In the distant past, there were five continents.
Almost all of their culture has been lost, for the five sank into a war whose heroes were forgotten before any living mortal or immortal was born.
In that time, two continents emerged from the waters.
One of them had many names, but today it is known only as the Demon King's Continent.
The other, on the eastern face of the planet, has always had the same name, the Continent of Monsters.
According to the law of the Demon King, every hero who reaches Level 20 must either face him or depart for the east, to that continent from which there is no return.
SCEADU GESTRÉON UNGEMYND
Sceadu Gestréon Ungemynd belonged to no kingdom, guild, or faction, even though everyone on the Continent of Monsters knew his title, the First.
All who lived there arrived after him.
There, one law existed, power.
Whoever defeated you in battle was your master, and you could obey them or die.
And no one ever defeated the First.
On the Demon King's Continent, there are twenty main lineages, but in the east, there are hundreds of lineages, and thousands of hybrid lineages.
There are entire cities where no citizen remembers the face or body of another.
Humans do not exist, they are too weak to survive there.
Yet, in ancient cities, certain races are kept isolated, protected, and buried deep within dark rock.
Such was the case with the Arthropods, half-human, half-eight dark legs, standing up to four meters tall.
Their civilization, which among themselves they called the vlácidass, was four thousand years old, and tens of thousands lived within the bowels of the earth.
Their Arthropod women carried hundreds of children in their dark wombs.
Tradition dictated that the wife kill the husband in fair combat, and that the children challenge and kill the mother before a state notary. This controlled the population explosion.
Their gods were the ancient Loth and Tofh, from the time of the first eruptions.
And their temples, excavated continuously, were kilometer-long ruins, descending, heading toward the paradise they believed existed at the center of the planet.
Ic Eom Wæl-Ræs was their queen, and she had killed a thousand husbands and ten thousand children.
She left the darkness guiding her people, powerful in dark magics.
And out there, on the surface, she saw the shadows.
The Continent of Monsters had heavy clouds that never allowed sight of the day, due to countless active volcanoes from north to south.
Ic Eom Wæl-Ræs raised a glorious army, uniting all of her kind, without exception of age or sex.
And she made armor for the eight legs of her warriors, and their human torsos, and helmets for their faces, which were beautiful, and as if immortal, with long ears, and straight and curly hair at the fringes, descending over the magnificent bodies supporting the eight legs.
Those who study magic can sense the presence of auras.
And among the strong, members of the most tenebrous factions of this world, everyone knew the location of Gestréon, the First.
Thus, Ic Eom's army marched for days and nights, with ashes falling like rain, and mountains scarred by fire spewing clouds of sulfur.
Gestréon had a strange appearance.
He was like a human, but pale, gray, lacking part of his face, without nostrils, without a mouth, in their place, one saw an open wound of black blood, bone, and muscle.
He spoke with his mind, directly into the soul of those he wished to hear him.
His magic was pure, without need for a grimoire or conjuring elements, without ingredients or magical words.
He created miracles by sacrificing the environment, the life of nature was used as payment for his spells.
Hairless, naked, standing just over two meters tall, he used "Levitate" and faced head-on the army of Arthropods surrounding his castle.
The queen ordered the attack, and the mages conjured lightning and fire.
Runic circles of light spread from the army's platoons, separated around the meteor crater where the First's castle had been erected.
The impact of the spells deflected from the body in the sky, as he conjured "Supreme Shield."
And the deflected shots rose to the clouds, illuminating the ashes, and descended against the ground, destroying the sandstone rock castle and everything around, creating overlapping craters.
He spoke into the mind of Queen Ic Eom Wæl-Ræs:
— You who are like the grain of the earth come and destroy my home. I shall do the same to yours, but with my own hands. I, who walked when the waters receded. And an insect challenges me? You are not worthy of my enchantments.
Arrows were fired as Sceadu Gestréon Ungemynd approached the central area of the army, targeting the Queen.
With swords, soldiers leaped at the First, and with his bare hands, he tore open enemy bodies, without differentiating silver skin from armor, organs from protection.
And blood gushed from bodies split in half, from dismembered corpses, with the First passing through the larger soldiers, tearing them open, making pregnant Arthropods give birth amid the conflict, crushing their offspring.
He admired the blood spreading over the rocks, and the fear of those who fled, noticing that nothing struck the powerful enemy.
He held Queen Ic Eom's head with his left hand, and stepped on her waist, where the human body and the enormous body supporting the eight legs became one.
The First thrust his hand into her chest, and removed the armor along with the skin, and then dug with his bare hands into the flesh and ripped out the organs.
He moved his hand inside the body, destroying the neck, the chin, and then removed the Queen's face and whatever else was inside her head, until the enormous body fell, legs splayed.
The crowd around began attacking him without pause, no longer for victory, but out of absolute terror.
And for days they fought, with the Arthropods conjuring magics that destroyed mountains and opened valleys.
And with his own hands, Sceadu Gestréon Ungemynd extinguished them as a species.
THE TRIO
Gestréon's original idea was to destroy every remnant of that civilization that attacked him.
And reading the Queen's mind before killing her, he learned of her great city, however, upon arriving, he realized it was perfect, protected, ancestral, and a new home for his rest.
One of the First's greatest problems was sleep.
He had not rid himself of it, even after learning so many magics, thousands in his memories, still, he had once been human, and from that time he still retained the need to slumber.
In the ruins of the vlácidas city, he expanded his own aura through thousands of corridors, thus making it nearly impossible to know where he remained.
And there the First slept peacefully for centuries, until receiving an unexpected visitor.
Neeth Hel Mess Oop Ah Ris Ta was the leader of the group, The Waltz Upon the Corpses of My Enemies' Children.
— Have you come to challenge me? Alone?
— Certainly not. — Neeth was an Old Tentacular.
An eye with a diameter of just over a meter, with tentacles stretching twelve meters around.
He possessed strong psychic resistance, for his lineage communicated only through thought, he was Level 20, and had lived before that level on the Demon King's Continent.
— Then? — curiously, in the buried galleries, without any light, the visitor approached directly the point where Sceadu Gestréon Ungemynd rested.
By this time, however, the First read from him the past and present.
And when they met, nothing in Tentacular Neeth, throughout his entire life, was unknown to the sorcerer.
— I bring interesting news. I am a sort of leader among the most obscure groups. Although I am King in only one of them, the others also listen to me.
— I know what you are.
— That saves my time and yours. You already know the Demon King has taken three apprentices? Or something like that? An unexpected and unprecedented move. My idea is simple, let us set aside our differences, and each send one of ours, each group its own, aiming to cut the evil at the root. They are still lolis, the three. They are imbued with the Demon King's aura, it should not be hard to find them. I propose a concentrated attack. Ten, from the ten most powerful guilds, and an envoy from your security. You are the most powerful among the easterners, you must have allies of respect. I speak in humility, I would not dare challenge you, the First.
— I appreciate your words, Neeth Hel Mess Oop Ah Ris Ta. What an unusual situation, and what a fine strategy. I shall send one of mine, two, in fact, though unfortunately, they are untamable, they will not work together with your ten.
— I fear that even my ten will also each have their own way. So be it, then. It has been an honor to meet you.
— One day we shall fight. — Gestréon provoked the Tentacular, who was turning his back to him.
— Not today, I hope. — and Neeth was allowed to live.
When outside the ruins, appreciating the lights veiled by the clouds forming the asteroid ring, knowing who was responsible for such temerity, the Tentacular inquired of the one below:
— Can you still hear me?
— Clearly.
— What was the world like before the Demon King?
— Perfect. And it shall be again. — Gestréon assured.
Far from there, in the hot springs, at the Mountain Circle in Gran Pearl, Æthelflæd, Leofwynn, and Cwenburg bathed in warm waters.
That is, until the competition of running races and jumping into the water began.
With the three inventing new poses before leaping and falling laughing amid the cozy mists:
— Cannonball jump!
— Unicorn jump!
— Cockcloth jump!
— Æthelflæd! — the volcano girl and the unicorn girl did not want to remember the existence of such a magical item.
And irritated, they might even get annoyed with the human, if Æthelflæd didn't take too long to resurface.
Leofwynn and Cwenburg pulled the drunk human from the water, and, on a rock, the two were embraced by the smiling human.
Thus, in the lull, Æthelflæd pulled the two back into the hot spring, diving with them, staring at them underwater, both with wet hair rising in the submerged dance, holding hands in a circle.