Age of Heroes (Age of Heroes Chronicles)

EIGHT HOURS EARLIER

1023 After Fall

It was a dark and tragic year from the Human Continent

The Dark Lands had conquered half of the Human Continent.

The Great Slaughter that began in 1017 AF marked the start of a great war between the human and the Demon race that inhabited the Dark Lands Continent.

Twenty-three-year-old Arial Vermont had joined the Human Coalition Army for one reason: his family.

On his seventeenth name day, he left his home in Danoba Village in the Dukedom of Alan, of the Human Continent, and traveled to the Capital City of Seren.

It was supposed to be a day of happiness and celebration. The Capital City of Seren lived up to its name and is beautiful and could enchant people with their unique culture

His father had given him some silver as a gift for his name day.

"Son, go enjoy yourself and see the Capital" he had said with love in his eyes before he departed.

The memory now stung Arial. If he had known what was coming, he would have never left them.

Thinking about it now, it is better to perish together than survive alone.

Arial had been enjoying himself in Seren for three days when he heard the grim news; the Dark Lands had invaded the Dukedom.

The entire Human Continent was shocked.

With the Dukedom suffering wars after the Succession Affair of the Alan's, its defenses were weak and most places were lacking in manpower.

The army of Dark Lands easily came and destroyed the Kingdom with their blood-drenched swords and dark magic.

Hearing the story, against his better judgment he returned to the Dukedom. He uses all of leftover silver to rent a horse and ride himself back to the Dukedom.

He wanted to witness for himself the devastation wrought, with a spark of hope in his heart that everything is fine and everything is alright.

And yet, reality sinks in no matter how one prayed or one hoped.

The silence pierced him when he arrived at Danoba.

The place he had once called home was as still as death.

There were no Demon Race soldiers guarding the village anymore, although it gave him little comfort.

He wondered helplessly why they had come; the village had no strategic importance other than it was close to Levitia Bridge, the pathway to the Blessed Land.

He looks around and all he could see was the traces of destruction wrought upon it.

Danoba had once been a place of beauty and serenity.

The village was lush with rich farmland, thanks to its warm, easy summers, and its closeness to the ocean.

The scent of saltwater often drifted through the streets, carried by gentle evening breezes, and the place was hugged by a thick, bountiful forest.

There is a river not far from his family modest house where he used to play alone when he was a child

As Arial staggered through the village, his heart dropped.

Men he vaguely recognized lay on the streets, their lives already bled away, and limbs and heads could be seen in different part of the village.

Female bodies both young and old were scattered, their torn clothes and deep wounds telling him one painfully clear thing.

Attacked. Raped. Left to die.

Arial knew the Demon Race soldiers would have taken their favorites to become sex slaves. Anger merged with his grief.

The sight disgusted him. But he keeps walking and he keeps seeing it. Like it was his duty to see it.

He saw a raven on a tree before it flies away

Arial turned the corner onto his street. He could see even the roads has been crushed and he could hooves of horses.

Every trembling nerve in his body was telling him not to go any further, but his legs continued forward.

He had to see his home, before he could really believe it was true.

Paranoia kept him creeping into the shadows, although it was clear there were no soldiers left – they would have already moved on to other states in the Dukedom.

The souvenirs he had bought for his mother and father were clutched tightly to his chest; gripped it so tightly than his skin is turning white.

He had been looking forward to seeing their faces when he presented them with their gifts.

He had secretly been working as a blacksmith with Uncle Strom to earn the silver to buy them. He found what he wanted in Seren and bought it without hesitation.

Their smiling faces flashed across his mind, and his heart sank further. And it make him want to turn back again.

Yet, his feet keep moving forward.

Memories began flooding him like a whirlpool.

His heart beats like a war drum as he remembered the warmth of the sun shining through the front windows; the evening breezes that gave the back door its creaking sound; the smoke that billowed from the chimney every winter; the sound of his mother singing lovingly to his father when they thought he wasn't looking.

As he walks closer to the house, for some unknown reason, the memories grow clearer.

He remembered.

She always looked young and carefree when she sang to his father. Arial breathed in the memories like it could prepare him for what is next.

He looks at his house and his eyes is red.

He could remember it and could feel it like yesterday.

He could smell the oak tree in the front yard where he used to pretend that he was a knight in a shining armor fighting some bandits or dragons while hitting the oak tree with his wooden makeshift sword that his father crafted for him

In his memories, he could hear the fire crackling in the fireplace as his father told him stories of great men, kings and heroes when winter came and they had to rest in the house.

He remembered his mother's delicious roast chicken with salt which is very rare for a peasant family and he could eat it only in some special occasion.

He would sit in the kitchen in the winter as he raced around happily, trying to pinch a taste of the roast while his mother laughed while scolding him not to touch the food.

He refused to believe it was all over.

Turn back, his brain urged.

He was certainly tempted. And he almost halted his step. But still, he took that step

You don't need to see this.

Arial sighed heavily.

Yes, I do, he thought.

He had to know for sure, the uncertainty would gnaw at him forever. He reached his old house and paused at the front door, hesitating to take that one last step

He was sure he would never be prepared to face whatever was inside. The wind blows around the village and the raven flies away.

He took a deep breath and he muster all the courage that he had in his body

Bracing himself, he pushed open the front door and entered.

The floor creaked beneath his weight. He gulped

Inside the house it was chaos.

He looks the inside of the house with ill foreboding.

He saw the swinging chair he had made for his father had been thrown to the wall with such force it had shattered, taking a chunk of the wall with it.

Glass from the windows lay strewn across the floor, fragment of glass mixed with splashes of thick blood.

But Arial knew the worst was far from over, and with bile rising in his throat he headed to the bedroom.

In his heart Arial knew what he was about to see, and looking back now he wished he had turned and fled, and never been burdened with the nightmare that still plagued his dreams and his every waking moment.

But grief had made him foolish and desperate, and so he pushed open the bedroom door and he knows his foreboding was right.

He should have turned back. That was his thought. He should have listened to his head and never walk inside.

The stench hit him first.

The air was thick with a rich copper smell which knocked him sick, and he stood heaving for a moment at the door.

He wanted to puke but he holds it back.

He looks again. It occurred to him that the room was surprisingly in order compared to the front room.

If it hadn't been for the blood, it would have been hard to say that anything had happened there at all.

But the bedroom was drenched.

Every surface was covered and dripping with crimson, and in one corner lay a severed hand, oozing out its last drops of life.

Arial recognized the small scar on the hand, and felt a blow of devastating grief like a punch in the gut.

His mother and father were long gone.

He recognizes it now and his knees become weak.

And everything is released.

Tears filled his crystal blue eyes and fell onto the hard floor, grieving and angry at the same time.

Arial swiftly turned and left running out from the house. he had seen enough. No, he has seen more than he should have seen and he no longer had any reason to stay.

Outside the village he found a lone horse tied to a tree.

The tree has a raven looking at him. Arial noticed the raven and when he looks at the raven, the raven flies away like he smells the stench of blood on him.

Arial assumed with a heavy heart that its owner would never return for it, and mounted the beast, heading back to Seren, careful not to leave any tracks.

His eyes are full of tears the whole way. It took another hard day of riding, and Arial was weary when he arrived in the city.

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