unmoving. Not in indecision, but in the stillness of a storm just before it breaks.
He did not answer Trask's words. He only looked at him. Those green eyes—calm, luminous, and ancient—began to burn faintly, like the green of a deep forest lit by the last slant of sunset.
And then, the pressure began.
It was not a sudden flare, but a steady, creeping weight, as though the air itself had grown heavier, thicker, pressing down upon stone, skin, and soul alike. The cobblestones beneath them seemed to groan, and the already-trembling walls of the plaza bowed slightly inward, as though in reluctant deference to the aura gathering around the great bull.
Trask laughed, the sound dry and rattling, his wings giving an uneasy twitch. "Oh? Are we done talking now?" he said, his tone forced higher, as if to mask the unease that had begun to nibble at the edges of his thoughts.
And then he moved.
The speed of it was nearly invisible to the human eye—a blur of segmented limbs and chitin, his extended pincers scissoring through the air toward Darius. The force of his launch tore grooves into the stone beneath his feet, his momentum carrying him like a living spear.
The first strike landed, and another, and another—each blow with surgical precision. Steel-like pincers cut into flesh, carving deep gashes across Darius' chest and arms. One swing caught his wrist cleanly, severing his hand, and the blood splattered dark and hot across the scorched plaza stones.
Trask landed lightly, his compound eyes bright with the savage satisfaction of a predator who has drawn blood. "What's wrong? Too stunned to react?"
But Darius did not move.
He did not step back. He did not clutch his wound. He only looked at Trask as though the insectoid had just proven something—not to Darius, but about himself.
When he spoke, his voice was calm, even measured, but each syllable cut through the smoke-thick air like a drawn blade.
"So it was a traitor," he said simply, as though noting the weather. "Understood." His gaze did not waver, though blood still dripped freely from the stump of his wrist. "But you… you are the one standing before me now. You are the one who dared to step into my land and harm my people."
And in that moment, the weight in his voice shifted. It was no longer merely the voice of a commander defending territory—it was the voice of a king delivering judgment.
The golden ring in Darius' nose began to glow—not softly, but with the vivid, pulsing green of raw, unbridled life-force. His mana surged outward in a rush that made the flames in the plaza gutters flicker and bow away from him.
The severed hand reformed in a heartbeat, bone and sinew knitting together in perfect harmony, skin sealing without so much as a scar. The deep gashes across his body closed as if they had never been, the blood on his fur steaming away in the heat of his aura.
The great weapon Baltacek materialized in his grasp—a weapon so massive and brutal in design that it seemed as much a part of the earth as the mountains themselves. Axe blade on one side, hammer head on the other, it glimmered faintly in the shifting light, a fusion of artistry and devastation.
Darius swung it easily over his shoulder, though the very air trembled under its weight, vibrating like a drumskin struck too hard.
"And for that," he growled, his voice now as deep and steady as rolling thunder, "I will make you dread this day…" He took one slow step forward, the sound of hoof striking stone echoing like the toll of a war-bell.
"…in your grave."
With a suddenness that defied his massive frame, Darius moved.
It was not the lumbering charge of a brute, but the sharp, explosive burst of a predator who had chosen the exact moment to strike. His hooves pounded the stone only twice before the gap between them vanished.
Baltacek's axe-edge came down in a wide, green-gleaming arc—an executioner's stroke given form and fury. The impact struck the earth with a sound like stone splitting under the weight of mountains, the plaza stones beneath splintering outward in jagged fault lines. A deep tremor rippled away from the strike, making the nearest buildings groan as their timbers strained.
Trask's wings flashed in a blur, the sharp hum cutting through the ringing in the air. He shot upward at the last possible breath, the blade grazing the edges of his field of vision.
From above, his compound eyes widened—reflex, not choice.
'What speed!'
The thought darted across his mind like a moth avoiding flame. He had measured the bull's size, his muscle mass, his weapon—and had expected force, not swiftness. But this… this was swiftness married to weight. Faster than Razik's plasma beads, he realized, the shock carrying a bitter taste.
But Darius did not give him the mercy of air.
He launched upward—not leaping so much as hurling himself into the sky, the raw strength in his legs magnified by precise bursts of mana that warped the air around him. He rose in a smooth, lethal arc, his great weapon trailing a tail of green-tinged energy like the comet of some vengeful god.
"Impossible!" Trask hissed, instincts forcing his body into a last-second salvation. His chitin split down the back, the old shell peeling away in a grotesque mimicry of rebirth. The empty husk caught the brunt of the axe's swing, its hollow head bursting into fragments before vanishing into the smoky air.
But the King's assault was not over.
Without breaking momentum, Darius twisted in mid-air—an act that should have been too heavy, too slow for a creature of his build. Yet the motion was smooth, almost graceful. Baltacek reversed in his grip, the weight shifting from blade to hammer. And then the hammer came down.
It met Trask's still-exposed body with a sound no mortal instrument could mimic—a deep, resonant whump followed by the sharp crack of breaking armor.
The impact hurled the insectoid from the sky as though the very air had rejected him.
Trask slammed into the plaza with a force that drowned out even the chaos of battle beyond. The cobblestones shattered, earth burst upward, and a crater as wide as a small house swallowed him whole. Dust billowed outward in choking waves, blotting out the burning sky for a heartbeat.
When the air began to clear, the sight was unmistakable—Trask lay twisted amid the debris, his once-pristine chitin shell spiderwebbed with cracks and splinters. He groaned, the sound half rage, half disbelief.
'Such raw power… so this is the strength of #1.'
The thought carried no mockery now—only the grudging recognition of a predator who had, for the first time in years, felt the weight of a greater hunter's claws.
Darius landed without so much as a stumble—his hooves meeting the broken earth as though they were the final word in the matter. Yet his aura said otherwise; it still raged, burning around him like an invisible storm, distorting the air, bending the dust.
With the barest flick of a finger, five jade orbs of pure mana bloomed into existence around him. They were not crude bolts of power, but precision itself—each one spinning with contained violence, their light reflecting off the cracks in the shattered street.
"20% Output: Quin Barrage."
They answered his command instantly, streaking forward like hunters loosed from the leash. Their paths bent mid-flight, tracking their prey as though they could smell fear.
Trask's wings whirred, his body twisting in the air as he ducked and rolled, the glowing projectiles snapping past him by inches. For a moment, it seemed he might escape entirely—until the last sphere clipped his shoulder.
The sound it made was not of impact but of breaking, as if some fundamental part of him had been struck. Trask staggered midair, his balance faltering just long enough.
In that heartbeat of weakness, Darius moved.
One instant he stood yards away; the next, he was beside his enemy, Baltacek already in motion. The axe edge bit through the extended pincers, through hardened chitin and armored leg alike, in a single clean motion.
"Aaargh!"
The cry tore from Trask's throat—not the howl of defiance he had imagined he would give in his final battle, but the raw, involuntary scream of something that had never known true injury until this day. His limbs fell in smoking fragments, twitching against the rubble.
For the first time in his long, violent life, Trask felt a thing he had mocked in others—terror. Cold, unreasoning terror.
His instincts screamed fight back—to overwhelm the fear with the familiar rhythm of killing. His remaining claws shifted, the crimson sheen of venom dripping from their edges as they extended into grotesque, curved blades.
"Karanlık: Kıyım Pençeleri!"
They flashed forward, each strike a killing blow in its own right, fast enough to shear through platinum like paper. The air filled with their crimson arcs, the rhythm of slaughter.
And yet—Darius did not yield.
He took them. Chest, shoulders, face—each gash tore deep enough to expose bone, the scent of blood filling the air, sharp and metallic. It was a scene that should have ended any warrior.
But Darius stood unbroken. His body was wounded; his will was not.
In the split-second before Trask's claws could rise again, Darius' fist clenched—and the air seemed to fold inward as it came forward. The blow landed squarely on Trask's face with a sound like a stone mountain caving in.
The insect tracient was no longer upright. He was a projectile, driven across the battlefield, carving a trench through rubble and dirt until he slammed into the far edge of the street with bone-jarring finality.
Darius walked forward, his wounds already knitting themselves together in defiance of the laws that governed mortal flesh. The green glow of mana coursed under his skin, faint but relentless. His eyes—cold, burning with purpose—never left his opponent.
"I told you," he said, voice quiet, yet heavier than the crashing blows of moments ago, "I would make you suffer."
Trask lay in the crater he had made, his body a map of destruction—chitin shattered, limbs missing, the confidence of his stance long gone. His vision swam, shapes blurring, the world tilting as panic clawed its way into his mind.
'This… can't be,' his thoughts stuttered, clinging to denial like a drowning man clings to driftwood. 'This can't be where I die…'
But as Darius' shadow fell over him, vast and unyielding, the truth pressed in—he had already lost.