CHAP.0-14: The last days of the DarknessDays (14)

40 years earlier :

✦ The rebirth of hope

The skies had been black for more than a thousand days.

The sunlight had disappeared, hidden behind a veil of reddish eternity, and the moon itself had ceased to rise.

The world no longer knew day or night.

Only the fire remained... and the howls.

The capitals were nothing but bones. The mountains were bleeding. The seas rejected the corpses. The forests were dying. And the winds themselves had stopped blowing.

It was the fifth year of the DarknessDays era.

Yshvar was still walking.

And at his side, the Twelve Apocalypses had fun submitting the continents.

In the extreme south of the ruins of the central continent, nestled among the rubble of an old mountain range, a monastery remained.

The Sanctuary of Nivellia, one of the last bastion of the Church of the Supreme God.

A castle of white stones with broken stained glass windows, swept by winds of ashes. The walls were covered with soot, the roofs collapsed, and the ground littered with corpses of faithful who died of hunger or illness.

But despite everything... incense was still burning.

And in the Chapel of the Sealed Heart, the oldest priest still alive had been reciting a prayer for nine days. On his knees on cracked slabs, surrounded by candles almost extinguished, he recited without drinking or eating.

His name was Altan Vohmar.

The former Great Reader of the Celestial Verses.

One of the last to have heard the voice of the Most High, before divine silence fell on the world.

That day, the wind blew for the first time in five years.

Suddenly, an icy gust blew through the stone arches.

The candles went out one by one.

The stained glass windows shivered without breaking.

Altan opened his eyes.

A shiver ran through the nef. The air changed to mist, the walls began to vibrate slightly, and the dried blood of the mosaics rose in the air as if attracted by an invisible force.

The bells, which no one had touched since the monsters attack, rang by themselves.

Dong... Dong... Dong...

Then a soft and golden light, almost unreal, descended from the cracked ceiling and touched the old man's forehead.

And suddenly, a voice sounded.

Not in the air...

But in his chest, as if his soul had been directly struck by a revelation.

"Five flames...

Carried by the flesh of mortals...

Marked by My finger...

They will walk through the ashes...

And make the Scale tremble."

Altan then lives.

A plain devoured by war, crossed by five children, still young, with indistinct faces, but bearing on their bodies bright stigmas like stars.

Behind them, a black sky.

Before them, the kneeling humanity.

And in front of them, Yshvar... whose look was filled with contempt.

The Most High spoke through the flames of vision:

"I will place my fragments in them.

They won't be perfect.

They will fall, cry, bleed.

But their faith in the light will push back the darkness.

And their struggle will revive the world."

Altan screamed and fell with his arms outstretched, while burning letters appeared on the marble of the chapel, engraved on the stone:

"The Oath of the Five"

When the priest woke up, he was in tears.

The young surviving monks crowded around him, and he told them:

" The Most High is not dead. He spoke. He promised that five children would come. And their stigmas will guide humanity towards the light."

" Set this message across to the whole world and to all branches of the church. Let's find these children. No matter where they are born, find them. The world will be reborn by their hands."

The last pages of the Codex of Judgment were opened, and the announcement of the five saviors was inscribed in divine ink.

The faithful called it :

The Prophecy of Nivellia.

And this is how the Church began to send its last agents, its scribes, its survivors, around the world... in search of marked children.

✦ Year 3 after the Prophecy of the Five:

The night had spread over the world like a shroud of ink. The sky, usually vast and full of stars, was veiled that evening by dark clouds. A dull storm rumbled on the horizon, and the crows flew low, as if the sky itself was holding its breath.

In the fortress city of Lysérion, one of the last strongholds of the Church still standing, the bells did not ring. The streets, bathed in fine rain and icy fog, were empty. But in the heights of the central cloister, within the Great Temple of Arcadia, the torches burned vigorously.

The priests, gathered in a circle, recited the ancient verses in deep voices.

" When darkness reigns and the world howls, five stigmas will be born, bearers of Hope and Judgment. "

✦ The children of the prophecy

In the western ring road of the city, there was a sacred hospital of the city of Lyserion.

In an isolated wing of this hospital, where the torches trembled against the stone walls, was a woman about to give birth. The room was cold, and modest, isolated from the rest of the hospital but lit by a weak torch.

The woman screamed in pain, clutching the sheets, tears streaming down her face, marked by hunger, fear... and hope. His jerky breath mixed with the sizzle of the torches hanging on the stone walls. The blood spread between his legs, soating the rough sheets.

And then, after a long work...

A cry resounded in the room.

That of a newborn.

The infant had just been born.

The doctor present stopped by receiving the child.

The child was crying... but his eyes shone with a supernatural golden light, as if they contained fragments of stars. On his right shoulder, a flaming mark pulsated slowly. A pair of angel wings intertwined in a sacred circle. The skin around the mark seemed to be bathed in invisible warmth.

The mother, exhausted, looked up at the doctor with concern.

" Doctor... is there a problem with my son? She asked in a weak tone.

The doctor seemed to hesitate for a moment, but he regained his calm.

" Don't worry miss, your son was born healthy and without complications." he said with a hypocritical smile on his face.

When the child closed his eyes, he held out the child to his mother while saying:

" May Luminar be with you and your son," he said with a slight smile on his lips.

The mother, panting, was in a state of incomprehension following the doctor's reaction, but she took the child and held him against her.

" My love... mom is happy to have brought you into the world…" she murmured in a tender, honeyed voice.

As the doctor left the room, the mother looked at the child gently while lightly caressing his cheek.

But looking at him, his gaze tightened, , seeming frightened by something. She saw a mark like angel wings on his shoulder.

" What? Why? Why my son?" she whispered, tears in her eyes.

She knew.

She knew what that mark meant. It was the mark of prophecy. She knew the dangers that awaited the famous bearers of those marks.

She also knew that the Church would never let her have her child and would take him by force.

So, she planned to run away in the early morning despite giving birth, just to protect her child from the fate that awaits him.

But all night she lay awake, clutching the child to her heart. Praying. Hoping that no one would discover the mark.

She imagined how to flee at dawn, leave the city through the silent canals or abandoned underground. In her head, she repeated her plan over and over again, spying on every sound behind the door, every shadow, every step too heavy.

Even the slightest voice in the corridor startled her. Her heart was beating as if he wanted to get out of her chest... She knew they would come.

In the early morning, as the city was waking up, the young woman took her son and wrapped him in a worn blanket, preparing to flee.

But suddenly, for the first time in years, the bells of the Temple sounded.

The young woman felt a tension in her, and her heart began to beat.

But as she was about to leave her room, heavy steps resounded in the corridor of the hospital.

She stopped in front of her door and listened to understand what was happening.

Armor rattled, and priest-like voices seemed to slowly approach.

She caught a familiar voice mixing with those of the priests, and immediately she understood: it was the doctor who had accompanied her throughout her delivery who had spoken.

As fear and anguish continued to rise in her, her door opened abruptly.

A priest and a priestess, framed by three sacred knights, entered the room.

Their gaze fell directly on the child lying on the bed.

No words were spoken for long seconds, until a knight tried to approach the child. The mother tried to get in the way, but another knight grabbed her shoulder, and she ended up lowering her head.

The knight who arrived in front of the child crouched down and tenderly opened his pupils to see the color of his eyes, and there he noticed that the child had the same red eyes as his mother.

He straightened up and said calmly:

" Go ahead priestess..."

Then the priestess with silver hair and blue eyes, advanced in front of the child and knelt in front of him before starting to recite a prayer.

As soon as she had begun her prayer, the child began to cry.

The earth began to tremble and the windows began to crack slightly. The candles went out. And in the sky, a golden flash split the black clouds above Lyserion, revealing the blue sky for the first time in years.

The child opened his eyes, and his last ones, which were red like his mother's, suddenly took on a bright and pure golden color.

The priest, with pale eyes and brown hair, suddenly bowed.

" Glory to the Most High... The child bearing the mark. He has finally arrived... one of the saviors has just been born." he said in an emotional voice.

After his words all the knights knelt down planting their sword on the ground and said:

" Glory to the Most High... Glory to Luminar"

The young mother seeing this scene felt her heart break, she did not want her child to be torn away.

The mother straightened up, pale, still panting after giving birth, and placed herself between them and the child, arms outstretched.

" He's not yours… He's my son," she said, still in tears.

The priest's face and smile closed and he approached the woman.

" Woman. I think you don't understand something. This child belongs to God. He is one of the five saviors sent by the Most High to guide humanity. "

" So give him the right to choose when he grows up!" She replied abruptly.

A silence of absolute cold reigned.

The priest's gaze hardens.

" Well you contest the divine will? "

" No ! I am a mother... who just wants to look after her son," she said, crying.

The knights advanced.

She suddenly took the child, despite the fact that she was trembling, her legs bent.

One of the inquisitors put his hand on the guard of his sword.

The priest began to say with an impassive air and an icy voice:

" Woman... you have just been convicted of high treason against humanity. You opposed the divine will, wanting to deprive humanity of one of its saviors. "

" For your crime and your sin... only death will wait for you"

At these words, the knights without emotions advanced by pulling out their blades.

" No! Pity... just a month please... let me live with my son just a month please"

She begged crying, hugging her son tightly.

But it was too late.

Three steel swords pierced his belly.

She slowly collapsed on the cold ground.

The blood spread like an offering.

The priestess approached and took the child in her hands before she completely collapsed

She looked up at her child who had just been torn from her, and in her last breath was a whisper:

"...Forgive me..."

The priests made the sacred sign, before leaving the room with the child in their hands.

" That he is raised under the gaze of the Most High. Prepare the Temple. We finally took in the First," said the brown-haired priest with a calm and calm air.

And so Raiden, bearer of celestial wings, was removed in the cold morning light.

To be continued...