The Child of Death

Demons. Dead, everywhere, on the razed ground, on top of ravaged buildings, with occasional bodies of Guardians lying around.

Flames encircled the world, a world where Death was always working, even overtime as lives were taken, young and old, men and women, and Demons and Guardians alike.

A world where the ruffians prospered and flourished, and any traces of law and order nonexistent. A never-ending war where no one remembered what they were even fighting for or what even started it in the first place.

However, the unruly mob does not care. They simply continue with their mindless destruction and mutilation of the other race.

A child, faced with constant agony and the Guardian's merciless advances, decides they needed to be eliminated, permanently.

* * *

"Sire! The death toll rises everyday with every Guardian advance into our territory! At this rate, they will approach the capital in ten days!" The adviser ran around panicked until the King calmed him down.

"You are right, adviser, we have not been able to stop any of the Guardians' advances yet. To be honest, I do not know what more we can do to stop them," the King sighed. This response threw the royal adviser into yet another panic.

* * *

At first, there was no such distinctions of Guardians and Demons when they were generated into the world by the Creator. They lived peacefully, living humble and earnest lives, hunting and gathering for food.

However, as time passed, they found that it was difficult to survive this way and looked for another solution. They were not having any luck at first, but eventually the second generation, a person named Vastorog, found a way to establish a stable food source by growing wheat and grain. Some followed his ways and the beings prospered as a whole and was able to stay in one place.

However, others did not believe in this way of life. They refused the new ways, saying that it was not the way that the Creator intended for them to live. From this, the distinction between the Guardians, protectors of the old ways; and Demons, practitioners of the new ways, were born.

The Guardians, believing the Demons to be traitors to the Creator, often razed farms and burnt all of the crops they plundered to show their loyalty to the Creator. As this became a serious problem with the Demons' lives at stake, they decided that they needed laws to prevent damage and theft of the crops and someone to enforce these laws. The Demons thought it would be natural to elect Vastorog as their leader since he was the one who discovered agriculture.

However, this was done without any of the Guardians' consent and they became furious as the Demons attempted to force them to live the "civilized" way. King Vastorog's older brother was upset at despite the fact that he was older than him, he was not chosen as the king. Furthermore, the woman he craved for, Anca, loved King Vastorog much more than him. Even though he believed in the Demon way, he saw potential to become a king of his own kingdom by luring the Guardians to join him.

He led the Guardians in a belief that they could establish a kingdom of their own to practice their own ways, separate from the traitorous Demons.

At first, this decision naturally met with a lot of opposition from his brother, King Vastorog, who believed that both Demons and Guardians had the capability of coexisting with one another and viewed the Guardians' secession from the kingdom as a way to circumvent the kingdom's laws and a threat to the farms that the Demons' livelihood depended on.

However, the Guardians led by his older brother continued to resist the domination of the Demons and burned many fields. The Demons eventually gave up on the idea of "civilizing" them, but King Vastorog firmly believed that the Guardians could be assimilated into the demonic culture.

However, as the problem continued, the Demons started to demand the overthrow of the king and the demonic king gave into their demands as he started to see the Guardians were not willing to follow their ways.

King Vastorog grudgingly signed the document that allowed the secession of the Guardians from the kingdom and recognized his brother Ongkanon as the king of the new kingdom. That was the last time he ever saw his brother.

The ruler of the Guardians, King Ongkanon, despite framing himself as a Guardian, he believed that agriculture was superior to the traditional system of hunting and gathering. He attempted to convince his followers to adopt agriculture, recognizing it as a crucial ingredient to avoid being taken over by the Demons again.

Most were reluctant to switch at first, believing that it would be betraying the Creator. However, over time as the populace realized the advantages of agriculture, most switched to the new way of life they used to despise except for a couple of hard-liners who all left the kingdom in search of establishing a true, "holy" settlement.

However, the Guardians' adoption of agriculture created a fundamental, unintended issue for King Ongkanon. The problem was that the identity of the Guardians and the Demons all depended on how they obtained their food as they had no other differences. Now that all of the Guardians in Ongkanon's kingdom had switched over to agriculture, there was no difference between the Guardians and the Demons.

As the king realized this, he feared that if anyone thought of the fact that there is no difference between the two groups, the Guardians would rejoin with his younger brother's kingdom, thus leaving him with no throne and might be indicted with treason.

So, he closed his kingdom's borders and kept the Guardians from leaving. Now that it was impossible for them to get into contact with the Demons, King Ongkanon started a massive propaganda campaign against the Demons using negative stereotypes that were founded upon preexisting beliefs.

Many Guardians swallowed these "truths" mindlessly and with little doubt. However, the few who argued against these "truths" or simply did not believe in them, "disappeared" the next day without a trace.

The agriculture had made the Guardian population boom, just like Demons had earlier. However, this explosive population growth forced the expansion of the kingdom.

Like with the demons, the unparalleled population growth that followed agriculture also raised the life expectancy of the Guardians significantly as the third generation of the Guardians began to possess magic, allowing them to become basically immortal. However, many did not use it until much later as the Guardians believed that using magic was witchcraft, which they believed was against the Creator's will.

The combined result forced the King of Guardians to pursue continuous expansion and at first the relationship between the Guardians and Demons remained calm. However, as the Demons had followed the same policy, eventually both kingdoms ran out of lands to conquer with similarly sized territories.

As lands became scarce, there were frequent clashes among the residents of the borderlands, in which they often burned each other's fields. The halt of expansion caused problems for both kingdoms as although new lands were no longer being acquired, the population still continued to grow. Vastorog had attempted numerous times to negotiate a collaborative treaty with his brother, Ongkanon, but he had always always refused his younger brother's propositions as if he agreed, he feared that he would lose his throne and kingdom.

The King of Guardians after refusing all of the treaties, he was convinced that the Demons were preparing for invasion. He knew that if they attacked first, they would stand no chance against them as the Demons had a larger, more organized military, and had access to more resources.

He knew his only chance for the survival of his kingdom was to do a surprise attack. At the end of each year, all of the Demon soldiers except garrisoned units met at Xagvanok, an outpost near the borderlands to assign all squadrons their posts and discuss general strategy for the year. However, King Ongkanon learned of this information and decided to set Xagvanok as the target for the surprise attack.

The Guardian soldiers hid behind nearby trees, under rocks, in the mud, any place they could find. The Guardians locked their sights on the unsuspecting Demon soldiers.

* * *

"Now as you can see, Regiment 21 would move east to the fringes of the borderlands to protect from unruly nomads. Regiment 504 march immediately to the west to protect the coasts. Regiment 178 move to th..."

BANG! Shots were fired from all around resulting in a mass Guardian onslaught!

The Demon general shouted hastily, "All regiments stand your ground, DO NOT RETREAT! I repeat, all regiments stand your.."

Yet another shot kills a Demon, this time being the Demon general.

"RUN!" The Demon troops retreat haphazardly, while the Guardians continue to shoot them down.

"Don't let any escape! Go into pursuit!" yells the Guardian general. All of the Guardians chase down the Demon army, leading to a massive bloodbath.

* * *

"I am going to try to negotiate with my brother," King Vastorog decided with a sigh.

"But all previous attempts had been futile! Plus Ongkanon commenced a surprise war on us! He will never negotiate!" replied the adviser.

"It is our only hope."

A child rushed in to hug the Demon King. "Look Dad, see all the magic I can do now!"

"Sorry, Ragnarok, I have to go and do something very important right now."

"I want to go too!"

"NO! You're still young!" yelled King Vastorog. "It is not safe out where I am going, so you stay here, where it's safe."

The child remained silent and his father got on a horse on his way to the treaty spot.

* * *

"Pfft, too young! Not safe!" mocked Ragnarok. "My dad underestimates my power way too much, so I am going to follow him to show my dad that I'm super strong too!"

He hid in a bush when his father finally stopped nearby an apparent stranger.

"Look, I know you don't like me, but it is not right you are hurting innocent people and burning villages!" King Vastorog lectured.

"Since when are you the boss of me?" replied King Ongkanon. "If I remember correctly, I am the older one, not the other way around."

"The point is there's no need to involve others in our feud. So, I'm begging you, please leave our people alone! I'll let you keep the territories you acquired so far."

"Put down your sword and I will." said Ongkanon surprisingly to Vastorog. He laid down his sword and then all of a sudden, his older brother thrust a sword into his chest.

"..Wh...y...." replied Vastorog in extreme pain.

"Why?" Ongkanon laughed hysterically, "YOU STOLE MY THRONE, MY WOMAN, AND MY GLORY!" He stabbed repeatedly as he madly listed his 'reasoning'. "YOU SHOULD HAVE BEGGED FOR FORGIVENESS A LOT SOONER!" As he did his final thrust, Vastorog was no more.

"Come my men, let's finish off this conquest shall we?" As King Ongkanon galloped towards the horizon, Ragnarok would never be the same again.