Marked

Warning

The following novel contains material that may be harmful or traumatic to some readers.

It contains graphic descriptions of murder, violence and other unpleasant texts.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"To be marked by Lucius Cain is the beginning of your last hours in this world"

- Christian Morris

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

-Continent of Ithrai, Kingdom of Sedruan, the Year of 1005-

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

(A day and a half later)

-The Red City destroyed-

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A group of soldiers led by Christian Morris, the 12th Royal Knight, walk the streets of the ruined city.

Christian Morris looking at the collapsed buildings.

Dead bodies, crushed by rubble.

Soldiers who keep wondering what could have caused it.

Christian stops in front of the body of a little boy holding a teddy bear tightly in his hand.

It's a horrible sight that shocks even the young black-haired Christian.

He looks forward.

"Didn't they have time to turn on the magic shields?" He asks the soldiers behind them and stands motionless.

"My lord..."

"They were on." The soldier snaps at Christian.

He rolls his eyes and turns his head sideways to the soldier.

"Were they...?" He asks in disbelief.

"Who... could have caused this?" He asked himself a question he couldn't answer.

...

"Clear the way, the Royal Knight is passing." A shout came from around.

"Another Royal Knight?" Christian asks in surprise and walks towards him.

...

Christian walked closer to the gate where he saw the 11th Royal Knight of the Kingdom.

He walks up to him and they shake hands.

"Have you been summoned too?" He asked the older Samuel, who nodded his head.

Then he went to Christian to see the monstrosity.

"Do they know who it was?" Christian asked.

"No. But the shields were on." He announces to Samuel, who pauses and turns to him.

"What?"

Surprised, Samuel then starts pointing around.

"So how is this possible?" Samuel asks rhetorically and looks at Christian.

He just shrugs, and then a soldier runs up behind them.

"My lord. The Higher Mage calling you."

Christian and Samuel look at each other, then follow the Soldier.

-The place where the village stood-

They come to a place where there are many soldiers and mages exploring the place.

They see the charred surroundings and the places where the houses used to stand.

Samuel stops.

"Looks like it took the village with it." He looks around the area.

"Not just the village," Christian adds, pointing out the entire area.

"The whole area."

It really was a horror. All the land burned to the ground.

The places where there were forests were gone and all the water in the area had evaporated.

The two of them go to the higher mage.

"Report." Says an anxious Samuel.

"My lord. According to our investigations so far, it has been proven that all the disasters originated from here."

Shocking both Christian and Samuel.

"So... It swept the entire city, the surrounding area all the way from here?" Christian says, looking at Samuel.

"Is that even possible?!" He asks Samuel.

He doesn't answer yet and waits for more information.

"The next thing is this." The High Mage points to where the medium-sized Mount Rudia stood.

"That's where the mountain stood. It was not an explosion as such, but a clear, fast, and very powerful pressure."

Samuel looks at the spot.

"The whole mountain..." He looks at Mage again.

"The next thing is that..." He begins to sweat visibly, causing him to wipe his face with his hand.

"Do you know who caused this?" Samuel asks.

"Which kingdom?" Christian adds.

The mage turns around.

"We know nothing."

Christian gets slightly annoyed, and Samuel who was expecting that answer.

"But." It Surprises Samuel in particular, and Christian who is glad for the information.

The mage turns to them.

"It was caused by..."

"By one man." A sentence that surprises and utterly shocks them both.

They look at each other. A visible sign of sweat appears on both of them.

"That- That's impossible." Young Christian says.

"All the most powerful people and different beings are on our side. None of them would dare to attack the king himself!" Christian says confidently, looking at the mage and Samuel.

They have a look of concern on their faces.

This surprises Christian and he asks.

"You know something... What should I know?" He asks.

Samuel ignores him and asks the mage.

"Did anyone survive at all? Any witnesses?"

"Surely someone must have seen such a power from a distance right?" He asks the mage.

Christian is slightly thrown off by the ignorance of the two but chooses to remain silent.

The mage nods his head negatively.

Samuel turns around.

...

"You're right Christian." He catches Christian's attention.

"Everyone who wields even the slightest dangerous power of class A5 or more is on our side."

[Dangerous people or other races or beings are ranked by the government system.]

"And you are also right that none of them would dare to stand against the king."

He looks at Christian.

"Hmm..."

"Of course, there is one person who disappeared years ago and no one knows..."

"Where he went."

He points to the surrounding area.

"It's only a guess, but there's a chance he could have been behind it..."

Ready to say the name, however, he begins to shake slightly from fear and nervousness, and the mage lowers his gaze.

"Lucius Cain," Samuel says, disappointed and filled with fear.

Christian immediately remembers the stories of the famous one.

"The Phantom of Hatred" He finishes the thought aloud.

Samuel shudders.

"If it really was him, and I hope it wasn't."

He sets a serious face.

"Then it's very, very bad Christian."

Of course, to calm the tense atmosphere and, most importantly, to calm himself.

"Of course, I don't know why he would come back now. And why would he come back at all?" Samuel begins to ask himself reassuring reasons.

He turns to the devastated surroundings.

And he wondered where it went.

He quickly points to Christian.

"We need to tell the King." He announces aggressively to Christian.

He whistles for the soldiers to bring him 2 horses.

They both mount up and Samuel looks at Mage.

"Wrap this up and get back to the Capital," Samuel says to which the mage nods his head.

They then leave quickly for the capital to give the information to the king.

---

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

-the City of Sagos, Borders of the Red and Holy Provinces-

(6 hours later, night)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lucius arrives in his hood at the gate, which is closed.

He knocks very hard with three blows on the gate.

A small window opens at the gate.

"The city is closed because of-"

Lucius grabs his head through the window, squeezes, and crushes his head.

Blood and bits of his brain remain on his hand which of course burns off with his fire magic.

Since it was raining, and thundering, you couldn't hear much.

"Braňia" Lucius says and appears suddenly behind the gate.

He looks at the dead soldier with a cold expression.

But with no significant emotion, he gives nothing away and continues on into the city.

---

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

-The inn at Golden Foot-

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A group of people drinking alcohol at the counter talking about the Red City.

The mood was friendly.

"The whole town, and the villages around it. All nature has been destroyed. Completely." Says one of the regulars.

The innkeeper nods his head in disbelief.

"That's not possible, fool." Says the other, more aggressive and completely drunk regular.

"Why wouldn't it be, you idiot?" The first regular gets angry.

"I wonder why? For someone, anyone to do this." He burps loudly.

"He must have had a lot of power." The regular finishes and falls head over heels onto the counter.

A third regular steps in.

"And since everyone who has power is now licking the king's ass. So it's impossible for someone powerful to have caused this." He starts laughing hysterically.

So do the innkeeper and the others.

"It must be some powerful fucking weapon from another kingdom."

He sighs

"Another fucking war."

The first regular who started this thread asks again.

"Is there really no one here? Someone who doesn't lick the king's ass?" He asks seriously.

The innkeeper and the third and fourth regulars put on serious faces.

"Well...." Says the third regular a little loudly.

"There would be one." Says the third.

"But he's dead." Adds the fourth regular.

The innkeeper looks at him and speaks to him in a gruff voice.

"How can you be so sure?" He asks him.

He just looks at him, shrugs his shoulders, and takes a sip of his beer.

"Who... are you talking about?" He asks curiously.

"Have you ever heard..."

"The Phantom of Hatred?" The entire pub goes silent at the utterance of that nickname, and the unknowing regular just starts looking around in disbelief.

"The Phantom... Hatred?" He asks with concern.

Meanwhile, the friendly atmosphere has turned into something very unpleasant and creepy.

"You really don't know about Lucius Cain?" He asks and starts shaking his head.

The innkeeper joins in with a slight shiver.

"Everyone in Ithrai knows him, and everyone in the world has heard of him at least once." He adds an unimportant piece of information.

The others are still silent and listen with concern to the talk of the phantom.

"Lucius Cain is the embodiment of all that is evil, boy." He takes a sip of beer.

"A man who carries the hatred of the devil himself." He says with horror in his voice.

Sweat starts pouring off him and he wipes it off.

"I once heard a very ugly story," Regular drunk man says seriously.

He sighs, takes a sip, and begins to tell the story.

...

"Nine years ago there was a great war between Sedruan and Estagardia. A war that was the bloodiest of all."

"After the conquest of their hometown of Estagarno, which was near the capital of Pratia, the royal family had to be moved west to the city of Fillia."

"An army of two thousand accompanying the royal family of the ruling Estagardia."

"It was a very secret operation that few people knew about. That's why for the entire two days of the ride, everything was perfectly fine."

"However, on the third night, the escort must stop. Already a few hours from the town of Fillia, it stops at a dark pass for..."

"An unknown stranger waiting in the dark for the escort to pass."

The atmosphere starts to get worse and several people leave because of fear.

"The soldiers had orders to kill anyone who got in their way."

He looks seriously into the young man's eyes.

"Anyone." He finishes and takes a sip of his beer.

...

"So they attacked immediately, but Lucius kept walking towards them without any fear, and with a calm and cold face he just kept killing."

"Of course, Lucius killed anyone who got in his way."

"One head fell after another. Bones in his body shattered."

"Guts falling on the dark shadows of the night, screams and fear spreading by the second."

The innkeeper swallows hard and wipes the sweat from his brow.

The other regular who had passed out wakes up and starts listening to the story as well.

"Anyone who wanted to run away but didn't escape the hatred of his shadow."

"But the worst was the philosophy of Lucius."

"Others would have killed the royal family as soon as they had the chance."

"He didn't..." He takes a sip of his beer and starts breathing a little heavily.

...

"He had a thousand chances to end the family immediately. However, he enjoyed every kill, every head that fell to the ground satisfying him and only adding more and more fear to the family."

"Fear fed him." The regular says heavily, taking another drink and increasing the intensity.

...

"All covered in blood, he opens the carriage containing the king, his wife, and 3 children."

He looks at him.

"3 Small children."

He drinks again but runs out of beer.

He points to the innkeeper.

"Come on, pour me a drink." He hands him his pint.

He lowers his eyes and looks at him again.

...

"The Sadroanian Army found the massacre. They found a dead family, but the strangest thing was..."

"Let one of the children live."

"Why was that strange you ask?" He asks, and young nods his head.

"Because anyone who was marked by Lucius Cain was always going to be dead."

"And he always ended up dead."

"So far no victim has survived Lucius, and that was the weirdest part."

"He only had a large scar over his eye, as if Lucius had marked him."

"Maybe."

"Now the place is called the Pass of Death and Despair."

"Everyone who passed there heard the souls of 2,000 dead soldiers crying out..."

"For help."

...

The innkeeper quickly gives him a beer, and he takes a quick drink.

...

"Armies, Kings, and even the most powerful feared him and dared not go against him."

"But there is one more interesting and frightening thing." He adds more oil to the fire.

He points to the candles and everybody looks at them.

"Every time the Phantom was supposed to come. The candles of hell always made it known he was coming." He says emphatically, scarily to the young man with the crazed expression.

"But there's an even more puzzling question."

"If it was him, why did he come back?"

"He must have come back because of someone...

"Must have pissed him very badly..." He said and took a sip of his beer.

...

The others fall completely silent, breathing heavily.

The innkeeper swallows and then notices the strangely behaving candles.

They are all horrified, and freeze in fear.

A few candles even go out.

However, a door suddenly opens, and a mysterious figure stands in it.

Everyone stays still and lowers their eyes.

Tears start to well up in some people's eyes.

The innkeeper swallows more and turns around.

With every step, the tension grew and everyone's fear grew.

The young man who heard the footsteps that stopped behind him turned slowly and fearfully towards the unknown.

He sees a white-haired, scarred man looking toward the innkeeper.

His calm and cold face suddenly redirects his gaze to the young man, who quickly lowers his eyes and catches his breath.

Lucius grabs his shoulder, which startles the young man but he remains still.

The others just roll their eyes and are incredibly scared.

"You shouldn't... look people in the face," Lucius says in a rough and cold voice, whereupon the young man bursts into tears.

He squeezes his shoulder slightly, causing his shoulder to crush so hard that it shoots out, and blood begins to flow.

The young man falls to the ground, and with a tremendous scream deafens the tavern.

Lucius points his finger at the young man

"Spiat."

He magically puts the young man to sleep, and he stops screaming.

The others begin to shake endlessly and the innkeeper sighs deeply.

"Innkeeper?" Lucius asks.

The innkeeper who turns slowly, but with great fear, dares not look him in the face.

"Look me in the eye when I talk to you," Lucius says calmly, and the innkeeper moves his eyes everywhere but not to his eyes.

He's kind of started looking now, and Lucius can finally ask.

"How come there isn't a branch of the Underworld here?" He asks.

"W- w- w- well- it- it-" He starts to stutter.

"Squeeze the fuck out." He says and horrifying the innkeeper.

"The branch was destroyed." Says the third regular who told the story.

Lucius is surprised but doesn't let it show.

"Destroyed?" He asks if he overheard.

He wipes the sweat from his hand, and answers again.

"Y-yes, sir." Says the regular, frightened.

Lucius pats him on the back, which nearly gives the regular a heart attack, and puts 4 gold coins on the table.

And without a word, he leaves the pub.

They all gasp in sheer terror, all drinking from dry throats.

And they went to help the young man with the crushed shoulder.

The third regular drunk man looks at him.

"He can... be glad he's alive." He says informatively, looks at the coins, leaves one there, takes the rest, and goes home.

"Guys..."

"Cherish your lives today."

He sighs

"Because today..."

"You escaped the reaper."

And then he leaves the inn in fear.

Lucius leaves the city discreetly, and heads to the capital, to the Underworld branch to go pick up something he long ago...

Long ago...

Long since been put away...

To be continued...