There was a branch of the merchant association in the County. It was a circular building of a pristine white color, quite showy but pretty old. It was built many years ago, but it was properly maintained over the years, and thus it retained its original shape. It didn’t need to undergo renovation as it was unique the way it was.
Many lockers could be found inside. Standing before one of them was Delilah.
The idea of storing everything precious in one’s inter-spatial ring has never been to her liking.
Wouldn’t everything be stolen by the person who killed them?
That’s why she liked to deposit her things in secure places like this one with wills that state who they should be given to if one day she suddenly died.
“Click!” This was the sound of a valued customer’s private locker opening.
She pulled out a black briefcase from it, which was quite heavy as it was full of gold, but because she was a strong woman, it wasn’t hard for her to hold and walk with it.
Like an assassin, Delilah walked into the house eight streets away from the Count’s Manor. Her footsteps were inaudible. No one in the house noticed when she entered or acknowledged her presence. This was reflexive and unintentional of her..
An elderly lady was sitting by the fireplace. Kids of different ages surrounded her. There was a book in her hand. She was recounting a famous story to them in a wizened voice.
The legendary master of six shadows, Ninam, confronted the Undead King of Agony at the place now known as the Northern Frontier.
The undead, Agony, believed itself to be superior and engaged Ninam and his shadows in a duel while leaving the soldiers of the five kingdoms to its army of skeletons.
The undead, Agony, was quickly proven wrong as Ninam cornered it and landed a fatal blow on its source of existence.
It could feel its end approaching from the darkness, but it was unwilling to be felled like that.
Thus, it called upon the power to end all things.
Meteorites the size of a County blasted out of the clouds overhead and threatened to end all lives.
Everyone forgot to breathe at that moment.
Death was but a moment away.
The soldiers thought that it was impossible to survive the calamity descending on them; hope left their hearts, and their eyes dimmed down.
Dread filled the air.
Agony chuckled evilly, “This grand king won’t be dying alone. A few billion will be buried with me. What you tried to protect will all come to an end today. You’ve got no hope of surviving this. I will be bringing you all down to hell with me.”
“All hope is lost, you say? You’re about to be proven wrong. The seventh song: Darkness that ends Agony and gives birth to Hope!”
The master of six shadows swung his sword upwards. High waves of darkness stretched out of the ground. The shadows of people, trees, leaves, buildings, and the entire world moved to confront the stones of the calamity in the sky.
Darkness swallowed them all, putting an end to Agony’s master plan.
The sky cleared up.
Rays of light fell.
The eyes of ten hundred thousand warriors brightened up.
The soldiers roared and fought the skeletons more vigorously.
And Ninam and his six shadows pushed their swords into Agony’s source of existence.
“I never thought I’d suffer defeat at the hands of the very race I consider inferior. “
The fire in Agony’s eye sockets was no longer as strong as before. They were pale red.
“You promote despair, while we always hope for a better life and keep moving forward until we achieve it. How can a heartless marauder like you, who have never tasted hope, win against us, who struggle against fate all the time and go against all odds to grasp what we hoped for?”
Ninam was just a child when Agony’s minions ravaged his village and killed his friends, family, and lover.
But now, years later, here he was oppressing the oppressors.
Agony chuckled at his words.
“This will not be the last you see of us, mortals! In what remains of the Far West, the crimson winds will howl. Death shall open its eyes. Two blood-red moons will appear in the sky. You may have defeated me, master of six shadows, but at what cost? You shall fall here with me. That’s the price of averting the first calamity. Without you, how will they survive the next two?”
Ninam had a refined reply to even that. He knew that he would die because of killing Agony.
“I might be like a spark that appeared in the darkest of times and will go away with it. But isn’t it all that is needed to set a forest ablaze? Look around you; you will only find hopeful men. They once lived in terror of you. It only took me to make them take arms against you. Come what may, darkness or calamities, my people will find a way to overcome them all the same. I am leaving them with my will and my stone of heaven. At the hand of its holder, the crimson winds will die out. Death will be blinded. And The crimson moons will be slayed!”
Agony took in the view of its surroundings and saw that the people whose will it had crushed were now taking down its army of undead fearlessly.
It laughed like a madman and shouted.
“You haven’t stared death in the eyes. You don’t understand its might. That’s why you use such ignorant words so fearlessly. Listen! Listen to me, mortals. These are my last words! Death is the mightiest of all existence. Once it descends upon this land, all shall die. Only the end of all will remain eternal!”
Those truly became Agony’s last words, for it died right after saying that.
The curse for killing it fell on Ninam.
He was cut in and out a million times and was bloodied from head to toe, but he didn’t tilt nor stumble and remained standing upright.
The illusion that he, who was shouldering a crumbling sky, had become a pillar that supported heaven was presented to the onlookers.