Chapter 7

Asterisk, a world ruled by humans but once called the Sanguine paradise. The progenitor of the vampire race who rose after the First great war between the Grabet Dynasty and the Arcane Empire where millions of soldiers fell becoming the fuel for creating the first-ever Vampire, an undead who was so powerful that he had managed to bring the whole world under his feet and rule it for thousands of year. He named the world Sanguine paradise. A paradise for all the vampires that came after him at expense of the human lives.

But the reign of the vampire didn't last long as the human's cries for help were heard by the god. HE descended upon Asterisk with his Three Angels slaying the vicious tyrant and putting an end to human suffering. HE brought prosperous times to the world as the world united to form a single empire named the Holy Trilon Empire and humans created churches to commemorate and worship God and his three angels.

Legends say that after defeating the vampire, God ascended to Heaven in front of all the citizens of the new Holy Trilon Empire. The world was peaceful and the people were happy.

But even being blessed by the Divines couldn't save the Empire from destruction from what was about to come. The Pits. A deep hole in the ground leads to a vast underground world filled with vicious monsters. The emergence of pits not only gave the humans access to the underground world but also gave the monsters from below access to the human world.

The monsters came pouring into the world above. They were variants of the native monsters of the human world, the difference being in their size, colour and aggressiveness. They were bigger, darker and more aggressive than their human world counterparts.

The world turned chaotic as the monsters wrought wanton destruction and death unlike ever seen before. The Holy Trilon Empire fell as the number of pits increased. The casualties mounted as the highly trained human soldiers couldn't stop the monsters.

The world became divided the pits acting as borders.

But in desperate times, the Church came to the rescue. Their newly Divine blessed Saint brought light and peace to the world. But the Church wasn't alone. The church had a helping hand, a newly risen force called the Magus Council, a force entirely composed of magus, fought hand in hand and repelled the monsters. They limited the pits by barricading them making the wilds much safer and increasing the interaction between different regions.

The two organisations, hand in hand saved the world from destruction and created a foundation on which the new world was created and the New Era began.

They helped the various newly rising forces establish themselves as kingdoms and established their branches within those kingdoms.

And within one branch located in the town of Tolaga of Ceres Kingdom was a knight in heavy armour walking along with a person with a flowing robe, wide sleeves and a just as wide a smile on his face.

They walked through the stone floor of the majestic church and entered the nave, the hall where the people gathered to pray.

"Father, I have come bearing grave news." The knight said, bowing towards the altar where an old man donning a white robe was sitting cross-legged and eyes closed. He seemed in deep meditation, not even opening his eyes when the knight spoke.

A couple of seconds passed. The knight remained bowing while the man who had been following never lost his smile. The old man or rather the priest opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow, "Tell me." He said in a slow voice.

The knight cleared his throat and straightened his body," Father, this is Cal, a librarian at the library in the northern sector of the commoner's district. He says that he felt a deathly aura from a boy who visited his library yesterday. A boy around 18-20 years of age with a very potent aura."

The knight waited in silence for the priest to respond. The priest shifted his gaze from the knight to the man named Cal. He spoke, "Is it true,?"

"Yes, Father," Cal replied in a mild voice bowing a little to show respect.

The priest nodded and lapsed into silence," You can leave, Cal." He said nodding towards the door after a moment of contemplation.

"But father I can provide more information," Cal said with a strained smile, not expecting and not liking how the situation was developing.

"We will fetch you when we need more information. But for now, you can leave." The priest raised his voice and pointed towards the door with his hands.

Cal nodded meekly and walked away his leather boots striking the stone floor of the nave forcefully, expressing his emotions.

The priest and knight watched Cal walk away till he was out of the hall.

"Find the boy and watch over him. But don't do anything. We don't want to start a fight with the death dealers now." The priest ordered as he walked down the steps of the altar.

"Yes, Father." The knight acknowledged the order with a bow and as he was about to walk away he again heard the priest's voice.

"Who is this man?" The priest asked as he stared at the knight.

"He is just a reject magus, Father." The knight replied and turned towards the priest.

"Then silence him." The priest abruptly said and again closed his eyes.

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Roan gasped as a sharp beak pecked his hand for the umpteenth time in the day. He swung his hoping to catch the owner of the beak but he failed again just like he had been for the past five minutes.

"You're dead, you bloodsucker." Roan cursed as he circled a bird, A huge one. It was a bird but not just any bird. It was a giant flightless bird named, Gorges. Around six ft tall and probably weighing around sixty kgs with grey feathers covering its body, it was monstrous and a detestable being which Roan did with all his heart.

Roan again dodged another peck from the grey bird and took a swing at it as the bird pulled its head back after failing to hit its target. But he missed. The bird was too fast for him to land a hit on it.

Roan kept circling it while dodging the attacks from the bird. He had to do something. He was getting frustrated and angry at his powerlessness to even kill a bird. He was useless just like when he had been unable to do anything other than watch as the monsters tore Seth and Lela apart. His line of thinking brought him back to the painful memories he was trying to bury in the back of his mind.

Roan's heartbeat increased as anger clouded his mind. He could feel heat gathering in his chest. Channelling all his hatred into his sword, Roan swung it. The sword glowed darkly as it cut through the air, its speed suddenly increased and penetrated the chest of the bird.

"Woah." Roan stared, surprised as the bird fell to the ground with a thud. His anger slowly cooled as he watched the dead body laying on the ground sizzle. He panted from the exertion of the fight and watched the sizzling flesh in the chest of the dying bird blacken which slowly spread due to his necrotic powers.

It was a dreadful power that he had acquired. He had heard from Alvis and Zek about the necrotic powers. So he knew what this power was but he still couldn't believe that he was the one with it and he had become a magus.

But Roan hadn't just become any run-of-the-mill magus. He was what the church dreaded and aspired to eradicate from the face of Asterisk, a Necromancer.

The hot waves inside him seemed to react to his emotions just like they did now. It reacted to his anger and enchanted the sword to make it faster and sharper. He wasn't used to his newly acquired abilities.

"I need to learn to control my emotions." He muttered to himself as he kneeled beside the corpse of Gorges and worked to extract the feathers which were the materials he need to complete his mission.

He was tempted to raise the Gorges as his undead but he didn't want to be seen walking around with undead. This area of the forest was a hotspot for adventures.

As his thought reached this point, he packed the feathers and got ready to leave.

"Crunch" Twigs crunched beneath feet as Roan walked. He kept walking unaware that the crunching didn't only come from his feet but elsewhere too.

He heard a low growl as he became aware of another presence beside him. He looked around hoping to see the source of the sound.

'Rustle'

A rustling sound echoed as a thick underbrush shook rapidly.

Roan's heart raced as a massive black creature emerged from the underbrush. Its fur was dark as night and its limbs seemed to stretch out unnaturally, giving it an almost spider-like appearance. Roan had never seen a creature like this before.

The creature circled him, snarling fiercely. Its green eyes glowed with an almost otherworldly intensity, and Roan could feel the weight of its gaze upon him.

For a moment, the two of them simply stood there, eyeing each other warily. Roan knew that he needed to act quickly if he wanted to survive this encounter. But he also knew that he had very few options at his disposal.

There was only the corpse of Gorges that he had just slayed nearby that he could raise to fight for him but He knew that it wasn't enough after seeing its massive body ripped with muscles.

The creature lunged at him suddenly, its claws extended. Roan stumbled backwards, barely dodging out of the way in time. He could feel the creature's breath on his face as it snarled at him, its razor-sharp teeth gleaming in the sunlight.

Roan knew that he needed to come up with a plan, and fast. He clutched the sword in his hand tighter and tried to call forth his powers.

He concentrated on the hot wave travelling through his body as he watched the beast once again lunge at him.

"Hyaa." He cried as he swung his sword hoping to catch the beast squarely on its chest. The sword left a black trail while travelling towards its target. The black beast which was extending its claws towards Roan suddenly stopped causing Roan's attack to only slash through the air.

The beast turned its back towards Roan and vanished in the thick foliage of Mervielle forest leaving Roan with his sword half extended and in utter surprise.

"What?" He exclaimed as he stared at the place where the beast had vanished through.

Did that beast just come to play with me? Roan thought, his brain not comprehending what had just transpired here. A strange beast which had some features similar to the one that had attacked Roan and his friends had just ambushed him but left in the middle of the fight. It was certainly strange.

Are these like undiscovered monsters from the deep Mervielle forest? Roan thought but he didn't linger on the topic and shrugged it off. It was strange but he didn't have a single clue on what was going on so further thinking would lead him nowhere. And it was about to get dark so he gathered up the gorges' feathers and set off towards the town. As he walked through the forest, Roan noticed that the number of monsters in the Mervielle Forest seemed to have increased, evidenced by the increased roaring frequency. Another anomaly that might be related to the previous one but he had no time to ponder on it. He shrugged it off and continued on his way.

Roan arrived at the adventurer's guild as the sun was just about to vanish over the horizon. He quickly entered the building and got in line at the reception in between the smelly adventurers.

Adventuring was a very popular profession in this part of the world. It was partly due to the proximity that the kingdom had with the massive Mervielle forest, the largest and the most dangerous forest in the whole of Asterisk. It was so massive that even in the long history of humanity, no one had ever managed to reach the other end of the forest. The deadly beasts and the thick foliage of the Mervielle made it near impossible to travel safely. But Mervielle also provided the people with resources which were dangerous to harvest but very rewarding if successfully harvested.

The woods, herbs, wildlife, etc were only the tip of the iceberg that the forest had to offer. But it was too dangerous for normal people to enter the forest which led to the rise of Adventurers, a group of people trained in fighting and survival skills. The Adventurers were efficient in completing tasks that were beyond common citizens' capabilities leading to their sharp rise in popularity. The rise of Adventurers led to more people joining them. And, the Adventurers Guild eventually became one of the Top powers in the whole asterisk side by side with the church and The Magus council.

"Where have you been Roan? Haven't seen you in a while." The receptionist named Ressa, a charming girl with curly black hair and soft facial features said with a smile on her cherry red lips. Her eyes were green, an unusual colour for a Cerese.

"I had some things to do, Ressa. How are you?" Roan said as he put the mission receipt and the bag with the Gorges feathers on the desk in between them. Ressa took the bag and the receipt and quickly went through them.

"I'm fine... Did you see the warning the guild left?" Ressa asked Roan who was busy staring off into space and trying not to look at the beautiful face in Infront of him. He didn't want to be rude.

"No, what is it about? " He asked in surprise.

"It's about the Pits. They say that the Pits might have reawakened. Like during the dark ages. That's why there are more monsters in the Mervielle. You be careful out there." She said as she examined the feathers carefully and compared them to a sketch on the table.

Roan was suddenly hit with a realization. All the events suddenly made sense. The two ambushes he suffered by strange monsters with similarities now made sense. The monsters came from The Pits.