The war had no beginning.
That was what the elders said—those few who still remembered words like before. They spoke of peace as if it were a rumor carried on dead wind, a thing that may never have existed at all. For Caera Lionheart, war was not a chapter in history. It was the sky she was born under. The air she breathed. The lullaby that replaced a mother's voice.
The sky burned.
Not with fire alone, but with the sick, warped light of fractured realms bleeding into one another. Cracks hung across the heavens like wounds that refused to heal, spilling shadows that did not belong to this world. Sometimes the stars moved when no wind touched them. Sometimes they screamed.
Caera stood on a ridge of blackened stone, her boots sinking slightly into ash that had once been soil. Below her, the battlefield stretched endlessly—an ocean of broken steel, shattered banners, and corpses frozen in their final screams. The dead lay layered upon one another, human and inhuman alike, as though the earth itself had grown tired of deciding who deserved to live.
She had already killed more than most kings.
The blade in her hand pulsed faintly, responding to her presence like a living thing. Runes etched into its length glimmered gold, then dimmed again, as if breathing. It had been forged for her long before she ever existed—before her parents had fallen, before the world learned the true name of despair.
Lionheart.
That was what they called her now. Not child. Not girl. Not even savior.
Weapon.
A horn sounded in the distance—low, distorted, wrong. The kind of sound that scraped against the soul rather than the ears. Caera did not flinch. She had learned long ago that fear was a luxury for those with choices.
She closed her eyes.
And for a single heartbeat, she remembered them.
Her parents had been gods.
Not in the way mortals imagined—aloof, untouchable beings seated upon thrones of light—but fated gods, bound to existence itself. They were pillars holding reality in balance, embodiments of creation and judgment, light and restraint. Where they walked, laws followed.
They had loved each other anyway.
That love had been their first sin.
When the King of Chaos rose from the Outer Dark, clawing his way through forbidden realms, it was her parents who stood against him. They fought not for worship, nor dominion, but because if they did not, everything would end. The war between gods shattered dimensions. Seas boiled. Mountains folded into themselves like dying beasts.
They failed.
Chaos could not be slain—not by gods bound to fate. So the King did what Chaos does best.
He trapped them.
Sealed them beyond time, beyond death, in a prison made of paradox and unending torment. A place where gods could neither die nor escape. A place where hope rotted slowly.
And Caera was born the moment they were sealed.
A final defiance. A child woven from their remaining power, cast into the world like a prayer soaked in blood.
She had never seen their faces.
But she felt them—every time her heart ached without knowing why, every time her hands trembled after battle, every time she dreamed of chains tightening around light.
The world had not waited for her to grow.
The Outer Beings poured through the fractures left by the divine war—things without form, without mercy, without reason. They fed on fear, on memory, on identity itself. Kingdoms fell not because they were conquered, but because they forgot they existed.
So Caera learned to fight.
At five, she learned how to hold a blade.
At seven, how to kill without hesitation.
At ten, how to walk through screams and not look back.
By twelve, soldiers twice her size bowed when she passed.
Not out of respect.
Out of terror.
The horn sounded again.
Caera opened her eyes.
From the裂ed horizon came movement—shadows writhing together, forming shapes that mocked life. Limbs bent the wrong way. Faces melted into one another. Voices whispered in languages that burrowed into the mind.
Outer Beings.
She stepped forward.
The first creature reached her, and she cut it in half without slowing. Light tore through corrupted flesh, unraveling it into smoke. Another lunged; she pivoted, blade singing, severing its head. Her movements were precise, efficient—no wasted motion, no rage.
She did not hate them.
Hatred required energy she could not spare.
The battlefield blurred into rhythm: strike, turn, parry, kill. Blood soaked into her armor, hot and slick. A claw raked across her shoulder; pain flared, distant and unimportant. She drove her blade through the creature's core and felt its existence unravel.
Minutes passed. Or hours.
Time had long since lost meaning.
When the last Outer Being dissolved into ash, silence fell—thick and oppressive. The surviving soldiers stared at her from a distance, unsure whether to cheer or kneel or flee.
Caera wiped her blade clean on a torn banner and sheathed it.
"Burn the remains," she said. Her voice was calm, almost soft. "Do not let them linger."
They obeyed instantly.
As she turned away, something stirred at the edge of her senses.
A presence.
Not an Outer Being.
Something older. Denser. Tainted—but alive.
Her hand went back to her sword.
From beneath a collapsed siege tower, a figure dragged himself free. He was bleeding heavily, one horn shattered, dark blood soaking the ground beneath him. His wings—once vast, now torn—twitched weakly.
A demon.
The soldiers froze.
"Permission to kill it?" someone asked.
Caera approached slowly, eyes cold.
The demon lifted his head. His eyes—burning, defiant, terrified—locked onto hers.
"Please," he rasped, voice cracking. "Don't kill me."
She raised her blade.
"Use me."
The words stopped her.
"I know who you are," he continued desperately. "Lionheart. Child of the Sealed Gods. If you kill me, I die a meaningless death. But if you spare me—if you chain me—I can serve you. Fight for you. Bleed for you."
His breath hitched. "I don't want to die yet."
Caera stared at him.
A demon lord's descendant. She could feel it—ancient malice coiled in his bloodline. If she spared him, it would be a sin written into the bones of the world.
She lowered her blade.
Not in mercy.
In calculation.
"You live," she said flatly. "Because I choose to use you."
Hope flickered in his eyes.
"One day," she continued, stepping closer, her blade pressing under his chin, "when you have served your purpose—I will kill you myself."
The demon smiled.
Not in relief.
In devotion.
"My life is yours," he whispered. "My name is Viehl."
Caera turned away, already regretting her choice.
She did not see the way he watched her.
As if she were the only light left in a dying universe.