The world had once trembled at his name.
Ashweist—the Elementalist who commanded firestorm, floods, quakes and lightning. As if the very spirit of nature bowed to him. He was hailed as the savior who forged pacts with the elemental sovereign when the world was on the verge of collapse.
But salvation came with a price.
Each pact chipped away his sanity. Each sovereign he bound pressed their will against his soul. And when the final balance was about to restored, Ashweist was no longer the man who had sworn to protect the world.
He was a broken vessel overflowing with voices, too much power for a single soul to contain.
Madness claimed him.
Grief twisted into rage.
And in the end, the savior declared the world unworthy of salvation.
"If peace can only be born in ashes… then let me burn it all down."
The world that once praised him now wept in terror. Ashweist, the savior they had once lifted upon their shoulders, had become the very doom they feared most. His name, once sung in hymns, was now spat in curses and desperate prayers.
Nations rose against him, mustering armies of their finest champions—knights clad in blessed steel, archmages wielding forbidden rites, legions forged from centuries of war. Yet none could stand before his fury. Their courage turned to ash beneath his gaze.
A single gesture from his hand summoned tempests that tore fortresses apart. A whisper from his lips could crack the very bones of the earth, swallowing armies whole. Where he walked, forests withered, oceans raged, and mountains split as though the world itself bent to his madness.
Entire kingdoms vanished in fire and storm, their banners reduced to little more than smoke rising on the horizon. Borders ceased to matter; lines drawn on maps meant nothing before the wrath of a man who once carried the will of the elements themselves.
Hope itself began to collapse. No prayer was answered, no alliance strong enough, no fortress high enough to escape the storm he had become. To resist was to perish. To surrender was to wait for annihilation.
The savior had become the end.
Only one person remained—Aleyna, the Great Sage. His closest companion, once his confidante, and the only one strong enough to face him.
Their battle scarred the heavens. Oceans boiled, mountains split, and cities crumbled. For days the world shook as two titans clashed. But even as she fought, Aleyna's heart wavered. For behind the monster of fire and storm, she still glimpsed the man she once knew.
In the final moments, as she prepared the sealing incantation, she called out to him.
"Ashweist...please stop this. You've done enough. The world doesn't need fire anymore—it needs you." Aleyna said.
"Hahaha!...Needs me?" His laugh was hollow, ragged, as if it came from a thousand voices. "Aleyna, I gave them everything. My soul, my sanity…my humanity and what did they give me in return? Fear. Chains. Silence. No… the world doesn't need me. It needs to end."
"You're wrong. You were never their god. You were their hope. And I will not let you destroy what you once saved." Aleyna said with conviction.
"Try, Sage," Ashweist roared, lightning crackling from his hands. "Show me if your conviction is stronger than my despair!"
And when Ashweist was finally defeated, his body and power were sealed into a crystal, then the crystal is separated and hidden through across the continent.
Or so the world believed.
Centuries passed. The scars of that near-apocalypse slowly healed, swallowed by time. Kingdoms rose, fell, and rose again. What was once branded as the end of days became nothing more than bedtime stories and half-forgotten folklore.
The name Ashweist—once uttered in awe and fear—eroded into dust, buried beneath centuries of peace and progress. To most, he was no more than a cautionary tale of a "fallen hero" told to children to keep them from mischief.
The world began to rebuild without fear of collapsing skies or raging storms born from one man's will. Towers of stone and steel replaced the ruins of old, bustling markets drowned out the echoes of war, and laughter returned to the places where silence had reigned. Humanity, as it always did, forgot what it once feared.
But not everything forgotten stays buried.
In a quiet, unremarkable corner of the world—far from thrones and temples, where legends no longer reached—one careless act would undo centuries of silence.
The seal that bound the greatest Elementalist in history would crack.
And the man who once brought nations to their knees… would rise again.