From his lone throne within the Imperial Palace The Immortal Emperor of Humanity, Emperor Jay of House Night stared through the skylight above him at the Red Sun in the sky.

 

Jay, “What? Is tha”

 

His Imperial Advisor unsheathed a dagger in his right hand and swung at Jay’s throat, but Jay grabbed his Advisor’s forearm just as the dagger was inches from his throat.

 

Jay, “Sir Edwardo, what are you doing?”

 

Imperial Advisor Sir Edwardo, “Hail Or’crox.”

 

The dagger crackled with Corruption as the Imperial Advisor’s strength surged, but it isn’t enough. As he pushed less than an inch closer, Emperor Jay squeezed breaking the Imperial Advisors arm, before he quickly disarmed him and plunged the dagger into the Imperial Advisor’s heart. Killing him.

 

Emperor Jay rose from his throne as the palace shook.

 

He made his way out the palace gathering his many adult offspring, his wife Rasha, his Imperial Wizards and every other able-bodied combatant still loyal.

 

He made his way through the Capital Rune Knights and Mages fighting countless Daemon Insectoids, as black wolves with four red glowing eyes ran around and dashed between buildings while they nipped at people's heels.

 

All while many were stabbed in the back by undercover Or’crox cultists that had infiltrated their ranks.

 

Jay slowly secured the area within the walls one at a time slowly, but surely, he finally made it the outer walls protecting the city.

 

Just he steps onto the top of the wall a rune knight came behind him and stabbed at his back, the blade broke in half against his skin.

 

Jay turned around and grabbed the man by his skull and crushed his skull in his hand killing the Or’crox Cultist.

 

Not a second later, a giant black centipede-like daemon landed on the Imperial Palace behind him, wrapped around it and let out an ear wrenching screech.

 

Jay narrowed his eyes as he stared at the giant centipede daemon.

 

Rasha beside him speaks unfurling her wings, “I got this.”

 

She took flight into the sky then transformed into a huge fire dragon and wrapped her jaws around the daemon centipede wrestling it to the ground as they clashed.

 

Jay turned back around the heat of his wife’s flames heating his back as he took charge of the wall with those he had gathered.

 

His children killed every hidden cultist that they saw attack a loyalist.

 

His Imperial Wizards taken in from orphanages around the empire and given extensive magical education, took up positions on the wall firing magics into the hoard and setting up barriers.

 

His Imperial Guard, orphans without high intelligence and thus no magical talent took in by him and trained to be his most elite runic knights, took up positions at the gaps of combatants in the walls, along with other strategic positions.

 

Jay’s oldest veteran runic knights from his days as a Marquess and later as a Duke, then Archduke, took up positions as officers commanding teams of combatants along the wall.

 

Jay turned his eyes outside the wall as the swarm attacked the wall, then he jumped into the fray.

 

Jay mowed down enemies with his fists, then with the very jaws and pincers from his fallen enemies.

 

After the swarm outside the Capital was slain he turned his head back to the Capital.

 

He saw his capital on fire and in ruins, a third of the wall wasn't even there anymore, the dead laid about and those left had various degrees of injuries.

 

He sighed and then he heard a dragon’s cry, he saw his wife in her dragon form roaring into the sky her foot on top of the daemon centipede and her body bleeding heavily one of her horns broken.

 

With great urgency, he ran toward her as she collapsed on top of the centipede daemon’s corpse.

 

When he finally reached her he held her in his arms, her body cold, and stiff, she was dead.

 

He cried and wailed for nobody knows how long, when his crying finally receded into sniffles and a storm of emotion set in his chest, he heard the beating of drums in the distance.

 

He gently set down his wife’s body and he stood then looked to the north.

 

There an army approached, they carried no heraldry of the dwarves only flags with one symbol, the eye of Or’crox.

 

After millennia of hiding within the mountains north of the Dwarves, the Daemons descended from the original surviving humans corrupted by Dark Lord Arachnoc, were back.

 

Jay made his way back out the city to distraught in his grief to organize his combatants.

He made his way to the front of the army where a fully grown corrupted demi-god stood holding a spear with a red crystal for the tip, that cracked with Corruption.

 

His purple skin glistened with the sweat from the march as his red irises glowed, his pointed ears too long and large for any elf twitched. His hair hanging down in cords like dreadlocks.

 

He smirked and Jay lost it.

 

Corrupted Demigod, “I am Edrichon Forsaken Son of Razyl and”

 

Jay’s fist entered Edrichon’s stomach and exited through his back.

 

Jay spoke into Edrichon’s ear, “I don’t care.”

 

Jay walked forward, lowered his arm, Edrichon slid off his arm and Jay proceeded to massacre every daemon in his path, as those he was unable to reach sped off towards the Capital.

 

Blow after blow, death after death, blood-stained Jay’s body and mind, it got to the point where blood began entering his mouth as he had long lost it, his whole perspective becoming the slaughter, as his mind refused to process his grief.

 

By the time he regained some sense of awareness he was drenched in blood from head to toe, and he stood upon a pile of daemon corpses.

 

Slowly his head turned as his mind started to come back to him, he stood in the middle of a battlefield carpeted in the corpses of daemons.

 

Slowly he began to move toward the capital, now completely in ruins with the smoke of long-dead fires that drifted in the wind above.

 

As he walked through the capital of his once great empire he saw nothing but the dead and nary a living soul about.

The Capital was gone, dead, and his empire in ruins only scattered remnants and peoples remained.

 

And they were the lucky ones.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Fucius rose from the Northern Continent and flew in the void above where the swarm and his children battled.

He watched as his wounded children did battle both inside and outside the barrier, then he breathed.

Cobalt Mystic flames engulfed the swarm as not only Fucius, but the Origin Dragons outside the barrier set the remnants of the swarm aflame.

 

As the final daemon insectoid burned to ash, Ethereal deactivated the barrier, and the majority of dragons now heavily wounded flew down to the thirteen worlds, then slumbered so that they would recover.

 

Fucius flew back down to the Northern Continent and rested.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Finally, I completed them.

 

I can't hold on much longer.

 

I spoke my voice resounding throughout all thirteen worlds.

 

Ethereal, “My creations I have been wounded, even now I am the edge of slumber.

In order to help you all survive while I slumber I have made three artifacts.

The Ethereal Tome, a book containing great knowledge of magics and enchanting, including my perfected version of the hero summoning ritual.

I send it into the hand of my Oracle of Humanity of Origin.”

 

With a flex of my mind, I send it crashing through the atmosphere and floating slowly down into the hands of my Oracle.

 

Ethereal, “To the Elves of Origin I send……

The Abyssal Spear, crafted from a small amount of my own Primordial Black Matter condensed and refined into a metal-like substance, the spear can withstand nearly any attack and pierce almost any hide.”

 

I flick it down to the western continent into a lush forest, it's tip embedding into the ground.

Ethereal, “This final artifact is the Ring of Imperium, it is an enchanted ring made crystalized Mystic with an inset gem of Arcanum.

It grants the wearer near-immortality and nigh absolute power, it is capable of granting power not only to the wearer but of altering lifeforms and placing a loyalty seal upon them, as well as creating constructs.”

 

I flick this ring down to the Southern Continent of Origin into the bottom of a lake.

 

Ethereal, “My denizens I will sleep now for ten thousand years, by the time I wake up I will be fully recovered, make full use of my artifacts when in need of them.

I hope you survive, good luck.”

 

With nothing stopping me, I finally close my eyes and slumber.

 

 

 

 

Book 1 Birth End