Prologue
Despite the advance of spring, a chill lingered in the air like a specter unwilling to relinquish its hold on the living world, one that should have vanished in the wake of warmth and fertility. The bustling village recently known as Alster now lay before Ragna as a tableau of desolation. Verdant trees, once vibrant with the promise of life, stood as skeletal sentinels against a sky stained crimson. The boy convulsed with searing agony, his breath ragged and hoarse as if torn from his lungs by invisible claws. Fresh blood cascaded from his lips, staining the earth beneath him as he crawled, his body protesting every desperate effort to escape the grasp of death.
The day had begun as any other. Ragna toiled under the watchful eye of Butch, a grizzled farm owner whose stern demeanor belied a sense of duty to his land and livelihood. The harsh winter had taken its toll on the harvest, and Butch drove Ragna relentlessly to salvage what little they could. Despite cursing Butch as a sadistic taskmaster in moments of exhaustion, Ragna felt a sense of accomplishment as he and Butch's daughter, Anna, a real spitfire of a girl, worked tirelessly to overcome nature's cruel hand and succeeded. Money from trade would have been big. His dull yet idyllic life was no more than a twisted memory corrupted by the malevolent influence of seithr suffocating Alster. The once-familiar faces had become grotesque, haunting caricatures.
Seithr had always lingered in low concentrations around Alster. Certain areas were strictly forbidden due to abnormal concentrations of the radioactive substance, harboring monstrous creatures warped by its influence. Despite being a known presence, encounters with these creatures were typically rare and considered a non-issue by the villagers. Until today, Ragna had never witnessed the full extent of the sickening aftereffects of seithr contamination on another human being. While he had encountered beasts twisted by its malevolent touch, seeing a fellow human succumb to its corruption was a harrowing experience he wished to erase from his mind. Memories of Anna's true form had been supplanted by the abhorrent visage burned into his psyche. Ragna's mind struggled to reconcile the monstrous creature with the image of the friend he once knew. Her hair length, its color, her eyes, the way she laughed… meaningless.
How could this happen?
"S-Sa...ya..." His voice, barely a whisper, echoed across the silent landscape. The response he received was not what Ragna hoped for.
"Groooooar…"
The chorus of guttural growls grew louder as the lupine seithr beasts encroached, their crimson eyes gleaming in the dim light like beacons of malevolence. Saliva dripped from their elongated fangs ready to rend him into pieces.
"You... bastards!" Ragna dug his fingers into the soil and glared in flimsy defiance. Seithr beasts previously harbored in the depths of the forest were now strutting through the village in search of potential survivors, potential meals.
No, I can't move! My body won't...
His vision blackened as the blood loss finally started to catch up to the young boy. Tenacity only propelled him for so long.
I... I'm so sorry. Please...
Ragna's eyes closed. He wasn't one for prayer; he never believed in that kind of thing. Being constantly observed by some omnipotent being never sat right with him. But right now, at his moment of certain death, Ragna put all his faith into the same ritual he often criticized the other villagers over.
I'm begging you... Please be alive, Saya.
Then, as Ragna's strength waned, complicit to whatever these monsters had in store for him, a voice pierced through the oppressive silence like a beacon of hope in the encroaching night.
"You're okay."
A clear, cheerful voice. Ragna recognized it immediately and his heart fluttered. Somewhere in his ruined body did he find the strength to pick his head up with herculean effort. There was no sign of the wolves surrounding him mere seconds ago, not even a hair follicle. Instead, kneeling beside him amidst the chaos, was his precious little sister. His prayer had been answered.
"Saya…" Relief flooded Ragna's pained expression like a soothing balm. Ragna feared the worst but was thrilled to know they were all unwarranted. If his legs weren't screaming in pain, he would dance a jig. Since Saya was safe and sound, his thoughts now turned to getting her out of the village. He had no idea where the monsters went, but he was confident more would pounce on them if they lingered any longer. Maybe he should offer another prayer to heal his legs?
However, as Ragna opened his mouth, the words "We need to run!" caught in the boy's throat. Panic wedged into him as he beheld the sight before him. His eyes must be betraying him, exhaustion playing mental tricks. It must be an illusion, otherwise…
Why do I want to run?
The tiny hand Ragna used to clasp whenever Saya had a nightmare now felt like ice on his cheek. Crimson eyes, devoid of the innocence and warmth they once held, gazed down at him with a haunting emptiness showing no concern for the tragedy that had befallen their home. Instead, they reflected the senseless ruin. The very concept of Death could be seen in the eyes of this little girl.
"You're alive, big brother."
Endearing words, spoken with such innocence and love, skewered Ragna's heart like a knife.
This was a memory he would never be rid of: Saya's big doe eyes calmly surveying the destruction of Alster, the soft smile on her lips that reveled in it, or the monstrous shadow she cast revealing just who was responsible for the cataclysm. Ragna had come face to face with Death that day and fought against its desire to encompass his entire being. To cloak his eyes in darkness and never allow them to reopen.
However, that had not come to pass, and another challenge came ahead.
"Khh...!"
Ragna's current efforts sat in complete contradiction to his childhood survival instincts. A second's delay nearly painted the floor with a disgusting array of guts and bones.
"Graaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Ragna hunkered down so as not to be blown away by the sheer force of the creature's deafening roar. Standing over ten feet tall, the monstrosity resembled a Tyrannosaurus rex, with a muscular frame covered in obsidian-like scales. Seithr's toxic miasma oozed from every pore. Unlike its dinosaur ancestor, it had powerful, sinewy arms ending in elongated, razor-sharp claws capable of rending flesh and bone with ease; Ragna barely dodged them as they tore through his favored red coat. Its head was a grotesque fusion of the mythical fearsome dragon and a lion, featuring a gaping maw filled with serrated teeth, each the size of a dagger and glistening with the remnants of previous victims who'd been too damn stubborn to heed Ragna's warnings.
Eyes like pits of burning crimson, devoid of any emotion except an insatiable hunger for destruction, stared Ragna down, ready to make him its next meal. The duo who now served as the seithr beast's lunch said its designated name was Qilin, though he never particularly cared about naming these things.
"Shit..." Ragna snarled, retightening his grip on the extensive hilt of his sword. Qilin lowered its body, huffing a breath of seithr. The beast's size belied its speed. How it blitzed the two magi earlier proved that, once again, one should never judge a book by its cover. Then again, even if it was only for a second, Ragna's consciousness drifted elsewhere in the heat of battle, a careless mistake that could have cost him dearly. The silver lining was its war cry woke him right up. "C'mon, you ugly son of a bitch." Ragna narrowed his eyes at Qilin as it launched itself forward. The Qilin's monstrous form blurred, a whirlwind of dark scales and seithr-tainted air rushing towards him. Its two twisted, obsidian horns that curved back from its skull were primed to pierce the tiny human's flesh.
Of course, if it were some regular old human, it certainly may have.
With a roar of defiance that matched the beast's own, Ragna planted his feet and surged forward, meeting Qilin's charge head-on. His blade, a massive sharpened slab of metal, gleamed menacingly in the dim light.
The collision of steel and horn sent a shockwave through the air, resonating with a deafening crack. Qilin's horn shattered under the force, fragments exploding outward like dark shrapnel. The beast's momentum was arrested, its balance thrown into disarray. Intelligence wasn't known amongst seithr beasts and neither was emotion, driven by nothing but the desire to destroy. Overcome in a test of strength, Qilin let out a confused roar, positively perplexed by how this singular, small human could do such a thing.
"Gotcha!" Ragna capitalized on the opening. His eyes locked onto Qilin's neck, the vulnerable point he deduced where its obsidian scales thinned when he dodged its last attack. Given enough time, it could probably form a protective layer around the weak point, but Ragna wasn't about to give it another second of life. In a single, fluid motion, Aramasa rent the air and plunged into its neck. Purple blood sprayed in an arc. Rage and pain filled Qilin's roar as Ragna brought his heavy sword through it. Qilin's body, robbed of its animating force, staggered and then collapsed in a heap, the life extinguished from its crimson eyes as Ragna severed its head.
The seithr beast, defeated, started to deteriorate, crumbling into motes of seithr. It always surprised him the various ways seithr could mutate regular animals. Qilin's base, according to his employer and the endless yammering of his former companions, consisted of a bird native to this specific region and an alligator. Dormant prehistoric genes mutated, multiplied, enhanced, and morphed into the monster Ragna just cut down. So they said, anyway…
Ragna glanced over at the mechanism dominating the room. It was a cauldron, a device that gave access to a space known as the Boundary. He had been tasked with investigating strange readings that came from it. All he found were two mages who had been tasked with it themselves but were taking too long fiddling around and a gigantic monster that served to be their end.
"Maybe listen next time." Nobody was around; the ones he wanted to chastise had already been turned to monster chow. Ragna didn't know them and certainly wouldn't be mourning their loss. Nevertheless, they were easily avoidable ones, and the annoyance of it just came out as that sardonic comment. Ragna scoffed at the cauldron. Those less than favorable memories being dredged up could be caused by nothing else but its influence. Cauldrons were strange like that. Spinning Aramasa in one hand as if it were as light as a feather, Ragna sheathed the hefty weapon onto the belts on his waist with a click. "Not here either."
Ragna then turned on his heel and left, his boots clacking against the floor slowly petering out.
Yo! It's been a looooong while since I posted anything! I even planned to hold off until I had more chapters written, but I wanted to assure I was still around and not dead. Now begins the rewrite of Tales of Azure, which will be told in a different format than my other stories. Quick update on my others works;
Infinite Possibilites chapters 9-13, essentially the first Fractured World, has been undergoing a harsh re-write. The overall plot of the story won't change, but the events certainly will, as I'm just not happy with it. When that will be posted? Hopefully throughout the middle of next month.
Imperial Code: In that perpetual drafting phase, but still being written nonetheless.
Melancholy: This story will also be completed, as it's been started and I'd hate myself more if I stopped. Realistically, it was meant to be a one-shot, but I wanted to continue it. So I will stick to my guns!
Been a busy time for me as I adjust to changing arrangements, but I'll have more time to write. I want to get a chapter of any story out every month, if I can. Shout out to my friend Wild Blue Sonder as always for being a great beta-reader. Till next time! (These bots are annoying)