=====PROLOGUE=====
How many years have passed since it all began? Indeed, what was the start of all this? Perhaps it is too late to ask that question now, for those who may know the answer are dead, or might as well be. Dead...like so many others. So much blood has been spilled... the blood of the strong, and the weak... of friends, and of foes... of gods, and of men...
And for what cause? For what did the people fight for during those horrendous years? Honor? Love? Vengeance? Power? ...Friendship? Values, immaterial, based solely on perspective. One man's treasure is another man's trash. All that blood spilled for goals that are no longer remembered, that nobody cares for any longer.
And looking down as I am upon the armies of the dead and the damned, I can't help but wonder and contemplate. How many people actually realize that each of those faceless dead was once as alive as they, once loved and cared for, feared and hated, honored and despised. And then another question comes to me: Why do I still live? What right have I to live, when so many others, many greater beings than I, have perished? Is it fate? Has fate once more played one of its cruel jokes upon me, like so many times before? Fate... the fate that sent so many to their death, that plunged our little mudball into chaos.
The war has gone on for an eternity, and then even more, and throughout it all only death and despair have been constants. Hope was torn away from those who tried to hold on, and those who try to keep hold only suffered more when it was lost...
Yet I remember a time before the war, before the death. A time when hope and kindness still had meaning, when people still believed that somebody who come to save them... yet where is that savior now? Indeed, who was that savior? Do people even know? Do people even remember...us? And for how long will they? We will fade into history... history will fade into legend... legend into myth... and myth, into nothing...
However, I still remember. Yes, I remember it all. Not from the beginning, perhaps, but I do remember... the past. The truth. I still have the memories...
Of a monster who tried to devour the world... Sigma
Of a knight so blinded by his own good that he could not see evil... Arcadius
Of a scientist whose genius was his own undoing... Gate
Of a mercenary who learned too late that there were things more valuable than power... Dynamo
Of a demon who sought to become a god... Tenma
Of an angel who would be at home in hell... Seraphim
Of a fool, who didn't realize that even if a pawn gains power, it's still just a playing piece... Shurilan
And of the tragic legacies, fighting a battle started by beings long dead... X...Zero
Thinking now of them, of how many lie dead, I wonder once more. Perhaps death, not fate, is my foe. Death... the sweet, serene, eternal rest that has so long eluded me. I have looked death in the eye many times, and I am no longer afraid. Is it this lack of fear which death senses? Does it wait till I fear it once more to claim me? If so, it shall wait eternally. He who has nothing left to live for has no reason to fear death.......
How many years have passed since it all began? Indeed, what was the start of all this? Perhaps it is too late to ask that question now, for those who may know the answer are dead, or might as well be. Dead...like so many others. So much blood has been spilled... the blood of the strong, and the weak... of friends, and of foes... of gods, and of men...
And for what cause? For what did the people fight for during those horrendous years? Honor? Love? Vengeance? Power? ...Friendship? Values, immaterial, based solely on perspective. One man's treasure is another man's trash. All that blood spilled for goals that are no longer remembered, that nobody cares for any longer.
And looking down as I am upon the armies of the dead and the damned, I can't help but wonder and contemplate. How many people actually realize that each of those faceless dead was once as alive as they, once loved and cared for, feared and hated, honored and despised. And then another question comes to me: Why do I still live? What right have I to live, when so many others, many greater beings than I, have perished? Is it fate? Has fate once more played one of its cruel jokes upon me, like so many times before? Fate... the fate that sent so many to their death, that plunged our little mudball into chaos.
The war has gone on for an eternity, and then even more, and throughout it all only death and despair have been constants. Hope was torn away from those who tried to hold on, and those who try to keep hold only suffered more when it was lost...
Yet I remember a time before the war, before the death. A time when hope and kindness still had meaning, when people still believed that somebody who come to save them... yet where is that savior now? Indeed, who was that savior? Do people even know? Do people even remember...us? And for how long will they? We will fade into history... history will fade into legend... legend into myth... and myth, into nothing...
However, I still remember. Yes, I remember it all. Not from the beginning, perhaps, but I do remember... the past. The truth. I still have the memories...
Of a monster who tried to devour the world... Sigma
Of a knight so blinded by his own good that he could not see evil... Arcadius
Of a scientist whose genius was his own undoing... Gate
Of a mercenary who learned too late that there were things more valuable than power... Dynamo
Of a demon who sought to become a god... Tenma
Of an angel who would be at home in hell... Seraphim
Of a fool, who didn't realize that even if a pawn gains power, it's still just a playing piece... Shurilan
And of the tragic legacies, fighting a battle started by beings long dead... X...Zero
Thinking now of them, of how many lie dead, I wonder once more. Perhaps death, not fate, is my foe. Death... the sweet, serene, eternal rest that has so long eluded me. I have looked death in the eye many times, and I am no longer afraid. Is it this lack of fear which death senses? Does it wait till I fear it once more to claim me? If so, it shall wait eternally. He who has nothing left to live for has no reason to fear death.......