Chapter-1: The seed of malice

Through the filth-ridden slums of Thira, I walked. To the fools, I was salvation. To the fearful, I was insane.  But I am neither. I am simply the hand that delivers fate, unbound by conscience, untethered by reason. The wails of the doomed amuse me. The judgments of the weak bore me. What they call atrocity, I call design. What they name madness, I say is its inevitability. My actions do not seek justification, nor do they beg for understanding. They exist because it is inevitable. One day, time will bury my name. The world will turn, and my legend will rot. But does that frighten me? No. It liberates me. For I am the Lord of Malevolence—I do not act for consequence. I act for ruin. I act for misery. I act because the world exists to be broken beneath my hand. And when I am gone, only the echoes of suffering I have wrought shall remain.

As I walked the path of insignificance, as I revere it, my steps led me to the slums of Thira. There, amidst filth and decay, a dying child stared at me, a fragile thing at the brink of death, yet eyes void of hope. Where others cowered, he dared to stare at me. The voices of the desperate who had crowded near the boy, rose around me, their pleas thick with dread, their bodies bent in pitiful supplication. "O Lord of Malevolence, we worship you! Spare our insignificant lives! We ask only to exist in harmony until the reaper claims us at the rightful end of our time. Grant us mercy, so that we may await death as mortals should." I watched them—silent, indifferent. Then, I spoke "Your lives hold no significance to me. Whether you beg or whether you perish, the world will remain unchanged. But if silence is what you seek, then silence you shall have. You have ten minutes of my mercy. Not a second more." As my words fell upon them like a death knell, they dared not even breathe too loudly.

 The child who had stared at me was already more a corpse than a boy. Seven days without food, seven days without water, and Seven days during which his body was drained, his limbs severed, his existence gnawed by the teeth of suffering. His breath rattled weakly in his throat—every exhale a whisper of death's approach. He no longer had the strength to crawl, to beg, to curse the heavens that had forsaken him. Yet, as I stood before him, his voice as thin as the wind through a graveyard had rose to meet me "O Lord of Malevolence... I am at the end of my life. At my dying breath, I plead with you to grant me a few drops of water, and a piece of bread. Let me taste mercy once before my soul is devoured by the reaper."

I gazed down at him, my shadow stretching long and cold over his withered form. His body trembled like a candle flame in the wind flickering, fragile, about to be snuffed out. "Why should I heed your request?" My voice, void of warmth, cut through the silence like a blade. "I am not here to grant mercy. I am here to witness the end of your pitiful existence." The boy’s lips curled into something resembling a smile, mocking, bitter, and knowing. "I have already lived in hell," he rasped. "Since the moment I took my first breath, I have suffered. My mother cast me into the filth so she could warm the bed of a wealthy man. I was never a child—only vermin. I fought for scraps, swallowed rot, and drowned in misery while others laughed and feasted." Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. His chest rose and fell in shuddering gasps, yet his words did not falter. "I have never known kindness. Never once felt warmth. My only crime was stealing a piece of bread to survive, and for that, they made an example of me." His fingers twitched, his broken nails scraping the dirt as if trying to claw his way from the grave in which he already lay.

"They beat me senseless. They tore me apart while I still breathed. My screams were music to their ears. When their amusement ended, they tossed me here—left me to be pecked apart by the ravens. My eyes were stolen before death could take me. My wounds festered while I still drew breath. And the people—those who claim to be righteous—watched. They laughed. They wagered coins on when I would die." His breath hitched, his body convulsing, yet still, he laughed—a weak, hollow sound. "I was never a person, only a toy for others to break. And now, in death, they wish to offer me to their gods—to let the heavens claim what they have already discarded." His remaining eye—milky, lifeless—lifted to meet mine. "But I refuse them." Even on the precipice of death, his voice held defiance. "O Lord of Malevolence... take my soul. Let my death be the ruin of Thira. Let my suffering be repaid in fire and blood. Grant me this last mercy—not for salvation, but for vengeance." For a moment, I watched him. And then, a low chuckle rumbled from my lips. I knelt beside him, tilting his chin upward with a single clawed finger. The boy, on the verge of death and offering his soul and body, had piqued my interest.

"You never knew the joys of life during your journey, and yet you beg for the mercy of hell? All for bread and water—from the Lord of Malevolence? Very well, you shall receive the bread of sand to fill your stomach and the water of misfortune to quench your thirst. After you have had your fill, I shall slit your throat, carve your heart, and claim your soul in death—thus sealing your journey as a mortal who brought about the end of Thira, the city of joy." I replied.

The boy, barely clinging to life, let out a weak, shuddering breath. His lips cracked as he forced out the words, even though frail, yet unwavering "I accept it." The moment his acceptance left his lips, my mercy was granted. I placed the bread of sand into his trembling hands. His fingers, brittle as dead twigs, clutched the offering as though it were salvation. He tore into it—his hunger too great to question, too desperate to resist. But with every bite, the bread crumbled into coarse, dry sand—grains of dust filling his mouth and scraping his throat raw. He swallowed bread. He coughed and he choked. Yet still, he ate, for he had long forgotten the taste of bread and had no will left to reject even the illusion of sustenance. When the last grain of sand slipped down his ruined throat, he rasped once more, his voice little more than a dying whisper "My throat... it still burns... Please, relieve me of this burden. Give me water, that I may die without this fire in my throat."

I ignored his feeble plea. The boy convulsed, his frail body wracked with violent coughs, blood splattering from his lips as the bread of sand stole what little life remained in him. His throat—parched beyond salvation—constricted in agony, and yet…I watched. I watched as his suffering deepened, as his gasps turned ragged, as his body betrayed him in its final struggle for survival. And then, I spoke "To embrace the Lord of Malevolence at death is a fate far worse than dying. But you knew that when you called to me."

His body shivered at my words, whether from terror or the creeping embrace of death, I did not care. "You will have your water—wait, for there is still time before your end. But to become the ruin of Thira, you must suffer as Thira has ignored you. The child whom the world refused to embrace in life shall now return as death itself, reaping the souls of the living in its vengeful arms."

 I leaned closer, watching his dimming eyes search for mercy where none existed. "You will receive death when I decide it is time. Until then, suffer." The child was so parched that even his screams withered—his throat betrayed him, his voice lost to suffering. Slowly, I uncorked my gourd and drank. The water flowed past my lips, cascading down my throat, its crisp, refreshing sound cutting through the suffocating silence. He heard it. Driven by sheer desperation, the boy crawled toward me—his mangled hands trembling, his broken body dragging itself across the filth-stained ground. He clung to my legs, his fingers weak, his grip pathetic. I did nothing. I watched him struggle, watched his body collapse under the weight of his misery, watched his eyes dim with the hope that I might grant him relief. "How pathetic."

The child sought to escape his living hell, thinking me his salvation. He had yet to understand, I am no savior. The boy's sin was hunger. A single piece of bread meant for the Lord of Thira had been stolen by a hand too desperate to tremble, too frail to hesitate. But their gods do not forgive thieves. The baker, whose devotion to power outweighed any pity, had reported the boy. The city guards hunted him down like rabid dogs, their spears striking without hesitation. He was dragged through the streets, his cries drowned beneath the laughter of his captors.

The Lord of Thira was merciful, or so he claimed until he made an example of the wretched urchin. First, the boy's limbs were taken. Bones snapped. Flesh was carved from his body like meat from a beast. Yet they did not let him die. The child was dragged from the dungeons, leaving a trail of crimson in his wake—his body torn, yet his soul stubbornly clinging to life. He was tied to a dying tree in the heart of the slums—a monument to the fate of those who steal from kings.

No man, woman, or child dared offer him kindness. To aid the condemned was to join him in his suffering. So, they watched. And when watching became mundane, they gambled. How long would he last? Would he beg? Would he weep? The night was cruel. Ravens perched on the gnarled tree, their black eyes glinting with anticipation. They pecked first at the softest parts—his lips, his eyelids, the glistening orbs of his eyes. Rats slithered from the shadows, gnawing at the wounds where his limbs had been. And the boy, bound to fate, could only endure. For seven days and seven nights, he remained a prisoner of death, suspended between life and the abyss—until I arrived. I had come not to save, nor to condemn. I had come to witness.

How deep could hatred burrow into the soul of a child? How much malice could take root in a body that had barely lived? The boy was five. Five years of existence—each moment carved by suffering, each breath a curse to the gods who had birthed him into filth and then abandoned him to it. I gazed at him—his tiny, ruined frame trembling in the night, his sightless sockets weeping red. And yet, there was no plea for salvation. No desperate prayer for deliverance. Only hatred. The boy did not wish to live. He wished for vengeance. He wished to curse every soul that had looked upon him and turned away. He wished for Thira to suffer as he had suffered. And that, more than his broken body, interested me. For malice is the seed of true destruction—and even in a child, it could fester into something magnificent. It was the hand of fate that had brought me to him.

The clouds above churned, thick with shadow, blotting out the heavens. A murder of crows circled hungrily overhead, their shrill cries echoing through the empty streets. Below, in the gutters, rats clawed their way up, their beady eyes glinting with ravenous anticipation. Death had come for the child. I reached for my gourd—the vessel of misfortune, its contents darker than the night itself. The boy—too weak to lift his head, too broken to beg—parted his lips the moment the first drop touched them. He drank greedily as if it were not water but salvation. One sip and the foundations of Thira trembled. One gourd—the weight of misfortune pressed upon the city, unseen but inevitable. Yet the boy thirsted for more. I obliged. Five bottles in total—five vessels of ruination poured down the throat of a child forsaken by the gods. The curses upon Thira descended, clawing into its marrow. Madness seeped into the streets—a parasite burrowing deep, gnawing at the minds of the damned. The city of joy? No longer. Only wails remained—a choir of the forsaken, singing their final, broken hymns. Thira's end had descended, yet no one realized it.

They had denied him bread, water, and love. They had denied him his childhood. Now, he would deny them mercy. There is an old saying "The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth." I wonder... how much warmth will Thira give him in its dying embers? As the last drop left the gourd, I laid the boy upon the wooden bench beside the tree where he had been left to rot. His breath was shallow; his body was too frail to last much longer.

I leaned in close, my voice a whisper of fate "With this, your journey of life ends, and your journey of malice begins. Even in death, you shall know no rest—your vengeance has been fulfilled. I, Malphas, the Lord of Malevolence, have upheld my end of the bargain. Now, I shall claim my price." The blade was swift, its kiss colder than the night air. As the child's throat split open, I whispered into his ear—my words the first and last kindness he would ever know "Bhira, your soul belongs to me now. You shall walk this world as the herald of sickness—starting the plague to fall upon Thira. You shall serve me until the end of time, until my malice is spent... which is to say, never." The boy's final breath was not a sigh of peace but a shudder of something far greater. And as his body fell still, the crows descended, and the rats swarmed.

After all the blood had been drained from Bhira's body, I claimed his heart from his lifeless remains to mark the start of the end of Thira, the city of joy. Unsheathing the Blade of Suffering, I proceeded to dismember the body—throwing every piece to the rats, dogs, and ravens. I claimed his heart, and then I reached out and opened the Scales of Malevolence. On one end lay his soul—blackened, seething, coiling with the weight of his suffering; on the other, his heart—still warm, still dripping with the remnants of his mortal torment. The scale trembled, then settled—balanced. A life of agony had forged him into something worthy—not a starving child, not a discarded wretch, but a weight upon fate itself. “Bhira, the scales have spoken." My voice was but a whisper, yet it carried through the death-stained air. "You are no longer a boy. You are no longer a victim. You are the Herald of Sickness." The moment his name left my lips, the wind howled. The city, still unaware of its doom, slumbered peacefully—blissfully ignorant, unaware that its end had already begun. I stepped back, watching the blood seep into the cracked earth, the crows take flight, and the filth-ridden slums of Thira prepare to welcome their first plague-riddled sunrise.

Bhira would burn the city of joy to feel its warmth. And I, the Lord of Malevolence, would watch with satisfaction. I left the slums of Thira, bathed in blood. The filth beneath my feet turned dark with Bhira's sacrifice, each step staining the ground with the weight of his malevolence. The path I walked was a requiem—an elegy written in crimson.

First, the brothel—the womb of his misfortune—where he had been cursed to life, abandoned in a world that would never embrace him. The whores whispered and recoiled as I passed as if sensing the specter of the child they had cast aside.

Then, the Shrine of Happiness—a place that preached the joyfulness of life, yet had none for the bastard child of a whore. Here, he had been named filth, scorned by the pious for a sin he never committed. The scent of incense burned my nose—sickly sweet, as false as the gods they prayed to.

I moved onward to the banks of the river—the place of his first true death, where the Shrine had cast him away, where the waters had refused him, leaving him to rot among the refuse of Thira's prosperity. I stood at the water's edge and watched the river flow, knowing that soon it would carry bodies instead of prayers.

 And at last—the palace. A monument of gold, gluttony, and indulgence; the city's heart, beating with stolen wealth, stolen laughter, stolen joy. Here, Bhira had dared to take a mere scrap of bread—the first act of defiance in a life that was never meant to be his own. Here, he had been shackled, torn apart for daring to crave survival. I stepped into the palace, where the air was thick with wine and laughter, where silk-draped nobles basked in their blissful ignorance. They did not know. They did not see. But soon, they would understand. The child they had forsaken had already left his mark. His malice had seeped into the very foundations of Thira. And I, the Lord of Malevolence, had merely come to watch it all collapse.

¹ Last revised: 12th February, 2025 (ps: i am relatively new to writing  a novel , so i will be visiting the chapters when i can and revise them for making them better. )