This story contains scenes of extreme violence and horrid acts. I warn you.
"The fallen leaves tell a story..."
His eyes burn. Why them?
"The great Elden Ring was shattered..."
He yearns to forget but how could he? It would tarnish their deaths.
"In our home, across the fog, the Lands Between."
His eyes melt. No. He rejects it. They where tortured and for what? The money the had? The fame? Why?
"Now, Queen Marika the eternal is nowhere to be found, and in the night of the Black Knives, Godwyn the Golden was first to perish."
But he was never one for forgiveness. Who was there to forgive when all the victims where dead? When all the oppressors where dead?
"Soon, Marika's offspring, demigods all, claimed shards of the Elden Ring."
No, he is not for his own revenge. But he will avenge the suffering off all that came before and all that will come. He cannot avenge his own pain anymore but he can strive to prevent others. A purpose.
"The mad taint of their newfound strength triggered the Shattering."
An example; who will avenge an innocent child's death? Certainly not the child, it did not grow to know good from evil. The mother? No, she did not have part in it's suffering.
"A war from which no lord arose..."
So, the question is; For what world do we suffer? Do they suffer? Did his family suffer?
"A war leading to abandonment from the Greater Will."
He simply could not imagine a paradise heavenly enough to warrant the suffering of just the unknowing children, which is but a tenth of the agony mankind has felt.
"Oh, arise now, ye Tarnished. Ye dead, who yet live!"
So, is the beauty of life not outweighed by it's suffering? The death? Take only the World Wars, they are enough to make all the births and happiness of the following years void and null, only through the death of the soldiers. Not to speak of the grieving widows and fatherless sons and daughters, growing up with a missing pillar.
"The call of long-lost Grace speaks to us all!"
He can think of countless tales of tragedy and loss, all real but he cannot think of any joy that made up for it. For what world are we living on for? What world will justify it? 'Tell me!' He screams out into the abyss. It does not answer but he can swear to hear the laughter of grim gods.
"Hoarah Loux, chieftain of the Badlands."
Old practices of parents beating their children as 'discipline', almost torturing them, depending on time and family, are they justified by a possible better future? Who will be able to say 'Yes! I was beaten until I was but one bruise for this! I forgive!'?
"The ever-brilliant Goldmask."
Even if they forgive their tormentors in heaven, he cannot. He will not. Even if forgiveness is earned, is the suffering of the moment and it's fallout undone? No.
He saw all that he loved raped and tortured before his eyes by invaders to his home and did he forgive them? 'NEVER!'
"Fia, the Deathbed Companion."
So, life is suffering. Even if not yours, your mere existence is tainted by the suffering of those before, the mere fact that such pain was allowed and that the world continued made your existence owed to the victims.
"The loathsome Dung Eater."
Then, what is the solution to that? How can his- their- all suffering end?
"And sir Gideon Ofnir, the All-Knowing!"
Simple. End it all. Not just your own, destroy until everything is one again to make sure no more agony can outweigh the joys of life. To make the scales equal. It is your duty as one who suffered, as one who now knows. 'It is my duty.'
"...and one other. Whom not grace would again bless."
His eyes have opened.
"No. His blessing would be one of Frenzy."
And he will never forget all suffering. His suffering.
"And he would not bow to it in the end."
"*GASP*" A figure would awaken in a chapel. The first thing he felt was the tears streaming down his face, he remembers. He was in his home not two hours ago, playing his favorite video game, Elden Ring when he heard something. A door slamming open.
For context, his family was rich and powerful. After all, his father invented Nanomachinery. So, it is natural that others would seek to see their greed of them satiated.
What surprised him was when a masked man that busted open his door and grabbed him. Of course, he tried to resist but he lived a lofty life, free of struggle so his body was slim and weak. The man pulled him to the main room, a large thing it was, built so grand as their fall would be.
He saw his family, his mother, father, sister and baby brother all in the living room. And all bound, by rope or cloth he could not remember. The men, all with masked and all armed made demands, loudly and angrily they proclaimed that his family was the cause of their countries war, that the weapons that where built with his fathers magnum opus where their fault.
And where they wrong?
His brother, Oh the sweet infant he was, cried. Of course he would, the shouting and crying of his parents would awake even the most deprived of sleep that there is.
The men did not appreciate it though, did not understand. Every man has a devil inside them, a devil that relishes in the suffering of his victims, a devil that enjoys the lustful acts that drive him, a devil that loves to rage.
They killed his brother, who never even knew life. Who was so young that he did not know his situation, who didn't even get to know the joys of companionship. They stomped on his throat, easy to do as the baby lay on the floor, bound and gagged by bedsheets.
Is this suffering justified? What world?
The men, in their rage or whatever drove them, took his teen sister next. 'An example.' They said. 'You'll regret what you did after this.' They screamed.
Then they took her purity with their violence. He could only watch, gun held to his temple. He hates them.
They killed her with lacerations after half an hour of what was hell for her but heaven for the monsters. He screamed in anger, profanity flew from his mouth. He screamed until he could not anymore, and they made sure he could not anymore. After they tired of his screaming, the men cut his tongue and fed it to him. 'How dare you say that!' They shouted. 'We suffered so much more, I am getting my recompense!' They deluded.
He should have stayed silent, maybe he could have told his mother he loved her then. When they took her next, it was for the same reasons as his sister, 'An example.' 'You will regret.'. He knows they only sought excuses. They just wanted to gorge themselves on his mother. He hates them.
His father was second last to only himself, they wanted the son to suffer the most apparently. So they tortured the man in front of his last remaining family, the cut out his eyes. Oh, that image will haunt him forever, his father, without his eyes, looking at him with empty sockets with such love, such forgiveness.
His own death he could barely feel. Sure, the broken bones and bleeding cuts where bad, they where searing agony but his mind was broken the most. He still hated them but he came to a conclusion then.
Life is suffering and so it must be snuffed.
He was thankful for them then, for only a moment he was thankful. Then he remembered the happenings just an hour before and he hated again. But the revelation stayed with him, stays with him.
Now he lays in this church or whatever it is, crying for his family, for himself, for everybody who knew worse and better than him. For what does he live now? Why is he even alive now? LET HIM DIE! He screamed in his subconscious. But he cannot waste his new knowledge, he needs to justify all the pain.
So, he has a goal.
As he looks around the church, the corpse with items he recognizes, he knew where he was. And he knew that he can now do something. Because there was power to gain from his suffering.
Because in the lands between there lay a flame for those who agonized over their tragedies.
His goal is to light the world with Frenzied Flame.
My biggest and most inspired story yet. I will put my heart into it.
Chapters will mellow out a bit after this, this chapter should be seen as more of a trailer.
Following that logic, future chapters will be longer and have varying tones.
