Chapter 7: The Light That Saved the World

  "When darkness rises beyond the brink when even the gods begin to weep, the light of mankind must become divine."

  —Archbishop Albrecht, Scripture of the Final Dawn

  There are tales etched into the bones of the world. Not written by hand, but carved in the ashes of cities and the screams of the dying. Among all of them, one tale stands as the greatest and most terrible of all:

  The Last God-Demon War.

  Seven centuries ago, the world trembled beneath a shadow so vast, so absolute, that even the gods turned their gaze away in dread. It was not a shadow cast by armies, nor one born of nightfall. No. This was evil in its purest form. A being without name, without mercy—called only the Incarnate of Evil, a creature that stood alone against the world.

  Where he walked, nations colpsed. Where he stared, oceans boiled. No tongue remembers his true name, for to speak it is to open your heart to madness. To hear it is to let it fester in your soul until only screaming remains.

  He rose not from hell nor heaven, but from a pce no living thing could comprehend. And when he emerged, the world burned.

  Humanity, then fractured into a hundred warring tribes, knew despair. But even in that darkness, they did not surrender. The gods themselves, horrified by the emergence of such an abomination, extended their will to mankind. Together, they forged an alliance—all of humanity, united not by love, but by survival.

  For the first and only time in history, gods and mortals stood side by side.

  From among men, the gods chose their champions—the Hundred Heroes. Blessed with divine gifts, they wielded light where mortals could only cast shadows. Some commanded the storm, others called down fire. Some raised mountains, while others walked on water. Each bore a mark of the divine, a shard of godhood.

  And leading them was the Radiant Prince, a man whose name has long faded into legend. Cd in celestial silver, he bore the Sword of Light, a weapon forged from the sun itself. Its edge cut through fate and darkness alike, its brilliance enough to blind armies.

  The war began.

  The Incarnate of Evil did not command armies. He was in the army.

  From his wrath spilled legions of monsters. Things that had no names. Creatures that should not exist. Nightmares of teeth, smoke, and cw. They did not march. They fell. Like a tide from the bckest corner of reality, they poured across the world, leaving nothing in their wake but screaming.

  It is said that in a single night, an entire continent vanished beneath them.

  But the gods were not silent.

  They blessed the Radiant Prince, guiding him through battlefield after battlefield. He and the Hundred Heroes cut through the dark tide. Cities were razed. Mountains crumbled. The sky burned with divine fury. But the world held on.

  And then—the final battle.

  It took pce where time itself breaks—at the edge of the world, where the nd ends and only the abyss remains. The Incarnate stood alone, wreathed in storms, his body burning with cursed power. His voice shattered the stars. His gaze made the gods flinch.

  But the Radiant Prince did not flinch.

  He charged forward, light screaming from his bde. And in one perfect, God-blessed moment, he struck the being where it hurt the most—not the body, but the heart.

  The Incarnate screamed.

  It was not pain. It was rage.

  From that cry, the abyss opened. And from it came the end.

  A second wave of monsters—far greater, far more terrible than the first—burst forth. Titans of Bone. Serpents with cities coiled in their bellies. Eyeless angels that wept blood. Demons of fire who ughed as they devoured the sun.

  These were not mere beasts.

  These were Creatures of Destruction, born from the Demon’s broken soul, his hate-given form.

  And they did not stop.

  Half of humanity died in the first hour.

  Whole nations ceased to exist in seconds. Even the Hundred Heroes were powerless. Fire fell from the heavens. The seas turned bck. The sky cracked. Hope itself began to wither.

  And then—she came.

  A girl.

  A single girl.

  Amid the corpses, amid the ruin, amid the void, she stepped forward.

  Her hair was gold, brighter than any dawn. Her eyes were blue like the untouched sky before sin. Her armour was shattered, and her hands were bleeding. She held no sword. Her name lost to all but the stars, was carried by the wind like a prayer.

  She was the st of the Hundred.

  And the gods listened.

  With their final breath, they answered her plea—not in words, but in fme and steel. From the divine forge in the heart of the sun, they crafted a bde: the Holy Sword of Aeons. No man could lift it. No being could touch it. But she, broken and human, raised it high.

  And the light it shone turned night into day.

  She charged alone.

  Against a sea of monsters. Against despair. Against the Incarnate himself.

  And she did not fall.

  With each swing, another nightmare ended. With each cry, another curse shattered. She struck down the Creatures of Destruction one by one until the bck skies cleared and the stars could breathe again.

  And then, facing the being that had ended the age of gods, she raised the Holy Sword—and with a scream that shook the bones of the world—she ended him.

  There was no explosion. No final roar. Just silence.

  The silence of a god sin.

  The silence of a new age.

  The Demon vanished.

  What remained was nothing.

  No corpse. No monument. No tombstone.

  Only a memory, carried by wind and stone.

  The war ended. The world was saved. But it came at a cost: the gods fell silent forever. Their final act was to gift man their light, and then vanish from all pnes.

  Now, seven hundred years ter, we walk in the legacy of their sacrifice.

  The Holy Kingdoms were built atop the ruins of that forgotten world. The great cathedral of Soria was erected where the Radiant Prince once stood. The golden-haired girl ascended into the heavens, never to be seen again, leaving behind only her sword—sealed and worshipped as a divine relic no hand may draw.

  Each year, on the Day of Salvation, we remember.

  We sing. We pray. We bow.

  But we do not speak of him.

  The Incarnate.

  We do not speak his name.

  For names have power.

  And even now, the winds that blow through the world sometimes carry a whisper—something cold, something ancient, something wrong.

  It is forbidden.

  For the scream has not been silenced.

  It merely sleeps.

  ---

  Somewhere, far from the golden cathedrals, near a frozen church, a girl with golden hair and distant blue eyes touches the hilt of a sword buried in crystal. The air around her tightens. A faint whisper echoes in the wind. She does not flinch.

  The world calls it evil.

  But she… remembers something else

  .

  The Sanctum of Origin

  A cathedral carved from celestial marble and obsidian veins, the Sanctum of Origin stretched impossibly high, its vaulted ceiling disappearing into a mist of divine light. Tall stained-gss windows lined the walls, depicting ancient wars between gods and demons, saints and monsters—each pane a frozen scream of history. Sacred sigils pulsed softly beneath the polished white floors, glowing with warmth that didn’t touch the skin.

  Pilrs of gold-inid stone reached upward like trees from a forgotten age, and at the far end of the hall, upon an altar forged from fragments of fallen stars, stood the golden throne of the High Pontiff—the vessel of the gods' will.

  Incense thicker than breath coiled through the air, and the students, just newly summoned, stood dwarfed by the weight of this sacred pce. Even the air felt old. Eternal.

  The golden cathedrals room fell into silence. Only the low hum of divine magic kept the light from flickering.

  The Pope, draped in robes of starlight and pure white silk, stood before the students and the summoned teachers like a prophet before judgment.

  His eyes, ancient and knowing, swept over the young faces—some trembling, some pale, some wide with awe. He spoke softly, but each word carried the weight of centuries.

  “And so it was that the Demon Lord, the evil incarnate who stood alone against the heavens themselves, screamed his final curse into the sky. From his rage, monsters beyond comprehension surged forth. They massacred half of humanity in a single night."

  A few gasps rang out. Even the boldest students—those who had ughed earlier—sat rigid now.

  Ms. Aiko’s lips trembled. “Half… of humanity…?”

  The Pope nodded solemnly.

  “It was then that the st of the hundred Chosen rose. A girl with golden hair like the midday sun, and eyes as blue as the clearest skies. She stood alone—as if fated to stand alone—and with the holy sword forged by the gods, she cut down the darkness itself. She struck him where no light had ever reached.”

  His voice lowered to a whisper.

  “Thus ended the st Demon-God War. Seven hundred years ago. But the scars remain—in history, in our nds, and in the soul of the world.”

  No one dared speak. The vast chamber seemed to breathe with ancient memory. Even the stained-gss saints above the altar appeared to bow their heads.

  “Now… you have been summoned here, dear children of Earth, because the echoes of that darkness stir once more.”

  The Pope turned to Ms. Aiko.

  “It is your duty to guide them, Teacher of Earth. For if that evil ever rises again… it will not come as a tyrant shouting from mountaintops. It will come as a shadow… silent and forgotten.”

  A chill ran through the chamber.

  And for a moment—just a moment—the light from the stained-gss window dimmed. As if the world itself had paused, remembering the scream of a god.