Tales of Astora: Legacy

Chapter 32: Rise of the demon lord

Chapter 32: Rise of the demon lord

"A long time ago, before Ragna was known as the demon and monster's continent, it was a primitive land void of people. The reason was because not only it was hard to cross the sea just to get to it, no one who ventured into that continent ever returned. Perhaps the thing that turned the Northern kingdom into ruins still lurked somewhere on that ground.

At that time, the demons were scattered across the world, living in constant fear of being pursued and killed by the Primes. And mostly because they were not united. Any gathering of a large group of demons would be easily found and dealt quickly. Even the demon lord was not out of danger as it needed time to grow and there was no safe place for a demon.

The Old One, Progenitor of the Demon race, pitied its children being slaughtered like cattle not for what they did, but for what they were. It gave its blood so that the monsters and demons could defend themselves. But now It understood that it wasn't enough. These Primes would never understand the concept of peace. It must help Its children once more.

Wielding incredible power out of this world, the Old One made a plan: using a magical device, It transported all demons and sentient monsters to the land of Ragna. And with it came the creation of the demon nation in this northern continent.

This event was later known as Exodus or the Great Exile.

While no one actually remembered what the device was, some said it lied deep somewhere in the underground of Ragna, waiting to be awaken once more."

* * *

The silent night in Caelum was disrupted by the sounds of the bell tolling. And everyone in the city knew what it implied. One toll meant the beginning of a festival and two for the death of the pope.

But this time it wasn't one nor it was two they heard. It was three: their precious city was under attack. The undeads have come.

"Barricade the gates with everything we have! Not a single one of them is to step into our Holy City on my watch!" shouted the captain of the city guards.

With haste the men gathered everything they could find: caravans, rocks, sand bags and stuffed them against the gate. Though in their mind this gate alone would be more than enough by itself and these additional barricades served only to calm their hearts. Made in black steel, the hardest and heaviest steel in the world, if not for the special mechanism installed just to move the gate, no one would ever be able to even budge or scratch it.

"Captain, it's done!" a soldier reported.

"Good! Archers and mages, rain fire upon these demon spawns! They can't reach us here! All we need to do is to keep them out until our reinforcement arrive!"

Receiving their orders, hundreds of archers and mages gathered on the high wall and shot everything they got onto the undead horde below. With no way to reach them, the soldiers could safely attack from above without fear of retaliation.

But they shall not have that satisfaction. Something blocked them. A luminous barrier was covering the horde, deflecting all projectiles. That was light magic. Someone was using holy magic to protect them. Who could it be? Well the answer was obvious: the undeads themselves. And the one responsible for this magic was none other than Vyncis, the last pope of the Church.

Unlike the necromancy used to raise undead, what Sinforma did was to temporarily resurrect the bodies while suppressing their consciousness. This way Sinforma's undeads could retain their formal abilities, even capable of wielding light magic which was considered impossible for normal undead while still obeying faithfully to their master. However, controlling all of them of at once was incredibly challenging and arduous even for Sinforma himself, which was why these undeads could only use a part of their formal power but still far more powerful than the normal undeads.