We Solemn Few

Prologue

The heavy footfalls of boots against gravel filled the air as man darted forward, his strides uneven yet certain. The road before him was one of pearlescent white pebbles, the likes of which one would expect to find before the Divine Dominion's gate, though they now ran slick with crimson ichor that poured from the streets' citizens. Beautiful women dressed in the most luxurious dresses now lay lifeless amongst the crystal blue grass, while well mannered men clashed blades with beings they couldn't comprehend, their once pristine suits torn and stained by every last drop of their blood. The man who ran forth tried to ignore the screams of those yet dead, even when they called for his aid.

Fires blazed in the corner of his emerald eyes, fires large enough to make the sun cower before their flicker. Buildings thousands of years old and more well-kept than palaces collapsed beneath their heat and scorn, and even the breaks seemed to melt in their presence. Others were brought to the ground by the might of beings taller than mountains, or at least they seemed to be. Perhaps they were playing tricks on his mind, but he didn't dare look for more than a moment. Even the erupting of once beautiful earth into a shattered landscape of rolling rock and bursting flames hardly drew his attention. He kept his gaze forward.

He had no other choice, he reminded himself. His eyes raised from the now red pebbles below to the massive tower in the distance. A spire so tall it dared to touch the stars. Bricks of glowing amber cascading upward to a horizon no other building dared to meet, though he solemnly realized there were next to no buildings left to even challenge it. He shook his head; those thoughts were for another time, but not now. In the eye of the end, one must act before they mourn. That is the Traveler's way. He recalled laughing when the old man recited the old phrase to him many, many years ago. He wasn't laughing now.

A sideways glance at a woman's scream drew his attention to something he wished he had ignored. Small creatures with skin of reddish black burst through a door carrying a young woman who thrashed against their clawed hold. They tore at her clothes, shredding cloth from her skin as if they meant to leave her bare. She kicked her foot against the jaw of one of the creatures as it dug a claw into her flesh, and another met her fury by sliding a hooked blade into her heart. Her gurled cry choked the air out of his lungs and he staggered his steps for a moment. When they began to bite into her flesh he stopped looking. Her echoed cry echoed within his mind a dozen times after.

His eyes drew back to the tower and refused to leave thereafter. His cloak flickered behind him carried by a wind that didn't truly exist, his legs throbbing from the endless sprinting, threatening to buckle with even the slightest misstep. He cursed the size of the Sanctuary beneath his breath, but he didn't have much breath to give and reserved even his slighted words. He took a deep breath, gulping down air that smelled and tasted of death, and relaxed his fingers whose knuckles had gone white from clenching his curved blade too tightly. His other hand refused to relax though, remained clenched around the already tied hem of the pouch affixed to his side. He refused to let him slack his hold on the pouch- its contents were too important to risk.

The sprinter's eyes went wide and his pace came to a sudden halt as he stared at the tower, a concaphanous boom echoing through the entire city as if the mere sound was strong enough to uproot even the oldest trees. But it was what he saw that made him tremble. A sudden boom of purple energy pulsed against the side of the tower- a small orb at first that suddenly swelled into a mass of swirling black void over fifty feet in diameter, swallowing half of the tower's side and nearly a sixth of its height before disappearing in an abrupt blink.

And nothing was left behind. No lingering energy, and not even an ounce of rubble. The man swallowed and took a frightened step back. Oblivion's Pulse, he quietly stated within his mind, almost baffled to even consider such a spell. Until today he thought it a mere myth. After all, how was anything capable of total annihilation that left not a crumb of evidence behind?