*Year 1870, October 15th—The Night of the Attack*

Far away on the other side of the world, there is a vast barren cold desert. As far as naked eyes can see, not a single sign of life could be found anywhere. Under the darkness of the new moon, the only thing that could be found are ruins of a lost civilization. Somewhere between the ruins, there are stairs leading inside a dungeon. As one traverses through the stairs, the only thing he can see is darkness. As one goes deeper, the air gets thinner and unbreathable. For a normal human, inhaling the air can cause hallucinations and madness. But to the Beast that dwell in the depths, it is nothing to worry about. 

At the end of the stairs, a faint light can be seen, which further leads to a hallway.

At the end of the passage, there is a large room filled with an ominous amethyst light. Inside the room, there are several grotesque beasts cheering for a relatively small humanoid figure sitting on a fairly large and well-designed throne.

“Shadow King!”

“Shadow King!”

“Shadow King!”

The Shadow king smiles at his followers’ enthusiastic and joyful chants.

“MY DEAR CHILDREN! Although we weren’t able to bring back the Light, but still we achieved something today. Not only was our comrade able to kill the hero of light, but he was also able to injure the Supreme commander of the God’s Army. So tonight, we shall honour his sacrifice and celebrate his achievement.”

As soon as the Shadow king ended with his loud and confident speech, the crowd of monsters standing below him cheered for him. Drinks started being poured in everyone’s jugs.

A beautiful female monster, with a humanoid figure and fox like ears and tail, served the king and poured drinks in his glass. ‘Shadow king, what a crude name for someone who looks so young and beautiful. Young master is so powerful and handsome that he can conquer the whole of the world in a blink if he so wanted, yet he wishes to let the humans put up a fight. So he stays in shadows and does not reveal himself.’, the female monster thought in her mind.

“And there you go, praising me again. Enough with all that stuff, Cilia, I am not that great, you know.”

“But I can’t help admiring you, young master. You are so great and handsome.”

“Still, I have got zero luck with women.”

“Don’t say it like that”, Cilia blushed, “Do I not count as a woman.”

“Now, now, dating between master and subject always ends up in a loss. But thanks for considering, it means a lot.”, the king smiled as he gulped down his wine.

‘You always talk me out of it. One day, I promise, I will make you mine.’

“I am waiting for that day too.”

Cilia reddened as she realized that her master can hear every one of her thoughts.

*Year 1890, December 24—Night*

“THUD!”

The gate of the King’s chamber opened. Three females with eyes similar to that of a predator and body covered with black clothing entered the room. They kneeled in front of the Shadow king with their eyes closed and face towards the ground.

“Alpha reporting, My lord!”

“Beta reporting, My lord!”

“Epsilon reporting, My Lord!”

Each one of them spoke with a clear yet low tone. Their faces were completely covered with black clothe except for their ears. Assuming from the sleek figure, green eyes and pointy ears, one could easily say that they were elves. But Elves were species of fairy tales. So it was obvious that they were not one of them.

“AHA! So the photon sisters finally have a good news.”, the king spoke with a big grin on his face.

“Yes, my lord, the young lady has finally found a man.”, Alpha spoke.

Every ten thousand years, the goddess of light, Evermore, gets incarnated as a human to awaken the dormant spirits on Earth so that they could protect the righteous and weak. In a world where magicians are rare sights, this power came as a blessing for some and a problem for many.

Twenty years ago, Heena was born as the twenty-fourth reincarnation of the Goddess.

The night Titan and his family were attacked, Heena was in Titan’s arms. When the Mana beast appeared in the kitchen and the house started rocking, Heena’s spiritual energy leaked out of her body due to the stress she felt. This caused the awakening of the two nearby humans, Titan and Shilpi. On one hand, Shilpi, the daughter of two powerful magicians was not only able to endure the stress her body felt due to the sudden awakening, she was also able to control it very well. Titan on the other wasn’t nobility, nor did his family ever had a magician before him. But still, he did pretty good with it.

This power was something, the shadow king was searching for several years. He wanted to use this power to create a large population of humans and monster, just so he could watch them fight and be entertained.

The shadow king’s real name was Moresque Scribble, the most powerful magician in the history, who was also responsible for killing the demon king one hundred years ago. 

The day he slayed the monster, he was given a boon by the gods. He was made immortal to serve the mankind, till the dawn of judgement.

At first, Scribble was overjoyed, but as time passed by and all his friends died when he lived, he was forced to rethink. He prayed to the gods to reverse his immortality, but his prayers were not answered. Soon he got tired of praying, he became resentful towards them. So he decided to wage war against, the gods’ most precious creation, Humankind. He gathered a force entirely made up of Mana beasts. But the other human magicians banded against him and formed an army named ‘Army Of Gods’.

The battle went on for a whole year and by the end of it, Scribble’s army was at a loss. Although if he himself fought in the battle, the result would have been different, but he didn’t want to kill the Humans, he once vowed to protect. So he accepted the defeat and went into hiding.

Now that he had nothing left to do, all he could do was entertain himself with something. He didn’t care who died or who lived, all he could think of were ways of amusement. That was when he started designing his very own game of war. He made use of his knowledge of magic to create a race of monsters who could talk and think. And hence he became the master of an intelligent race of monsters and began identifying himself as the shadow king.

“The Humans have terrorized us for long, but now it is time for us to take back what is rightfully ours. We will reclaim our holy light of awakening and begin our rule over humanity.”

The humans were completely unaware of this.

Everything was going according to his plans. But the night Titan died, he noticed that there was a problem. Although the Supreme one was unable to understand why that happened, but for Scribble that wasn’t the case.
Scribble was a perfectionist. He didn’t want any unknown variable in his plan, so, he reassessed his plan and surfed through the ancient texts in order to find something on it. He researched for almost eleven years, when he finally found out.

The runes actually were cursed marks that appear on anybody on whom the goddess bestowed upon her sacred blessing.

During her first reincarnation, the goddess got attached to her mortal family so much that she wanted to bring them with her to the heavens. Therefore, she bestowed upon them, the sacred blessing. The Goddess’s sacred blessing was capable of giving the soul enlightenment and helped it reach godhood.

But the heavens were not happy with her selfish desires. So they cursed the goddess to wander on earth again and again. This made her unable to complete the ritual and thereafter, her incomplete blessing became a cursed mark which eventually killed anyone whom the goddess loved the most.

The story was simple enough, and therefore it posed no threat to Scribble’s plan.

“This is awesome, now I can enjoy the show more. I think I will wait until she falls in love with someone. Then, when I make her kill that person, she will break down. It will make her more vulnerable, and I could easily make her my pet Goddess.”

So He waited until she grew up and fell in love with Polaris.

*Present*

“My dear Monster friends, today, the heroine fell in love with someone. She is going to get married soon. Let's crash the wedding and bring the light of awakening back where it belongs.”

‘Shadow King’ chants envelop the entire dungeon.