Chương 1: Start Reading

Thin sheets of rain lashed from the sea of clouds overhead, forming rivers and burbling gulleys in the battlefield. The Bloody Wight stood erect beneath the storm, the water turning into continuous coils of steam whenever they struck the stark ebony plates of his armour. A myriad of bolts and shafts, some as thick as a toddler's arm, protruded from his back. Yet he scarcely seemed to notice them.

In one hand he effortlessly hefted his claymore, the long black blade marked with curling tongues of fire along the edge that cast a vibrant orange glow around him. Even on that cold and dismal battlefield, the knight in black blazed like a vengeful star. Ahead of him, lining the hillside, stood an army of aspiring assassins. Spearmen on horseback, a myriad of archers, armoured men with pikes and shields, engineers manning a small cluster of cannons and ballistas.

And, standing distinct from the rest, was a beefy bald man in a flowing grey cloak. The Wight focused on him in particular, but that was impossible to tell at a glance. His drake-winged helmet obscured his face entirely, the visor leaving his eyes entirely veiled in shadow. They all stood there, motionless, waiting for the others to make a move. The bald man took a step forward, a Grey Sorcerer known to the world as Lanten Basque. A persistent thorn in the Wight's side.

"Wight!" he shouted, great voice booming across the muddy field.

"We give you one chance to surrender! Do that and your death will be a quick one, a mercy an undead monster such as yourself does not deserve." Silence reigned again. The Wight did not move. The men present fingered their weapons in silent anxiety, watching him unblinking. Many of them were wondering what the armoured hulk was even thinking about, for he had not made so much as a sound since the initial salvo hit him, an ambush that had caught him alone and unaware, ravaging the surrounding landcape.

Some thought he was planning on who he would kill first. Others thought he was debating what magical weapon to summon from his profane, burning arsenal. Some, dimly, hoped he was considering surrender. But none of them could have guessed, could have dreamed, that the Bloody Wight was... bored. Exhausted. Tired. He stared uphill, eyes somewhat glazed over. How many years has this been going on? He asked himself. How many of these fools have I put in the dirt?

All for Emperor Novos, and we're no closer to taking the continent like he always spoke of. The Wight heaved a sigh, a long and rattling sound that sent steam rising in gouts from the sides of his visor. All these years and nothing to show for it. Just one big line on a map, budging back and forth, with nobody making any real progress. It wasn't what he had been promised. When he had been revived, remade into a revenant, he'd been promised vengeance. Conquest. Power.

Years later, he scarcely had anything beyond his own power. And even vengeance had been denied him. Gods... but he was exhausted.

"Wight!" Lanten bellowed.

"This is your only chance! We shan't allow Novos' monster to live another moment in this world, but your end can still be a merciful one!" Slowly, the Wight stood erect and gave a small flex of his shoulders. The shafts buried in his armour broke and splintered, clattering into the mud at his sides. He summoned his resolve, the blaze of his claymore intensifying into a veritable inferno.

"I give an offer to you, Lanten." His voice, in this state, was a distorted and echoing snarl. He aimed the blade at the wizard, the gathered soldiers flinching away in a mounting horror.

"Lay. On. And damned be he who falls first!" One more fight, he told himself as he took that first step in the squelching mud. The first bolts shattered against his breastplate. Always one more fight. Lanten's eyes took on a silver glow, earth churning and rising beneath his feet at his command. When does it end? The rain fell heavily on the battle-scarred ruin of Pondra Field that evening. Smoke rose in great columns, tarring the sky black as rain fell gently upon the sodden mud.

An army of men lay dead and spread about, their weapons and bodies shattered. At the heart of the battlefield, in a crater that was about four meters deep and sixty across, lay the corpse of Lanten Basque. Scraps of warped, heat-blasted armour were littered about him. Clutched in his hands was the warped wreckage of a knight's helmet, the broken end of a blade poking through his sternum. When the soldiers of the Holy Kingdom of Rhonde came upon this scene, they believed that the Bloody Wight was dead.

That a burst of powerful magic had torn him apart, at the cost of Lanten's life. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Just as the Wight had wished. He had, after all, spent some time staging the entire scene. Only one person had left Pondra Field. A tall and lean human silhouette, pale and russet haired, who stalked through the mud and the rain. His clothing was simple, the white shirt, dark trousers, and boots he wore whenever he wasn't fully transformed.

Anyone who looked upon him, shabby and caked in ash and mud as he was, they'd think him little more than one of the countless refugees to be found in the no man's land between the Novos Empire and the Holy Kingdom of Rhonde. Just what he wanted. The Bloody Wight was dead, and the man who had once worn his armour stalked off into the rainy night in the hopes that he would forever stay that way. Being totally honest, the whole thing was perhaps the most insane and stupid thing I could have done.

But, well, I had simply had enough. Years spent fighting a war on behalf of a mad lich would sap the patience of most any man, and even the anger and thirst for vengeance I had felt was not enough to keep me interested. And being alone on that battlefield, with no other witnesses, gave me a perfect chance to fake my death. When opportunity presents, you have to seize it. Let the Empire and the Kingdom tear themselves apart for all I cared. I just wanted... peace, I suppose. To be different to what I was. To be...

better. But to do that, to have a chance at any of it, I needed to be far from the war, and that wasn't really possible back on Endres. The conflict touched every corner of the continent, after all. I hated Rhonde with a passion, for what they had stolen from me, and refused to hide there on principle, or among the kingdom's ally nations.

To say nothing for the fact that I was one of the most wanted men in the kingdom's history, and the risk of me somehow revealing my powers in their land would render my little stunt totally pointless. And I wanted to be away from the war entirely, not just on the opposite side of the no man's land. Anywhere in Novosia, similarly, would not work as a hiding place. Emperor Novos had eyes and ears in every shadow The only option I really had was to head east. To cross the Veiled Sea, all the way to...

Well I had debated between either Cathaya or the island of Tsukio, and ultimately Tsukio had won the coin toss. It was a good thing I kept hold of the Babel stone Novos had given me a few years ago, it made language much less of a hassle. It was a long trek, taking several days to cross abandoned battlefields and burned out villages.

In my pack I carried only the plunder I'd secretly hoarded over the past few raids, started when the idea of making a break for it had been fresh in my mind, a fat purse of silver coins joined with gems and jewellery. Weren't my riches, but you couldn't start a new life with empty pockets. And, given that I was a revenant, I didn't need to worry about things like eating, drinking, or sleeping. I could simply keep going in perpetuity, so long as I had my abundant reserves of magicka circulating through my body.

Provided I stuck to shadows and avoided the Emperor's patrols. The plan was to get to the coast, where the smuggling gangs of the Shadow Caravan roosted. I could buy passage on one of their boats, or just... take one if I had to. Ideally I could avoid using force. There was little sense in starting a new life by continuing the bad habits of the old. And once I had a boat on my side I could sell some of my plunder, buy some necessities and a stack of the local currency. Beyond that...

I supposed I'd see what happened when I got there. Part of the point of a new life was to cut ties with my old ways, so... I made the hard decision to avoid murder as much as possible. Harder than it sounds, when murder had been my first course of action for years now. At Novos' behest, of course. I walked across a large hill of dull green grass, populated solely by a gnarled old tree that loomed a few heads taller than me.

Just beyond the crest of the hill I could see the lapping waters of the Veiled Sea, where a blanket of grey clouds was rolling in from the distant horizon. It was a long trip over to Tsukio, several days as least if the winds were on my side. I leaned against the tree, glancing over my shoulder to get a final longing look at Yvigros. The place had been my home once. A place I had once loved, with people I had once cared for.

All dead now, taken away by the Old Stranger, my homeland just another territory in the expanse of Novos' domain. I had no ties left to this land beyond nostalgia, another reason to leave it all behind. But the thought still left me feeling hollow. I knew next to nothing about Tsukio, the east and west were divided by more than geography and an unpleasant sea. But... anything was a step up. I committed the image to memory, the rolling hills of grass with stacks of black smoke rising from the horizon.

Then, sighing, I turned to the coast and pressed on. If you followed the sea long enough, you'd find smugglers soon enough. In my old life, before I became the Bloody Wight, I'd been known as Tarion Royce. Not many people knew that, but I know Novos did. And so, when I started my new life, I'd need to do so with a new name. And, fortunately, I had a long boat ride ahead to come up with one. The coastal village of Tiode was, like many of the seaside settlements of Tsukio, a rather unremarkable place at a glance.

The locals lived a modest existence fishing the abundance of fish that populated their sea, while the lands beyond the rim of the houses was dominated by rice paddies owned by some of the more esteemed landowners. Most of the houses and shops dotting the shore were squat buildings with tiled rooftops, and the roads were either dirt tracks or dotted with well-trodden wood planks. Many leagues in the distance there loomed a rocky mountain, the peak shrouded by a perpetual whirlwind of dark clouds.

The presence of that sect was about the only thing that made Tiode stand out even slightly. That day, sunny and tranquil, started out the same as any other. Washerwomen filled their lines, seeking to dry their clothes in the warm breeze, while the fishermen set out on their small boats. Oxen pulled plows in the distant field, while travelling merchants and musicians set up for the day. Few looked up when the foreign boat made for sure.

It looked different to the junks commonly used in the eastern waters, but the people of Tiode were used to trading with foreigners on occasion. Still, as the boat moored, a few heads turned to watch as the portly and bearded captain, the merchant Brazio was something of a regular sight for the villagers, engaged in a hushed conversation with a hooded man who emerged from below deck. Strands of russet hair poked out from his hood, blowing weakly in the breeze.

The stranger, tall and lean, had an air about him that made him stand apart from the shifty-eyed salesmen who visited Tiode's dock. The stranger handed a few coins to the merchant, who sniffed briefly at the little hexagons of silver, and then offered the man a nod while jerking his thumb to a large building that stood apart from the rest of the village in both scale and quality. A three storey building with stark white walls, it's roof covered in sloping blue tiles.

The home of Tiode's local Iudex, the de facto leader of the modest village. Nodding, the stranger and the merchant parted. He made his way down the gangplank and strode calmly upon the joining dock, ignoring the stares he got. The man was huge, even for a westerner, and towered over most of the old men who lingered on the barnacle-strewn walkway. He paused, flicking his dark brown hood down, revealing a bearded and somewhat handsome visage.

His sharp eyes emitted a faint amber glow as he slowly scanned one edge of the village to the other. A smirk slowly spread across his face.

"Yeah," he said in a low, hoarse voice.

"This can work."