[Chapter Size: 2200 Words.]
Third Person POV
Unknown Place.
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The darkness soon began to take new forms, and Severus found himself in a place that had absolutely nothing to do with the planet he had been living on.
The ground had a dark purple hue, as if it were made of crystallized shadow, while the sky was filled with red clouds that seemed to bleed light, with two suns shining through a greenish atmosphere.
Even the gravity had been slightly altered from what he was used to feeling in his world.
That world screamed in all directions that he was on another planet and no longer on Earth.
Severus felt his body once again; he could move, breathe, walk around the place.
"Was I teleported by that angel statue?" he muttered, frustrated by the idea of having been thrown somewhere unknown, far from Earth, and all he could see was an immense desert in front of him.
Worried, he tried to summon his shadows — but nothing happened. His powers were sealed.
The place seemed like an infinite desert with nothing but hard ground, the world completely silent, until something changed.
Suddenly, portals began to appear on the horizon. Severus widened his eyes when creatures began to emerge right after, passing through the mana walls with dimensional and spatial magic.
They were jungle-type monsters on one side — some he had faced before, but many others were completely unknown. Creatures of the jungles, colossal and small beasts, with growls ready to kill, there were many…
And on the other side, there was a type of monster Severus knew even better after fighting thousands of them — demons. Many demons, the same types he had faced in the Demonic Castle.
"There are so many…" Severus murmured, his expression immediately tense.
There were at least two hundred thousand of those creatures. A force of that magnitude, if sent to Earth, would destroy the entire planet, devastating it and exterminating humanity completely.
Severus tried to summon his blades immediately, but again nothing responded. Even the system seemed inactive, its most basic functions wiped out.
"What is this now?" he complained, trying to conjure anything. He tried to open his inventory. Nothing.
When he looked again at the army, he noticed something curious: The creatures were coming in his direction… but not because of him.
They didn't even see him there.
"Okay… is this real or is it a vision?" he asked himself, watching the first rows pass through him as if he were invisible.
He scratched his head in confusion, then climbed a nearby hill to get a better view of that sea of marching monsters.
He watched for about ten minutes as the armies of beasts and demons continued their march when, suddenly, the sky began to open on the opposite side of the planet. His eyes widened as he saw winged creatures appear with spears, swords, and shields through the portals. They were coming from golden portals that opened in the sky.
"Wait… is that the Rulers' army…?" he said, stunned.
He had heard stories about the Rulers' army — the one used in the war against the Monarchs thousands of years ago.
'That means this is a battle that happened a long time ago!' he quickly concluded.
An army formed by winged beings, similar to angels, created in the image of the Rulers themselves.
And they were not just a few. There were hundreds of thousands, matching the enemy.
No, they were even more numerous than the army of monsters.
The armies of beasts and demons stopped, and the army of angels simply watched from the other side of the field.
This lasted for some time. Severus was convinced that it was some kind of vision now, since neither side seemed to notice his presence there, and he wondered why he was seeing that.
Then it began.
Both armies charged at one another, while the angels descended from the sky like fierce warriors, diving at the enemies below. A massacre began — a true war on a scale Severus had never witnessed, even in his life as a guardian, he had never seen anything like it.
It was beyond anything his capabilities could imagine.
He observed from there, motionless, while death dominated the battlefield with the sound of screams, growls, and blades clashing against one another as the flesh of both sides was pierced. Blood painted the purple ground, turning it into pure red.
However, amid the chaos, only one side was winning.
The winged creatures were destroying the entire army of demons and beasts. It was an unfair war — a one-sided massacre.
When it ended, the army of monsters had been completely defeated. Severus opened a satisfied smile; as a Guardian, he naturally rooted for the Rulers. He felt privileged to witness one of the legendary battles of the past, thousands of years before the Order even came to be.
However, something changed on the battlefield.
Severus stared at the last creatures trying to flee when a black shadow began to spread at one point on the ground. A knight emerged, mounted on a horse wrapped in living shadows, like dark flames that dimmed even the brilliance of the two suns hanging in the sky. It was as if the light itself was being devoured by that being's darkness.
Severus immediately felt his connection with him.
The Shadow Monarch.
The true monarch of the past was there, right in front of him.
The entire battlefield plunged into silence. Surviving beasts and demons, even the winged creatures, looked at the newcomer with pure fear. Even alone, just the gesture of raising his hand seemed to change the atmosphere around completely.
"Arise."
When he spoke those words, the world was plunged into darkness.
All the dead began to rise, emitting colossal shadows that rose like pillars of darkness. Suddenly, thousands of warriors appeared, turning the battlefield into a sea of shadows. All the fallen beasts and demons, all the angels brought down, rose in shadowy forms and knelt before the creature mounted on the black horse.
In the next instant, the war turned.
Now it was the living angels being massacred by the shadows, one after another.
Severus watched everything from a distant hill, feeling a strong impact in his chest — a heartbeat, deep and powerful — ever since the Shadow Monarch had appeared on the battlefield, as if his body were tense and responding to it.
And now, before his eyes, he witnessed the massacre carried out by the true owner of the powers he had borrowed. The Shadow Monarch dominated the field completely, while more and more shadows emerged as he eliminated each living angel.
Eventually, the army of angels fell into despair.
They began to flee.
All of them.
The entire army had been destroyed, and Severus could feel their fear — fear of that dark creature, overwhelmingly terrifying and with powers that shaped death itself: this was the Shadow Monarch.
Severus watched them for a while, while his heart beat faster and faster.
That was the being from whom he had inherited his powers.
Compared to him, Severus was nothing — not right now.
That made him hesitate for a moment.
He had finally found something against which he knew he had no chance.
"Are all the Monarchs like this…? Or is it just this one… just him… who makes me feel so powerless?" he murmured, with a tightness in his chest and his heart racing.
It was a feeling he tried to push away.
He couldn't allow himself to be shaken by a vision.
The Shadow Monarch there was nothing but an illusion, a frozen fragment of the past.
Even so… his heart did not calm down.
And then he realized why.
When he placed his hand over his chest, he noticed something absurd.
The discomfort from the beating was not coming from the left side — but from the right.
He felt something pulsing there.
Pulsing strongly and constantly.
Steady.
Alive.
Severus widened his eyes, completely overtaken by the revelation.
There was no doubt.
There was another heart in his chest.
On the left side, his normal heart.
On the right side… another beat.
"Two… hearts…?" he murmured, stunned.
Before he could think further, an explosion echoed in the distance.
Severus immediately lifted his gaze.
The army of winged creatures had scattered, retreating.
But new portals began to open — enormous portals, warping the sky.
From them emerged new creatures, the same monsters, but some of them even more powerful.
And then Severus saw them.
The Demon Monarch — Baran.
And the Beast Monarch — a colossal creature with thick skin and wild eyes.
"They… two monarchs…" Severus whispered, recognizing them immediately due to their overwhelming presence.
Both advanced with their armies, surrounding Ashborn's army of shadows.
"What are they doing…?" Severus wondered, trying to ignore for a moment the absurd fact that he might have two hearts.
He knew they were saying something to each other — but he was too far — and he clearly saw the moment the two Monarchs attacked the Shadow Monarch in the next instant.
They betrayed him. "They betrayed him…," he murmured, feeling his heart — hearts — race even faster.
A new war began.
Now, Monarchs against Monarch.
But soon Baran and the Beast Monarch realized it would not be so simple.
Their confidence began to crumble when their legions started being destroyed one by one, swallowed by the black shadows that grew endlessly, increasing as the battle went on.
The contrast was brutal.
The Shadow Monarch's army only grew.
Theirs diminished.
And soon, the inevitable happened.
They retreated.
The Demon Monarch lost an arm.
The Beast Monarch was gravely wounded.
With no other choice, they opened portals and fled — together.
Everything happened so fast that Severus could barely follow it.
He simply stood there on the hill, watching the battlefield as a sea of corpses — of angels, demons, beasts, shadows, and monsters of all kinds.
But the shadows were still moving. They finished eliminating the last survivors. And then, slowly, they began to fade, returning to the ground…
Returning to that single being standing at the center of the devastated field. The Shadow Monarch.
Severus did not know the reason for the betrayal among the monarchs, but even from afar… he could feel it.
His power was immeasurable.
But his aura…
His aura felt sad.
Melancholic.
Lonely.
As if after all the carnage and glory… he had gained nothing.
He was speechless, but his eyes widened when, suddenly, the Shadow Monarch lifted his gaze — and seemed to look directly at him, as if his eyes pierced through the vision and found Severus's soul from a future far beyond those events.
Instinctively, Severus almost took a step back.
His heart seemed to beat even stronger, and the one on the right side pulsed violently, almost painfully. He couldn't look away. The Monarch stared at him with that heavy, sad, lonely gaze… as if he carried the weight of entire eras. As if he no longer wished to be there.
"What is this…? This is a vision… how can he see me…?" Severus whispered to himself, breathing quickly.
Why did that being seem sad?
Was it because of the betrayal?
Severus understood nothing.
The war had never been a fully explained topic by the Order. All they told him was that the Rulers created the Order after defeating the Monarchs and sealing them within the rings, and that the duty of the new Order was to protect this power… they left instructions, but also many vague details about the history of that era of wars.
There was nothing about this war here on this planet. Nothing about the betrayal. Nothing about the monarch's sorrow.
Severus couldn't think much, because in the sky, suddenly, portals once again began to open.
Severus looked away from the monarch — and so did the Shadow Monarch.
New winged creatures appeared.
But these… were different.
He swallowed hard when he realized who they were. They were the Rulers. The true ones. Such a powerful aura emanated from them that even the air seemed to tremble.
They began to descend from the sky, going directly toward the Shadow Monarch, surrounding him. And it seemed they were about to start a new confrontation… then… before his eyes, they knelt around the Shadow Monarch.
The Shadow Monarch remained still, silent, his body wrapped in darkness that moved like flames, the only thing in him that moved — and still with that sad expression on his face.
The vision began to break apart at that exact moment.
Like shattering glass.
Severus understood nothing.
Why were the Rulers kneeling before him?
Why had he been betrayed by the other Monarchs?
Why did his gaze carry so much pain and loneliness?
And why… why had he looked at Severus that way?
And no less important… why did he now have two hearts beating inside his chest!?
All these questions echoed in his mind as the darkness returned.
Just as he had been brought into that vision, Severus was swallowed by the shadows — and lost consciousness.
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