A deep rumbling sound resounded from the far distance, it was something akin to a continues striking of thunder, thought it was very distant.
Under the dark sky, a broken city stood.
A man was wearing a battered lightweight armour from a mystical black metal that, although seemed thin, was much more resilient than ordinary metal, he wore a half torn red and white cape, it was dirtied and had been burnt a little somewhere along the fight.
which was confusing as the only eternal being he had fought were of veil and drift category.
He was breathing Heavily as he leaned his beaten and battared body on a large peice of rubble that had been wretched out of the ground by a especially strong behemoth category.
He took a moment to look around, the entire city was destroyed beyond repair, houses had been broken into. wells had been corrupted, turning their once life nurturing water into a substance that could take tens of lives witb a single drop.
There were still tens of thousands of etarnals of diffrent categories and ranks roaming the almost entirely destroyed city, devouring those unlucky souls who couldn't be evacuated by the awakened base.
A repugnant smell of blood permeated the air, every now and then, a soulless body would come into view. Somewhere to the far north, a artificial hurricane was ravaging what was left of the northern market, somewhere in the east, another hurricane was destroying the colonies of lodges, buildings, homes, schools, hospitals, etc.
"Fucking... dammit"
The man cursed, trying to be quite. Reinforcements were promised to arrive here by evening.... Sun had already dived down the line of horizon.
He stared upwards with his one remaining eye, tightly pressing against his left side to stop the bleeding. Above, the dark sky of night could not be seen as it was hidden by a cloak of dark clouds.
Behind him, a few dozen kilometres away, a gigantic palace stood on the horizon ominously in the background, its size enough to encompass a moderate size settlement, it's ivory walls and spires that Peirced the sky seemed dull and somber.
The deep rumbling sound were coming from the palace, even though the sound were thunderous enought to be heard all the way here, albait a bit muffled, there was no movement to be seen in the palace, it was as if space multiple kilometres around the palace had been frozen still under the onslaught of whatever unholy existence was looming over it.
He then heard a crash of something to his left and turned to see a creature had crashed onto a two story building, not exactly crashed, but launched itself from multiple dozen meters away.
The eternal was nearly 3 meters in height. It had four mighty paws laced with sharp white claws. it had deep red fur and its face was simply split into two parts, harbouring hundreds of small needle like teeth that along the split all the way to its neck, if had no eyes, no nose, no ear.
Looking at the being, the man calmed himself down through the years of training, and studied it,
'behemoth category, mire rank'
Mire, rank 3, beings capable of distroying entire buildings, at the very least, a warden rank Awakened is needed to eliminate them.
The man took a two short swords out from his back, he then shifted his feet and move his torso a little to the left, taking a domineering stance, ready to launch himself into a clash of blade and claws the moment the eternal moved.
But it did not, instead, it moved it's split head to the left, as if trying to look at something with its not existing eyes.
"...?"
The man turned his head slightly to the left, and then looked from the corner of his eyes, while also keeping an eye at the behemoth infront of him.
There, the dark palace stood still in the horizon, it's silhouette visible to the naked eye.
A few tense seconds passed with nothing happening, then, a cold wind blew from the left onto the mans body, making him shiver slightly.
Then,
" ! "
The cloud above the gigantic palace parted, and a enormous pillar of golden white flames tore through it, its size easily passing over 200 meters, the pillar of flame broke through the veil of clouds and passed through the air, burning what stood between it and the palace as it fell on the palace with a defeaning and thunderous roar, the entire palace was engulfed and then devoured by the pillar of flame that then dug into the ground.
Both the man and the eternal only had a few seconds before the destruction of the golden white flame reached them.
Even the vast distance between the palace and the city did not save them from the profane destruction of the pillar of flame, the entire city was consumed by the destruction, leaving nothing but a dome of white flame that continued to consume everything inside it even though nothing was left.
Far away from the dead city, a sparse forest with mostly dead tree covered the land, the ground was mostly covered with dry leafs that made a crunching noise when stepped on, the cold air howled outwards from the dome of incandescent flames, as if trying to escape from the claws of whatever it was.
There, a 14 year old boy struggled to maintain his footing on the ground as the ground shook violently, he looked at the far away dome of white flames that lighted hundreds of kilometres around it like a lightbulb, the area the boy was it was also lighted by the incandescent dome, the boy was wearing dark brown two peice clothing with a pair of worn out Black sandels, he had lush matte black hair that was slightly overgrown, gray eyes, and there was a small scar below his left eye, he held a small lether bad at his side.
The boy looked at the scene in awe, his mouth slightly agape. even if he had the ability to speak, he would not have been able to speak due to the visage in front of him.
Then, a tremendous shockwave hit him, lounching him backwards multiple meters as his back his a tree causing it to groan, his face contorted from the pain as he groaned and slid down the bark of the tree, and landing on the ground he coughed a few times and simply sprawled on the ground.
There was a aching sensation on his back, a few splinter of the tree had scratched him on the forearm, ripping some of his sleeve in the process, his forearm was red and a bit of blood was filling in the small scratches.
He groaned one more time then tediously pushed his body up and sat down.
A few tree around him had fallen over, the boy did notice that the tree's inside was many times darker then it's outside, and not even gradually getting darker as it reached the middle.
He then cast a somber gaze to the now destroyed hometown of his that stood far in the distance, silcia, his heart not filled with sadness but a strange sense of weakness.
About a 6 days ago, the eternal, beings born from a tiny spark of the eternal flame that existed in the abyss, started clawing their way into the city, the city was thrown into chaos, as every day, more and more appeared, the casualties piled up in only a few days, four days ago, two days after the etarnels started appeared in silcia, his only friend died by the hands of a rank 1 etarnel. So, he left the city not only due to the grief but also because of the gradual increase of eternals made the outside land safer compared to the walls of the city.
And now, it was no more. He did not know the cause of it, and he did not know what profane, or divine, existence was the cause of that pillar of flame, he shivered and simply stood, acceptance washing over him, he sat still for about half an hour, thinking of nothing in perticular except a few somewhat happy moments he had in the city, he had only arrived there when he was 12 so there weren't many memories to begin with, he was a orphan so no family, simply staying alive had taken most his time, preventing him from ever indulging in his desires, even if he never really had any other desire other then those brown mufins they baker family made.
Those were truly delicious.
Anyway, he gripped the bag at his side and then stood up. He glanced at the now slightly dimmed dome of flames and then started walking away.
A leaf in front of him crunched as he stepped on it, he paused for a moment before started walking forward again
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunched,....., crunch, crunch
He paused and looked back, there, a leaf was not fully dried and retained a bit of green.
He sighed and started walking again
Cold wind hit his back as he made his way deeper into the forest, the scent of autumn teased his nose, the dark clouds covering the night sky were starting to think out.
After about 3 more hours, he slumped by the side of a tree, then, he looked around. He carefully examined his immediate surrounding, then he looked around at the trees.
A few minutes later, he looked at a particularly large tree with some leads still on it, then he put his hand on a curve of the bark and pressed his feet against the base of the bark.
With a small noise, he started climbing the tree. It only took around 5 minutes for him to reach a thick branch which he put his bag on, then layed his head on it and closed his eyes.