PROLOGUE

Illuna Castle - The Throne Room 

"Secure the exits! Forfeit your very lives if you must, but don't you dare let him escape!" 

A commanding voice resonated throughout the halls as the Holy Inquisitor's army surrounded the golden walls of Illuna. 

Caught in the center of it all was a man, prone to the floor, forehead covered in blood, staining his long silky ash hair to spots of crimson; as he struggles to catch his breathe.

He is pondering how much he has left to live, if he's to miraculously escape from what is undoubtedly a desperate situation. 

Despite clearly at a disadvantage, the soldiers kept a safe distance, staying a fair way out of reach as they focused their entire attention on him. He cuts a smile on his face that betrays his current predicament. 

Then footsteps approached the room from below, it was the commander, a female holy paladin, wielding a large spear that was cracked, and a broken platinum shield.

Her armor was roughed up in many areas as she met up with the rest of her batallion, and then to the person in front of her.

She's been through a fierce battle, and the one she currently examines, is the likely culprit. 

"Why, if it isn't Saint Yulin, the unyielding paladin of the holy kingdom of Malecia. Your commanding voice is one I would recognize from the depths of the very hells itself. Still trying to prove to be somebody, are you?" the man teased lightly. 

"I see you haven't lost your sharp tongue, Zenva - I wonder how long you'll get to keep it" 

"Hahaha, and here I was thinking this would be a quite nadir affair of a farewell, hardly the case when you're around" he chuckled in a nonchalant fashion. 

Zenva struggles to find his feet, revealing a pronounced cut to his rib.

It's bleeding quite profusely before he plugged the cuts with his left arm, the palm stained from the tainted soil of the shattered earth that laid beneath him. 

"urgh..." resisting the pain that goes with speaking in his condition, he forced his vocal chords into action.

"So tell me, how does it feel to betray all that we've built for the past 17 years: friends, ambitions...prosperity, for the sake of an empty title, Saint?" Zenva asked, with a determined look on his face, he was beckoning a genuine answer from Yulin. 

She stood silent, then arms her long spear and stretch it forward, pointing at Zenva's heart 

"Tell me Yulin! WHY DID YOU DO IT!?" Zenva cried out

"I take it those are your last words then?" Yulin strengthen the grip on her lance, her face trained to a frown as her determination to see her mission through remains undeterred 

"Courting silence till the very end...what a pity"

Zenva forced a chuckle as his hand was sneakily reaching for an artifact in his pockets but Yulin reacted first and plunged the spear through his heart with a leap thrust attack.

The audience shocked and baffled by why she took action to unveil such a grim sight, filled with surprise and confusion.

To the inquisition, surprise attacks were the acts of a coward, unbefitting for a commander of the order. 

"Why did she strike without warning!?" whispered a guard 

"It's unlike the commander to be hasty" responded another as the whispers quickly gained traction

Said traction was soon silenced by a crackling laughter from Zenva, serenaded by excruciating groans from the pain he endures, and coughing of blood. 

"Heh, hehehe, you always were ...the decisive one" muttered Zenva, as Yulin's gaze remained fixated on everything about him but a struggling hand reaching desperately, for her face...and then her cheeks as it got stained with blood. 

"Always ...were...the one I ..." His words trailed off into nothingness, Yulin's cheeks abandoned, his body lost balance.

Subsequently, it rested on Yulin's shoulders, the lifeless body of one so significant and powerful to the World of Letheil. A shepherd, had fallen. 

"Goodbye...friend" said Yulin, with a voice tinted in sorrow as she went down to her knees and laid his body down to rest. 

Then there was a brief moment of silence, the life that has just been taken was no small life. 

Everyone in the room, including even the most low of ranks from the force, was informed well enough of who laid lifeless on the floor, as such, due respect was paid. 

Suddenly, the priceless silence was interrupted by whistling winds from the outside, the decorated curtains moved unnaturally to the winds as it gained momentum in exponential fashion. 

The guards were nervous but they maintained positions 

"This sensation..." muttered Yulin as she quickly searched for the artifact Zenva sought in his dying moments, it was crushed beneath his other hand's grip. 

"!!? No...I was late!!! EVERYONE-" 

Before she could pass out her orders, the walls of Inulla ignited into a blazing black flame, the temperature rose to unprecedented levels as everything flammable was being turned to ash in record time.

Soldiers closed to the walls also catching fire and were bawling their hearts out as the rest of the soldiers panicked, running away from the heat towards the exits, it was all too sudden

"Aaarghh!! Get away from me!! Aaarghh" 

"Stay away from the walls, stay away from the flame!" 

"The exits, run for the exits!!!" 

The chain of command was broken as the soldiers haphazardly sought a way out of the throne room. The terrifying sight of your comrade combusting to ash almost instantaneously could unravel even the most rigid of ordered hierarchies 

Yulin bit her lips to the chaos and turns back to Zenva's body, then the shattered artifact.

"The bloodstained artifact of Malluca...tsk, I should've known..." She cursed her indecisiveness.

She watched in despair, as her battalion disappeared one by one in front of her eyes thanks to the flames that kept spreading in the throne room. Even the exits were now covered in black flames. 

The few soldiers left who could retain a bit of control cried out to their commander for orders. 

"Saint Yulin!! What should we do!" 

"Give us your orders!!" 

This was not a call of duty, this was a plea for help, from their Saint, a saint who was running out of options 

"Guh! Decisive one he said, You just had to be trouble till the very end didn't you Zenva? Is this some kind of funny attempt at recompense? is this to be my punishment? Answer me... ANSWER ME ZENVA!!!" 

She yelled out to a lifeless body, the act of a desperate person gone insane as the entire castle of Illuna crumbles. They had just taken the life of a shepherd, but was this shepherd having the last laugh after all...

...

..

.

No, for this shepherd, was far from done. As the last embers of his dying soul was fading away, his following words could be heard, by no one but himself, and the ephemeral. 

"How many times...does this make it now...30...40...I can't even remember anymore...so many attempts, so many failures, and to think...for the very first time, I was betrayed, by the one closest to me. Ironic isn't it?"

...

"Perhaps I just don't have it in me, to play a role that seems to have eternally held me captive, to become a Shepherd for humanity, for existence. Promising an era of prosperity, guiding them towards that haven is not enough, to allure them..." 

...

"Or maybe, I am perceiving this all wrong, perhaps it is their will to deny prosperity, seeking extinction instead...very well..."

...

"So be it! I shall do this no more! I am done being that shepherd. This time, I will make it my last, I will give them what they wish, what they so jealously crave, if it's oblivion they desire, then I shall usher humanity towards extinction!!"

"I'm sorry, Kei, Yu...we...no, I have failed to keep our promise..." 

The last words of a dead Shepherd.

Fast forward 50 years later to the small village of Tilla - 

A small room in a rural dilapidated farmhouse -

It became the first words of a nightmare that traumatized 21 year old Yel Arki, into awakening under a full moon. 

"Huh, huh, the voices, the memories, they're getting louder, and clearer" his breathing is heavy, painful and unrestrained as he tries to make sense of what just happened. 

Then his tongue involuntarily licks a liquid from his lips. It tasted sour, It tasted like blood.

He was bleeding from his mouth and nostrils, yet he was not shocked by this. Compared to the nightmare, it seems he expected this. 

"That felt surreal...like my mind is not my own...and yet...the bleeding's real and it keeps getting worse..." Yel thought to himself as he wiped off the blood with his hand and stares at it

"I'm running out of time..." Yel muttered as he stared at the one sleeping on a mat a fair way away from his. She laid to rest, together with a small child. 

"But I must hang on, at least for their sakes... We're almost there, Cyn, Ema...fingers crossed Klein and Luche can pull through tomorrow..." Then he walked out, staring at the full moon.

"Soon, we shall finally reach out for the life that was meant for us...Shepherd or no Shepherd; I promise you this!"

Yel's mind was made up, determined to bring about a new chapter in their lives starting tomorrow. However, much like the entity haunting him, there was so much he remained ignorant of, as tomorrow will tell.