The air crackled with tension. Thunderstorms roared across a shattered wasteland, their echoes mingling with the ceaseless clashes of steel.
The ground was soaked in blood and despair, a battlefield where every step crunched upon shattered bones and broken hopes.
"It hurts... someone... anyone... please... help..."
The voice was weak, almost lost beneath the chaos, yet it carried a desperation that cut through the storm. A young boy, no more than a slave of war, limped through the carnage, his small, battered frame trembling with each step. His pleas for mercy fell upon deaf ears. In war, compassion is a forgotten luxury.
In this abyss of screams and slaughter, where victors and vanquished bled alike, salvation was a fool's hope.
Then, from the thick fog of battle, a shadow emerged saving the child—a figure draped in a weathered cloak, light glinting off leather armor dulled by countless clashes. His face remained hidden beneath the hood, an enigma given form.
In his right hand, he gripped a longsword that sang through the air with every swing. In his left, a spear bristled with deadly intent. Strapped across his back was a bow, and at his waist, twin daggers hung like the fangs of a coiled predator.
He moved like a force of nature, each fluid strike cutting through the ranks of warriors like a storm through a forest. Ten men fell with every sweep of his blade, their arcane abilities—the elemental and conceptual gifts granted at birth—proving useless against his sheer mastery of combat.
For generations, it had been believed that only those born with the gift of Arcana could dominate the battlefield. Yet here stood a man with no such blessing, a being who had forged his own legend through the discipline of flesh and bone. His movements were a symphony of death, his every step a testament to the pinnacle of human potential.
When the dust settled, the battlefield lay silent. The morning sun broke through the storm, casting its rays upon the lone warrior standing atop a mountain of the fallen. The soldiers of Aurem looked up, awe etched into their blood-streaked faces as the light crowned his silhouette in a halo of victory.
In that moment, a name whispered through their ranks, born from fear and reverence alike:
Asura.
The one who needed no magic to carve his legend into the bones of the world.