Chapter 1: Chapter 0: The End
The walls of the castle were crumbling down but yet, Lord Coda refused to step away from his throne.
"Lord! We have to evacuate this place! The Sovrins will devour us if we don't!"
Coda swatted the words of his advisor away and walked towards his balcony that oversaw his country. Beams of light flashed across the landscape while blazing infernos rained down from the sky. Tornadoes spiralled around the city eating up every building in its way.
At the main city gate, he saw a swarm of white haired Sovrins spill into the empire, spraying bullets of light at every Cessian they saw.
"The end of the Cessiars reign has come. We have nothing to challenge the Sovrins with." There was not a single flicker of determination in his eyes.
"However, as the Lord of Cessair, I will not go down without a fight." Coda smiled meekly at his advisor, a single tear rolling down his face.
A deep, menacing laugh echoed throughout the city. A skinny, pale and frail-looking figure was seen levitating above the city. Its bright yellow eyes radiated an intense, almost blinding light before it raised its palm and yelled, "DOMINANCE!!"
Coda rubbed his eyes and saw the figure's citrine ring glimmer in the sunlight and its white hair billowing in the tempest around them. A flood of rage overwhelmed Coda as he realised who was leading the intruders into his land.
"KORE! YOU DARE STEP FOOT INTO MY LAND?"
Before Coda could finish his sentence, he witnessed half of his land completely annihilated in a single second as a large invincible force unrelentingly reduced half of his population to dust. Coda howled. Everything around him immediately turned into ice. He snatched his falchion off its display and charged into the sky, challenging Kore in a battle of brute force. Despite his efforts, it was completely useless. The magic barrier formed around Kore deflected every slash and stab Coda attacked with.
With a flick of its finger, Kore yelled, "CRUSH!"
In a second, Coda was sent plummeting to the ground, slamming face down into the ground.
[Coda's POV]
For a moment, everything was silent for me. With my face glued to the ground, I calmed myself down for a minute. I thought to myself, what was the point of fighting anymore? Kore is too powerful. Half of my species are dead. A Lord, unable to protect his own? I'm useless. I contemplated playing dead, to escape my inevitable death but the memories of my time serving as the Cessian Lord would not leave my mind. I slowly struggled to stand back up. An excruciating pain shot through my body from my legs. My right leg had been rendered completely useless.
I looked up into the sky and saw Kore's revolting face grinning evilly from ear to ear. I don't know if it was anger or pride that got the better of me, but something pushed me to unleash my last stand.
I harnessed all the Pure Anima in the vicinity and in my body and let it coat my body. I chanted, "Permafrost Aegis!" Immediately, all the Pure Anima transformed into the strongest armour in all of Upper Earth. My falchion became the sharpest and coldest blade in all of the world. I glared at Kore, before bellowing my loudest battle cry ever and charging straight at him. Kore raised two fingers up in the air before whispering, "Shatter."
My strongest skill, the ability I honed endlessly for the past 50 years as a Lord, was completely useless against the Sovrin King. My armour and sword shattered into particles
I knelt on the ground, crystal tears dripping down my cheeks as I glanced around my land. The once majestic, bustling country, turned into a desolate wasteland in less than 10 minutes. Kore, still levitating in mid-air, pushed his two palms together before he chanted, "EXILE!" I laid on the ground, my shattered falchion in my right palm, my crown grasped within my left and a single frozen tear sitting below my right eye. Everything in my body hurt like crazy, I thought I was going to die.
The last thing I saw before I was knocked out was the bodies of the Cessian citizens slowly dematerializing and a wave of light enveloping the country
[POV end]
[10 years later]
Coda jolted awake. His eyes darted around the room as it slowly but surely adjusted to the dense darkness. Everything around him seemed to be belonging to a laboratory of some sort. Coda was almost completely naked, the only thing protecting his dignity was a dirty loincloth. He seemed to be enclosed in a glass incubator with a bunch of tubes attached to his body.
All of sudden, sirens started blaring and the lights of the lab switched on. 5 Cessian scientists barged into the lab and started fiddling with the technology around the incubator. After a loud hiss, the incubator opened up and Coda sat up and glanced around the room.
"How long have I been asleep for?" Coda enquired.
"Over 10 years."
Coda was in shock. He stepped out from the incubator and walked to the window where a completely new landscape greeted him. The Cessair Empire that he was so used to seeing outside of his castle window was not what he saw, instead, he saw a city full of poor infrastructure and ruins. Being extremely puzzled, Coda proceeded to interrogate the Cessian scientists. As the scientists explained the current situation of Cessair to Coda, he put on his clothes and they made their way to the Castle Ruins.
From what the scientists said, Coda understood that the Sovrins completely blocked the Anima pools of all Cessians, which were the main source of magic, ever since the start of the Sovrin Monarchy. The Cessian Empire was also banished to their land and the whole empire was sealed in the Perpetual Seal, which was a seal made after the 300 year Sovrin research on binding magic. Even after 10 years, the Cessian people had barely any clues as to how they would be able to harness any form of power ever again. The Cessiar Empire could never develop because it was run by the means of an Anarchy, where there was no ruler and no laws in the empire, solely because the people believed no one else other than Coda himself was able to lead the empire.
Coda and the scientists arrived at the castle where they saw the crown of the Lord sitting perfectly on the Throne, amongst all the rubble and dust. Coda smirked at the thought of leading his country once again. In his heart, he vowed to never let his species down ever again. He approached the throne and placed the crown on his head.
Ever since then, Coda lead the Cessiar Empire to its peak, after discovering the hidden power source Shadow, using Shadow to break the Perpetual Seal and subsequently invading the Sovrins who were living peacefully in the amalgamation of Upper Earth, where the Cessiar Empire used to reside and Utopia, where the Sovrins originated from. This amalgamation of Upper Earth and Utopia was named Idyll by the Sovrins but their "Idyll" was destroyed by the invasion of the Cessians, also known as "The Break" in history books, to be remembered for multiple millennia.
[Present]
The snap of the hardcover textbook closing jolted Diral up from his deep nap, he wiped his drool off his cheek and felt a chill run down his spine as he saw Professor Tegwen staring daggers at him. Diral immediately sat up straight with his arms politely folded over his desk.
"I wonder how much Mr. Bottom Feeder over here learned today... Isn't everyone else here curious? Since you're so smart, sleeping during my lessons, would you care to enlighten me on the elements that Shadow allows Cressians to manipulate? " Professor Tegwen sneered, inciting scornful laughter from the rest of the class as he waved his cane at me.
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