Catastrophe I.

Hundreds of golden arrows glinted in the night sky and rained down on the unsuspecting army. They tore through hundreds of carts and tents, along with thousands of people.

Panic filled the nightly air, and the unmistakable, iron-rich aroma of blood spread, marking the scene with pure carnage.

"What's happening?"

"Wha-"

The army personnel were dying too rapidly, the arrows showing no signs of stopping their assault. By the time people started to flee, one-tenth of their 70,000-strong army had already been decimated.

The army was supposed to encircle the kingdom from all sides. They intended to divide the two heroes, placing each of them in different regions to defend their nation. However, their plans were disrupted as the enemy attacked them when they were approximately ten mile away from the Kingdom of Anga.

The other side faced a similar phenomenon, with hundreds of fiery balls plummeting onto their unsuspecting army. Magicians attempted to erect barriers to defend against the onslaught, only for the barriers to be incinerated by the intense heat emanating from the white-hot fireballs.

Two sides were obviously not so okay and also a lot of casualties, roughly 18,000+ people died on one onslaught, the army was decreasing in power and fast..

With only 60,000 soldiers at their disposal, the king and the grand mage had yet to receive any messages from the army due to their communication being completely severed.

The king remained in his kingly bath, surrounded by his court ladies, oblivious to the impending peril that his kingdom faced due to his arrogance. While the manipulation by his Queen had played a part, it wasn't the sole reason for the attack on the Kingdom of Anga.

The king's motivation was the rumor he'd heard about the heroine, Shizue Izawa, being a beautiful woman—a once-in-a-thousand-years treasure. With the intention of capturing this golden swan and making her his concubine, he set out on this ill-fated mission, which would ultimately prove to be a disastrous decision.

"Gazef! Why haven't our troops informed us of their successful advance into Anga?" A voice resonated in one of the tents, strategically positioned away from the ongoing attacks. The person inside remained unaware of the situation.

"I have no doubt that this plan will be successful. Let's wait a while before taking action ourselves. I don't think they can muster their usual power when separated," Gazef, a rugged man with tanned skin, his face bearing a diagonal scar running from his forehead to his chin, spoke. He stood at well over six feet tall, clad in the armor reserved for commanders.

"Razen, you're worrying too much. This will be as easy as taming a lesser dragon. Yahahahah!" the man laughed heartily. However, Razen remained unfazed, his face stern as his magical energy surged, causing the atmosphere to heat up and his aura to intensify.

"You might have the freedom to talk to your underlings however you like, but don't bring that attitude to me," Razen warned before he walked away. His purple cape, adorned with blue edges, swayed as he moved.

As he walked away, he didn't see Gazef's face harden as he breathed heavily. He staggered slightly before regaining his balance. "That monster," he muttered with hatred seeping through his voice.

Meanwhile, at the battlefront, the assault had momentarily come to a halt on both sides. The soldiers were stricken with enough fear for the moment, especially after Karna and Shizue had slaughtered 20,000 of their comrades.

Karna and Shizue didn't intend to kill more than wanted, but they were ready to do more if necessary. They couldn't sit idly and allow an army to destroy their kingdom and the happiness of their people.

A golden glow bathed the battlefield, and the soldiers looked up, mistaking it for the sun. However, it wasn't the sun; it was the radiant presence of the "Hero of the Sun." Floating in the night sky, he emitted a divine glow and aura, his armor unscathed, and his golden bow held firmly in his right hand.

Under his presence, the soldiers began to feel insignificant, as if they were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and of course they were irrelevant.

"Surrender." A shockwave pulsed through the atmosphere, shaking the very air. The voice of Anga's king struck fear into the hearts of the soldiers.

"P-please!" Apologies and cries of fear filled the air, accompanied by the sound of metal clanging as weapons fell from their trembling hands. The war was nearly over.

When all the weapons had fallen from their hands, one of the wizards began to gather magicules as he struggled to stand. Others watched him with fear as he tried to summon demons from the underworld.

The man was over 50 years old, and his hair had started to grey. He stood at a height of well over 6 feet, propping himself up with a staff. An arrow remained lodged in his torso, its golden tip stained red with his blood.

"Oh, demons from the underworld, I summon thee...with the help of the bodies in this vast battlefield as an offering...Heed my call and destroy my enemies," he muttered. As he neared the end of his chant, he was shouting, but Karna allowed him to continue, seeing it as a way to clean up the battlefield littered with blood and corpses.

Other soldiers began to realize that this man truly intended to summon demons, and one of them attempted to sneak up behind him with a blade to stab him. However, the man was stopped by another blade piercing through him.

"W-why?" The injured soldier asked as he slowly turned around to see his comrade with his hand on the handle of the blade that was sticking through his torso.

"I won't let you kill him! That man is doing us a favor by summoning demons! Don't you understand? These demons will kill that monster who killed our friends!" he yelled with a mix of sadness and rage.

An enormous amount of magicules began to gather as the bodies vanished one by one, and the magic circle was filled with purple lightning and magicules of the same color. It began to surge outwards, corroding the people near it.

An eerie laughter began to ring out from the circle. "Heheheh hihihi! It is because of fools like you that we get the chance to wreak havoc in the central world!" A childish voice shouted out as small purple tufts of hair began to unveil.

Truly, a catastrophe was unleashed into the world that day...