The Teras didn't stop at the city. Its hunger was endless.
It rampaged outward, a wave of pure destruction swallowing farms, forests, and villages. The land itself screamed under its weight.
Survivors ran. They fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs, choking on dust and the smell of burning homes. Behind them, the once-vibrant metropolis was gone.
Reduced to a flat, silent wasteland of ash and shattered stone. No buildings stood. No streets remained. It was as if the city had never existed.
Far away, in other kingdoms, people watched the horizon glow with unnatural fire. Panic spread like disease. The closest kingdom, Astia, trembled the most.
The King of Astia knew his kingdom could be next. Fear sharpened his orders. He called upon every fighter, every mercenary, every mage, and every legendary champion his gold could hire.
Armies gathered. Weapons sharpened. But hope felt thin.
Then, word reached a mountain peak. Volgrun Skybreaker, mightiest champion of the Giant race, heard the call. His name echoed through centuries.
Tales told how he lifted mountains like pebbles, crushed armies with a single blow, and slew an Elder Dragon – a creature as vast as a mountain, whose breath could burn nations. Volgrun did not hesitate.
He strode towards Astia, his steps shaking the earth, determined to face this new terror.
At the same time, in a windswept desert, another legend stirred. Draevan Runeclad, a wandering mage whose power was whispered about in fear.
Stories said that once, two warring nations blocked his path. Annoyed by the delay, Draevan unleashed a single spell. It obliterated ninety percent of every soldiers on both sides.
The war ended instantly in a stunned truce. Draevan, too, felt the Teras's wrongness in the world's magic. He turned his steps towards Astia.
The King welcomed both heroes with desperate relief. Volgrun, a mountain of muscle and ancient armor. Draevan, cloaked and radiating quiet, terrifying power. They were the world's best hope.
While the gathered armies planned complex strategies, Volgrun and Draevan shared a look. Words weren't needed. Time was running out. The monster grew stronger.
Without telling anyone, the giant and the mage left Astia behind, heading straight for the ruined wasteland.
It was an alliance no one saw coming. Giant and mage. Strength and magic. They had never met, owed each other nothing. Yet, they walked side-by-side into hell.
When they arrived, the silence was heavy and awful. Nothing moved in the vast field of ash. The air tasted of bitter smoke and something sharp, like lightning. And in the center stood the Teras.
A mountain of nightmare flesh – eyeless crocodile face, writhing hair-tentacles, massive clawed arms, and legs like colossal tree-trunk tentacles. It pulsed with dark energy.
Volgrun roared a challenge that split the sky. He swung his colossal sword, bigger than a house.
The ground exploded where it hit, carving canyons in the ash. Draevan raised his hands. The air screamed.
Blinding bolts of lightning, firestorms hotter than the sun, and blasts of pure force erupted from his fingertips, slamming into the Teras like falling stars.
The Teras fought back. Its tentacles whipped out, faster than seemed possible, tearing gashes miles long in the earth.
Its roar wasn't sound, but a wave of pressure that cracked stone and made the air itself tremble.
The battle shook the world. Hour after brutal hour. Forests miles away were flattened. Rivers boiled dry. Mountains cracked and groaned under the shockwaves. The land bled scars.
Volgrun and Draevan fought with everything they had. Swords clashed against scales that shattered steel. Spells that could level castles only scorched the monster's hide.
They were powerful, but the Teras was their equal. Worse.
Seeing they were losing, the two heroes made a silent pact.
Go all out. Win or die.
Volgrun attacked with berserk fury, his sword a blur. Draevan poured his immense power into a single, focused beam of pure white energy, burning the Teras's hide black.
The monster staggered. It shrieked, a sound that ripped at the mind.
Enraged, the Teras opened its mouth wide. Deep inside, that terrible purple light began to glow again – the light that had erased the city. It gathered power, aiming straight at Draevan.
Volgrun saw the danger. With a mighty leap, he planted himself before the charging mage. He raised his giant sword like a shield, bracing for the impact.
KRA-KOOOM!
The purple laser beam hit Volgrun's sword. Light swallowed the giant.
The sheer, impossible force blasted the sword from his hands. It flew end over end, vanishing into the smoky distance like a shooting star.
While Volgrun reeled, stunned and weaponless, the Teras did something terrible. It began to shrink. Its massive body folded inward, compressing into its core.
A black, pulsing orb formed there, crackling with raw, unstable energy. It hummed with a sound that made teeth ache. The air smelled like burning metal and doom.
Draevan felt the coming explosion. It would be the end of everything for miles. He thrust out his hands, chanting words of power that glowed like molten gold.
A shimmering, domed shield of pure magic snapped into existence around the shrinking Teras and its pulsing black heart.
Contain it! Stop it!
But the orb's power was too great. Draevan's shield strained, golden light flickering desperately. Then, with a sound like shattering glass, the shield exploded. The black orb flared blindingly bright.
There was no sound at first. Only a flash of light whiter than the sun, swallowing the ruined land, Volgrun, Draevan, and the Teras. Then, the sound came.
BOOM
A BOOM that shook the entire continent. The ground heaved like an ocean wave. A wall of pure force rolled outward, flattening everything for twenty kilometers.
When the light faded and the dust began to settle, there was only silence. A massive crater, wider than a city, marked where the metropolis and the battle had been.
It glowed faintly with unnatural heat. Nothing moved within it. Nothing lived.
Back in Astia, the King received the news: the Teras was gone. Vanished in the blast. Relief washed over the kingdom.
Bells rang. People cheered.
They celebrated Volgrun and Draevan as the saviors of the world.
Then, the next message came. Scouts found Volgrun's massive sword, embedded deep in the earth miles from the crater's edge. There was no sign of the giant.
No sign of the mage. Only the sword, and the silent, smoldering crater.
The cheers died. The King was saddened. A grand funeral was held, honoring the heroes who gave everything. Their sacrifice was carved into history.
But the land itself was broken. The crater, and the area for miles around, felt… wrong. Plants wouldn't grow. Animals that wandered in sickened and died.
A strange, invisible sickness hung in the air – a lingering curse of the explosion's power. The place became known as the Dead Scar. A forbidden place. A no-man's-land.
Centuries passed. Slowly, patiently, nature began to heal the wound. Rain fell, filling the crater's depths with clear water, forming hidden lakes. Wind carried seeds.
Tough grasses sprouted in the ash. Then shrubs. Then saplings, pushing through the poisoned soil. Animals, cautiously at first, returned. Birds nested. Deer drank from the lakes.
The invisible sickness faded with time, diluted by rain and years.
The Dead Scar softened. The sharp edges of the crater eroded. Life, vibrant and wild, covered the scars of destruction. The crater became a hidden valley.
The wasteland became a deep, green forest, thicker and more alive than any forest around it. The ruins of the great city slept beneath roots and rich soil.
The place was renamed. No longer the Dead Scar, no longer the lost metropolis. It became known as the Forest of Beginning. A place where life defiantly started anew after the end.
A living memorial to the heroes who fought, the city that fell, and the terrifying power of the void. A reminder that even after the worst destruction, the world can begin again.