The Great Cosmic Continent of Sagittarius had become like a world drenched in blood and ruin.
Once the seat of the Dark Beings, now it was a shattered battlefield where two titanic factions clashed ceaselessly as if Life and Death themselves were locked in a war of attrition.
It had been over a hundred years since more than half of the Ghost Race had been annihilated, and then the fall of the Fiend Race, a calamity so abrupt and total that the entire Legendary Plains had taken notice. The Evil Domain, once a festering wound of despair ruled by Underwood and his kind, had been completely purged of Fiendish life.
None knew how it happened—rumors ranged from Divine intervention, to forbidden artifacts, to betrayal within the Fiends’ ranks. Whatever the truth, their annihilation left a vacuum that the Life Faction had eagerly filled.
Now the Evil Domain blazed with emerald radiance. Fields once blackened and scarred were reshaped into lush bastions of life. Colossal trees, infused with sacred runes, spread their roots across the charred earth, purifying it inch by inch. Shrines, citadels, and healing groves replaced the infernal pits of old, transforming the heart of despair into the forward bastion of the Life Faction’s conquest.
But the Dead Faction had not fallen. They had bled, they had retreated, but they had not broken. With the Fiends gone, and the Ghost Race decimated from their own civil madness, the Vampire Race rose unchallenged as the spearhead of the Dead.
Their castles of crimson stone, once symbols of isolated pride, had now become the bulwarks of survival. The other races bent the knee—not out of loyalty, but necessity.
The Blood Doom King now ruled the Dead Faction, and the Vampire Race’s ambition of unification was achieved at last, though at the cost of unimaginable loss.
But the war still raged.
From the skies above Sagittarius, the continent was a patchwork scar: half pulsing with verdant emerald light of the Life Faction, half shrouded in dusk of the Dead Faction. Armies clashed endlessly at the borders where life’s brilliance met death’s decay.
The Life Faction marched under banners of vitality and order, their ranks swelled by brilliant elements, beasts of pure light, and war-constructs. Their generals sought to seize the moment of weakness after the Fiends’ destruction, hoping to crush death once and for all and reclaim the continent, giving another massive blow to the Dead Faction.
The Dead Faction, however, stood unyielding. Where life surged, death answered in kind. The Blood Doom King summoned legions of bloodspawn and night riders.
The remnants of the Ghost Race haunted the skies as spectral warbands, their screams turning brave warriors into hollow husks. Dark mercenaries and assassins, drawn to the wealth and promises of the Dead, spilled into the frontline from across the Legendary Plains.
Yet it still wasn’t easy to keep the Dead from collapsing, for behind the Life Faction stood three giants, with all of their powers intact, that even in the Dead Faction’s heydays, they had trodden carefully.
The Alchemy Guild, weaving poisons and restorative elixirs that tipped countless battles. The Zodiac Warrior Alliance, their unrestrained champions, breaking sieges and slaying generals. The Universal Zodiac Bank, funding the war effort with limitless wealth and mercenaries!
Together, they nearly brought the Dead Faction to collapse. But just when Dead Faction was about to relocate and flee the continent, aid came from the shadows.
The Champion King, whose motives remained still a mystery, appeared like a phantom, turning certain defeat into brutal stalemates together with the infamous Star Pirates, who answered to no one but him, and wreaked havoc upon the Life Faction’s supply lines, ensuring their advance never lasted long.
Now, after a century of endless slaughter, the two factions had reached a bitter equilibrium. Half of Sagittarius belonged to the Life Faction, while the other half remained under the Dead.
But this was not peace. The tension grew with every passing day, the soil of Sagittarius drinking the blood of millions.
The Life Faction wanted complete dominion. The Dead sought survival and resurgence, and above them all, unseen but undeniable, the prying eyes of the Neutral Faction watched with cruel anticipation.
The continent was a battlefield, yes, but it had become something more like a proving ground, where the victors would not only claim Sagittarius but possibly change the very balance of the Legendary Plains.
At this moment, the Castle of Crimson Dusk, once a fortress drenched in the blood of countless enemies, now stood as the indomitable heart of the Dead Faction.
Its towering spires were forged from obsidian and bloodstone, radiating a faint, ominous glow that could be seen from leagues away. Rivers of scarlet mist flowed through its walls like veins, and every corner of the structure pulsed with protective enchantments of blood and death.
The air around the fortress was thick with spectral wails and the rustling of countless wings—legions of vampiric bats and soul-bound spirits patrolled the skies while armored revenants and vampire knights stood like statues at the ground gates.
Every entrance was layered with formations, glowing with crimson runes that shimmered faintly against the eternal twilight hanging over the castle.
Within the innermost sanctum of the castle, in the Throne Hall of Blood, the heavy air trembled with malice.
Gathered were the Legendary Kings of the Dead Faction. Each sat upon a smaller throne of blackened stone or floated cross-legged, their mere presence making the chamber quiver.
The dense killing intent they exuded was suffocating, the air sharp and metallic like freshly spilled blood. Their auras overlapped, filled with shadows of endless wars and slaughter—baleful, oppressive, unyielding.
Some radiated bone-chilling cold, their bodies cloaked in necrotic mist. Others pulsed with crimson blood force, their veins glowing faintly beneath their pale skin. There were skeletal monarchs, ghastly liches, vampire counts, death knights—all radiating an authority born from endless wars with the Life Faction.
At the far end of the hall, upon the throne carved of black bone and drenched in blood crystal, sat the ruler of them all—Wilbur Val Doom, the Blood Doom King.
His once-majestic robes hung heavily as if darkened by stains of both blood and fatigue. Though his regal figure still towered above all, there was a certain pallor about him now—a faint weariness, as if even a bloody predator could not escape the toll of unending war.
His face was slightly haggard, his breath heavy, yet when his crimson eyes opened, they burned like two molten pits of blood. Those eyes alone silenced the hall.
Even the most bloodthirsty of the Legendary Kings dared not meet them directly, for the crimson gaze of the Blood Doom King was sharper than any blade and more intoxicating than the most forbidden poison.
The Blood Doom King slowly rested his chin against his pale hand, his long, clawed fingers tapping against the armrest of the throne. His presence was both regal and terrifying, as if death itself sat upon the throne, judging every being before him.
The atmosphere was suffocating, all watching, waiting, their killing intent boiling, ready to erupt, and yet, all of them remained silent.
Because when the Blood Doom King’s gaze swept across the chamber, no one wished to be the first to speak as they all secretly glanced at the empty throne that stood beside the Blood Doom King.
At this moment, the Blood Doom King’s icy voice filled with irritation fell, "Can anyone tell me where the Champion King has run off to?!"