While war raged in the Region Wars of the Nazare Blade Empire—ignited by the vengeance seeking nature of Emperor Cailan Gravis of the Scorpion Empire, who blamed Emperor Groa Aratat of Nazare Blade for the deaths of his wife and daughter—panic rippled outward like wildfire. Rumours, fear, and smoke of battle reached even the farthest regions and the cities within them, whispering of the doom that marched closer with every passing day.
Those fortunate enough to flee the colosseum early carried the dreadful truth with them, spreading tales of slaughter, betrayal, and the sheer ferocity of the Scorpion Empire armies. Wherever they went, shadows grew longer and faith shrank thinner.
The people whispered, prayed, begged for a miracle. They hoped that some nameless saviour would rise from obscurity and halt the storm. Their desperate imaginations clung to old names and fading legends.
Amber Nois, Great Archmage of the Oradonian Order, had once been such a figure. It was said she had foreseen this calamity long before it arrived, yet she did not intervene. Not out of fear of Cailan Gravis, but because of another threat altogether—the Trickster God, ever watchful for her presence. A single act of interference, a spark of her magic flaring too brightly, would expose her location and the whereabouts of the trainees she guarded. Thus she hid, heavy with guilt, forced into silence by a greater danger lurking beyond mortal wars. Few knew of her existence; fewer still believed she could be the answer.
Instead, one name rang louder across the taverns, markets, and war-broken homes: The Black Dragon—Josh Aratat.
He was a tale, a phantom stitched together by half-remembered deeds and a thousand retellings. Some said he would descend from the skies on wings of flame, others that he would rise from the ashes of the fallen, sword in hand, a god among men. Families huddled together imagining how he would cut through enemy ranks like a storm made flesh. Children clung to the stories as if they were lullabies. Yet with every passing sunrise, the fantasy frayed, drowned beneath the rivers of blood staining the cobblestones.
By the time Emperor Cailan Gravis completed the massacre of Region 1, the dream of sudden salvation had withered. Bodies piled high in the streets like grotesque monuments to despair. The Black Dragon had not come. And soon, the Scorpion legions would march into Region 2.
Region 1, the largest and most fortified of all, had taken them four weeks and six days to subdue. Its fall should have seemed impossible, yet the emperor's relentless strategy and reinforcements had made it inevitable. With his forces swollen to a staggering 599,600—199,600 survivors of his initial army joined by 400,000 fresh reinforcements—his campaign pressed forward like a tidal wave, crushing all resistance in its path.
Among his rising generals, one name stood out with a dark and terrible gleam: Vincent Kim.
Once a disciplined warrior under the eccentric yet principled General Vance Hermit, Vincent's promotion had twisted him into something monstrous. The gentle precision that once defined his blade was gone. Now, he fought like a beast unchained, a predator drunk on blood. His brutality went beyond the battlefield—women and children were slaughtered as casually as livestock, some defiled before death to sate his frustration.
The men under his command feared him more than the enemy. Whispers spread in campfires and tents: though Vance Hermit had been mercurial, unpredictable, even cruel at times, he had lived by a code. Vincent Kim had none. He was chaos given flesh, a sociopathic storm. Yet, to the despair of many, Emperor Cailan Gravis seemed to admire this savage transformation, delighting in the spectacle of destruction that Vincent left behind.
In Vincent, the empire saw both the embodiment of their terror—and a grim reflection of the war itself: a war with no borders, no limits, no mercy.
While havoc consumed Region 1 in fire and blood, in a quiet corner of the empire, in region 2, there was a small, forgotten village where a young man of eighteen knelt before a crude altar of stone. The room smelled faintly of smoke and herbs, the dim light from a flickering lamp casting restless shadows on the cracked walls. His mother lay weak upon the bed, her breaths shallow, her body trembling from the pain of her injured back.
Granero sniffled, trying to stop the mucus running from his nostrils, but his heart felt heavier than the weight of mountains. His fists trembled as he clasped them in prayer, the words tumbling from his lips in broken whispers.
Months ago, when the mortal wars—wars twisted and guided by the hand of the Trickster God—still raged in the colosseum, Granero had been called by his friends to march with the other young men to Region 1. He had been eager then, reckless with youth, ready to chase glory or at least carve meaning out of the chaos. But his mother had refused him.
At first, he had hated her for it.
The thought gnawed at him: while he remained caged in his village, rumours swirled that the Black Dragon's loyal subordinates had been captured by the Trickster God himself. Granero's heart burned to see them, to rescue them if fate allowed. Yet every time he made the attempt—every time he crept towards the door in secret—her voice always pierced the silence.
"Granero… where are you going?"
The words were soft, but they bound him tighter than iron chains. He would stomp his feet, storm past her with anger etched into his face, but the voice always held him back.
Everything changed only a few days ago. A neighbour had burst into their home, breathless with dread, carrying word of the massacre in Region 1. Nearly all of Granero's peers—the friends and rivals who had left months earlier—had been slaughtered. Their bones now mingled with the dust of the battlefield.
Granero had stood frozen as the truth sank in. The only reason he still drew breath was because his mother had stopped him. The anger he had carried for so long dissolved into a painful gratitude. He loved her more fiercely than ever, though that love was now mingled with guilt.
Yet fate struck cruelly again.
The previous night, while gathering wood for their evening fire, a log had slipped, nearly crushing his mother. In saving herself, she had slammed her back against a hard stone. Now, she could not rise from her bed. Her groans cut through the silence of their hut like knives, each one driving deeper into Granero's chest. He had not slept; he had kept vigil all through the night, his body trembling from exhaustion, until a cold seized him. But he endured it, because he could not abandon her.
And so here he knelt now, before an altar that was little more than stone and ash, pouring out his desperation.
He prayed not to the gods of the empire, for he had lost faith in them, but to the Black Dragon.
It made no sense—he knew that. His mother had told him many times: The Black Dragon is no god. He is a man. A man of honour, perhaps, with a good heart and a love for the empire, but still just a man. Do not place divine hope upon his shoulders.
But Granero chose otherwise.
To him, the Black Dragon was more than flesh and bone, more than a legend whispered in half-believing tones. To Granero, he was the only light in this storm of blood, the only name worth clinging to when the world itself seemed to be dying. Even if his prayers were foolish, even if no answer came, he would kneel. He would hope.
For his mother's sake. For his own. For the empire's.
And as he whispered the final words, his tears fell onto the altar stone, glistening like molten drops of faith.