The Raid

"O great gods of light, you who bring brightness into the world and fight the children of darkness, hear my plea..."

-And again this wannabe priest repeats one of his prayers. What a hypocrite! If he were a real priest, why in God's name would I, a believer in the gods of light, be tied to this stake waiting to die?-

In her religion, it was believed that among all humans wandered beings of darkness, and the priests had the task to find them and cleanse them both with prayers and, of course, fire.

Alice was a beautiful young woman at the age of 19. She was slim and her pale skin was flawless. She had long silver hair and deep silver eyes. This appearance was however by no means a blessing but caused the suspicion of the faithful in her tranquil village.

And then, because of 2 consecutive miscarriages, she was denounced as a spawn of darkness by the church, and sentenced to death.

Even her parents and friends, those she trusted the most, stood in the crowd, doing nothing to help her.

Alice hated them.

Alice hated all of them.

"YOU STUPID HILLBILLIES. I'M NOT A DARK MAGICIAN, BUT NOW I AM BEGINNING TO WISH I WAS. IF JUST, I COULD RIP YOU ALL TO PIECES BETWEEN MY HANDS..."

She screamed at the top of her lungs, but no one paid any attention to her. People only listened to the babbling of the priest. After the priest finished another prayer, he gave a quick nod to a nearby guard. He immediately lit a torch and climbed up to the pyre with the torch. Alice looked at him fixedly out of her silver eyes. She would not give any of them the satisfaction of weeping. She had witnessed too many such burnings for that and knew it would only lead to the amusement of the audience. So she just stared with rage in her eyes at the warrior, who broke out in a sweat to her satisfaction.

"Today we send a brood of the dark back to where it belongs. So we send the dark back into the shadows, by the light given by the gods. "

With an expansive wave of his hand, the priest's prayer finally ended, and the warrior was about to throw the torch into the dry straw when something unexpected happened.

The air changed drastically.

A calloused burnt scent rose, and the sky above the courtyard began to flicker. And then, all of a sudden, it seemed as if the sky above them was tearing apart, allowing one to glimpse into another world.

But even worse were the millions of hideous creatures that came leaping out of the crack. They were of all different shapes and sizes, only one thing in common, the yellow glowing eyes. They landed on the ground or on the roofs of the houses and remained still and motionless.

Immediately, the believers fell to their knees and began to pray the gods of light for forgiveness. They believed that this was the punishment of the gods, but the priest had another idea,

"These are the servants of the dark and they want their spawn back! Burn her at last, and show the gods your dedication and willpower."

This somewhat made sense to the superstitious villagers.

The warrior immediately obeyed and threw the torch onto the dry straw below Alice, which also immediately burst into flames.

"DAMN YOU!"

She screamed as she felt the heat emanating from the flame. But suddenly a strong unnatural gust of wind passed through the area and it became significantly colder, as the fire underneath her went out.

A fearful murmur went through the crowd and Alice noticed that they were all looking up, so she did the same. The stream of monsters had finally stopped, and there was an incredible number of them.

But still, they were as silent as the night and all had their heads bowed. Above her out of the portal emerged 6 figures which were floating on a transparent black cloud, looking down at the courtyard. The 5 figures at the back were simply similar to those monsters that already emerged, but the single figure at the top didn't look like a monster.

He was a human, or at least he looked like one. It was a young man of probably 23 years. His appearance was not strange for this region. Black short hair, fair skin, and black eyes.

He was only average height and was really nothing special if it wasn't for that carefree look on his face, as if he was doing all this just to pass time.

His entire being radiated a murderous and evil aura that sent a shiver down even Alice's spine. Someone in the crowd screamed,

"It is Shier, the son of the God of Darkness. He has come to usher in the apocalypse."

Immediately the crowd erupted in chaos and began to cry and pray again. The priest had a determined look on his face and raised his voice in prayer. When it ended he shouted,

"Shier it is not yet your time to emerge, I demand in the name of the light that you return back into the darkness!"

With that, he raised his hand and attacked with a strong bright light, but "Shier" only smiled and waved his hand.

This was already the second time someone thought of him as a God.

The surge of light was met by a wave of darkness that instantly extinguished the light. However, the wave did not stop there but passed over the crowd, killing several dozen of the people there.

The man gave a cold reply to the priest,

The young man's voice was cold and cutting like a dagger stabbed into one's back. The old man wanted to say more, but at that very moment, a black blade went through his neck and decapitated him.

The priest's expression was full of shock and panic. Alice was speechless and felt the icy feeling of absolute panic kicking up inside her. Nero looked down at the courtyard and had complicated feelings inside him.

He looked at the last remaining humans and the woman chained to the stake, and they all looked up at him. He raised his hand and gave a loud snap. Immediately, a movement went through the polykenas on the ground and some rushed at the survivors and slaughtered them until no one was alive anymore.

When they were finally all dead, they began tearing down the houses and throwing everything around them into chaos. One could feel a very faint aura rising from the rubble and attaching itself to the bodies of the Polykenas.

When the entire village was finally leveled to the ground, the several million Polykenas lined up, splitting into 8 huge armies.

"Go!"

said Nero coldly, and the respective commanders led their army to the 8 different cardinal directions.

North, northeast, east, southeast, and so on.

His 5 generals also split up and each followed different hordes. Nero followed the army that rode south, for there lay the greatest city in this world.

The Polykenas rampaged through villages and towns, overrunning the people in seconds. The element of surprise was still on their side, but it would soon wear off, unfortunately, and their advance would become slower and halting. Still, the Polykenas would emerge victorious in the end. There was no need for Nero to make an appearance, he could simply wait patiently in his castle. However, this would be far too boring for Nero.

He was here mainly because he wanted to pass his time. He took pleasure in seeing his army, his power, driving through these idiotic people with ease, slaughtering them all. He found pleasure in the chaos that was created, and he found pleasure in the fear that the people felt towards him. It was satisfying and gratifying.

They have been in this world for almost 15 hours now, and by now the people have understood the raid.

Through a stone decorated with a symbol, Nero communicated with the other generals, and therefore knew that Ester's army already have their first obstacle in front of them. A very well fortified city, with thousands of mages. But the Polykenas had already surrounded the city, attacking it from all sides.

According to Ester, it would be in ruins in less than three hours. The problem with that was that those were three hours, which gave the enemy time to regroup. This was exactly why Nero sent the first reinforcement force that was still waiting in his castle to Ester.

After two more hours, Nero's army now met their first obstacle.

They had just made it halfway to the capital when they came upon a huge keep that housed several thousand mages within it, who were continuously attacking his army.

But Nero had reckoned that this was where they would encounter the first major obstacle, and Xersie's army was already heading his way.

To the west, the direction Xersies had gone, the end of the continent came very early, so he could just turn around and one half of his army would come to him, and the other would go to another army that needed help.

Nero couldn't help but fall into thought as they waited. While you couldn't tell by looking at him, there were many different emotions raging within him.

The trigger for this was the pyre from earlier.

It led to a deep ache within Nero that had always been there, but just waiting to come up again. It had brought him to the beginning of his journey, to the beginning of his torment. It had brought him to the day of his mother's death.