PROLOGUE. Twelve on one

A landscape of pure ice and torment spans as far as the eye can see. Scattered across it are figures of people, stuck in the giant frozen lake, standing like macabre statues. Some of them are only stuck up to their ankles, some neck-deep, and some are completely submerged, but all have their mouths opened in silent screams.

In the middle of this place, under the eternally pitch-black sky, stands what once had been a magnificent palace. Now, it's just a heap of smoking rubble. Amid its remnants, twelve people stand in a circle around the thirteenth. The frigid cold howling wind that throws snowflakes with enough force to cut a man's skin open doesn't cause them any discomfort, as if it was a summer breeze.

These twelve look human, but they all are too perfect to actually be so. Not a single one of them has a single blemish on their skin. Their features are symmetrical in a way nature can't hope to create. They are more than humans—they are gods.

The person whom they have surrounded is the complete opposite. No one will assume him to be a human. He is a four-armed hulking giant, six meters tall, with a crown of curved horns on his head and a mane of flaming hair trailing behind him. Two pairs of leathery wings grow from his back, and a long, whip-like tail swishes back and forth, animate with the demon's anger.

There's more to him. Claws, fangs, scales, and even tentacles. The demon is a pure monstrosity, but his glowing molten orange eyes shine with intelligence, rage and pain. The pain comes from all the wounds that cover the entirety of his body. The demon is coated in blood and soot, yet the gods look completely unblemished, but even still, they cautiously keep their distance.

With a roar, the demon fakes a lunge at one of them—a buff man in shining plate armour, God of Paladins. The god flinches away. It's a barely perceptible motion, but no one present misses it.

"Why, why have you come?!" the demon screams. "I did nothing to you, NOTHING!"

"You are too dangerous," a goddess in long flowing robes and with a thick tome in her hands says. "We know your kind, Devourer. It was only a matter of time before you would decide to break into the mortal realm and bring havoc to it. It's our duty to stop you before it happens."

The demon laughs, a sound more bitter and thick with suffering than the air of this hellish place. "Leave lying to the God of Rogues, Goddess of Wizards! You all were just too afraid of me, weren't you? This is the only reason all of you would've come! I could've promised you to never leave Hell if you let me go… But why should I bow my head in front of cowards who had spent all their lives in the halls of Heaven and never felt true torment?"

"Don't you dare to call us cowards, you vile creature!" the man who flinched earlier speaks in a thundering voice. "Siblings mine! This demon is clearly beyond reasoning. We shall tear him into pieces and cleanse his soul so it may reincarnate free of the demonic taint!"

With these words, God of Paladins charges at the demon, sword in hand, and all of the other gods follow his suit. As wounded as he is already, the demon is in no position to stand against them, despite his size and power.

Still, he fights the best he can. When the gods tear off his wings, he claws at them; when they cut off his claws, he chokes them with his tentacles; when his body becomes too weak to move, the demon tries to burn his attackers with his mane.

But in the end, it is all the same. The demon, Devourer, or simply Voren, for that is his name, lets out his last breath and his soul leaves his body.

Except… A dead soul only has a place in Heaven or Hell, and Voren is already in Hell. Instead of floating away through realms, he stays where he was, next to his dead body. He isn't gigantic anymore. His horns, wings, mane, tentacles and even tail are gone, but he still has claws, fangs, and a will to fight.

He is defeated again, and again, and again but rises every time until there is nothing left from him but a pale spectre, a memory of his former self. Only then does the fight pause as the gods look at Voren with doubt.

"Is this enough, Goddess of Rangers? You have the sharpest sight. Did he finally forget who he was?" Goddess of Wizards asks.

The goddess wearing a cloak made from fresh green leaves and wielding a bow in her hand shakes her head. "No. He is still too solid to reincarnate properly. But one more time…"

She raises her bow and takes aim at Voren, who tries to flee in despair. There's no escape from the arrows of Goddess of Rangers, though. Once again, Voren dies and his soul floats away from his previous shell of a body—but it's not any less solid than before.

"What? This shouldn't be possible!" Goddess of Wizards exclaims.

Voren shakes in the air. The icy wind of Hell threatens to turn him into a living sculpture to join all the others frozen in the water. "I won't let you get away with this, gods!" Voren declares. His voice is as weak as he is, but his will is strong, and everyone feels it. "The day will come when I will feast on your bodies and your souls!"

"He is trying to reincarnate like this!" Goddess of Rangers shouts and shoots at Voren again, but it's too late. Cries of indignation and alarm from other gods fade away behind him.

Voren's soul, made too light already by the gods' thorough killings, rises with ease towards the sky and the mortal realm. The barriers, almost impenetrable for most demons, let him pass like they are nothing.

The Wheel of Reincarnation accepts him like a mother's loving hands. He joins the stream of billions of other souls, big and small. The Wheel turns, and Voren sees before him a vision of a pregnant human woman in whose belly grows the baby he would be reborn into.

Just then, a bald god in a simple yellow robe, God of Monks, appears next to The Wheel. "This isn't the fate you deserve," he says and pushes it a little more.

The image of the human woman disappears. Instead of her, Voren now sees a batch of tiny insect eggs lying under a fallen log. Before he could react with more than a scream of indignation, the pull of reincarnation claims him.