NOVEL NEXT Prologue – 0
It was a shock the first time the Demon Lord attacked our continent. We had known of their existence on a number of large islands outside the continents that made up the majority of the known world. Communication had been sparse but available so knowledge of the fiends that called that wretched ashen wasteland home had been collected and written down into our libraries and history. We knew some of their society so when a new Demon Lord rose to power we did not think much of it. Then something changed. It was not immediate by any means, there were warnings that we should perhaps have heeded. Refugees fleeing the dark islands and speaking of massive armies being assembled. We had not taken it seriously, wars was hardly a new thing and the world was large enough that it supported countless kingdoms and empires already.
Worst case scenario a coastal kingdom or two might fall victim to a stronger neighbor. When the army of darkness hit our shorelines it became obvious that something was different this time. Aside from the speed in which armies was crushed and strongholds overrun what was more disturbing was the stories that began to spread. At first it was the same old stories that governments always spread against their enemies during wartime, depictions of cruelty and savagery. But we simply lacked the imagination in those early days of what madness was actually being committed against our people.
Soon propaganda made room for the actual stories. Mass genocide, rape and cruelty on a scale that our minds simply can not fathom. Stories of monstrous creatures pleasuring themselves using the desecrated bodies of mothers while eating their toddlers in front of their eyes before they succumb from the sadistic torture and internal wounds from the brutal rape. The atrocities was systematic with each race of monster striving to be worse than the next. There was no limit to what their cruel minds would come up with and it was clear that they ENJOYED the torment it caused us.
In the face of this oncoming horror it did not take long for most of the worlds forces to create a faction in opposition. It did not help. Countless forbidden magics was cast and hidden weapons that had been considered too atrocious to ever be used. Armies of millions marched towards almost instantaneous destruction where the desecration and hunting of the survivors often slowing the armies of the Dark Lord more than the soldiers themselves ever did.
Towards the end when even the skies themselves had been covered in a layer of darkness a single ray of light was left behind. The Goddess of this world had given the world a single chance to fight back and on the end of that beam of light was an ordinary elf farm boy. The hero of justice for every creature of light had been designated and heralds of every country and church was sent out to collect the hero of divine revelation, but they were too late.
When they arrived at the village of the hero all they could find was the burnt and broken buildings as well as the equally broken remains of its inhabitants. The Demon Lord had found out about the hero as well and sent his fastest and most trustworthy agents to deal with the obstacle before it ever could become a problem however luckily for the heralds the hero had barely escaped the destruction of his village through the selfless sacrifice of his beloved childhood friend that he had promised to marry in the future.
With justice and desire to liberate his kidnapped girlfriend the hero quickly began to fight back against the hordes of evil engulfing the land. For once a stalemate was reached in the war and for many years they fought bitterly. In the heat of battle friends were made and lost while only the strongest survived. Soon the hero was surrounded by a trustworthy group of friends who reached the pinnacle of strength in their own paths. A rouge, a sage, a savage warrior, a stoic templar and a priestess. It was the embodiment of the last hope but over the years the scars were beginning to pile up. Everyone had lost what was important to them. Family, friends, countries.
The forces of darkness took vile pleasure in tormenting their enemies, making sure to not only cause as much distress as they could but also make sure that the survivors knew about it before it was their turn. For the hero it had started when one of the enemy generals had thrown a severed elven ear at him. A simple enough attack to evade but the recognition of a body part from his beloved had shaken him and allowed the bloody mess to hit him right in the face. His rage was terrible that day but the "messages" did not stop.
First it was fingers and toes. Then it was arms and legs. Recognizing that the Demon Lord made sure to regenerate lost limbs after seeing a second left leg being grilled by a group of goblins in plain view of the heroes camp did little to settle his nerves. But it got worse after that. The breaking point came during a siege where a group of hulking trolls loaded up a catapult with disembodied naked breasts and proceeded to cover it in semen before firing it over the hero himself.
Something broke inside him during that day and with that came something truly terrifying onto the battlefield. Maintaining the stalemate was no longer an option for the hero, he was prepared to sacrifice the world for his revenge. Knowing the fate that was waiting for them the remaining nations could do little but provide what little aid they had and thus was the party of the hero officially born. Being sent off from the capital of the last Empire by its beautiful and young empress with the best equipment and support available the party began cutting a bloody swath through the continent.
No longer held back by the need to protect the hero swiftly cut down all that stood in his path using the sacred sword the empress had provided for him. For the first time the battle had turned and it was the Demon Lords army that had to scramble and set up strongholds and ambushes, none of them held. Finally reaching the coastline towards the dark continent the hero was burning with such power and cold fury that the sea itself froze solid before him as he advanced.
On the shores of the dark continent the elite forces of the Demon Lord awaited the hero and for the first time in years the party began to struggle and suffer losses. Finally at the end of his journey the hero invaded the Demon Lords castle and fought through the halls until the very bedchambers themself as the sole remaining member standing only to be meet with the naked form of the Demon Lord ravaging his beloved who for her part was equally participating in the act with moans so steeped in desire that the hero could only watch on in disbelief and a dawning sense of horror.
As the truth was revealed that at some point, through torture or magic his beloved had given herself over to his nemesis in both heart and soul the hero broke a second time. The release of power from the hero at that moment was so powerful that it shook the very foundations of the mighty castle but as he lunge forward to cut down the evil of this world the one thing that could stop him stepped forward and protected the Demon King with her own body in a cruel satire of the time she had done the same for him.
Laughing and stepping around his defiled prize the Demon King grasped the head of the hero who was frozen in shock with his blade gently in contact against the waist of the most beautiful and haunting imagine in his life. The glaring eyes of his beloved, filled with hate for him for what he was just about to do was the last thing the hero saw before he was engulfed in blackness by the foul magic of the Demon King firmly shot straight at his head.
The motionless body of the hero collapsed onto the stone floor startling the small child in the crib in the corner of the room causing the mother to run towards and start to calm the toddler. The Demon Lord having seen something in the eyes of his beloved hesitated for a moment before asking in a low and sad tone.
"You still hold feelings for him don't you? I can see it in your eyes." The woman turned around with their child in her arms and wanted to deny it, to reaffirm her dedication towards him and him alone but she was interrupted. "It is alright. It appears that I can never truly extinguish his existence within you. I can not bear to let this be a wound upon your heart no matter how minor it may be so for you I shall move the heavens and the earth."
The woman was speechless but could not fully comprehend his intentions as he came up to her dragging the body of the hero, now suspended in wispy purple magic. The Demon Lord tenderly kissed the woman and wiggled his finger playfully at his daughter before speaking again. "Let us have another child, let us give our beloved daughter a sibling to play with." And with those words the heroes body rapidly regressed in years until it was nothing but a glowing light that the Demon Lord carefully pushed into her stomach.