As twilight deepened, a lonely figure sat beneath the cold wind, holding a golden sheep plush in her arms as she gazed quietly into the distance from the summit of Thermopylae.
Her vermilion eyes were like beautiful gemstones, or like a planet burning red.
In a daze, those silent pupils seemed to take in the vastness of the universe. Within the deep darkness, everything seemed to sink into eternal loneliness.
Until a blue planet entered her sight…
A meteor fell from the dawn sky, a streak of light cutting across the pitch-black river of the heavens.
As it rubbed against the air, boiling, dense Ether bloomed into dazzling light against the night.
Countless lives lifted their heads.
They gazed up at that foreign comet as it raced across the sky.
The sight of a planet looking up at the heavens remained fixed and unchanging, like an oil painting frozen in time.
Life looked upon that breathtaking scene and mistook that moment for the eternity of the universe, sighing at the meteor, which seemed like a falling tear.
But those small and humble beings did not know that it was a fragment of a star, one that would bring their world to an end.
The next moment.
White terror spanned heaven and earth, coming from the chaotic sea before finally reaching the shore.
The surface was burning.
The world was burning.
Everything that could be called "civilization" was trampled and destroyed.
Anything with intellect was not even allowed to remain as a subject.
Countless motes of stardust, like phosphorescent powder, scattered from the white giant. The contaminated animals suffered in agony, their bodies twisting into misshapen, gigantic forms before breaking down and destroying themselves amid endless rampage and destruction.
"It came far too quickly." The prophet trembled.
"There is no path but battle." The ruler rose to fight.
"It is already too late." The scholars understood and gave up.
"But surely there must still be a thread of hope?" The living gathered there and fought until the final chapter of their lives.
At that moment, gods and humans reconciled, and heroes no longer clung to selfish desires.
Countless aberrations surfaced from the sea, carrying malice toward this world. Tens of thousands of sails gathered like clouds.
The gods led the way, and humanity charged.
The precious blood of gods became wine to send the heroes off. The bones of humans became steps, paving a road for the faintest hope.
The blood-red sunset cast a crimson glow over the Sea of Oceanus. As the seawater churned, the eerie red tide seemed piled with endless corpses, countless souls lifting their heads and roaring in defiance.
At last, that ship broke through the absolute sea, reached the end of the white terror, and struck down the god that would destroy the world, allowing those insignificant beings to continue their pitiful civilization.
Twilight deepened, and the wind blew harder.
The white-haired girl tightened her arms around the golden lamb. The starlight gradually faded from her vermilion eyes, and her memories drifted farther away.
Darkness. Dead silence. The world became so narrow and desolate.
Ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years…
She seemed to be inside a chaotic stone chamber, a prisoner trapped in eternal loneliness.
Until a beam of light shone into the sunless cavern.
"Thank you for the guidance of Eternal Heaven. I have finally found you, the king prophesied to revive the Huns…"
A middle-aged shaman with cracked skin and braided hair knelt excitedly inside the naturally formed stone chamber temple, bowing before the girl who had awakened from eternal loneliness.
However, the girl had lost all her memories. She had forgotten her own name and origins completely.
The shamans named the girl "Attila" and accepted her into the Hun tribe.
But the girl disliked the sound of that name and often complained, wanting something cuter to say, such as "Altera."
Each time the tribe's shaman, who went from middle-aged to old, heard her protest, he would smile and say, "Again?" Neither agreeing nor objecting. In his increasingly clouded eyes, there was always a light the girl could not understand.
Warmth, indulgence, concern, and something else she could not quite name…
Attila was worshiped as a born warrior. With an unbelievable growth speed, she soon defeated every challenger and became the tribal chief who led the warriors. As for that tiny change in the syllables of her name, no one stopped her again.
Because the person who had named her was already gone.
Those who replaced him were the young shamans who had entered the stone chamber and brought the girl back to the tribe.
Only by then, he was no longer young either…
How short and fragile human life was.
The children of the tribe grew into youths, the youths into young adults, the young adults into the strong and mature, and the strong and mature into the old. In the end, the old were abandoned on the wilderness, left for hawks to peck apart and wild wolves to tear at, nourishing the earth beneath them in the year to come.
The grassland's green grass came and went, turning yellow and green again. The herds sometimes grew and sometimes shrank. Within the tribe, some were born and some died. Everything changed. Only the face of the girl granted by the gods never changed, though she spoke less and less.
And whenever she slept, the girl would always dream of the starry sky and the sea.
Though it was hazy, something unseen was always calling her to seek it.
So the girl rode freely across the grasslands, advancing westward with many companions, setting out on a journey toward the ocean in her dreams and fighting the people of the West as her enemies.
At the same time, as tribal chief, she had to keep destroying for the prosperity of her own people.
Perhaps from a human point of view, this would be classified as "ugly" behavior. Invading others for the sake of one's own side was indeed what humans called evil. With harmful intent, one exterminated the enemy. With selfish intent, one enriched and prospered one's own people.
But she had always existed by trampling life and crushing civilization.
Once, "eradicating civilization from this universe" had been the meaning of the white giant's existence, the reason the destruction machine known as "Sefar" operated.
Destruction for the sake of destruction was its principle of action.
Its actions contained no malice, nor did they pursue profit. Something that destroyed without being moved by emotion was no different from a natural disaster.
But aside from destruction, she had left nothing behind.
This time, however, at least she had people of her own with whom she could speak, and a meaning in fighting for their prosperity.
As well as a mission to lead their prayers into that sea of stars and step into heaven.
Hum!
All at once, the hum of the Sword of the War God shattered the long dream. The white-haired girl's eyes flew open, her fingers tightening around the hilt. Her vermilion gaze turned quietly toward the jagged rubble.
"You're awake?"
In the interwoven light of moon and night, Samael walked out with a smile and sat down beside Altera. His right hand was hidden behind his back, while his left handed her a paper bag.
"It wasn't easy finding this. I prepared it especially for you. Eat it while it's hot. It won't taste good cold."
Altera's nostrils moved, and she froze for a moment. Her fingers slowly loosened from the sword hilt. She took the paper bag, brought a meat skewer to her mouth, and chewed.
Mm. Very chewy. Wyvern meat…
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