The Long Prologue

The dark-skinned woman limped her way through the forest, the men in red cloaks followed.

She tried to muster up the strength to run but could barely even walk due to the blood pouring out of her left ankle. Even worse, she is currently pregnant, so all she could do was drag herself from tree to tree while escaping from the men. Eventually, one of the men came close enough to clap his hands together, engulfing them in a green, eldritch smoke. With his eyes closed, he aimed his palm at the trees around the woman.

"Eldritch Spell! Agathis' Cursed Forest," he shouts out.

The woman heard his voice and quickly forced herself to not get near any tree, ignored the trees, and kept sprinting until the trees eventually blocked her pathways. As the sounds of footsteps became closer and closer, the men were approaching. The woman fell to her knees, unable to think of a way to get out of this situation. She thought all hope was lost until her husband ran in behind the men, bleeding from the right side of the face and with his red cloak torn up. Her husband then sent a hurl of stone spikes off the ground towards all of them, forcing the men to stop their running and move out of harm's way and breaking the man's eldritch spell as the trees returned back to their normal position. There was enough time for the husband to run to his wife and grab her by the hand.

"C'mon! We have to keep going! Don't ever stop, keep running," he stutters, breathing heavily.

"Y-your face…"

"Fuck my face! We need to get out of here! Go to City A to Tyreke," he responds, hearing footsteps again. "I want you to keep running. Go! I'll follow after I'm done!"

The woman hesitates but nods, letting go of his hand and limping as fast as she can while her husband follows behind, before having to fight off the rest of his clan to clear her path. He gets more injured and increasingly exhausted by the minute, but his passion for securing the safety of his wife and unborn daughter makes him continue to fight with no sign of a break. After holding them back enough, he eventually catches up to his wife.

"We are almost there! Keep-" he said before being abruptly interrupted by a swift kick to the side of his neck, causing him to be sent flying through the air and crashing into multiple trees. The woman witnessed her husband being ragdolled as the man swiftly tackled her to the ground. Despite being pregnant, the woman fought back, biting and wrestling as much as she could. The man struggled to gain control due to her wild antics, but he eventually overpowered her and pinned her down. He then pulled a dagger from his pocket.

"By the name of Agathis, for the sake of the world, the child you carry inside you must perish before it sets foot on this soil," the man declared. He opened her gown, revealing a strange, sinister symbol on her womb, as he raised the dagger above his head. The woman spat in his eye to momentarily distract him, giving her husband enough time to gather himself and rush back to tackle the man off his wife and into a tree. As the two men rolled on the ground, the husband created a stone sword and swung it at the man, trying to force him away from his wife. However, the man deftly dodged and countered with precise slashes and stabs. The husband then seized the man by his collar and headbutted him straight in the nose. Engaged in a fierce back-and-forth of attacks and evasions, they finally clashed in the middle of their duel.

"What... The hell are you doing? You're messing up the world! We both know that once that baby is born, it will lead to another century of hell," the man says, but the husband ignores him, only turning his face to see if his wife is okay, as the man takes advantage by kicking him in the chest to push him to the ground. The husband grunts in pain before forcing himself to roll to the side to evade the follow-up attack, as the man attempts to stab his face. He gets back on his feet.

"You will not kill my wife nor my baby!" he says before running to weave an incoming slash and stabs him through the gut. The man's eyes widen as he coughs blood on the husband's shoulder before his lifeless body falls to the ground. The husband's anger slowly devolves into a traumatizing look on his face as he sees his own clan member, someone he grew up with, bleed to death right before his eyes. He stares at his hands with lost eyes.

"We... we need to go! I hear more coming," the woman says, struggling to get up. The husband freezes and gets lost in his own overwhelming thoughts, unable to move as the ringing in his ears grows louder. The words of his wife barely dig into his numb head to shake the thoughts out, and he runs straight to his wife to bridal carry her through the forest. He continues to evade any incoming attacks and avoids reacting to the constant eldritch explosions being thrown at him. The ringing begins to come back to his ears, and his vision becomes blurred. He slowly loses his footing and runs slower until another explosion occurs nearby, giving him another adrenaline boost. He runs and runs, pacing back and forth, but he can smell the way out as the sounds of footsteps grow quieter and quieter. He thinks he has done it, he has escaped his clan, or so he thought. Suddenly, he hears a sword being unsheathed from behind him. Before he can comprehend what has happened, he falls to the ground and drops his wife.

He looks at his knees and notices that his right ankle is cut straight off his leg as blood begins spewing. He grunts and takes his attention forward to his wife to find a short, bald, old-skinned woman in a red kimono, wielding a rapier that has blood on it, approaching the unconscious woman. The husband's vision is blurred as he bleeds out, but he still recognizes who this is; it is his mother.

"M-Mother... Please, no... D-don't do this!" he yells while crawling and dragging himself to her.

"My son, she will give birth to the vessel of The Sin Beast of Lust, Jynlea. Your wife will die regardless of whether the baby gets delivered or not."

"But she is just a baby! My baby! Please…"

"I must do what's necessary to protect this world from another century of destruction," she says, turning to face her son. 'The other sin beast vessels are present and unknown, but we have a chance to take one out to make the process quicker. I'm sorry, my son.' She then sighs before turning her attention back to the woman.

"We can... Help her... We can... Try to guide her powers to only contain and not use the powers of the sin beast, please…"

The mother pauses before continuing her march, unsheathing her second rapier. The husband begins to crawl even faster and creates a large stone wall in front of his mother with the last eldritch energy he can muster, but his mother effortlessly cuts the wall in half with one quick swing so fast that he doesn't even notice she moved.

"Mother… Mother," he says, fighting the urge, but unfortunately the emotions overwhelm him and he bursts into tears as the mother yet again pauses, hearing him sob. "Mama… Listen," he says, as the mother turns her head slightly to hear him. "Mama… You're hesitating… I know you don't want to do this… I know you can understand… You're the only one because of your miscarriage you had," he says while losing his consciousness, "I just… Want my daughter to live… Peacefully… Please…"

The mother takes one step towards the woman before shaking her head and turning to her son, about to respond, but sees that her son has already died from blood loss as she looks back at the woman, seeing her cover her arms over her belly despite being unconscious. The mother looks at the ground, frozen and lost, as she closes her eyes to fight off the tears before the sounds of footsteps get closer. The mother turns her head in the direction of the footsteps and looks back and forth between the woman and her son before looking at her son.

With one last calming sigh, she unsheathes her blades and runs to the woman to pick her up fireman carry style and runs out of the forest at blistering speeds as the footsteps quickly become silent. The mother eventually finds herself out of the forest at a secured spot, yet she keeps running and reflects on what she has done.

"I… Will undoubtedly be declared a traitor," she thinks. "Why did I do this?... It's like my body has a mind of its own." She continues to think to herself before shaking her head. "Focus. I need to go to City A… Out of City N and maybe… Tyreke will help us from there," she continues before running even faster, out of the area.