"GLORY TO FELZES!!!"
His voice ripped out of his throat like it wanted to tear it open on the way out.
A black warhorse reared under him, hooves slamming into dead, cracked ground. The dark red sword in his hand pulsed—
a heartbeat that wasn't his,
a core in the center glowing like an open wound.
The pulse spread.
The ground responded.
Grass that used to be green shriveled even more, turning black as ash. The soil beneath crumbled, baked and broken. The sky above—already wrong—deepened into a darker crimson, thick and suffocating. It felt less like a sky and more like a ceiling of dried blood.
It had been like this…
for years.
Years longer than he could count.
Longer than he could remember clearly.
He couldn't even recall where it started.
Who threw the first stone.
Who said the first prayer.
Who cursed whose god first.
He just knew this:
War was the only thing left.
Behind him, an army answered his scream.
"GLORY TO FELZES!!!"
Thousands of voices.
Human throats. Demonic growls. Undead echoes.
Black armor stretched back in endless rows, soldiers like a metal forest. Their helmets hid their faces, but their posture, their shouts, their raised blades—everything pointed toward him.
Their Dark Lord.
Their king of ruin.
He inhaled.
Burnt meat.
Sweat.
Old blood.
Bodies cooking on bodies.
Smells like home, he thought.
And immediately hated himself for it.
Archers stood at the rear, bows the color of dried blood, carved from something that wasn't wood. Strings shimmered with magic. They hummed faintly, an eerie, hungry vibration.
At the front, the monsters.
Skeletons rattled their rusted swords, empty eyes looking nowhere.
Ogres dragged iron clubs that dented the earth.
Demons with curved horns and sharp smiles waited, wings twitching.
Goblins cackled in shrill, ugly voices, clutching filthy clubs and chipped knives.
A horde built over years.
A kingdom of ash and rage.
All of it behind one man.
He lifted his sword higher.
The core beat again, harder this time, like Felzes itself was breathing through the blade. A whisper slid along the edges of his thoughts.
Again.
Again. March. Kill. Burn. Again.
His jaw clenched.
His eyes shifted forward.
The world… split.
Literally.
Not by a visible line in the air, not a magic barrier your hand could touch—but the difference was so sharp it might as well have been.
On his side:
black soil, ash, choking sky.
On the other side of the slope:
grass that was too bright, too green, like someone overpainted reality.
A sky that was pale blue, with lazy white clouds that didn't seem to know what war was.
It hurt to look at it for too long.
Movement flickered along that bright line.
Specks at first. Then clearer shapes. Banners—white and soft pink—rose and fell in the wind. Armor glinted in the sunlight in a way that made his eyes sting.
Then the horns started.
Not war drums.
Not harsh calls.
A holy melody.
Carefully layered notes climbed into the sky, clear and bright, cutting right through the stink and heaviness of his side of the world. Every sound was like a judgment.
The Holy Rose.
His fingers tightened around the hilt.
He knew their order.
Their symbol.
Their god.
He also knew he should hate them.
Silver and white armor marched into formation as they descended their slope, shields raised, spears lined up so clean it made his own army look like a stain. Magic flickered behind them—priests, healers, paladins.
At their head… her.
He saw the Saint of the Rose ride forward, a white horse beneath her. Her armor didn't need spikes or skulls. It was simple. Pure. Light gathered around her as if the sun itself had chosen her.
Her sword was ordinary. No core. No glowing gem.
But the pressure coming off it made his chest feel tight even from here.
His heart gave a small, confused twitch.
Why are we doing this again?
It wasn't the first time they'd faced each other.
His bones knew her silhouette.
His muscles knew the way she moved before she even moved.
But when he tried to drag the memories out—
how many battles, how many dead, who struck who first—
his thoughts crumbled.
Blank.
Fog.
Whole years felt like someone had torn them out of his skull and left jagged edges where they should've been.
He gritted his teeth.
The sky overhead began to coil.
Clouds twisted around each other, gathering over the center of the battlefield like something huge was inhaling. The sword in his hand pulsed again, harder, brighter, like a second heart trying to out-beat his own.
Felzes was watching.
Felzes was waiting.
He raised the blade.
His horse pawed the ground, snorting smoke. Behind him, his army roared again, shaking the air, the ground, his ribs.
If this was all he was—
if this was all he'd ever be—
Then he'd see it to the end.
"Advance," he murmured.
The first step shook the world.
Monsters surged forward.
Arrows lifted.
Demons took flight.
Magic flared.
The Holy Rose answered.
Shields locked.
Spears lowered.
Light bloomed across their front line, pale and blinding.
Somewhere, a priest began to chant.
Somewhere else, a soldier whispered a desperate prayer.
The Dark Lord opened his mouth to give the next command—
And his vision slipped.
For one, tiny heartbeat—
He wasn't here.
He was… somewhere else.
A bright sky.
A field that wasn't dead.
A feeling of…
Peace?
His chest clenched.
The headache came fast.
Sharp. Sudden.
Like claws scraping the inside of his skull.
"What—"
The word broke, swallowing itself.
Light burst.
Not the red glow of Felzes.
Not the gentle magic of healers.
Something else.
It screamed down from the heavens, white and merciless. It swallowed his front lines in an instant, then his second, then his third. Demons vanished. Goblins flashed and were gone. Skeletons turned to dust mid-swing.
His horse reared, screaming.
A roar tore across the field.
He wasn't sure if it was his voice or not.
The Holy Rose Knights disappeared inside the explosion of light too.
Enemies. Allies. Monsters. Humans.
The world just—
Erased itself.
Silence roared inside his ears.
The last thing he thought wasn't a curse.
It wasn't a prayer.
Just a tired, small realization crushed between all the noise:
I don't… want this anymore.
Then everything ended.
The Dark Lord died.