Volume Two
Fire burns across the battlefield,
The roars of demons shake the earth.
The lion of the sky is roaring,
Demons are stepping into the heavens.
Iron horses are racing forward,
Warriors are taking oaths of battle.
Barzak stands barefoot,
Fire in his eyes and thunder in his voice.
The wings of Samardun mark the dawn of a new age.
From the ruins of the city, a new kingdom rises.
Even at the face of death, the song of life can be heard.
— Bahar Balan
[Queen of Kailira]
Chapter Four : The Mysterious Warrior Barzak
From this moment begins a tale buried deep within the oldest layers of history—
a story of endless time, of countless ages past.
Long, long ago.
Nearly a hundred thousand years ago.
In the depths of the forest of Loonzar.
The sky then was deep bluish-grey,
the sun like a sorrowful eye painted on a plate of copper.
The air carried the scent of unknown flowers,
and from hundreds of mountains behind came the constant rumble of breaking thunder—
as if emotion itself was breathing, waiting for something vast and destructive.
That day—
At the crown of Loonzar Forest, a sudden flash of lightning.
Then a crack of fire opened.
The sky seemed torn in two,
and from that rift descended a stream of unknown light.
A boat made of glass—
but it floated in the air.
It came gliding over flame and thunder to the edge of the land.
Beneath the hull of the vessel,
particles of starlight were racing.
And from that ship descended him.
A man.
Who was he?
…..
Nearly a hundred thousand years ago.
The shell of the world was still alive then.
The islands floated upon half-visible rivers of molten stone,
the stellar trees could still speak,
and the rivers carried the shadows of the past upon every tide.
At such a crossroads,
in Loonzar Forest—
where daylight fears to enter,
and night forgets even its own shadow—
there was born a mysterious man:
Barzak Bhagar.
His birth was no ordinary day.
That night, two moons burned together in the sky.
Between them, a red comet tore through the star-filled heavens.
The sky trembled,
the forest trembled.
From a snow-covered peak far away, a crimson light rolled down like blood.
A sorcerer was fighting an ancient demon there.
And within that very light—Barzak was born.
His body seemed a reflection of stone and rain combined.
Over six feet ten inches tall, a sculpted frame that reminded one of some ancient, battle-scarred titan.
His blue-black hair fell to his shoulders like the night itself had taken shelter upon his head.
His eyes were blue—and a single glance from them could silence all emotion.
Some said, when he looked into your eyes, you would see your own fear.
Barzak was not merely a man—he was an echo.
From birth, he was silent—yet his presence felt like the wind itself spoke, and the trees bent to listen.
His birthplace was a sacred grove—
where stood a thousand-year-old tree,
its bark engraved with an ancient clock in an unknown script.
The tree's name was Valhar—"The Body of the Current."
When Barzak was born, that tree suddenly shone with light.
With solemn gravity, it whispered—
"The wind has returned—not to bring death, but the debt of the past."
From that very moment, legends began to form around Barzak Bhagar.
He cried for the first time on the ninth day after his birth—
and his cry caused a waterfall of snow to collapse a hundred miles away.
The day he first walked, shadows lost their direction.
Such a being—so powerful, so unknown, so silently destructive—no kingdom could ever claim him.
Some said he came from beyond memory itself.
And some, trembling, only whispered—
"Do not look into his eyes. There's something there that is not an eye."
Yet the forest of Loonzar embraced him.
It sheltered him, hid him,
and one day it would send him forth into the ribs of war—
from which would rise a new sun…
or the old light would fade forever.
And his arrival, his footsteps, still echo through time.
….
Beyond the forest of Loonzar,
upon the plains of the continent of Astralind,
where the settlements lie—
the day of Barzak's arrival is remembered not by history, but by fear.
He came through a blazing rift in the sky,
riding a vessel of glass and thunder.
In his beauty shimmered the starlight itself,
and his voice—so powerful that storms fell silent,
and even stone eyes wept.
A tall, towering figure—
as if someone from an age long forgotten had mistakenly returned in human form.
He wore white robes that fluttered in the wind,
yet never gathered dust.
In his eyes burned a brilliance that could offer both refuge and ruin.
None could meet that gaze for long—
for they saw their own regrets reflected there.
And yet… his feet—those that had touched the soil of another world—were bare.
He who could walk upon the wind,
had walked upon dust, upon broken human roads.
His feet bled from the thorns hidden in the shrubs.
He had lifted starving children into his arms.
And he had smiled, saying:
"I am your brother."
That single sentence was his war, his rebellion, his poetry.
In those few words was contained an entire civilisation—
one that breathed both surrender and self-immolation.
Those who saw him, many of them broke down in tears,
for they understood—someone had finally stood beside them.
Some old men had asked him,
"Are you Barzak? Or are you the one whose name none know?"
He had only smiled—
and the sky made no sound.
For that day, even the wind had stopped to listen.
….
Three kings witnessed the coming of Barzak.
They were the three eldest rulers of the continent,
whose empires stretched across sea, desert, and frozen peaks.
These three—
Almen Balan, whose throne was carved into the black cliffs;
Sayet Balan, who ruled a city in the heart of the desert;
And Tharwan Balan, who reigned from an icy fortress,
upon a throne of eternal frost,
his gaze fixed always upon the northern sky.
They saw it—
the forest of Loonzar torn by fire,
and a thunder-born vessel descending.
They saw the man who could draw tears from stone with magic,
whose voice could melt glaciers beneath it.
At first, none of them believed.
But—
Almen, standing upon the stone of his own throne, whispered softly,
"This sound… I heard it once before… when my mother, before she died, uttered a name… I never knew that name… but this voice—it is the echo of that very name…"
Sayet, in his council chamber, beneath the hanging glass that had swayed and danced for a thousand years, said,
"His footsteps make even the waters tremble… such trembling once happened—when an ancient demon had awakened. But today that demon sleeps, and someone new walks."
Tharwan, the lonely king seated upon the snow, brought a faint smile to his lips and gazed long at the northern horizon, saying,
"At last… someone's footprints have fallen within the shadow of my empire. I shall not welcome him, nor shall I fear him. I will only watch… for he comes from beyond sound itself. And I—I am but a frost-wraith trapped within a single blink of time."
The three of them stood, each facing a different direction.
The three of them witnessed the birth of a new history.
The three of them felt—their thrones were no longer safe.
Because when that man spoke—
"I am your brother."
Then kingdoms ceased to be kingdoms.
Then beside a brother, no throne held any meaning.
….
Barzak walks across the war-ravaged plateau of Aran—
where the air still carries the ashes of burnt wood, bones, and dreams.
The daylight there is copper-hued, and the sun seems to turn its face away in shame.
Many centuries ago, this place had been filled with singing rivers, grapevine shadows,
and memories woven into the silken folds of the Samardun people's artful cities.
But all that is now the past.
Upon the breast of the plateau lie only shattered towers,
invisible poisonous fumes,
and hollow gazes—like the graves of emotions themselves.
And in the midst of this dreadful stillness, Barzak Bhagar—barefoot,
with a white covering on his head, white robes,
and eyes that held a gaze as if he had not come from any land of this earth,
but from some bloodstained signal beyond the world—walks onward.
His presence is so heavy with sorrow,
as though dreams themselves once opened their eyes to watch his path.
This plateau—this Aran—was once the pride of the Samardun people,
a radiant cradle of civilisation.
They were a wondrous race of giants,
skilled in art, song, literature, and sacred knowledge.
But the Balan Empire—they came with the thunder of iron boots,
the unending clang of shields and armour,
and commands as merciless as a blazing pyre.
They believed—
"If beauty does not show obedience to them,
then its destruction is only justice."
They turned the Samardun cities to dust.
They burned their aesthetic towers.
The laughter of children fell silent.
And that day, a new sound was born in the skies of Aran—silence.
Barzak Bhagar stopped amidst the ruins.
Behind him, the wind carried pages of burnt books;
on some were written—
"We did not fight because we were powerful.
We did not fight because we were proud.
We did not fight because our language was our weapon."
He did not pick up those pages.
He did not tear them.
He only murmured in a low voice—
"Their language has burned;
now it is time to write something out of that ash."
Three figures watched from afar—
they were observers sent from the deep palaces of cities under the rule of the Balan Empire.
None of them spoke.
Only one, Han Olor, said to his companions in a trembling voice:
"You saw it—his feet touched the earth.
I am certain, what we destroyed—he has come to bring back to life."
Throughout the history of the Balan Empire,
there ran a thread of cruelty, intelligence,
and a dreadful kind of curiosity—they did not merely wish to rule;
they wished to rewrite history in their own image.
And for that very purpose, many years before this event,
a special unit of the Royal Secret Intelligence—known as the "Arharin"—
set out on a forbidden expedition spanning many years.
They reached the southern border of the Lunjur plains,
where, beneath the motionless jungles, countless civilisations had vanished unseen.