CH-01 : The Return Of The Fallen [1]

Cloud Sun Empire, North-eastern Dark Forest.

Amid this forest, a blood-soaked figure slowly woke up from his sleep.

At first, almost nothing was certain, like where was he, what happened to him or more simply, who was he after all?

Alan, who had been awakened by an unknown yet eerily familiar force or presence, couldn't make out head or tails out of the situation he was currently in. 

Where was the Red Sun?

Where was the Bridge of Avalon?

Where was the Eternal Palace?

Where was the Chaos Space Barrier?

Where is the Ninth Hell Legion that maintains the order of the area he was in?

Where was that ever-flowing Stygian river that flows over the land, bending the very rules of space and reality?

And most importantly, where was he?

Looking all around, the only thing he could see was a calm yet cool forest.

A touch of green!

How long had it been? 

A hundred years? A couple of centuries? A millennium? Several such millennia?

He didn't know, nor did he care in the past.

But now...seeing this lush forest sprawled all around him, he couldn't help but feel nostalgic for a moment.

"And there is something else too..."

This was probably the first statement that even came out of his mouth in several eons. He nearly forgot how to speak while residing in such a place before.

As he looked around, he saw some people.

Well, once living people, now dead bodies, bearing various marks... probably the signs of battle that those people had sustained.

If it was any other person, he or she might have noticed those dead people around themselves first, before even looking at the scenario of the forest around them, but Alan was different from them.

Surviving in a place that neither belongs to Hell nor Chaos, he had already become numb and even tired of watching someone's death.

He, himself extracted people's souls in his early years in that place, as a minor worker there, as for exact numbers of such cases - only one word remained, Uncountable.

Thus, the mere sight of being surrounded by dead bodies or the nauseating smell of blood, sweat, and filth was nothing new to him.

He felt too calm in such a situation as if he had returned to his environment after several years.

Such was the dedication of practice!

Practice on Life and Death!

Alan slowly retracted his gaze from his probably once comrades and looked over himself. His clothes were damaged in several places, strained with blood with the most conspicuous mark on the chest where his heart lays. 

"So, I was stabbed in the heart...."

But looking around, one couldn't find any weapons that were used for this kind of killing.

"So, professional killers came particularly for me....and these people." He looked at those fallen comrades of him once more before uttering the next words, "...died in the crossfire."

Of course, their life or death didn't matter to him. Still, he was in a quite different mood after understanding that these people probably died to save him from those attackers who were out for his life.

"Quite a group of faithful people..."

He counted the numbers that lay before him.

A total of seven people. There are also some different types of blood-stained on the grasses. If it was someone else, they might not have noticed that at all, but for him, it was inconsequential. 

He closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled the air from the surroundings. Those lifeless air particles, now suddenly became full of life and soon formed a nearly endless stream, entering his body and coming out in a repeated fashion.

After a total of eight seconds, Alan opened his eyes again. With the help of the surrounding environment, he had already made a general deduction. Three attackers fell here, two of them died on the spot and the last one was severely injured but escorted out by his teammates. Quite a good co-ordination they had.

He sighed in pity as those people would never know that they actually failed to kill the subject they were after.

As for why they wanted to kill him? Or who was he in this world?

At first, just after waking up his thoughts were a mess, jumbled upon each other. But ultimately he was a life-form that had seen the Heavens and Hell, the fall of Gods and the rise of Demons...some trivial memory fragments didn't bother him like the other protagonists of the world, who would cry, convulse, or even faint at such an impact.

While looking at his dead comrades and later breathing in and out, he had already sorted over the memories of this body and also of his life...probably his previous life.

And ultimately what he found, he could say that surprised him quite a bit.

Of course, it was only a bit.

If it was before, he might have been shell-shocked, rooted at the spot while thinking about the meaning of life and contemplating it over a day...but now, such practices were unnecessary, time-consuming and most importantly, worthless in his eyes.

With a soft sigh, he muttered those words that chilled the hearts of the forest spirits and rooted them on the spot like lifeless statues that were keeping an eye on this mysterious fellow, who suddenly came back from death.

"...So, I have returned. What a surprise....River Styx....Lady #****#..."

His words became more and more incomprehensible as he continued to mumble those words that lay dormant in his heart, probably for eons, without seeing the light of the outside world. 

The whole forest came to a standstill, became calmly eerie, and nearly choked the hunters and prey that were running through or resting in the different parts of this Dark Forest.

Living beings were trembling in fear, trees and vines collapsed due to shock, Forest Spirits felt their blood went cold and the Heart of the Forest became increasingly gloomy, eeriness and darkness spreading all around in such a rapid manner that were visible to the naked eyes.

And as for humans, who were in this forest for different reasons, such as hunting, scouting, military intelligence, and so on?

All of them felt only one word in their remaining trembling and collapsing consciousness. 

Death!

For the first time in their life, they felt death.

They saw death!

They realized death!

Even those powerful people, who had fought several battles, participated in wars, and braced death on the battlefield in a valiant manner before, were now trembling, shaking continuously as if their remaining spirits and consciousness were ebbing away, and they were slowly devoured without even a chance to fight back.

And they understood very well, that even if they were given a chance to fight back, they wouldn't be able to lift a single finger.

Fighting?

Forget it.

---

The Night Hawk Division, one of the most prestigious Intelligence Departments in the Empire of Cloud Sun had stationed some of their elites in this forest. After all, this forest was one of the natural barriers between their Empire and its sister Empire, the Great Sun Empire.

Once, these two Empires weren't divided by borders, but were a single, massive entity, shaking the continent with its might. But after the death of the last Great Emperor nearly seventy years ago, the mighty Empire split apart. Heirs of the Great Emperor fought fiercely, bathing everything and everyone in blood and finally only two people emerged as victorious.

The First Prince and the Third Princess.

As for the remaining eighteen direct lineage heirs and numerous other probable heirs died an untimely and unjust death. Some were killed in battle, some were killed during ascension and most of them were assassinated, thus eliminating them from the greater picture. 

The First Prince, who was already declared as the Crown Prince at the time when the last Great Emperor was still alive, finally decided to break the mighty Empire into two parts. It was not that he was scared or defeated, he also understood after their death, once again the people of the Empire would suffer...and it would be much more tragic than what happened during their time.

The ambitious Third Princess, who understood forcibly defeating her elder brother would deplete her strength too much and she might not be able to rule her domain at all, before being killed or worse by some Warlord or rebels, also relented and took a step back, tactfully agreeing to her elder brother's condition of a division of the Empire to prevent further chaos and meaningless warfare and death.

After all, resources mattered to the Royals, no matter who ruled. Why would they still fight when there is a chance to step back and plan for the future?

Thus, the fighting ceased and the once mighty Empire was divided, along several natural and man-made barriers.

Thus, two separate Imperial Families emerged in two domains. While the vibrant Crown Prince took over the southern part of the previous Empire, the Ice Princess established her dominion over the North.

The vibrant South and the howling North.

For nearly five years, peace existed between the two newly emerged Empires, and no other power decided to challenge them during this time. Until a certain event happened that changed the future of Erodia once more in an uncertain direction.