The wandering hero…
Somewhere in a far away kingdom, far on the other side of the world, far from Duranell and all others in the west, a lone swordswoman walked down the decrepit road that had once lead into the great city of Morath, the great capital city of the eastern kingdom of Mordran.
The city she had burned to ashes in a single night.
Indeed, the legendary woman known as Moyako Kaneko, The Immortal Phoenix and the strongest woman in the world had returned to Mordran. As feared as she was among the surviving members of Mordran's kingdom they still had their own problems to deal with. Soon after their kingdom fell at her hands and Duranell's armies razed what was left, monsters and beasts of all kinds swarmed into the land from all over the world to claim this as their haven.
It was a cruel bit of irony that Mordran had succumbed to such a fate. The Mordrinite War was caused due to the near collapse of their economy when they slaughtered all the beasts and drove the gods from their land, opting to live in a human dominated society. Unfortunately, their land was not very fertile for crops, their mines were barren of precious metals, and the harsh environment and weather of the land made it nearly inhospitable for them to live there. Their only successful source of income was the hunting of monsters and the trade that came from harvesting resources from their corpses. It would have made more sense to keep the monsters around to keep their economy going but for some reason they opted to slaughter them all and drive any that they couldn't manage to kill off out of the kingdom instead.
Rumors told that it was perhaps due to the growing difficulty of the environment and the greater strength of the monsters that endangered their warriors and led to many of them dying and their people desiring a change in profession and a change in how the country ran.
Why hadn't they simply asked for assistance from their allies in other kingdoms? Perhaps no one will ever know the answer as anyone who would have had the faintest idea why was now dead and gone.
Now that their kingdom had crumbled to ruins the monsters that were once driven from the lands they had called home had returned and the surviving citizens of Mordran, too stubborn and spiteful to abandon their homeland, instead requested the aid of a warrior who would save them from the beasts that plagued their home, even if it was from the person they hated most, the person that was the cause for their suffering.
The request that she was given was to kill a powerful creature that commanded a hive of spiders as its queen. Considering what she knew about spiders, they usually didn't band together and form a hive. In fact, the majority of the time the mother of the spiders devoured more than half her own children and the remaining hatchlings killed each other off until only a small percentage of the offspring were left. From the reports she had gathered, that wasn't the only odd thing about these spiders. Some of them had mutated to be as large as a fully grown adult man and had begun kidnapping people only to later return with their fangs embedded into the backs of their necks and connected to the spinal cords of their victims, their legs attached to their limbs and firmly wrapped around their torso.
It made her shudder to think about but that wasn't even the worst part of the whole situation.
By embedding their fangs into the spinal cords in the area of the neck it cut off the electrical signals of their brain from reaching the rest of their body effectively killing them. Their bodies would then be controlled by the spiritual energy fed into their bodies from the spiders' fangs but being killed meant that they would eventually turn into Draugr.
Spider infested Draugr...
The mere thought of it made her want to crawl into a hole and hide even if she was more than powerful enough to eradicate them all. It was simply too damn creepy for even her to think about without shuddering in fear. Even so, she had a job to do and she intended to see it through.
As she made strolled through the ruins of the charred Morath Castle she could hear the sounds of spindly legs skittering across the walls, the floors, and the ceiling. She knew that she was being watched but it didn't matter. They'd all be nothing but ash soon enough and she would finally be able to go back to her home in the kingdom of Brunhildt.
When she had made her way into the heart of the castle the sound of skittering stopped and everything became dead silent.
"Interesting...to think that a human would be foolish enough to return to this fallen kingdom. Not to mention completely alone," a feminine voice echoed off the walls of what was once the throne room. She had remembered it being on the uppermost level of the castle when it was still standing and yet some of it still remained after the castle was burned to the ground.
"So after I burned this place to the ground, you returned to this land to pick up what little scraps were left and chose the throne room as your new home? For what, so you could pretend to be its new queen?"
The sound of fangs clicking together rapidly sounded almost like hissing. Clearly her provocation worked because the aura emanating from the monster attempting to hide in the darkness was so enraged that it gave away her position. Moyako's eyes focused on a spot of darkness where she remembered the thrones of the king and queen had once been stationed in the room.
With a superbly fluid movement she had drawn her sword and faster than the blink of an eye she had swung her katana at the spot of darkness and from the edge of her blade, flames erupted as it cleaved through the air in a focused arc.
Before her flames could scorch the torso off of the monster that stared at her with such anger in its eyes, an appendage swung down with a metallic glean that shined at moved into the moonlight and smacked the flaming arc away before it could land. The flames that Moyako produced however were among the hottest in the world however and it left the monster's appendage steaming with heat as the metal glowed red hard and flecks of it liquefied into molten metal to which it flicked off before it could melt through its own body.
"Such wretched flames...what dreadfully monstrous power you hold. To be able to melt Adamantine so effortlessly is not a feat to be taken lightly."
"You've coated your body in Adamantine armor. I wonder how you managed to pull that off, although it won't matter either way. I would like to know this though; for a monster like you to have sentience that would mean you must have a name, yes? It would mean a lot more to me if I knew the name of the monster I am about to kill. I'll get paid more if you can be properly identified," Moyako said with a mocking tone.
The sound of fangs clicking together was much louder but then it calmed down and she could hear a strange sound of frothing foam as if the monster was salivating at the thought of eating her.
"I assure you that even if you manage to kill me once, I wouldn't be very appetizing for you if you managed to eat me. You would end up with a horrible case of heart burn," she said in a helpful tone further aggravating the monster.
"My name is all that interests you? Very well, I am the weaver Arachne. The superior to the ever boastful Athena herself and yet you dare to challenge me?"
Moyako could feel something sticking to the bottom of her foot and so she swept it around and realized that webs were covering the floor.
This would make for a very flashy display of power.
She held up her sword and pulled back her arm before swinging it to the side of her and flicked the pointed tip to the floor and as she did she spun her body around as her sword burned brightly and set the thick webs all around her ablaze, lighting up the room and setting fire to the many hundreds possibly thousands of spiders clinging to the walls and dangling from the webs all around her. They didn't have time to writhe in agony as they were turned to ash in a matter of seconds. The spiders that Arachne commanded were incinerated in an instant but Moyako wondered where the Draugr had gone. With Arachne as the only survivor of the firestorm surrounded by the burning corpses of the spiders, they glowed and fully illuminated her for what she was.
She had a surprisingly humanoid body as she didn't have the full body of an actual spider but seemed to be a mix between a woman who looked to be in her thirties or forties but with multiple eyes and four extra appendages sprouting from her back. Her lower jaw was split into two parts that clicked together when her mouth moved. She did indeed have long fangs in her upper jaw which meant that her lower jaw would have to unhinge itself for her to bite into anything. As Moyako took a glance behind her she noticed that Arachne also had a thin secondary abdomen that started at her back but then dangled behind her. Thick and expertly woven silk wrapped around her body like a coat with hundreds of thin pieces of adamantine slag pieced together on her body as armor.
Although her face was somewhat beautiful it was marred by the monstrous features.
"You are truly hideous and disgusting," Moyako insulted to bait her.
It worked as Arachne hissed and lunged towards her and pulled back two of her right appendages and swung them at Moyako's neck.
Rather than block with her sword she preferred to use her sheath to deflect the strike before following up with a wide slash of her sword as she tried to behead Arachne's head in one go. Her sword sparked off of the spider's armored arms as she held them up to block her slash. She gritted her teeth as the heat from the katana made the adamantine armor on her arms glow red hot and start to steam.
Arachne then brought up all four of her appendages and in a mad flurry she attacked in wild arcs but Moyako deflected them all as easily as if she were stepping on an ant. The speed and swiftness of her defense was too great for Arachne to break through on her own so she jumped back and shouted a command.
In moments the spider infested Draugr rushed out of the rooms they were hiding from safe from Moyako's initial flame attack. Some of the Draugr were relatively old, left as nothing but skeletons, and the spiders that were attached to them also looked to be long dead, yet they still followed Arachne's command. Plenty of them were also covered in armor of their own. Most of it was regular steel but for the two stronger looking Draugr, one that was much taller and had thicker muscles, and the other that was smaller but more flexible, they were equipped with much stronger Black Iron armor.
Arachne raised her hand above her head like a commander leading an army before bringing it down and shouting her cry of attack and the lesser Draugr charged at her with sloppy, unrefined movements.
Moyako's eyes narrowed in annoyance. She knew that she wouldn't even need to fully release her magic to take care of these undead but the sheer number of them was still a chore.
She sheathed her sword as she concentrated a build up of energy contained within the sheathe itself and even focused some into her legs. The flames burst from her body as it pushed her along like a rocket and as she unsheathed her sword she ran past dozens of Draugr as she cut through them effortlessly, the steel armor being torn apart like paper from where she had sliced through and turning the bodies of the undead into ash. It did not stop there as the flames washed over the remaining lesser Draugr and nearly wiped them all out in a single swing.
Breaking through the charred corpses of the lesser Draugr came one of the larger and stronger of the few that remained as it held a sword that teemed with blackness.
It brought the massive blade down to try and cleave her in two yet Moyako merely side stepped out of the way before jumping forward to try and kill the brutish Draugr in one swing. Her attack was stopped by the smaller and more flexible Draugr that had attached itself to the larger one's back as it spun around and swung the sharp dagger's in its deft hands.
By themselves neither of them would be a difficult challenge for her but with the two of them together, speed and skill combined with strength and size made them difficult to manage.
The smaller Draugr continued to pressure Moyako while the larger one made attempts to striker down in a single blow. After defending from their many attacks she realized that they were forcing her back against the throne area where she knew Arachne was hiding.
The brutish Draugr slammed its blade down on the ground with all its strength, not to hit Moyako but rather to send a vibration through the ground and to try and knock her off her feet and the smaller one threw one of its daggers at her at the same time.
Moyako jumped into the air as she knew that they were trying to bait her into a vulnerable position and smacked the dagger aside.
It was then that Arachne took the opportunity to push off the ceiling with her right arm pulled back and her clawed hand ready to run her through.
And yet...
Arachne's hand effortlessly pierced through Moyako's back and exited out her abdomen.
A look of disturbing glee was present on her face as she then stabbed her other four appendages into Moyako's defenseless body one after the other.
Something was wrong though because no sound escaped Moyako's mouth as she was stabbed.
Arachne then looked at her hands and examined the substance that stuck to her skin and realized it was not the metallic smell of blood but rather of ash and dust.
She had burned herself to ashes to escape a painful death...?
No...
Moyako Kaneko was know throughout the world, even to monsters such as her as the Immortal Phoenix. If the claims were true then there was no way she would die easily. Something was-
Her thoughts were cut short as the point of a katana exited out of her chest.
"H-how...You did not disappear from my sight and yet...," Arachne forced the words out as she demanded answers from the woman as to how she could have easily avoided her surprise attack.
"Does it really matter? You'll be too dead to figure it out anyways," Moyako said tauntingly as she pulled out the blade before raising it above her head and beheaded her in one swift strike.
As Arachne died so too did her control over the spiders and the Draugr. She was able to access the strength and skill of the Draugr through the spiders but with her dead the spiders' minds were lost as to what to do with their hosts and two remaining Draugr bodies stumbled in confusion.
In a flash, she beheaded them and burned their corpses with ease.
With Arachne's head she could now claim her reward for herself. She picked it up by the hairs and nearly vomited at the hideousness of her face and placed it into a bag.
As she was about to leave she was stopped in place by the sound of appreciative clapping.
"That was an incredible performance I must say. Well done!"
She knew that voice...
She turned around to look at the man in the black trench coat and gave him an annoyed smile.
"Hello again Ruvick," she said as she greeted him.
"You say 'hello' but your eyes seem to tell me that you are done with me already," he teased as he sat in the scorched iron throne that still remained in this broken castle.
"Did I at least manage to entertain you?" she asked sarcastically.
"Oh definitely, especially with the way you tricked her at the end and stabbed her from behind. Even for me it was difficult to figure out the trick at first glance but you turned yourself into ash just as she ran your body through and the ash that flew off of your body went all over the place and all around Arachne before you reformed behind her. The only thing that she was stabbing at was your empty armor and clothes. That was very clever."
"Hm, yes but now I'll need to replace it. Which is annoying because I really liked that design and its expensive to replace," she said.
"You could try replacing it with the spider silk from Arachne's abdomen. I've heard that Necrospider silk can be used to make incredibly resilient cloth," he offered helpfully and she was genuinely grateful for the advice.
"I think I will actually, thank you," she said.
"Of course," he said and an awkward silence stretched on with her expecting him to say something.
When she could no longer bear it she finally asked, "Why are you here Ruvick?"
"Funny you should ask," she groaned in frustration at his flippant response, "There's actually a favor I want to ask of you if you don't mind."
She tilted her head in curiosity and confusion as she knew that there were very few things that he would actually need anyone's help with.
"Such as?"
"I'm sure you are aware of the tournament in Duranell right?" he said and she sighed.
"Yes I am aware of it and too many times I have been asked to participate in it. Why though would you of all people ask me?"
"Well there is this one man that I want you to test your power against. He had recently fought and killed the Archdragon Malthael but that one battle I'm afraid won't be enough to push him even further past his limits," he said.
"This man fought Malthael himself and you think that I alone will be enough to push him past his limits...? I can't say I'm not interested but for what specific reason are you doing this? Does this man have to do with your plans as well?"
"He does. Also, you aren't the only person I've asked that will be participating in the tournament."
Her ears pricked up in curiosity at that announcement and she looked him in the eyes as he said, "Reyna will also be joining."
Reyna...
"If she is participating then...what do you need me for?" she asked.
"The more the merrier in my opinion. I also thought that...you might want to see Reyna again after not seeing her for fifteen years," Ruvick said softly as he knew it was a sensitive topic for her.
"Who's fault was that I wonder?" Moyako said pointedly and Ruvick winced.
She was silent for a little while before she sighed and said, "Alright. I'll tag along I guess. It might be a good opportunity for me to also improve my swordsmanship against other warriors. If all I do is kill these weak monsters then I'll regress."
"Amazing! I don't have a specific date just yet but you should expect the schedule to be announced in a little over a month from now. You should make your way to Duranell as soon as possible so you don't miss it."
"Yes yes, I know that. Although, now that I think about it, I don't think you mentioned the name of this man you want me to challenge," she said.
"Hm? Oh, I thought that when I mentioned Malthael you would have...I guess word doesn't travel that fast in Mordran anymore. I figured you would learned his name by now. His name is Marcus Wright," he said and she went still.
No sound escaped her lips as was still struggling to process what Ruvick had said. She was silent for a little over a minute before she spoke again.
"What did you say his name was again?" she said in a quiet voice.
"Marcus Wright. Why, do you know him?"
She turned and walked towards Ruvick and grabbed his collar as she asked in a demanding tone, "Where the hell is he?!"
The hollow look that was present on Moyako's face reflected in Ruvick's colorless eyes and he looked down at her with visible surprise as it was not an expression he was used to seeing from her. The flames that burned brightly at the ends of her hair even seemed to dim at the hollow feeling she was having.
Her eyes then widened as she realized what she was doing and she pulled back.
"I'm sorry...," she said as she turned around and made some distance between them.
"Does this man mean something to you? You don't have to participate if he is someone you hate so deeply," he said but she shook her head.
"No, its not that. I've been searching for that man for the good part of the last two hundred years. As long as I get to meet him for myself I will gladly participate."
Artemis...
Sitting by the fire and roasting a goose she had managed to shoot out of the air as it passed by, she looked down at the town of Lunaas as it was still recovering from the aftermath of Malthael's brief resurrection. She looked at it with a sigh or relief that she, with the help of Selene and Marcus, were able to prevent a complete disaster from taking place.
As she was enjoying the silence she was surprised to hear a cheery voice from behind her as someone said, "This is a pretty nice view."
In the blink of an eye she had already pulled out a dagger from the sheath at her waist and aimed it towards the voice.
The voice had come from a short woman with red hair, green eyes, and deeply tanned skin wearing a brown jacket, ripped jeans at the knees, and a leather boots.
"Whoa there! No need to be pointing sharp objects at me. I'm not here to hurt you. I just want to talk with you," she said.
Artemis's eyes narrowed in suspicion but she lowered her hand as she said, "If all you wish to do is speak, then speak. Quickly."
"Well...I'm sure you already know quite a bit about that woman Selene Kiser correct? The Vice-captain of the Darkmoon Knights?"
"Yes...we fought against Jiroh Aderlynn and Malthael together. Why?"
"Well because I want to make an offer to you. Your strength, especially to be able to fight against an Arch Dragon in its human form, is not something to be taken lightly," she said in a strange way that told Artemis that she wasn't necessarily afraid of her but rather...
"Are you scouting me out?"
"Your quick witted too. I'll make a note of that. Yes, I am scouting you out. Hopefully before anyone else does because people like you are in a higher demand than most people realize."
"People like me? there are no 'people like me'. I am a goddess, not some run of the mill warrior," Artemis said feeling slightly offended to be compared as such.
"No no, you don't understand. When I say people like you I don't mean regular folks just trying to get a paycheck. I am talking about the truly strong. I want you to join my brotherhood because I recognize you for your strength and for your worth."
"A brotherhood? What is the name of this brotherhood you command?"
"It is known as the Ruin Sentinels brotherhood. The strongest brotherhood in Eleum and I am its Captain. My name is Lysandra."
Artemis let out a single discrediting laugh as she said, "I highly doubt it is truly the strongest if it does not have Selene or Marcus as one of its members. Those two alone have the power to shatter worlds if they truly wanted to and yet you claim it as the strongest? Hah!"
Her mocking laugh made Lysandra grit her teeth together and lose her composure as she responded with, "Listen here you little shithead," Artemis struggled to hold back a laugh as the height difference between them was clear but said nothing, "I am offering you an opportunity and a position that will grant you housing and a good pay. What good does it do you to live out here in the wilderness watching over some decaying and decrepit town? Not to mention with strength like yours I doubt they would tolerate your existence for much longer."
As entertaining as Lysandra's fussy outburst was to witness, she was correct. There wasn't much reason for her to remain in Lunaas other than sentimentality and the unease of Jiroh invading this town so easily, using it to concoct an attempt at revenge on the world for what had happened to his fallen kingdom.
"With how easily Jiroh was able to take over Lunaas I wanted to stay behind for a little while longer so that no one took advantage of the town's current state while they recover and try to rebuild their lives," she said honestly.
"If that is all that you are concerned about then I can station some of my members to keep watch and give you daily reports on how things are going until they return to normalcy. Would that be enough for you?"
"Hm...where is this brotherhood of yours located?"
Lysandra failed to stop herself from smiling as she said, "Its in the city of Duranell. You might say that we are...rivals to the Darkmoon Knights."
Judging from Lysandra's crooked smile and the fact that both brotherhoods share the same location meant that she wanted to use her for show and to gloat at Dean Smith. It was tiring to even think about the fact that her position in the brotherhood would be something as mundane as that but so long as she was close to Selene in some way then perhaps it wasn't too bad of a trade off.
"Very well. I accept your invitation," Artemis said as she was recruited into the Ruin Sentinels Brotherhood.
Kayron...
After some time contemplating things and the mishandling of the situation in Lunaas, he realized that he needed to take a more careful and less involved approach if he didn't want to catch Ruvick's or even Selene's attention.
There was no doubt that Selene had managed to link his involvement with Jiroh and Malthael so he needed to make use of his contacts within the court of Duranell's royal family. He has long since infiltrated multiple kingdom's inner workings all across the world and could manipulate events if he absolutely needed to she he saw fit to do exactly that.
It wouldn't be long before Duranell's annual Contest of Champions begun and people from all over the world would enter to claim the title as the strongest. Though as he thought about it he laughed quietly at the sheer irony of the existence of the contest itself.
This world's society despises the strength of the individual, a mentality that is firmly indoctrinated into the minds of the people by the kingdoms that rule them. They claim that there is strength in numbers and unity, while undoubtedly a true statement, in the face of a threat of unimaginable power a hundred or even a thousand insects could do nothing when faced with the unforgiving boot that crushes them.
Strength in numbers is only plausible when faced against an opposing force that aims to crush you by playing the same game.
For an army of insects to to do anything to a boot they would need the help of a force equal or stronger than that of the boot to topple it so that they could overwhelm it with their combined might.
This contest of champions absolutely invalidates the mentality that the kingdoms have indoctrinated into its people and yet they allow it to exist anyways because what is more entertaining than seeing two powerful warriors tear each other apart for glory?
They allow this contest to exist and yet they do not permit captains or vice-captains to participate because the leadership must remain so that their powerful members to not gain authority of their own.
In truth the contest of champions real purpose is to monitor particularly powerful individuals that might pose a threat and to take measures against them if they seem dangerous. In fact, the killing of contestants during a match is allowed as it would remove the threat that such powerful warriors might pose.
With all this in mind, Kayron decided to use his connections and have the king of Duranell issue a request of attendance and participation of the Darkmoon Knights themselves. To have their strongest member participate in the tournament.
With Dean being a captain and Selene, who is undoubtedly the most powerful member, being the vice-captain, that leaves only one other person capable of representing the Darkmoon Knights.
Their new member Marcus Wright.
As things would have it, Kayron had his own champion who has been waiting for ten whole years to fight and kill Marcus with his own hands.
"Things are already in motion. Are you sure that you are prepared to fight him as you are now?" he asked.
Julian Romano turned around and gave Kayron a twisted smiled as he said, "I've waited long enough for this moment. No way in hell will I pass up the opportunity to kill that traitorous fucker. Marcus Wright will die."