enjoyebooks Chapter 195: The Crimson Night [23]
Chapter 195: The Crimson Night [23]
The War for The North [82]
Chapter 195: The Crimson Night [23]
Gods and worlds...
History books, legends passed down through generations, and sacred texts recited in gilded temples have always whispered the same grand lie:
The gods created the worlds.
But this was nothing more than a massive illusion, fabricated to elevate the gods in the eyes of mortals and weak minds, to justify their tyranny and their universal exploitation.
The truth was far simpler, and far more ruthless. Like a bandit who stumbles upon a dazzling, ownerless treasure and claims it as his own, the gods had merely "found" this world.
But what if the one who found that treasure could not use it? Or if the treasure itself rejected those parasites trying to claim it unjustly?
More than that... what if those treasures possessed a dormant yet breathing consciousness of their own? And what if they held an absolute power to protect themselves from those parasites?
Imagine a cosmic balance bound by universal laws, where neither side can directly interfere with the other in a physical sense.
That was the single greatest factor behind the bloody, chaotic, and merciless order of the present world.
In the beginning, the world was a silent and desolate place devoid of life.
A massive rock where only the winds howled and the oceans crashed into emptiness. But it needed a defense mechanism to protect itself from the parasites that descended upon it, the gods who sought to drain its energy.
The world made a decision that would change the course of history forever, and from its own core, it created the first being with consciousness.
His name was Vorloth.
The First Demon Lord.
He had no will of his own. No desires, no dreams, no weaknesses, no emotions.
At least, that was what the world had hoped.
Vorloth became the perfect embodiment of his creator’s will. A machine designed solely to exist and to protect, a blade of darkness given form.
Over time, the gods sent their pawns, various races, to infiltrate the world and turn it into their playground.
Elves claimed the forests, vampires ruled the night, werewolves dominated the wilds, and humans... multiplied through their weakness and spread to every corner.
The races reshaped the world according to their desires. They exploited it, molded it, and built cities and empires upon it.
And Vorloth? Did the absolute guardian of the world allow this?
Never.
In his eyes, these races were nothing more than diseased cells clinging to the flesh of his creator.
He shattered the sacred tree the elves took such pride in with a single strike, casting them down to the earth.
He nearly drove the werewolves and vampires to extinction, drowning their bloodlines in seas of blood. Alone, without rest, he waged war against humans and the so called guardian gods who supported them from the shadows.
The destruction he brought was so immense that even after Vorloth had been sealed away thousands of years ago, more than seventy percent of the world still remained part of the Demon Empire.
Things had reached a point where Vorloth was no longer just an enemy, but an absolute "God" in the eyes of all living beings, even the demons who worshiped him.
He had no weakness. No flaw on the battlefield. He did not age, he did not tire, and he never grew arrogant, not even after achieving victories beyond comprehension.
He simply continued to be what he was meant to be.
The will of the world.
But the world was not satisfied with such absolute loyalty and flawless purification.
It began to fear what it had created, that dark and unstoppable power.
What if one day that invincible blade it had sharpened with its own hands turned against it? What if Vorloth decided that he alone should be the absolute power of this world?
Driven by this paranoia, the world created the Mystic Beasts to balance him, to serve as a safeguard against him, and it restricted Vorloth’s limitless power.
And what did Vorloth do in the face of this distrust, this immense betrayal?
Nothing.
He simply continued to be the will of the world. He did not resent his creator. He did not grow angry. He did not hate the Mystic Beasts. Without even a fragment of emotion, he remained what he was meant to be.
The will of the world. Its silent guardian.
Until that day.
The skies split apart with golden light, and two Seraphim descended upon the earth.
They were the most powerful beings after the gods themselves.
The incarnations of absolute and pure power, beings that all angels, archangels, and holy entities knelt and prayed to become.
And what did the Mystic Beasts, created as the guardians of the world, do?
Unlike Vorloth’s emotionless loyalty, these ancient beings possessed emotions and the instinct to survive. Faced with overwhelming power, they chose to hide in pure fear.
Some claimed that threats beyond their territories did not concern them, that the balance was not their responsibility.
Others simply sank into deep slumber, choosing silence while waiting for the catastrophe to pass.
Of the ten Mystic Beasts that once ruled the world, only two found the courage to join that apocalyptic war.
The Chaos Dragon Kaiser and the Golden Dragon Luxurion.
They tore through the skies, shed their blood, and clashed with the Seraphim in a battle that lasted for days and reshaped the very surface of the world. They fought, they paid the price, and they survived.
And Vorloth? After the Seraphim threat was eliminated, did he simply accept it?
In his eyes, the Mystic Beasts had rejected their duty. They had defied the will of the world.
These beings, meant to defend the world at all costs, had chosen cowardice. They were defective. They were traitors.
Vorloth demanded that the world punish them, erase their existence for failing their purpose.
And what happened?
The world remained silent.
It ignored everything.
In that moment, Vorloth, the flawless puppet, the unshakable machine, questioned his creator for the first and last time since his existence began.
A contradiction he could not comprehend echoed within his mind.
"What am I to you?"
"My guardian and protector."
It was the exact answer he had expected. The very purpose of his existence.
And yet, for the first time, it did not satisfy him.
His logic fractured within the dark void of his being. An uncontrollable turmoil was born within him.
A conflict between what he was meant to be and what he wanted to be.
What did Vorloth desire?
What did he want?
No one ever learned the answer to that question.
After that day, Vorloth did not abandon his duty. But he no longer cared about the will of the world.
He chose to take control entirely for himself.
He chose to eliminate the Mystic Beasts. They were unnecessary. They were cowards who refused to fulfill their purpose.
If all the power in the world remained solely in his hands, then the world could never be invaded again. No Seraphim would ever set foot upon the earth.
With that logic, he began a great hunt, one that resembled the end of the world.
Facing this absolute threat of annihilation, the Mystic Beasts cast aside their differences and united.
All except two.
The Chaos Dragon Kaiser and the White Serpent.
Kaiser refused to fight Vorloth due to a strange, deep respect and affection he held for him.
The White Serpent, on the other hand, remained neutral, choosing to observe from afar, blinded by its arrogance and absolute confidence in its own immortality.
It is no surprise that the first Mystic Beast to fall to Vorloth’s wrath was the White Serpent.
Even immortality could not save it from the claws of the First Demon Lord.
The war between Vorloth and the remaining Mystic Beasts shattered the world, sank continents, and reduced mountains to dust.
When it ended, only four Mystic Beasts remained.
Cryomara, Kaiser, Luxurion, and Veviron.
And yet, despite all their power, all their sacrifices, all their losses...
Not a single being could kill Vorloth.
There was no force in existence capable of destroying him. Even the gods feared him.
The only thing the Mystic Beasts could do was seal his limitless power into a slumber that would last thousands of years.
Until now.
Cassian stood among the ruins, feeling every cell in his body screaming, begging him to run.
He could not breathe. The air itself felt unbearably heavy.
The one standing before him looked like nothing more than an ordinary young man, seventeen, perhaps eighteen, with dull black hair and pale skin.
One of the two horns on his head was slightly shorter than the other. His patched, worn villager clothes stood in complete contrast to the apocalyptic scene.
It was almost laughable.
But no one laughed.
And now, the embodiment of the apocalypse, Vorloth, had been freed from his seal after thousands of years.
A few steps away from Cassian stood the snake eyed man of the White Serpent’s lineage, the one whose neck had been severed earlier, only to return through regeneration.
His pupils had shrunk to pinpoints. His entire body trembled like a leaf.
His survival instinct dragged him to the very depths of disgrace.
"M My Lord!" he stammered, dropping to his knees and raising his hands into the air. His voice shrieked with terror. "I... I am your ally! I did not fight against you! Like my ancestor, the White Serpent, I never opposed you! Please... have mercy!"
Vorloth slowly turned his head, his eyes nothing but a bottomless black void, and looked at the man begging on the ground.
There was no anger. No disgust. No satisfaction.
Only absolute emptiness.
"Unnecessary," Vorloth whispered.
His voice was as ordinary as the wind dragging a dry leaf across the ground, yet it sent a chill deep into the soul.
The moment that single word left his lips, the snake eyed man’s trembling stopped.
He had no chance to scream, to flee, or to cast a spell.
His body began to turn into gray ash from the tips of his toes, and in less than a second, he silently crumbled away, scattering into the wind and vanishing completely.
Not a drop of blood remained. Not a bone. Not even a trace of a soul.
Only nothingness.
Cassian’s throat tightened.
A being he had struggled against, a demigod who had threatened him and boasted of his regeneration, a descendant of a Mystic Beast... had been erased without even a movement.
Just by existence alone.
Cassian had faced many powers until this day. He had defeated Nerath, reduced Aethrax to ash, driven Seralya mad, and overcome an Archangel.
Within his Sovereign Form, he had felt almost invincible.
But now...
As Vorloth’s dull black eyes slowly turned toward him, Cassian realized, with painful clarity, just how small and almost laughable his own power and destruction truly were.
The being before him was not here to fight, to conquer, or to take revenge.
He was here to cleanse the world.
And Cassian was nothing more than one of the parasites to be erased.