The village lay in ruins, consumed by flames and deathly silence. The air was thick with the acrid scent of smoke and blood, a grim testament to the emperor's ruthless purge. Shadows flickered across the devastation, the light of the burning homes casting eerie, dancing silhouettes over the fallen.
Amid the destruction, a boy's body lay still, broken and bloodied. His name was Alaric, the last survivor of a family who had dared to uncover the emperor's darkest secrets. They had paid for their defiance with their lives, butchered by the emperor's elite soldiers.
Alaric had watched his family perish, their final cries a haunting echo in his memory as darkness claimed him. His life had ended with theirs, his last breath drawn in a whispered vow of vengeance.
But death was not the end.
As the embers cooled and silence grew heavy, a spark of life flickered within Alaric's lifeless form. An ancient power, buried deep within his soul, awoke. His eyes snapped open, now glowing with an eerie, otherworldly light. He rose from the ashes, driven by a force he could not yet comprehend.
Memories of necromantic rituals surged through his mind—spells and incantations, the secrets of life and death. Knowledge of necromancy coursed through him, an unexpected and dark gift. He knew, with unsettling certainty, that he had been chosen for a purpose far greater than the fate he had suffered.
Standing amidst the corpses of his loved ones, Alaric extended a trembling hand and whispered a spell. The air hummed with energy, and the earth beneath him seemed to pulse in response. Slowly, the bodies around him began to stir, rising from their final resting places.
The dead were his to command, an army bound to his will. With each breath, Alaric's power grew, fueled by the injustice done to him and his unquenchable thirst for revenge.
He gazed towards the horizon, where the emperor's palace loomed, a symbol of unchallenged tyranny. The path before him was dark and perilous, but he had nothing left to lose. With the undead at his side and necromantic power in his grasp, Alaric swore to bring down the emperor and his subordinates, to make them pay for the blood they had spilled.
The boy who had once known only peace and innocence was gone, replaced by a harbinger of doom. Alaric, master of the dead, would stop at nothing to see his enemies fall.
And so, his journey began.