For centuries, the human realm knew only war. Kingdoms rose and fell, their borders shifting like tides as monarchs waged bloody campaigns for land, resources, and power. The clash of steel and the cries of battle echoed across continents without pause. Entire generations grew up to the rhythm of conflict. Armies marched endlessly, leaving scorched earth, shattered towns, and villages buried in smoke. Hatred between nations burned so fiercely that peace seemed like nothing more than a distant, unreachable dream.
Yet all of this changed on a day that would forever scar the world's history.
Without warning, the sky itself betrayed humanity. A vast crack tore through the firmament, splitting it like shattered glass. From this wound spilled a sickly, otherworldly light, glowing with a hue no mortal eyes had been meant to see. It was not merely a rift—it was a wound in the very fabric of reality itself, pulsating with hunger.
From that rift came a swirling vortex—a dimensional gate that bridged the human realm and the dreaded netherworld. Fiends swirled like a torrent of horror, a tide of monstrous forms led by towering Archfiends whose eyes burned with cruel intelligence. The air reeked of brimstone and decay. Villages, towns, and cities fell under the relentless assault. Whole regions became smoldering wastelands within days. Humanity's blood ran freely in the streets, and the cries of the living were drowned beneath the roar of the unholy horde.
At that time, the world was fractured. Nations were locked in their own great wars, spilling each other's blood for pride, land, and dominion. But the sudden emergence of the fiend invasion changed everything. Even the fiercest monarchs saw the same grim truth: there could be no victory if the world itself was devoured.
For the first time in recorded history, humanity cast aside its divisions. Banners were lowered, enemies embraced, and weapons once pointed at one another were turned against the common foe. Under a single banner, the "Union" was forged—a coalition of all human kingdoms, sworn to repel the netherworld's forces and defend their shared home.
Decades passed, but the war never truly ended. Though the dimensional gate eventually collapsed and vanished from the sky, the fiends did not disappear. They multiplied relentlessly, breeding in numbers beyond comprehension. No matter how many fell, more would come, each fiend born more terrible than the last. The Union's armies fought tirelessly, yet the world remained scarred, each victory fleeting, each battlefield a reminder of humanity's fragility.
Over time, another inevitable reality took root: the half-bloods. Born from unions—willing or forced—between humans and fiends, they appeared no different from ordinary humans. Yet beneath human faces flowed blood with dangerous gifts: unnatural strength, elemental command, or uncanny resilience. Some lived quietly, blending into villages and towns, fearing exposure above all else. But the blood was a curse.
When their hearts sank too deep into despair, when they surrendered to rage, the whispering pull of darkness or grief reached its depths, their fiendish heritage would awaken fully. In that moment, they would lose themselves—transforming into monsters no different from the fiends that plagued humanity.
It was from these half-bloods that magic was born. Their abilities—strange, unpredictable, and formidable—were unlike anything mankind had seen before. But rather than seeing this as a gift, the Union's leaders saw only danger. Humanity's fear was immediate and absolute towards these half-bloods. The Union labeled them "witches," a word steeped in mistrust and terror, and issued a decree that was swift and merciless: every witch, from infant to adults, was to be hunted and executed. The witch hunts began—a campaign fueled by the belief that eradicating them was the only way to preserve mankind's future.
Many half-bloods sought only to survive, to protect their families, to live hidden from both fiends and men. But faced with annihilation, they fought back. A rebellion erupted, dragging the world into a new war—one that reached even the smallest, most forgotten villages.
In one such remote borderland, a half-blood mother cowered beneath the cold steel of a Union knight's blade. Her children clung to her skirts, small faces streaked with tears. Her wide, haunted eyes searched desperately for mercy that would never come.
"Please… don't… my children…" she whispered, voice cracking.
The knight's voice cut the silence like iron. "Witch. For the safety of all, you must die."
"I am… only a mother…" she gasped, clutching her children closer, trying to shield them from the inevitable.
The knight's blade descended with merciless precision, slashing across her chest. She crumpled to the ground, blood pooling beneath her. Her final gasp was a broken whisper.
"I… love… you…"
The children's cries tore through the air, desperate and raw, swallowed only by the unfeeling wind.
The knight straightened, wiping his blade, and took a slow, deliberate step toward them, boots crunching on gravel. The shadow of his armor loomed over the trembling children.
"Mama… wake up… please, don't leave us…" the younger one cried, shaking her mother's cold body, trembling all over.
"No… don't… please…" the older one whispered, voice quivering.
Then something inside her snapped, the grief was too heavy for such a small heart to bear. A searing, icy fire spread through her chest, twisting grief into a raw, burning rage. Her heart pounded like it would burst; her lungs burned with each jagged, terrified gasp. The fiend blood in her veins clawed at every nerve, demanding release.
"It… hurts…!" she screamed, raw and primal.
"Please… make it stop… I can't bear it anymore!" she wailed, voice cracking under unbearable agony.
The air thickened around her, shimmering with a faint, sickly light. Her eyes glowed with unnatural brilliance, the pupils widening into molten orbs of anger and sorrow. Her body trembled violently, tendons taut, muscles rigid, as if her very form were fighting against the surge of power inside her.
The knight froze mid-step, a flicker of unease crossing his face. The air grew heavier, charged, crackling with tension. Dust and small stones lifted from the ground, swirling around the children in a spiraling vortex. The earth groaned and split, chasms tearing open beneath the knights' feet. One swallowed a soldier whole, dragging armor and flesh screaming into darkness. Plates clanged, men stumbled backward, weapons slipping from shaking hands.
Houses crumbled, their timbers splintering as the soil heaved violently. Trees bent and snapped as the raw, elemental force radiated outward. Even the wind seemed to carry a scream, whispering of grief, rage, and power far beyond human comprehension.
When the tremor finally subsided, nothing remained—no soldiers, no street, no sign of the children—only a deep, smoking scar etched into the land. It was a mark of what cruelty and fear could awaken, a testament to grief made monstrous, and the devastating power of the half-blood bloodline.
It was a war of unparalleled brutality. Countless lives were lost on both sides. Many witches, driven into corners and stripped of hope, succumbed to the darkness in their hearts, their humanity devoured until only monstrous fiend forms remained. Entire regions became haunted by the echoes of what had transpired. Forests grew blackened and twisted; rivers ran dark with ash and blood. Survivors whispered of fiends born from grief, half-bloods whose powers had turned them into nightmares, and of knights and soldiers swallowed whole by earth itself.
The scars of that conflict never healed. To this day, the Union and the witches regard each other with bitter hatred. Generations have been raised on stories of betrayal and slaughter, grudges passed down like cursed heirlooms. Fear and suspicion became woven into the very fabric of human society, and even children were taught to mistrust those who bore strange gifts.
Yet the fiends never vanished entirely. They lurked in shadow, in forgotten corners of the world, waiting for the moment to strike. Humanity, though hardened by centuries of war, remained fragile, and the threat of the netherworld still hung over every kingdom like a storm cloud.
Now, the world stands once more on the edge. The chains of resentment and vengeance bind both sides, yet darkness waits, biding its time. Magic, born from fear and hatred, still thrives in hidden hearts. Old wounds, though scabbed over, have never fully healed. And somewhere, in the quiet corners of villages and battlefields alike, the next spark of calamity waits to ignite.
Will mankind ever rise above its own hatred?
Will the world ever be freed from the chaos that has gripped it for a century?
Or will the shadows of the fiends and the hatred of humanity consume everything in their path?
Only time will tell.