The last body hit the ground with a sickening thud.
Beside the body stood the last person still standing.
Alaric, half crouching in an awkward position, tried to collect himself, his breaths were ragged, laden with fatigue and exhaustion.
His body was a canvas of suffering—cuts, bruises, even broken bones. His right arm… gone, and a small fountain of blood flowed out, forming a small puddle beneath his feet and his already dark hair was now blacker from the blood soaking it. Yet the most gruesome wound on him was the terrifyingly huge hole in his chest, so deep that his ribs and even lungs were visible.
He was a pitiful sight.
After a few seconds of catching his breath, he weakly moved his head around to take a look through his remaining eye, what he found was nothing short of horrifying.
The battlefield was a desolate expanse, a grim testament to the savagery that had unfolded. Corpses lay twisted in grotesque positions, severed limbs scattered among shattered armor and broken weapons. Friends and foes were indistinguishable in death, their bodies charred and mangled beyond recognition, heaped into small, morbid mounds. The earth was soaked with blood pooling in craters and seeping into every crack.
The air was thick with ash, each breath laced with the stench of scorched flesh, iron-rich blood, and decay. It tasted like death.
Alaric's fingers trembled. His breath grew shallower, while his vision began to go dark like he was about to pass out and die.
Although through sheer will power and the crazy amount of pain all kept him conscious… barely.
He coughed violently, blood spilling onto the earth. For a moment, he sat, drowning in silence. No prayers. No screams. Just the echo of his failure.
Then he whispered, his voice hoarse and heavy with fatigue:
"Looks like we still had the last laugh, huh?"
They had come here under imperial orders to single handedly repel a huge invading barbarian force rampaging across the border in the middle of an ongoing war. But at the last moment, their so-called reinforcements that came to help, instead turned on them. Betrayal and then slaughter. Everything spiraled into carnage.
After wiping his mouth and turning slightly to the side, he found another body.
A handsome young man with crystal blue eyes and a glassy gaze. The man lay atop a small heap of corpses, his body marred by horrifying wounds with half his torso gone. Yet strangely, his face was spared from all the devastation, being pristine as ever.
He was staring at Alaric with a distant look, conveying peace and tranquility before death.
"..."
After a long gaze, Alaric released a soft sigh. Limping towards the body with gritted teeth, he barely managed to close the young man's eyes with trembling fingers and a face etched with remorse.
"Sorry... I promised you we'd make it back... guess I lied..." He whispered in regret.
All of this was his fault.
Alaric was a cursed child. An abomination.
Why?
Because beings like him had a tendency to manipulate the Ether in ways the world deemed vulgar and destructive, warping its natural flow and corrupting it as they grew powerful beyond reason, and at an alarming speed at that.
He'd managed to stay hidden for so long, long enough to reach the highest peak a mortal Etherist could ever attain. Just a step away from divinity... or perhaps, damnation in his case.
Who would have thought that his secret would be found out so soon?
Who'd have expected them to discover his nature?
Why did he have to live with the fact that his mere existence was taboo, a curse and danger to him and those around him?
They just couldn't give him a way out. He had to either fight for survival or die trying.
As these dark thoughts churned in his mind, his expression twisted in anguish. He tried standing upright but failed miserably, collapsing to the ground.
"Damn it…"
His right leg was too broken to allow him to walk or stand straight. Time passed in agony. Eventually, he forced himself upright, leaning against a corpse. Glancing at the gaping hole in his chest, he saw the sickly green pulses flickering inside.
With a snap of his fingers, he summoned what little Ether remained. A weak, dark flame bloomed in his palm. Without hesitation, he pressed it into the wound.
Pain exploded through him. His body jerked, a muffled scream torn from his throat. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air as sweat streaked down his pale face.
When it was done, he slumped back, chest scorched, hand shaking, but the cursed pulses were gone.
Taking a few seconds to calm down, Alaric gazed at the distant sky.
The sun was already on the horizon, and the sky was red as blood. Dawn had come, bathing him in the final afterglow of the retreating sun.
For a moment, all the nightmares, burdens, and curses seemed to wane. Peace washing over him like a forgotten dream.
"Is… is this what freedom feels like?"
He spoke in a hoarse voice, deeply relaxed despite the terrible state of his body.
He lay there on the bare ground, leaning on a burnt corpse for some time.
Several minutes passed, and darkness began to enshroud the world in its inexorable presence.
Finally, he felt some strength returning to his broken limbs, and he slowly stood upright despite the excruciating pain coursing through his body and barely began to walk.
He took one last glance behind him at the devastated landscape, now a violent burial ground for countless enemies and his closest allies.
He turned, releasing a soft sigh filled with a whirlpool of negative emotions.
Shortly after, only a deep resolve was left burning in his eyes and very being as his face turned ghastly cold.
"I'll remember this… just you wait." He said softly before turning around.
But as he took his first step forward, a blinding light suddenly engulfed everything, pushing away all of the surrounding darkness.
In the sky, a figure appeared, surrounded by a halo of searing light and scorching heat.
The light was so intense that looking directly at its source risked blinding oneself.
Alaric couldn't discern the full form, but the six massive wings, the blinding brilliance, the searing heat enveloping him, and most especially, the intense aversion he felt left no doubt.
He didn't need to see more. Only those born of heaven bore such purity... and such hatred for his kind.
It was an Angel.
As Alaric stared at the Angel, it stared back at him and the battlefield, contempt and utter disgust radiating from its presence.
In a voice that was both trumpeting and soothing, it declared:
"Demon! For the sins carved into your soul, for the ruin left in your wake, and for all the lives you've claimed. Your judgment has come."
Alaric's face grew grim as he realized what awaited him.
Alaric's heart pounded in his chest, not from fear, but from the grim realization that he had no strength left to fight. His broken body could barely stand, let alone withstand the might of the being before him.
The Angel hovered above the battlefield, a celestial force of pure light and fire, its gaze piercing and unyielding. The judgment had been passed, and there was no escape. As the light around the Angel grew brighter, swallowing the darkness that had once loomed over the wasteland.
With a final, weary breath, he closed his eyes, the words of the Angel echoing in his mind.
But even as he stood on the brink of oblivion, a small, defiant spark within him refused to die.
"You think, you can claim me? Hehe, let's see you try." He said, his voice barely audible over the roaring light.
The Angel's radiance intensified, and in that blinding brilliance, the world seemed to pause.
But Alaric didn't care, he should've begged of course. But he didn't. He just opened his eyes… and stared the heavens down.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of Ode to the Damned. I truly appreciate you taking the time to dive into Alaric's world, and I hope you enjoyed the opening to his journey.
Also, feel free to leave a comment or review about the chapter. I'd love to hear your thoughts!