Ignis Tower

In another town, a city at that, a family living in a small cottage seemed to be packing their belongings. A middle aged woman rushed through the rooms bringing things together from one of the rooms.

A middle aged man who was supposedly her husband walked by too looking at the things she was carrying, "will we need all that Sarah, just carry manageable things. You know the family house in Umbra Town is quite big and well furnished so everything we need is definitely going to be there. I'm sure the servants are keeping everything organized."

"Yes Mum, Dad is absolutely right, that house is massive," a young man in his early twenties joined them holding an old rugged cape that had a knitted panda on the front of it like a logo. He swirled it around his index finger and it rotated releasing a little bit of dust from it.

" Jeez where have you been keeping this, this house is like a little treasure hunt now that we are moving ," he chuckled and gave his mother a little rub on her arms and smiled at her.

"We are going to live in a tower Mom, isn't that insane," he laughed and picked an apple from one of the baskets his mother stacked.

He took continuous bites and spoke with his mouth stuffed, "Is Dad some Royal Duke or something," his mother looked at him and they both laughed as they continued moving things outside to an old pickup truck that Caleb, his father had already started loading.

"Things are just getting more complicated from now," Sarah spoke shifting her gaze to her son Leo. "I hope you will be careful because that tower holds so many secrets my boy, some of which are very dangerous."

Leo looked at his mother and nodded, " I will be careful mother, I know it might have been sooner than we expected but I have to face this since I had been written to be the next guardian of the tower after my great great grandfather. Nobody knows why Dad or grandfather and great-grandfather were not chosen, but I have to fulfill my duty of protecting the tower."

A few minutes went by and the family was finally fully ready to leave. Leo looked at the old cottage that they were leaving behind and smiled softly. 'I've known this place my whole life, I hope the change will take it easy on me', he thought to himself.

Earlier that day before Leo's family decided to move to Umbra Town, Caleb, Leo's father, received an unusual guest. This guest is the kind of guest that visits as a sign of warning.

Behind their cottage house, he found a dead deer whose cause of death seemed very unnatural. One of the eyes of the deer bled out black liquid that seemed to be steaming up like acid.

Caleb rolled the deer over and beneath it was a burnt patch on the ground where it occupied. He touched the black ashes and to his surprise, the texture was moldy, as if the carcass had been there a while.

Before he could come up with something, the ground suddenly began healing rapidly and returned back to it's grassy state.

He stepped back and pulled out a ring from his right pinky finger.

The ring was dull bronze color with a dull rectangular stone-like gem in the middle. He touched the ground with the center of the ring and the carcass suddenly began turning to ash.

A sudden wind then blew the ash away which in seconds disappeared as if nothing was ever there before. Caleb the wiped the ring and wore it.

He looked ahead of him staring at nothing in particular, but it was quite evident that he was thinking deeply. One had to take note that the cottage was nowhere near a forest nor was there any wildlife in the bushes that might have been found near the area.

There was however only one forest with deers that was known, and it was none other than the forest in Umbra Town. Deep in the woods was a tower built centuries ago, and that tower had been in the inheritance of Caleb's kin since time immemorial.

All that while, the tower has been so important than a member of the family through generations had to be chosen to protect it.

The choosing was done with a ritual where every male son born to their ancestry line was to be summoned by the entrance of the tower on their seventeenth birthday and by the strike of the clock at midnight, the chosen male would find a weapon of the tower's choosing by the entrance of the tower.

The chosen male would then step forward and raise his hands above the weapon. If the weapon glowed then the male would be the tower's chosen one, and if the weapon didn't glow then the chosen male wasn't the ideal choice of the tower. So the ritual would be done on every male of the kin on their seventeenth birthday.

This ritual had been done through generations and the tower was to be occupied by the family of the tower's chosen guardian. Once the tower chose it's guardian, the individual would have immense strength surpassing that of a normal human.

The supernatural abilities of the guardian would also increase and start manifesting once the guardian moved into the tower.

Many years back, Caleb's grandfather had his turn on his seventeenth birthday.

He was sure that after being chosen by his family and joining the other male relatives that were chosen by their families too, he was sure that among all those males, the tower would choose him.

According to how it worked, the Ignis Tower always chose the next protector who would be it's guardian, and once a new protector was chosen, the one in reign previously would get a signal that their reign is over.

The weapon that they possessed would turn into stone and break by itself into dust and that would signal them that a new weapon had been formed signifying the choosing of a new guardian.

The tower knew the hearts of the chosen guardians and always chose someone selfless, pure in heart and strong spirited. The new weapon formed by the tower would stay at the entrance on a carved stone slab.

If by any chance the weapon did not glow during the ritual, then that generation would go without serving the tower.

So following this, being that it was Caleb's grandfather's turn to attend the ritual, he did so. On the midnight of their ritual, all the males present held their hands above the forged weapon but nothing happened. It did not glow.

This was very alarming and everyone was disturbed. Since this was the first time something of this sort had ever happened in many centuries, they had to follow the right ways about it. The family with the most noble male would take the forged weapon back home with them.

At this point the weapon would just seem like some treasure to be owned since nobody nor nothing could break or open the seal other than the glow from the chosen male.

During this period, the family that had the weapon would try it on any of their male descendants on their seventeenth birthday until the next guardian from their lineage was found.

Caleb's grandfather held onto it and tried it on his son in future who was Caleb's father but failed. Caleb's father later on tried it on Caleb who also failed, then Caleb waited to try it on Leo knowing very well it would not work but to his surprise it did. The tower chose him, the tower chose Leo.

Leo's ancestry and people were demon slayers. They protected the human world from demons who invaded the human world to steal souls or occupy it. And the Ignis Tower was like the headquarters of the demon slayers and the biggest target of the demons.

Throughout the centuries nothing much posed a threat to the tower. But the moment that Leo was chosen, countless changes began to occur.

Leo's coming of age signified a great importance to the continuity of their reign. But at the same time, the moment the weapon glows, the whispers from it begin. And these whispers are those of demons whose souls were taken throughout the centuries by the same power handed by the tower.

These whispers were something totally different in another world outside of the human world. They were messages and wails in the demon world. And these messages could only be heard by special demon servants of the dark Lord.

However, ever since Leo was chosen by the tower, something strange had been happening. He could actually hear the whispers and that was the reason why the family was advised to stay away from the tower until they could figure out why that was happening.

There was no room for taking risks and putting the tower in danger.

It was until there was news that Leo was not the usual guardian they could experience but one very extra ordinary, one so powerful that the demon world could not hear the whispers anymore.

This was unusual because whenever the seal was broken and the weapon opened, the whispers could be heard everytime until the last moment of it's existence.

But since the weapon chose Leo, the whispers were only heard once and the message was strange this time.

The message was so strange that it shook the demon world and so they had to act fast because without the whispers from the chosen guardian's weapon, they would not hatch their perfect plan of invading the human world.

Their timing was planned since they had been waiting for centuries for this time to finally come and their key for invasion could be traced in the human world. They had to be quick about it before the new guardian could get any stronger.

With a weak guardian like Leo, it would be easier for them to take over. Or so they thought.

Back to the present time, Leo and his family were ready to hit the road and move to the tower as their new home. The tower itself had sent a message to Caleb warning him of the impending danger if they waited any longer and left the tower unoccupied by it's guardian, leaving it vulnerable and unprotected.