Introduction

Within the ancient archives of the Grand Library, I came across fragments of the lost work 'Annals of the Kings of Edenia' that offers an insight into the final year of our majesty's late husband's reign. These three weathered pages bear witness to the noble king's last stand against an encroaching evil empire of the Outworld, which tragically ended in the annihilation of his kingdom.

The lost work is attributed to none other than Canorde the Wise, who served as the Chancellor in the king's court and was also an exemplary scholar known for his record-keeping. It is evident that Canorde possessed great knowledge of the Outworld's invasion of the Global Kingdom, as reflected in the precision of his account.

However, the account, while precise, exhibits a misogynistic tone by portraying the defense against the invaders as solely a masculine endeavor, neglecting any mention of the Queen. This bias reflects the outdated and bigoted views of the past that was common during the Lost Edenia era. The account's problematic failure to acknowledge the Queen's role is a powerful reminder of the historical marginalization of women in such narratives, despite their significant contributions.

It must also be noted of the 'prophecy' the author wrote at the end of his work that turned out to be a farcical lie: instead of inspiring true hope, the prophecy only served to inflate the ego of a certain man who fancied himself as royal. The subject's delusion led to his betrayal of the Edenian Restoration Army, the same movement that aimed to restore the realm that the subject believed the prophecy foretold he would lead. All that in favor of switching sides to the Outworld's emperor for petty reasons, despite the subject in question revolving himself around the prophecy for much of his time in the resistance. It is well-known today that he is not the son of the old king, but rather the son of a general of common blood who served under the king. It is bitterly ironic how a prophecy that foretold the restoration of the kingdom by a regal prince became a tool for extreme self-aggrandizement that led to treachery against the realm.

The prophecy aside, the text speaks of the outstanding valor of our late monarch and the resilience of our people who had to endure the savagery of the Tarkata. Although these pages only provide a brief look at the final days of the old kingdom, they stand as a testament to the unbreakable spirit of our realm that never surrendered to tyrants.

- Clerk Dalagyne-Salam


In the 5,690th regnal year of our beloved magnanimous King Jerrod, seven thousand years ago, on the 35,677th anniversary of the founding of Edenia's last capital located north of the Great Mountains, the Dark Emperor Shao Kahn arrived from the barbarous world of Outworld through strange portals. It is now known that this was made possible by the dark invader's shadow priests, whose considerably unnatural and esoteric dark arts unbalanced the furies. This led to the disintegration of the imperceptible barriers that separated our world from theirs, allowing him to begin his subjugation of our realm with his vile forces.

This commenced a destructive and ruinous conflict that had not been seen since the War of Three Pretenders that concluded many hundred millennia prior. Sixty hordes of the co-general Baraka's fiendish Tarkata, accompanied by the hundred and twenty-five legions of the co-general Prince Gorbak's Shokan warriors, comprised the entirety of the invading army. Enough is known about the Shokan people: they were a violent but honor-bound society as they are to this day. The Tarkata, on the other hand, are an enigmatic species, but from the rumors and tales I gathered, they ostensibly are a sickening amalgamation of half-man and half-demon! This best explains their utterly depraved nature and their engagement in mass cannibalization of our people that the numerous living witnesses tell us. Those are the ferocious savages who burned down countless villages and towns, cowardly putting every innocent human they found to the sword.

In mere six days, the villains subjugated most of Edenia. The slaughtered Edenians numbered by then precisely 59,577,999,655 myriad Edenian souls with 568,688,549 of them subjected to chattel enslavement. The dark forces of the insidious tyrant surrounded the once-enlightening and wall-less northern capital, poised for their dark master's oral command to storm the city if he did not get to derive perverse pleasure from personally witnessing the King kneel before him.

Though the bleak situation disturbed many Edenians of the many-towered, brown-and-white capital, the thought of complete surrender of their freedom to the dark lord never crossed their minds. The ever shining light of Edenia, our righteous king, with the permission of the luminous parliament, mustered a manly and able Edenian army in the renowned city with the guts to face the barbarous beasts. King Jerrod was clad in chainmail, enveloping his head and body, with a green tunic and a blue cape worn over it to blend in with his men and be indistinguishable from them to battle alongside them; such was an unprecedented decision made by our king! Though he did not wear his regalia, his men instantly recognized him. He toured the capital so often that he became unmistakable to the citizens, as even the most humble of all could distinguish their monarch by the look of his aging but handsome face. King Jerrod, bearing a flaming sword in his right hand, positioned himself in front of the exquisite staircase that flowered from the entrance of the Great Palace. Below him stood his men who filled the open space. The Great Palace, encompassing an entrance gateway measuring two hundred feet, along with the palace itself stretching a thousand feet in width and six hundred and fifty feet in height, elevated a hundred and eighty feet above the city level. Flanking the oval-shaped entrance stood a pair of majestic black statues of heavenly dragons, each towering a hundred feet, and facing one another. Additionally, six imposing towers, each crowned with burning fires in honor of Lady of Flame, were erected—three adorning each side of the palace. Finally, a resplendent golden dome adorned the summit of the majestic bronze palace. From there, King Jerrod made a strong proclamation:

"Heare Yeomen, ye sha'not fere deeth for in alle soothfastness þat is þe leste wight for us to be dredeful of at þis houre!" Cried the king in the old Edenian tongue with his flaming sword towering above his head. "Fere þe forrayen of ouȝr cyty, þe ruyne of your dwellynges, þe fyry stakes ond þe trecheros dongeons! I axe ye anon to fyghte ageinst þe vyceful, yvile outlanderes wyth alle your myghte and chyvalrye sith ouȝr enemys are syke ond goostless sauvages! Bet for us to gloriously dye defending ouȝr countreie þanne suffren werse werdes!" The men chanted the king's name and readied for their final battle.

By the prime time of the seventh day of the invasion, Shao Kahn, with his war crown put upon his abominable rusty head, unleashed his savages to confront our brave men in Mortal Kombat. The battle raged throughout the city; many of our strong-willed men killed the beasts in the hudreds, protected as many women from unconsensual violation, and fearlessly fought the four-armed elephantines. As the fight went on, the narrow streets typical of Edenian cities began to be filled with corpses, and the gardens, fountains, and rivers turned crimson. Both the invading forces and the defenders shrank greatly in number, but alas, the forces of the sinister tyrant were still four times greater than our king's. The evening came with Edenian forces rapidly dwindling to a mere thousand. The Kahn by himself annihilated hundreds of the martyred defenders of the city, a feat of monstrous proportions never before witnessed by a mortal. The capital fell in the end with the rest of Edenia, beginning the dark times of our tragic history. What remained of the valiant fighters went on a dangerous journey to the hills outside the fallen city, their bulwark against the barbaric invaders that ensured their capabilities to wage unorthodox warfare. The whereabouts of the king remained veiled in uncertainty. The grim reality could be that he met his demise during the Black Saturday.

As night descended upon the realm, the villainous dark lord of the Outworld incanted a spell that initiated the unholy merger of the Outworld with our own realm. A deep, ominous hue of dark purple enshrouded the serene Edenian skies, while the reverberations of thunder and the crackling of lightning rent the heavens. Alien structures materialized before the terrified eyes of our world's denizens, and the very contours of our continents were grotesquely remolded to conform to the lifeless landscape of the Outworld. Edenia ceased to exist in its familiar state, with only fragmented vestiges of its former essence scattered throughout the Outworld.

After the catastrophic mayhem, a new hope emerged among us Edenians, as a prophecy was surreptitiously shared and eventually became a widespread belief. It foretold of the loting of a purple-blooded offspring of the King in the Rainy Mountain. It prophesied his imminent emergence to shatter the shackles of ancient oppression imposed upon us and lead his people in an epic and chivalrous war of liberation to return our lost realm Edenia to its original state. Be it that I am in no possession of the vigilance of Argus with his hundred watchful eyes and see the impossibility for such royal prince to survive the destruction of the Great Palace, the radiance of truth in the prophecy is unmistakably evident to me.


1. The Queen has authenticated the written speech as being verbatim.