Elarion, Year 742 of the Silver Eclipse
Location: Southern edge of Arkael'Tor, Beastkin Village of Deren'Val
The forest was alive with song.
Chirping insects. Whispering wind. A pair of deerkin children laughing as they danced through sunbeams. Every leaf shimmered in the golden afternoon, and the warm air carried the scent of earth, fruit, and a thousand blooming petals.
To Loid, it was home.
The young boy — human by blood, beastkin by heart — sat by the river's bend with a fishing rod made from bone and vine. His amber eyes reflected the rippling water as he hummed a lullaby taught to him by Elder Faen, the foxkin herbalist who raised him like a grandson.
Behind him, the village bustled with quiet life. Stone huts with moss-covered roofs. Beasts resting beside their masters. Children leaping between tree roots that pulsed faintly with the old forest's magic. Deren'Val was a place untouched by war or cruelty.
A place where monsters and people laughed together.
A place about to die.
The skies didn't darken first. There was no warning. No thunder or omen.
Only the sharp blast of a war horn — cold, metallic, and utterly foreign to the forest.
Then came the fire.
Arrows rained down like the wrath of gods. Homes burst into flames. Screams tore through the village. Children crying. Mothers wailing. Fathers howling in pain. The peace shattered in a heartbeat.
Loid dropped his fishing rod and ran.
"Elder Faen!" he screamed, sprinting through the smoke.
He passed a minotaur with a spear in his chest, still trying to crawl toward his dying mate. A drakon child covered in blood. Trees groaning as fire licked their trunks. Bodies. So many bodies.
He found Faen outside her hut — arrow through her gut, blood bubbling on her lips.
"L-Loid…" she gasped. "Run, child. Go… to the Heart… the altar…"
"I won't leave you!"
She coughed, grabbed his hand with bloodied claws. "You are… human. They'll spare you. That's why they came. They knew…"
Behind him, the sounds grew louder. Clanking steel. Orders barked. Human voices.
"Purge them all. No exceptions."
Loid looked over his shoulder and saw them.
Imperial soldiers — clad in dark steel, their tabards marked by a white dragon crest — marching in with swords drawn. Behind them, fire mages hurled waves of flame. A beastkin warrior lunged forward, only to be skewered and tossed aside like garbage.
"Monster scum," one of the soldiers muttered, stepping over a burning corpse.
Loid stood frozen.
They walked right past him.
One glanced at him and paused. His brow furrowed beneath his helmet.
"This one's… human?"
The squad leader grunted. "Leave him. He's not one of them."
"He lived among them," the soldier argued.
"Doesn't matter. Orders say only monsters die today. Keep moving."
And just like that, they passed him.
Loid stood alone in the ruin of his world, smoke swirling around him as Deren'Val collapsed.
He screamed. Not in fear. Not in grief.
In rage.
That night, he didn't bury the bodies. He couldn't. There were too many. Instead, he crawled deep into the forest, past the barrier stones the Elders warned never to cross. Through the whispering thorns, across glowing roots, and toward a presence that called to him.
It wasn't light. It wasn't dark. It was power — old and waiting.
And there, deep within the heart of Arkael'Tor, he found the altar.
Stone carved with ancient symbols. Vines wrapped like veins. A crystal pulsing in the center — half-buried, glowing like the core of a star.
When he touched it, the world changed.
The monsters awoke.
The ground trembled.
The altar cracked open.
And Loid's Core awakened — not as Water, Fire, or Earth…
But something nameless.
He collapsed, gasping, his hand still pressed against the altar's broken heart.
The Core's pulse faded into his chest. His vision blurred.
Then… they came.
From the trees. The shadows. The earth itself.
Goblins, creeping from the roots, eyes glowing with eerie green light.
Wolves, lean and silent, circling protectively as if he were their alpha.
A towering Ogre, covered in moss and tribal paint, knelt with a heavy thud.
Orcs, armed with rusted axes and bone armor, lowered their weapons and bowed.
A Lizardman, scales glistening, slithered forward and touched his clawed hand to his chest.
And then… one more.
A figure stepped into the clearing.
Human in shape. But something deeper stirred behind the illusion.
Golden eyes. Hair white as ash. A presence that made the air bend around her.
She smiled faintly and spoke in a voice that was both old and soft:
"You are the one the forest chose."
Then her illusion flickered — and wings of obsidian flame spread from her back.
A dragon, veiled in a human form, knelt before him.
And in that moment, beneath the shattered stars of a burning world, a boy became something more.
A survivor became a sovereign.
A marked outcast became the God of Monsters.
And the Empire would burn.