章節 1: Prologue

Through the limited view of the forest covered in both fog and rain, endless pellets of waters fell the from the sky. Freezing temperatures chilled one's skin to feel like chunks of ice. Rampaging winds made it feel as if you could fly with it while running counter was akin to running into a brick wall. Lightning raged from the heavens offering flashes of light. There were no stars hung high in the sky, no bright sun breaking through the dense clouds, no moon illuminating the night; only lightning flashing from the heavens paired with rumblings of rancorous thunder causing one's heart to feel constant unease.

Through this endless rain ran an isolated anomaly, a boy. The hood of his coat having been thrown back by the rampaging wind. The coat was silky white with blue trim along with an emblem laying over his heart. The emblem was a pale blue sword with a pair of black boney wings coming out of the hilt. This meant he was once part of the Curtail family, the Curtail family was one of the top five families on the continent. They are known for their pure white hair and contrasting abyssal black eyes. This boy had been abandoned by the family, shown by the black wings. His soaked previously untainted white hair was turning pitch black much like his wings had.

He was still young having not yet been at the age to where he could be called handsome but his future was full of potential. With his head tilted down, he seemed distraught and lost. His whole body was covered in the shadows of trees from the flashes of lightning. These flashes were the only things illuminating the world on this dark and gloomy night. The world represented this boy's feelings of endless sorrow.

How long he has been running was unknown; where he was going just as.

Having been abandoned by his family he likely had nowhere else to go.

He was alone, no one would ever take a second glance at an abandoned child. This was the cruel fate of the world. It didn't matter why he was abandoned just the fact he had.

His eyes were shut not even bothering to see in front of him. His whole body soaked and his now black hair completely embracing his head. He likely cried shown by water that fell from his eyes but it could have been the rain rolling off. Then after all the running, he reached the end of the lush dark forest which led directly off a cliff.

The boy was none the wiser though, he only continued to run. Step by step he brought himself closer to the edge. The rain continued to hit his head, falling more rampant with each step. His body didn't pause nor did it slow. He had continued with his quickening pace; each of his steps leaving an imprint in the mud below. The world seemed to pause at that moment before he brought himself less than eleven steps from the edge. Every one of his features could be imprinted into the mind before the world started once more.

This world represented his endless sorrow. The rain showed his sadness; the tears that ran down his young face. The lightning flashed with the beat of his heart; his uneasy heart. The thunder shouting from the heavens much like his own parents. The wind a reminder of the obstacles he has faced. The coldness of night freezing his jade white skin like the countless nights of sleeping in the mud. The forest being the costless times he has lost himself on the path he calls life. Him alone was exactly that, his loneliness. The cliff at the end of the forest, much like the light at the end of a tunnel.

His body started to move once more his feet slamming into the ground with each step. Each and every step brought him closer to the cliff's edge, closer to the end of a tunnel. The rain grew harder with the tears and the lightning more frequent with his quickening heart.

In a few breaths of time the eleven steps had become one and with the next one, his body lost the feeling of the ground. He had the reached the end of the tunnel, this was supposed to be his end. He screamed opening his eyes as he turned his body over in mid-air trying to reach out for the cliff he had fallen from. It didn't matter how fast he was falling he kept his hand outreached for the cliff, the difference between an inch and foot didn't matter. As one hand remained outreached he traced a ring on his other enclosed fist.

He knew that this day would occur, just didn't expect it so soon. He was still so young, his life so far in front of him. He was like a toad in a well, entrapped to the place he started not able to see the rest of the world. He was abandoned at a young age for his inability at using magic. He was a non-mage born to one of the most prestigious families on the continent. He may have been born to his father's first wife but that meant nothing, he was destined to be a nobody.

The words he had been told through his less than a decade of aging reverberated through his mind in this moment before death. All the times he was called a nobody, a weakling, unwanted, unneeded, useless, that he would never amount to anything. No one was on his side, not even his own parents; they more than anyone else reinforced these insults.

It didn't matter how hard he worked, no matter how much time he spent studying, he would never become someone.

He would be no noble hero,

No king of the world.

The rich,

The privileged,

The strong,

The geniuses

They are all born that way.

Hardworking,

Dedication,

Passion,

Don't matter.

In a single moment, none of these words mattered anymore; he was gone. His time of falling through the sky...no he wasn't unworthy of falling from the sky. The sky is for the proud, the mighty, not a place for a non-mage; putting him there is an insult to those great masters. Even saying that he was falling from the mountains would be an insult. He had never reached the peak of any sort of realm; he was still the mud under someone's shoe unworthy of being at the peak of a mountain. He wasn't worthy of any height, the only death him being worthy of would be tripping over his own two feet.

His body had connected with the ground forcing his world to go black as he released a scream of pain from all his bones breaking. With his now completely faded strength his previously outstretched arm fell to his side. With faded thoughts, he wished to be stronger, strong enough that he would later become king of this world. The dream of a child, that he continued to dream even when on death's doorstep. This date should have marked the end of his adventure.

----

A world full of adventures.

The sand filled land stretched far fading away as it reached the horizon, isolated from everyone else knelt someone. There was no companionship, no other signs of life around him, the definition of the middle of nowhere.

Like everyone, he had once dreamed of being an adventurer, to be a legend, to be a living myth. He knew this dream could bring him death but he braved on. He didn't turn back nor did he hold regrets. His adventure had brought him to this single point, to the Desert of Remorse; a place he himself had created. Looking at his open palms he had found them to extremely coarse and to blend in with the sand below, they had changed many times since his adventure had started. When he started they had been like white jade pure and untainted. He had known nothing about his future hardships.

As he aged they grew rougher and darker losing their original charm. Each passing night had brought him endless pain; he never turned back, however, never regretted the cost.

Later they had been stained red from the lives he had taken in his quest for adventure. He had become exactly what he wished for a "hero".

What truly is a hero? Some would say the person who saves the girl, the person who saves the world, the person who protects what matters to them. They would all agree that the hero fights for justice.

Then what is justice? The idea to which is correct and true.

Countless people live their lives bound by the idea of what they strive as correct and true. That is how they define their own reality.

But what does it mean to be correct or true? They are vague concepts... their reality may all be a faded dream. Can we consider them to simply be living in their own realms, shaped by their beliefs?

Magic, a power that alters reality.

Does that mean that magic is the only truth in this world?

In this world the weak dictate the land, the world dictates the weak, and the strong dictate the world.

This man dictates the world, reshaping it to his desires. Even if he can reshape the world, he cannot turn back time. He himself cannot fully escape death. After millennia of life, he had no regrets no ideas of looking back on his problems. Time continued to flow as those he grew close to died around him.

As he stared down at his hands he felt remorse for his past actions. The was the reason for why this once flourishing land was now deserted of all life was himself. This was first things he did once he became a legend. He wanted to become better, more powerful. He left in search of a place filled with evil, trying to serve them justice. At the cost of the seven days of killing he reshaped the land. The once flourishing mountains filled with animals and people was a vivid memory of the past. This once prospering evil land had vanished from the world. Once known as the Mountains of Disgrace filled with evil, were now the Desert of Remorse.

He had become what he wished for, a living myth. His accomplishments were told all across the realms as he strived to become more and more powerful. He was at one point a toad in a well, naïve to the world all around him. He was naïve to the point of believing that where he had grown up was the only place in existence. He had not known of all the other realms existing around him, all the trials that would appear before him.

This single plane was a mere speck compared to the vast realms in existence. He strived to get stronger to travel even farther from his starting point. He no longer wished to be a toad in a well he wished to be a dragon in the clouds.

Countless centuries if not millennia passed as he continued on his goal of leaving to the Realm of Gods. He had reached that, the peak existence in this current realm. He was already revered as a god in human form, a myth told to children as bedtime stories, an existence that shouldn't exist. No one dared to believe that the stories they were told were true, that the people who once knew him weren't insane. Even as a god in this single Blue Star Realm he was common in the Realm of Gods.(1)

His mission had started once more trying to complete the same mission he had done once before. A myth is only as good as the person who creates the story, the character has no say in how it would be remembered. In the Realm of Gods, he thought he was fighting for justice killing those who wronged him. He couldn't have been more wrong though. He wasn't remembered as a noble hero nor a king among kings. He was still a living myth, but not the kind he dreamt of.

He was told to be the reincarnation of Death if anyone so much as looked at him the wrong way they might as well forfeit their life. He took countless lives without discrimination.

We as humans, don't know what kind of people we truly are until the moment before our deaths. In death's cold embrace you realize who you are.

Death is indiscriminate.

Good or bad, young or old, it doesn't matter. Death is merciless but equal to all. That is why it is feared by those who understand it.

The true measure of a person's worth is how they die, not how they live. It is what they did before dying that will leave their mark on the world.

His myth had created nightmares for those who heard of it, created a goal of who you shouldn't try to be. So when he stood at its peak he was once again alone. Those around him scared to ever be in the same area as himself. He vanished once more traveling to more realms, standing at their peaks creating myth after myth. Some viewed him as a god, some the devil, some never knew of his peak existence.

In every world he was once again alone standing at the peak of any realm he traveled to. There are two ultimate dreams a man pursues; one is to conquer the realms, the other to conquer women. To conquer the realm is reach a new peak in existence but to conquer women is to embellish the scenery of life. If one isn't able to conquer the woman he wants, even if he conquered all the realms, he would stand at a lonely summit, and experience isolation everywhere. Soon there was nowhere else to go, so he traveled back to where he started, the Blue Star Realm.(2)

He traveled back to where he first became a myth the Desert of Remorse nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine years ago. When the sun rose from the east on the next morning he would have been kneeling for a year mourning his regrets.

He had killed countless women, men, children, fey, dragons, demons, and gods. His hands have since been stained a red he could never wash away. The reward for it all was a dream he has long since forgotten. It was a childish dream, a dream of someone who was ignorant to the world they existed in.

There is no human without flaw, to become the myth you wish to be you need to take lives. Some would view this as greatness while others view this as the reincarnation of death herself. With the moon setting in the west and the sun rising in the east it was the start of a new day and marked ten thousand years since the start of his myths.

With his head rising he faces the sun feeling a sense of rebirth like the legendary phoenix. With him standing up the world blurs away fading to black. Much like the sun rose from the east a black haired boy rose from his sleep.