May 1, 1945. Berlin, Germany.
12:27 AM
The closing act of the Second World War was the manifestation of total war such as had never been seen before.
No, the term "carnage" would have been more appropriate.
Outmanned in every way, Berlin stood in complete isolation, slipping towards the crevice of annihilation.
The nearly five hundred thousand troops marching under the banner of the Red Army had already surrounded the capital, making escape virtually impossible.
Guns roared, mingling with the screams of the dying in an incessant cacophony of terror as the city was razed and its people massacred.
Bloodshed. Carnage. All in order to eradicate the enemies of this world, be they young or old, man or woman.
Justice, revenge, love, peace, oppression, liberty, equality—the slogan one chose to attach to the horror made little difference.
The chaos engulfing the bloody streets demonstrated quite readily the atrocities that would manifest when man was presented with a convenient higher cause to justify them with.
Yes, for example...
...In the corner of the city.
A blinding light flashed, followed by a roaring explosion.
This latest bombardment sent even more soldiers—at least three whose silhouettes were still recognizably humans—to their deaths, spreading their remains across the pavement.
"Bastards!"
Letting out a loud curse, a man leapt out of the trenches with Panzerfaust in hand.
Protected by the covering fire of his allies' Schmeissers, he dashed over into effective firing range.
He rose to his knees, took aim, and pulled the trigger, firing a HEAT warhead.
The projectile shot forward, smashing right into the flank of a tank.
It's armor dissolved in accordance with the Neumann effect, and the tank imploded in a torrent of liquefied metal and thousand degree flame.
The man tossed aside his Panzerfaust and, backed by comrades from behind, started cleaning up his remaining foes with his Mauser.
Such was war—it allowed no time for idle thoughts.
Only slaughter, murder, and bloodshed.
No man could keep his sanity in this hell.
And so the perpetrators of this chaos howled and raged.
Never looking back.
Reveling in boundless insanity to keep their blood afire.
Within this flaming wasteland of gunplay, soldiers singlehandedly continued their murderous dance as if it was some ungodly ritual.
Of course, it reality, it was all but child's play—soldiers against soldiers, rifles against pistols. No matter how fiercely they fought on this battlefield, the outcome of this war was already set in stone.
The Third Reich had crumbled, the ambitions of its visionary leader lost in the flames of war.
What remained on that tattered battlefield was the shaken remnants of the defeated, and the mob of the victors, flocking like vultures to the smell of decaying flesh.
Certain death.
Inescapable defeat.
Any attempt to retaliate was merely a self-serving act of revenge, with no hope of salvation.
The situation had surpassed anything that might elicit notions of despair, transforming into no more than an absurd comedy of sorts.
And yet—
"Kill them! Kill them! Kill them all!"
His heart beats still.
His hand gripped steel.
He would not stop so long as there were enemies to kill.
For it was his sworn duty.
If there existed even one thing—anything at all—to justify this hellfire, be it sheer insanity, then that by itself would have been a blessing in disguise.
Honor and glory debased and disgraced, worth less than pig shit—and yet human life remained the cheapest currency.
That was reality.
"Is this... All that's left of us?"
After wiping out all leftover foes and regrouping with his comrades, it dawned upon the man that there were only three of them left standing, himself included.
The company tasked with protecting this block had been completely annihilated. The situation was anything but promising, and still more enemies were on their way.
"What about our Panzerfausts?"
"You just used the last one, Master Sergeant. This is the end for us... The war is lost."
The young man flashed a bitter smile as he handed over his Schmeisser to the other. The older man glared at him, but offered no more in the way of reproach.
"The war is lost." Indeed, that was the bitter truth of it. Berlin had fallen, the company massacred, and the remaining three soon to join them.
"Well, not that it matters at this point. Would be nice if we could at least go out with a bang, though... It's not like we've anywhere to flee."
"Your name, soldier."
"Joachim Brauner. What about you, sir?"
"Walter Gerlitz. I suppose we'd all rather know the names of the men we'll be dying with. You there!"
The Master Sergeant, Walter Gerlitz, directed his gaze at the final survivor of the company, a young boy who had thus far remained silent.
"Your name?"
"Ah... Um..."
The boy, eyes darting as he failed to hide his shock, was even younger than Joachim, barely in his teen.
If Walter had a son, he might have been around the same age.
"Marco Schmitt, sir."
"I see."
Walter was about to ask what a mere child was doing there, but ultimately swallowed his words. It was a foolish question—the enemy would show no mercy to them, not even to children.
The reason for it was very clear, they were the bitter enemies of the Red Army, the despised members of the Schutzstaffel. Even if they were to surrender, the Soviets were doubtlessly uninterested in taking them as prisoners.
As such, fighting until their last breath was the only option left to them.
Walter was certain that Joachim was ready to give his life for the Fatherland. The boy, on the other hand...
"What will become of Berlin... No, of Germany, after the war is over...?"
"..."
"And what of our friends and families?"
"You're asking the wrong man. It's always the same shit. The victors will paint us as inhuman monsters and mete out whatever justice they deem appropriate. Give me a break."
Joachim shed his disaffected act, the bitter tone in his voice making his true position on the situation clear.
"My mother and sister lived in Dresden. But they got caught in the bombing—never so much as found a piece of them. And they call us monsters? Ridiculous. We were merely fighting to protect our Fatherland. And yet those bastards... Who the hell they think they are?"
He would never surrender. Yet even if he gave his life in the battle to come, the outcome of the war had already been decided. Nothing could change that, least of all himself.
With this defeat, their Fatherland and their descendants would...
A single soldier was powerless to alter the great current of war.
Joachim tried to express his dissatisfaction with that reality as best as he could while Marco silently listened.
"So if I have nothing else left, at least..."
"...!"
Several rifle shots echoed from their left just then.
Walter and Marco just barely managed to duck into cover, but Joachim was not so fortunate: his head was shot clean off by the first wave, followed by an entire volley of bullets being unloaded into his chest.
"Goddammit!"
Pelted by machine gun fire, Joachim's body contorted in a queer manner almost reminiscent of some form of dance before finally hitting the ground.
An anticlimactic finale indeed for the youth who had only moments prior expressed his desire to fight to the bitter end.
But such was the reality of the situation; reality of war. There were no heroes, no messiahs or miracles to save them; only men dying like insects.
And should one allow his soul to be overcome by wrath or despair when confronted with this knowledge, it would serve only to invite the jaws of death to consume him next.
The chaos of war would not tolerate idle thoughts. Knowledge of one's duty was all that was necessary.
"Schmitt! Answer me, Schmitt!"
As Walter rolled into the safety of a ruined building, he shouted the name of his lone surviving comrade with all the strength he could muster.
"...!"
...the sole reply he received was yet another flash, followed by a fiery explosion.
The upper half of the young boy's body was flung at Walter's feet.
The cramped alleyway was heavy with the stench of blood and scorched entrails. Walter powerlessly dropped to his knees into the vast sea of blood.
"Ahh... Sergeant Major... Forgive me... For not being of more use..."
Marco smiled, even as the last embers of his life faded away—it was unbelievable someone could still form words in a state such as this.
Walter took the boy's hand.
"I don't... I don't want to die. If I die here... Then what have we been fighting for... All this time...? Sir, please, tell me... Are we monsters...? Berlin... And Germany..."
"You mustn't talk!"
As the gunfire continued a brand new tank rolled onto the battlefield.
Marcho Schmitt was beyond help. Not even God could save him now.
And so, Walter's rightful place now was on the battlefield, his hand clutching a gun and not the hand of a dying soldier; his ears lent not to the naïve parting remarks of a boy, but straining to hear the breathing of his enemy.
He knew that better than anyone, and yet...
"Have we... Committed sins? Does that make this our punishment? I know there is no pride in war and murder... But... But we..."
Joachim, Walter, and so many other German soldiers just like them had done nothing more than take up arms to protect their Fatherland and loved ones.
Was that truly a sin?
Surrounded by the flames of the dying capital, the young boy spoke in mere disjointed fragments, voicing a question Walter himself would have loved to pose to the heavens above.
"Most likely..."
Yet after mere seconds of doubt, Walter answered curtly.
"Waging war is no sin—losing a war is."
Such was the way of the world. A cruel, bitter truth.
Walter found within himself a growing resentment for the Lord.
"I see... I'd like to... Win our next one, then..."
Marco Schmitt then quietly passed away in Walter's arms, the man gazing up at the heavens. The young soldier's smile in death, albeit tainted with blood and mud, still held traces of boyhood.
"Worry not, Schmitt, Brauner."
A bitter smile mirroring Marco's crept onto Walter's face.
"We will claim the next one, if not, then the next one, or the one after that, even if we are doomed to repeat this outcome a million times before knowing victory..."
His words might have seemed the ramblings of a lunatic beset by the army of death... But they were more than that.
Walter cocked his Schmeisser, confirmed it was loaded, then charged out of the ruined building into the open.
"Sieg Heil!"
He unconsciously let out a battle cry loud enough that it threatened to rend his throat.
Would he end up gunned down like Joachim... Or share the same fate as Marco?
It hardly mattered anymore.
Either way, he'd merely die a miserable death befitting this miserable war.
His mind was occupied by such despaired thoughts—in no way could he have predicted what was to come next.
"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domie et lux perpetua luceat eis Pater Noster qui in caelis es sanctificetur nomen tuum"
"..."
It was his soldier's intuition that drove Walter to reflexively take shelter.
"...!"
His vision was drowned out by a blinding white light and an explosion so fierce it dwarfed all previous bombardments, an explosion that seemed to rip apart the very heavens.
Walter realized that this explosion was far beyond the level of any weapon that could have possibly been employed in urban warfare.
What in the world...
...had happened?
"...!"
The city he had literally staked his life to protect had been reduced to a charred wasteland.
Although it took quite a while for Walter to regain his sight and hearing, there was still not enough time for him to make sense of the situation.
Part of him wondered if it was all a sick joke.
Only one thing was clear—both his allies' corpses and the encroaching enemy troops had been annihilated.
No bombing raid could have inflicted such immense damage. And although Walter had managed to survive the attack itself, his resulting wounds were deep.
"...Urgh!"
Pieces of steel and concrete blasted in his direction by the explosion had pierced his back and flank.
The hand that once held his Schmeisser was blown off from the elbow. It wasn't even worth the effort to attempt to discern the number of more minor injuries.
His incessant, bloody vomit told him that he had also suffered severed internal damage.
He would not make it.
"Fuck... Fuck, fuck!"
Walter swore blindly, no longer certain of the target of his indignation.
Just then, the voice from before rang out again.
"Exaudi orationen meam ad te omnis caro veniet Convertere anima mea in requiem tuam, quia Dominus benefect tibi"
It was a requiem offered up to fallen soldiers.
One sung in a beautiful voice.
Not even a prestigious church choir could produce a melody quite this dignified.
Yet at the same time the scorn seeping into the voice was all too evident.
Only upon the eve of the Apocalypse itself could such a voice be conceived of as an angel's.
It sung of the dead with scorn, ridicule, and mockery, deriving the utmost pleasure in trampling upon every last remnant of the dignity they possessed—the voice of a destroyer intoxicated by mayhem.
This was the product of a black mind possessed solely by an inhuman malice.
"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domie et lux perpetua luceat eis"
And so, stepping onto the vast expanse of debris, the destroyer appeared, the demonic requiem at his lips.
It was a young boy, lacking in years even in comparison to Marco, with a face so delicate that a careless glance could easily mistake his features for those of a girl's.
A single look at the boy was enough to give Walter chills. His teeth began to chatter.
"..."
Although he had lost a considerable amount of blood and his vision had grown hazy, the reason behind the freezing chill at his back lay elsewhere.
The sheer enmity and bane radiating from the boy's visage indeed contributed to that...
...but to Walter, the most dreadful thing was the fact that he knew that face.
There lived no man who'd fought on the Eastern Front and knew not of this boy.
A beast possessed by an insatiable hunger, his aberrant mind ruled by inhuman madness—his single eye gleamed, silver locks swaying.
He gripped a pair of guns, each engraved with a Wolfsangel—the Rune of the Wolf.
There was no doubt. It was a face Walter could never forget.
The face of a boy who had supposedly died three years ago—
"Major... Schreiber..."
Eastern Front Assault Corps, Special Unit Leader—SS Major Wolfgang Schreiber.
An unchained beast that slaughtered both friend and foe—the ashen demon that supposedly met his end during a purge.
How could he be standing here...?
"Ah, if it isn't Major Walter Gerlitz. I sure caused trouble for you and the rest of the Einsatzgruppen, didn't I? You doing well?"
Hardly the words one would offer a dying comrade, especially one whose death was most likely caused by Schreiber himself. The boy flashing an innocently devilish smile in front of Walter was no doubt the very same person he remembered.
And yet, his armband bore not the swastika, but a different symbol altogether, almost as if he were no comrade at all...
"Why... Are you... Here...?"
"Hmm? Do I need reason? I'm here because I'm a soldier, much like yourself. War is our profession, murder our currency."
The boy playfully surveyed the landscape—it was proof enough of his statement. And what followed was nothing short of unnatural.
Something akin to opaque vapor erupted in their vicinity. Like a fog, or a haze.
At the same time, Walter's senses were assaulted by a dreadful moaning.
These were the cursed cries of the fallen, fated to suffer and lament until the very end of time.
This endless chorus of lamentation caused even the seething air of the battlefield to cool.
These were the spirits of the dead.
Walter felt like he could almost make out the faces of Marco and Joachim among the swirling mass, as well as the destination towards which they were spiraling...
...straight into Schreiber's Totenkopf eyepatch.
He was devouring the very souls of those he had slain.
Confronted with such a repulsive, unworldly spectacle, Walter could not determine whether he should give himself over to rage or simply weep.
He longed for the repose of insanity.
"Well then, my dear Master Sergeant. Time for me to take off. How about you?"
Schreiber, seemingly done with his "meal", wearily turned his neck to Walter.
He was breathing his last: not in any condition to spill blood like a soldier should.
"Do you not hunger for møre? Of course, killing even a hundred or thousand of the reds won't change anything at this point. But that doesn't mean you need to sit there and watch things crumble. Look around you—look at your Berlin! Is this the end of our glorious Empire, foretold to stand strong for a thousand years? Who would seriously content with this?"
Content...?
"No one, right?"
Walter threw a piercing glance at the smiling boy.
Indeed. No one in their right mind would be content with such an outcome.
He'd had friends to call his own. A family to go home to. A woman to love. He'd cherished this country.
All that became tainted due to Germany's defeat—dishonor that no centuries could wash clean.
That was...
"Unforgivable... Right? Those repugnant low-lives tore down our walls and trampled upon our great capital, killed our children, raped our women, hanged our elders! My dear Master Sergeant, Walter Gerlitz, sworn and loyal blade of the German army, I ask of you—what do you desire?"
"Agh... Ah..."
The amount of blood leaking forth from Walter's mouth made speech difficult, but his feelings were set.
Joachim, who vowed to fight till the bitter end; Marco, who wished for victory. Their feelings, as well as his own...
The boy standing before him was unmistakably from the fold of the devil.
But such things mattered little at that point.
What he wanted was...
"I want to emerge victorious!"
Victory, honor and glory for the Fatherland.
To bring peace for friends and family that had fallen.
To bring prosperity for generations yet unborn.
And above all else, for his very own soul.
"Sieg Heil! That is correct, Master Sergeant. What a wonderful display of will and bravery! You deserve the honor of becoming His flesh and blood. This war will never end. We will not allow it. We will repeat it again and again and again and again!"
Grant us victory.
"Let us journey together, to our endless battlefield... Till victory is in our hands."
We shall claim victory in the next war; if not, in the one after that; hundreds and thousands and millions of battle repeating over and over again till this outcome can finally be toppled.
Schreiber thrust his Mauser in Walter's direction as the last light of the man's soul began to fade.
"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domie et lux perpetua luceat eis"
His requiem was one of scorn for the fallen, pregnant with malicious intent.
And yet, Walter thought it beautiful, like the song of an angel...
It was then that he finally realized that this was the apocalypse.
And that he would soon join the ranks of those marching to destroy the world.
He would become a strand of the Golden Beast's mane—one of many in His Legion.
"Ahaha... Hahahahaha...!!"
The boy gazed to the heavens and offered up a splitting cackle, his silver hair dancing.
The soul of Walter Gerlitz was sucked into the boy's bloodcrazed eye and vanished.
At the same time, in another place, a new nightmare was unfolding.
An entire battalion of at least a dozen tanks had failed to bring down a single man.
...No, an entire battalion of tanks was being destroyed by a single man.
In the center of the supernatural maelstrom stood a sombre specimen of a man, darker than the blackest of nights.
Beneath his neatly-worn uniform stretched a body of steel trained to the utmost limit.
A perfect fusion of the sort of artistry found in the great sculptures of antiquity and raw martial prowess.
The man wielded nothing, not even a short blade.
He fought with his fists alone.
But they were all that he needed to sunder the armor of a tank as if it were nothing more than scrap paper.
Needlessly to say, no mere man could hope to imitate this display.
"He's a monster..."
Indeed, he was a monster—or if not, a weapon taking human form, a fortress upon the battlefield. Either way, the Soviet forces were dealing with an inhuman soldier, a being exceeding human boundaries.
"Fire at will!"
Furthermore...
The towering beast of a man had yet so much as attempt to evade any of the artillery fire being leveled upon him.
Even after being pelted by countless bullets and tank shells, his body remained unscathed.
However, that was only natural.
For everyone knew this man, this strength, and his name.
Knew that he was a hero who had died a year before.
And what was dead could not be killed.
"..."
The man let out a deep breath.
His overflowing will melted the surrounding rubble into toxic waste, blasting it afar with a gush of burning wind.
His tightened muscles expanded to their extremes, as if longing for release.
A hammer of steel.
There existed nothing in this universe that could withstand the blow he was preparing to unleash.
The energies gathered in his fists gave birth to refraction, causing the visage of the man to distort.
But as the man finished swelling up with energy and was about to unleash destruction...
"...!"
"..."
...his fierce concentration suddenly let up just as it was about to reach critical mass.
Almost as if something had ruined his mood.
Perhaps he thought the panicking soldiers, having lost their morale, were not even worth killing.
Then had those soldiers miraculously escaped the jaws of death?
Of course not.
"Was gleicht wohl auf Erden dem Jägervergnugen."
The song of the cruel huntress echoed across the night.
A scorching wave of pure flame passed by the man, devouring the soldiers—burning them to cinders.
This was clearly no ordinary weapon.
Its destructive force far exceeded the power of Molotov cocktails or tank fire.
It was more akin to a pulse of concentrated energy from a nuclear blast—as impossible as that seemed—than any urban weapon.
Otherworldly screams of pure agony reverberated throughout the war-torn battlefield now engulfed by a sea of flames.
The soldiers, assailed by the instantaneous burst of fire, had evaporated without a trace, but the hate-filled screams of their souls rang out into the night.
This was the same phenomenon that Schreiber had conjured up just a moment earlier.
"What a bore. How utterly frail. What value is there in partaking of the souls of such miserable vermin?"
It was uncertain for how long the woman had been standing back to back with the sombre man.
Her tone was grim and bereft of joy, her visage deep crimson...
...her swaying hair the color of fresh blood and hellfire.
She would possess a certain calculating beauty, were it not for the gruesome burn marks covering the left half of her face; as such, her visage evoked only a grim awe born from a marriage of the fair and the repugnant.
"Do you have something to say to me, hero? You certainly do not look pleased."
Gracefully letting forth a puff of cigar smoke, the woman posed a question to the man at her back.
No answer came.
"Well, do as you please. At least this results in a balance when combined with that trigger-happy runt. I couldn't care less about your warrior's honor or whatever do you wish to call it, but do continue upholding it if it pleases you so much. The Soviets must have their way with this place. If you understand that overindulgence and inaction are sins of equal value, then I have nothing further to say... Or perhaps you're trying to hold yourself back, since you know you won't stop until everything in your path is annihilated once you've cast off your chains? If that is indeed the case, then I can sympathize with you."
No one could be blamed for mistaking the crimson woman's words for those of a lunatic.
No sane person would speak as if they were capable of destroying the entire Red Army surrounding Berlin on a whim.
"His Excellency the Führer has passed. The rest of the preachers of lies and foolish dreamers will soon join him. And this city shall fall, taking countless brethren and citizens along. Truly a fitting sacrifice to offer up for the trial creation of the Ark of the Covenant. The lives of ten countrymen are heavier, more meaningful than the lives of a million enemies. Such is human nature. I suppose you're feeling very conflicted about that knowledge. Well, take your time. Agony is yet another form of offering."
"Samiel."
The man finally spoke.
"Where is Mercurius?"
"What? What business do you have with him?"
"..."
Silence again. The man failed to answer.
The woman narrowed her eyes—her gaze heavy with suspicion before letting loose an exaggerated sigh.
"Refusing to answer again, huh? They say men should stay their tongues, but you take it too far. Surely you're not planning to pick a fight with that aberration. I'll tell you right now, leave that idea behind. It's nonsense. Nothing can kill that. Well... I suppose one could easily dispose of him, depending on how you look at it, but... In any case, he is our superior, and a sworn friend to our leader. If you harbor any intention to rebel, I would advise you to forget it right this instant."
"I have no such ambitions."
"Of course not. You could never hatch a plan in that thick skull of yours. Let me answer your previous question, though."
She lifted her head to look up at the sky.
"The two leaders of our Obsidian Round Table are as inseparable as brothers. As such, his whereabouts should be obvious. Take a good look over there."
Meanwhile, up in the Berlin sky, tainted by blood and fire...
...taking form through the carnage of the capital...
...was a tremendous swastika.
A man stood atop the towering spire in its center.
"Attention, men and women of Berlin! Our great Lord, Monarch of Destruction, graces you with his message! Listen to his exalted words in silence!"
Her booming voice echoed in the ears of all living men in the city of Berlin as if through some sort of sorcery.
At that very moment, all soldiers ceased their fighting, all children dried their tears, and all elders stopped their flight.
Each and every soul in the city gazed up to the sky as if possessed.
Its deep canopy was tainted by the blood and fire of the city below, boiling as if it were some sort of cauldron.
The Berlin himmel.
On the very day the Thousand-Year Reich crumbled to dust, a devil of blinding light descended from the heavens.
His locks like a floating mane, golden in color.
His regal gaze equally golden.
It was the gold of splendor, of brilliance surpassing creation itself, beauty mingling with heavy solemnity—yet at the same time, beastly in hue.
A being that should not exist in the realm of man—the Harbinger of Beguiling Light.
At his side, a man with features vague and twisting as the darkest of shadows.
He was garbed in the plain robes of a hermit, with ambiguous features that made it impossible to discern his age.
A yin to His yang. The two of them existed on a level far removed from that of any being gazing up at them—they were the monsters whom even the monsters feared.
Number I and XII of the Longinus Dreizehn Orden's Obsidian Round Table.
Its leader and Vice Commander.
"Brothers and sisters!"
Gazing down at Berlin—no, the entire world—the man of gold began his speech.
"What if I told you that your entire life had been decided by fate? That victors were born for glory; that the defeated live only to serve? You live your life as it had been decided in advance, always reaching the same finale, unable to diverge, no matter what happens. What if I told you that the universe was woven from such a cruel fabric? If such is truly the case, then hard work is meaningless as sloth, dreams, and prayers equally lacking in value. What if I told you that the grace of the divines, as well as the wrath of the heavens... Had already been carved into stone eons before? All of you, those who were labeled as the devil's offspring, were born only to be destroyed, to be downtrodden, to be violated and killed and annihilated despite having committed no sin of your own. Nothing more... And nothing less. Such is the nature of this detestable cycle—this wretched ghetto, this wretched law. Death brings no release, merely revival, another cycle, another beginning—the beginning of your defeats, your losses, your pain and anguish. And so you will never know anything but eternal suffering and defeat, because you were born for the purpose of shouldering that fate—there is no other outcome for you. Do you not find this infuriating? Do you not wish to turn the tables?"
The man's grim words reached every soul residing in Berlin.
Nothing awaits you but eternal suffering, eternal defeat.
The people of Berlin could not deny his claims. The Golden Beast's proclamation rang out with the urgency of the trumpet of the final judgement.
This was a man possessed of a supernatural charisma. Utilizing extreme conditions in order to manipulate the will of others was hardly a novel trick in and of itself, but the sheer scale of the man's performance here warranted deeper scrutiny.
His voice possessed a magical quality, capable of penetrating the very heart of all those who heard it, the best comparison was to the cries of dragons from the age of legends.
A juggernaut of a voice that would not fail to ensnare any mortal.
And the being that possessed it was certainly no mortal.
The Golden Beast.
The Black Prince.
The Harbinger of Beguiling Light.
The Monarch of Destruction.
Every word that passed forth from his lips was saturated in magick.
He gave the command.
"If you agree... Then fight."
If you wish to overcome your miserable lot in life, then offer your very soul.
"If you wish to liberate yourselves from this wretched ghetto known as fate..."
If you long to wash away the stigma of the defeated...
"Rise to battle at my side."
Take a pen and sign the pact with blood.
It was the temptation of the devil himself.
The Golden Monarch looked down upon the lesser beings crawling upon the earth and posed a question to them.
"What do you desire?"
The answer was all too evident.
Grant us victory.
Grant us victory.
Sieg Heil Viktoria.
"I understand."
A deep fissure ran across the man's perfectly beautiful face.
To conjure the words of Doctor Faust, his features portrayed the uncanny equilibrium of a genuine smile and a grotesque sneer.
Mephistopheles, the Harbinger of Beguiling Light.
The name of the wicked fiend that could grant man's every wish in exchange for his living soul.
"If such is your desire... Then enlist in my Legion."
The moment those ponderous words left his lips, the unthinkable happened.
All men with guns in hand took them to their mouths.
All those wielding blades thrust them deep into their own chests.
Those without armaments plunged themselves into the hellfire still raging around them.
Guns roared, steel drank blood, men plunged to their deaths—suicide unfolded on every street corner.
Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands rushed to their deaths with abnormal haste, their souls being absorbed into the Golden Monarch.
It was an insatiable holocaust engulfing the entire capital.
This could not have been the first time.
He had consumed countless souls in the past.
Was this, then, the final ritual necessary to complete his task?
A grand sacrificial altar, stained by the blood of soldiers and countrymen who had looked up to him as a savior, begging for salvation.
In all its grimness, all its cruelty, all its terror, it was...
"...Beautiful. Ah, how truly tragic. The very citizens who revere you, the very ones who you should protect, are meeting their end by your own hand. And you watch it all with grief, with jubilance, imbibing of their essence in order that you may reach still greater heights. My dear friend, the one and only beast I've found worthy of respect in the comedy of errors that is my life: Allow me a question. How shall you proceed?"
The shade of a man, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke.
"What is it your desire?"
"A foolish question, truly. To destroy and transcend the law governing this universe. Was it not you who set me on this path? Not to say that I lack any sort of personal interest, of course."
"And that would be...?"
"It concerns the architect of this world."
"I see. In other words..."
God. Or perhaps the Devil...
The shade chuckled, its lips widening into a smile.
"It fills me with utmost joy to have gained such an exquisite "pupil." It would seem that you are still the only one who truly understands Ewigkeit. Ah, how splendid. No matter how many times I experience it, I will never tire of this moment. As such, I cannot help but feel a tinge of regret leaving it behind, but..."
"Is it time, Karl?"
"Indeed. And let us leave that name behind. We shall meet again, I'm certain. Half a century shall provide ample time for the completion of the Shambhala in the Orient. My substitute will be there, feel free to utilize him to supply your men with entertainment they so crave. Tonight's pact has made your soul powerful beyond comparison. Now that the trial creation of the Ark had also seen success, there is little use for this plane until the Day of Wrath. There is also the matter of Kristoff to deal with. For the sake of guaranteed success, it would perhaps be prudent to have a few of your vassals accompany you to the other side."
"Such was my intention all along. I shall take Samiel, Schreiber, and Berlichingen with me."
"Excellent, not a finer selection to be made. Although, I doubt anyone apart from those three would be capable of joining you as you are now, in any case."
The two men exchanged words in a casual tone, perhaps reminiscent of two chess players contemplating their moves, even as scenery from Hell spread out beneath them.
It was apparent why the two of them would have been seen as brothers.
They shared a certain air of resigned enlightenment, as if they presided from lofty heights lesser beings could not dream of reaching.
No tragedy, no comedy, no creation under the sun would move them.
Their laughter was no mere sneer, nor their actions merely the result of a frozen heart; rather, they were worn down by Time itself, imbued with the uncanny aura of an ancient sage.
Gazing up at the two of them were roughly ten others in military uniform...
...standing completely unscathed within the decaying capital of agony that was Berlin.
They were the Fangs and Claws of their Golden Master: and among them, the three mentioned earlier surpassed even the rest.
The crimson woman had tears of joy trickling down her face in response to the honor of being chosen by her golden commander, her loyalty grew fiercer than ever.
The silver-haired boy responded with sulk, lamenting the temporary end of his carnage. For the moment, however, he vowed to acquiesce.
The sombre giant stood silent, seemingly oblivious to all but the shade he fixed his gaze upon.
"Worry not. Your wish will be granted soon enough. I would appreciate it if you would not glare at me so forcefully."
The specter of a man grinned, amused by the giant's electrifying gaze, before turning his attention to his golden brother once more.
"And now we part ways, my beastly companion. Let us pray for mutual success upon our reunion."
"Nay. I vow to succeed, no matter what. Remaining a mere spectator yields no result. 'Tis a vile habit of yours, Karl."
"Ahh, verily. Then let us make it our vow."
The Totenkopf Empire that had waged war against the world had finally met its end.
Whether it be true or not, it is an off-repeated anecdote that Nazi Germany, in possession of some of the world's most advanced technology during this time period, had dabbled in obscene rituals behind the scenes in a pursuit of the secrets of black magic.
What became of the demons brought forth by those "experiments" and all their diabolic relics?
Their whereabouts would remain unknown, assuming they ever truly existed to begin with.
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And so, six long decades came and went.
November 29, 2006. Mt. Fuji. Aokigahara—Sea of Trees.
3:27 AM
The entire area was engulfed by crimson flames.
A torrent of sheer energy had emerged from a nearby cave, mowing down trees and setting them ablaze.
This place was a crevice in the fabric of space; a meeting point for the ley lines which spread across the Earth like a net.
A lone man emerged from the cave.
He wore a rosary and a cassock, signalling his status as a holy member of the cloth. Indeed, the warm smile playing across his lips was what one would expect from a man of God.
Yet could a man appearing in a place like this in the dead of the night, emerging alongside an inferno, truly be a servant of the divine?
And...
Kneeling before him in servitude was a young woman with jet black hair. Her skin color and features clearly identified her as a native of this land.
She spoke reverently, her face as expressionless as that of a statue.
"Pardon my rudeness, Valeria Trifa, Your Eminence the Divine Vessel and substitute to the Lord Commander himself. I have summoned you here of my own volition. Need I introduce myself?"
"That will not be necessary. I remember you very well, Leonhart. You were but a child when you took Lady Kircheisen's place, but I see that you have grown to be beautiful... And powerful."
"I am not worthy of such praise."
Unpleasant moaning could be heard echoing throughout the area.
They were likely the souls of the men and women that had taken their own lives within this forest. The young woman paid them no heed even as they continued to make their presence known; the priest, in contrast, inhaled them all with affection, making them his own.
A blasphemous scene; an affront to all that was just.
It was identical to the events of Berlin 61 years prior. Was this perhaps a continuation of what had begun that night?
A priest with a voice that sang each word; before him, a young woman offering nothing but the humblest of words.
They exchanged a few greetings, but nothing of note.
Trifles such as how the priest had traveled from the other side of the earth by traversing its ley lines, and how the girl had altered his original path in order to lead him here...
Apologies and explanations for her impudent action...
As well as the reason why the priest could not possibly journey there at the present time. All those were of secondary importance, unnecessary to discuss here.
There was but one thing of value.
"Well then. Shall we continue with our holy crusade?"
The one crucial point, and that alone.
That they were preparing to finally unveil to the world the supreme performance they had spent so many moons preparing.
Now then...
May the curtains of Grand Guignol rise.
Slaughter, butcher, massacre till no more is left.
Violate, conquer, and consecrate.
Let there be victory.
Let there be conquest.
And thus...
"It is the will of God. My honor is loyalty."
They would repeat their struggle as many as necessary.
They would continue fighting to the very limits of time itself.
They had sworn to do so, and so they were bound to carry out this task.
The young woman's recital of the oath of their holy crusade was met by the priest's own blessings.
And so, on that night, in that forest...
...the Legion that had vowed to destroy the world began to stir.
Unbeknownst to any.