Shadow Slave

In the beginning, the world was vast.

The day sky shining upon it was the realm of Sun God. The night sky shrouding it in darkness was the realm of Storm God. The pale moon moving across the sky was the eye of Beast God, and it illuminated the mortal realms below.

The mortal realms sprawled far and wide, populated by all manner of beasts and creatures — as well as men.

Below the red dust of the mortal world lay the peaceful darkness of Shadow God’s domain.

The realm of Heart God, meanwhile, existed in the souls of living things.

And in the heart of it all, imprisoned, was the Void.

...The world was vast, but the shadow was small.

And since the world was full of horrors, the shadow was afraid.

It crawled out of the water, hid in a dark place, and shook, feeling the ground around it quake and groan under the heavy footsteps of history.

No. The Demon of Desire, Hope, had not invented writing yet, so there was no history. The world groaned under the footsteps of the gods, who walked its surface — as well as others like them, who were more terrifying than fear itself.

For they were Creatures of the Void.

In the beginning, when the world was young, the gods still fought against those few of their kin who had escaped the cage of existence during its creation. The shadow clung to the cold stones of its dark cave, terrified.

For a long time, that was all it knew. It didn’t even know itself.

Outside the cave, the world was changing.

One day, a harrowing, colossal form fell from the sky, impacting the earth like a dying planet. Its death cries shattered the heavens, and its fall broke the world. The ground splintered and rose in molten waves, forming towering ridges. The being’s blood flowed into the dark depths like a sea, and before it could rise again, another shape plummeted from the fractured sky to press it down.

The first being was vast and harrowing. The second was beyond the concept of horror — bestial and ferocious, it was so great as to be entirely unfathomable.

The moon served as that being’s eye.

Its infinite maw was full of fearsome fangs, and with those fangs, it tore into the fallen being, rending its flesh and spirit apart. The fangs cleaved the molten earth, as well, shaping it into tall and jagged mountains.

That was Beast God slaying a great Creature of the Void.

Once the creature was dead, Beast God devoured its endless expanse and slept for a while in the molten cradle. Centuries passed, and the world slowly cooled. The Hollow Mountains took shape, and the great caverns of the Underworld were formed below them. The blood of the slain creature became true darkness, and white mist seeped into existence through the fractures in the broken fabric of reality.

Finally, Beast God stirred awake, displeased by the cold, rose from the ground, and returned into the dark embrace of the night sky.

The shadow trembled.

Another day, a horror so terrifying that it defied description — defied being cognized or conceived of, let alone comprehended — rose from the depths. All six of the great gods fought it together, and it was only when the daemons joined them that they finally managed to drive the Void Being back down.

However, they couldn’t kill it.

Instead, Sun God placed a prohibition on the absolute laws of existence, eliminating the concept of warmth and movement from the waters where the terrifying being of the everlasting Void dwelled. The ocean turned to ice, imprisoning the Void Creature in its depths. A vicious cold emanated from the frozen ocean, swallowing the lands around it and turning them into a frigid, lifeless wasteland.

The cold continued to seep into the world, spreading slowly.

Many other things happened, as well.

A small sapling turned into a great tree, its roots reaching the depths of the Shadow Realm while its branches supported the heavens.

A vast forest grew around it, becoming a blissful shelter for all living things. In time, however, rot and corruption spread under its branches, and it wasn’t until the Demon of Repose created the seasons that its endless hunger for growth was confined.

Humans abandoned the cradle of the primordial forest and ventured into the vast expanse of the world.

The cage of existence was almost broken by the crushing strength of the Stone Titan, who was eventually destroyed by the Demon of Dread.

All memories of Dream God were erased from existence, leaving an echoing absence.

The divine syzygy splintered into myriad realms.

A nasty bird stole Weaver’s eye.

Mirage, the Demon of Imagination, built a system of artificial lakes and created the concept of reflections. Because of her, the world was able to look upon itself for the first time.

Some were enamored by their reflections; some were dismayed...

The shadow didn’t look.

Reflections did not exist in the darkness, and it was reluctant to abandon its lightless shelter.

It wasn’t really interested in its appearance, anyway — however, because of that disinterest...

The shadow became aware of its own existence.

It had existed for a long time, but it had never been aware of itself. Now, the thought of being indifferent to its looks made the shadow realize that it had to exist in order to look like something.

And so, the shadow asked itself a question.

‘Who am I?’

It did not know.

It did not remember.

Or, rather, it remembered too much.

The shadow vaguely remembered living myriad lives, being myriad creatures. In one life, it had been a beast hunting powerless prey. In another, a hunter slaying the beast.

In one life, it had been a king.

In another... A slave.

All of its numerous lives had been different. Some had been short, some had been long. Some had been spent in the embrace of the Flame, some drowned by the rot of Corruption.

There was only one thing uniting them all — it was death.

The shadow might have lived myriad different lives, but they all ended the same way. Death was the only constant in its strange existence, so it was what the shadow knew best.

Death felt like home.

Death was familiar, soothing, and peaceful. Life, however, was violent and full of strife. The weight of myriad lives had been arduous and overwhelming, and so the shadow was tired.

After escaping the endless cycle of rebirth, the shadow had fallen into water, sought shelter in a dark cave, and forgotten itself. It hid in the darkness while the world was in the throes of the Age of Gods.

The shadow was still tired of life, but having rested for a long while, it didn’t feel as exhausted anymore. And so, as the tribes of humans spread across the mortal realms, fighting against the Creatures of Corruption that dominated the world beyond the safe haven of the Divine Realms, it asked itself a second question.

‘What am I?’

The shadow’s memories were endless, impossible to encompass, and contradictory. It didn’t know a lot while at the same time knowing too much. However, one thing that the shadow did understand was that a creature like it was not supposed to exist.

All beings were meant to live for a while, then find eternal peace in the embrace of death. The shadow, however, remembered dying myriad times, but it was always forced to return to the harsh embrace of life.

It vaguely remembered living — and dying — thousands upon thousands of times. Hundreds of thousands?

The shadow was not entirely sure.

It repeated the cycle of life and death over and over, over and over, over and over again... eternal, ever-changing... until it was shaped into the being it was now.

In some lives, the world was similar to how it seemed — governed by the great gods and populated in equal measure by mortals and abominations. In some, the gods were distant and indifferent, with mortals reigning over myriad realms. In some, the gods were dead, and the world was swallowed by Corruption. There were strange cities with towering buildings made from metal and people who did not know who the gods had been.

The shadow remembered the bitter smell of gunpowder drifting over a towering alloy wall, the deafening thunder of firing turrets, soldiers, and MWPs fusing into a somber litany under the light of a crimson aurora...

It also remembered staying behind as the Demon of Dread laid siege to the Realm of Death in the final battle of a world-ending war, its siblings fighting against the endless legion of shadows as gods and daemons clashed in the boundless darkness above them.

The shadow remembered Hope straining to break free of its chains. It remembered spending thousands of years being devoured by a profane vine... it also remembered being killed, kneeling, as the vine first took hold within its body.

The memories were endless, and some of them contradicted each other. Some came from the past, while many came from the future... from various futures, each more fantastical than the previous one.

It all felt like a dream.

‘Ah... a dream.’

The shadow realized that it had been asleep for a long time. And so, it felt like this world... this beautiful, harrowing world... was nothing but a dream it dreamt.

‘No, not a dream.’

It was a nightmare.

The shadow dreamt a nightmare, and in that nightmare, it had been forced to relive the lives of all the creatures it had killed. Hundreds of thousands of them...

The number was an answer that seemed to hint at what kind of being the shadow had been.

It would have been appalled and terrified, but its feelings had long been numbed by the weight of myriad lives the shadows had lived. So, it accepted it with indifference.

The shadow felt like it was forgetting something... something important. Something vital, or perhaps even precious. But even if that was true, the shadow did not really care to remember what it was, either.

Its curiosity sated and feeling no desire to explore its murderous past, the shadow settled comfortably and prepared to return to its slumber.

However, at that moment, it was disturbed. Something was moving at the mouth of the cave...

Someone was making noise in its quiet shelter.

Displeased, the shadow stirred and sighed, directing its senses to the uninvited guest. It was greatly displeased.

A strange word surfaced from the depths of its calloused being...

‘Damnation.’