Greenhall Village knew nothing of the dirty politics conducted in cold throne rooms. It was merely a peaceful green patch nestled in the embrace of a small valley, wooden houses with thatched roofs scattered like mushrooms after rain. The aroma of fresh bread mingled with the scent of damp earth and the faint smoke from hearths. Children's laughter echoed in the narrow alleys, while farmers returned from their fields at sunset, their faces weary but bearing the satisfaction of a hard day's work.
At the heart of this tranquility was a fifteen-year-old boy named Kael. He wasn't noble, nor did he possess any innate magical abilities. He was just an ordinary boy, with jet-black hair and wide brown eyes full of the world's curiosity. He helped his father in their small blacksmith shop, feeling proud as he watched metal take shape under the hammer's blows, dreaming of the day he'd become a skilled blacksmith like his father. That evening, Kael was laughing with his younger sister, Lira, golden braids bouncing, playing hide-and-seek among the woodpiles behind their house, while their mother called them in for dinner with a warm voice. It was a perfect moment, a moment of fragile peace they didn't realize how precious it was until it shattered.
Then they came.
Their arrival wasn't gradual. They exploded onto the village outskirts like a sudden storm. Noble knights, their silver and gold armor gleaming ominously under the nascent moonlight, their eyes flashing with blind rage and pent-up hatred. They didn't come to negotiate or warn. They came to destroy.
"For Giravia!" one shouted, hurling a lit torch onto the first thatched roof he encountered.
"The Arcanorians won't take our land!" roared another, launching a small fireball that exploded, turning a hay cart into a miniature inferno.
Panic spread like wildfire. Screams of terror replaced the children's laughter. Terrified villagers ran in every direction, trying to escape this nightmare that had descended upon them without warning. They didn't understand. What had they done to deserve this? They weren't soldiers, they weren't politicians; they were just simple people living their lives.
Kael saw his father emerge from the workshop, gripping his heavy hammer, his face grim with anger and fear. "Kael! Lira! Inside! Quickly!" he yelled, stepping forward to confront the advancing knights. Kael saw his mother pull a trembling Lira towards the house, her eyes filled with tears and terror.
But it was too late. A wave of icy magic shot from a noble's hand, striking Kael's father directly. The strong man froze in place for a moment, a layer of pale blue ice coating his body, then collapsed like a fragile statue, shattering into icy fragments scattered across the ground he had worked his entire life.
A torn scream ripped from Kael's throat, a sound he didn't think he was capable of making. He saw Lira scream her father's name, saw his mother shove her forcefully towards the back door of the house. "Run! Run now!"
But another noble, mounted on a massive black horse, was faster. His longsword gleamed in the growing firelight and fell upon Kael's mother as she tried to shield her daughter's escape with her body. Her scream abruptly silenced.
Kael watched it all from a small crack in the back wall of the house, where his mother had pushed him moments before. He saw his sister Lira, small and innocent, stumble out the back door as she ran, looking back with eyes wide with horror, before three nobles on foot surrounded her. She disappeared from his sight amidst their cruel laughter and her muffled scream, which faded with horrifying speed.
The world collapsed around Kael. He no longer heard the others' screams, no longer smelled the smoke, no longer felt the pain of the rough wood pressing against his face. All he saw was the shattered image of his frozen father, the figure of his fallen mother, and the echo of his sister's final scream. A vast, dark void swallowed him from within. Why? Why them? Why his village? Why his family? They had done nothing!
And in the depths of this absolute despair, he heard a voice. Not a sound heard by ears, but a cold, insidious whisper that slithered directly into his mind, like a serpent twisting in the darkness.
"They deserve it... don't they? The nobles... the Emperor... the world that allowed this to happen..."
Kael slowly lifted his head, tears streaming down his ash-streaked face, but his eyes no longer held grief, but something else... something empty and terrifying.
"Don't you want power? Power to punish them? Power to make them feel what you feel now?"
"Yes..." Kael whispered, his voice hoarse, barely audible amidst the din of destruction.
"Kamui has chosen you... the Lord of Shadows... the Lord of Vengeance. You are a perfect vessel for his wrath... for the wrath of all the oppressed..."
Kael felt a strange power surge within him, a power dark and burning like lava. His bones began to crack and stretch. His skin tore, changing color to an inky black. The pain was unbearable, yet it faded before the overwhelming wave of rage and hatred that consumed him.
"Take my power... take my fury... and destroy them all!"
An inhuman scream erupted from Kael's throat, a cry that blended the agony of transformation with the fury of vengeance. His body began to grow monstrously, shattering the walls of the small house as if they were made of paper. Twisted horns sprouted from his skull, his arms transformed into massive claws. His warm brown eyes merged into a single large eye in the center of his forehead, an eye that glowed the color of boiling blood, the color of pure hatred.
In that moment, Kael the blacksmith boy was no more. The Devil was born.
Not far away, on the outskirts of the partially collapsed capital, I stood, Arian Zephyrus Ironwood, in my temporary bunker. I had seen the nobles leave the palace in a frenzy, heard their enraged shouts about destroying Greenhall. At first, I couldn't believe they would actually do it. It seemed like absolute madness.
But shortly after, I began to see the frightening orange glow rising on the horizon from Greenhall's direction. Then I started hearing the faint echoes of explosions and screams, carried by the wind across the valleys. My blood ran cold. They had done it. They had attacked their own village over a stupid political deal and blind anger.
Then, something else happened. Something that changed everything. The ground trembled beneath my feet with a violence I had never felt before. It wasn't a natural earthquake. It was something deeper, more violent. And rising from the direction of Greenhall was a colossal pillar of dark energy, an energy that made the very air seem to freeze for a moment before recoiling in a wave of pure terror.
And I saw him. Even from this distance, the shape was terrifying. A giant shadow forming amidst the smoke and flames, growing larger and larger, surpassing the height of the trees and the few remaining buildings on the horizon. A single, glowing red eye pierced the darkness like a beacon of hell.
In that instant, I understood. The catastrophe I was now witnessing unfold in the capital – the Devil that tore the castle apart, the dragons burning the city – it hadn't started here. It started there, in Greenhall. It started with the actions of foolish nobles, and the weakness of our Emperor. It started with the death of an innocent boy and his family.
The Devil now weeping under the gaze of the Gods... was that boy.
I felt a mixture of horror, nausea, and guilt. I was there when the deal was made. I was there when the nobles left. I did nothing. I was just a guard following orders. But orders from whom? Orders from a corrupt, weak system that had led us all into this abyss.
How could rage and grief birth such horror? How could an entity like "Kamui" exploit such a tragedy? And what did this mean for the world now?
I looked again through the window slit. The Four Gods – Rafix, Nitris, Glavin, Eragon – still confronted the weeping Devil. Their words about "violating the balance" and "the greed of others" took on a new, horrifying meaning. They weren't talking about the Devil himself as much as the reasons that led to his existence.
Then, something unexpected happened. As the Gods spoke words of sorrowful pity, the earth trembled again, but differently this time. It wasn't a violent tremor, but more like a deep sigh from the planet itself. And the space around me began to distort. The light coming through the window no longer seemed natural. It started to twist and bend, colors dancing in an impossible way.
I felt an immense force pulling me, a force unrelated to the Devil or the Gods. It was a spatial and temporal force, as if the very fabric of reality was tearing around me. I tried to cling to the stone wall, but my fingers slipped. I saw the scene outside the window vanish into a vortex of light and screaming colors. The last thing I saw before the void swallowed me was the Devil's single, tear-filled red eye, and the look of eternal pity in the eyes of the Four Gods.
Then, there was nothing but darkness and an endless fall through the fabric of time and space. I was leaving my dying world, hurled towards an unknown future, carrying with me the memories of the catastrophe and the face of the weeping Devil, who was once just a boy named Kael.