The Capital City, Avesti, capital of the Hayes Empire, the most dominant empire in the southern continent.
The Capital was the largest city in the continent. It was a place bustling with life. Where the wealthiest nobles and merchants reside.
It was also home to the Hayes imperial family. Yet such a city once filled with life was now destroyed beyond salvaging.
The once beautiful structures it held were rubble. The noble estates where most of the high ranking nobles resided was in flames.
All this was as a result of the actions of one man.
Standing in the center of six individuals. Well more like kneeling, with scars all over his body and was breathing heavily.
The other individuals were also heavily breathing as the battle had taken a toll on them as well, as evidenced by the fresh wounds and battered attire they wore.
But the injuries they had were minimal compared to the one in the middle. He had different large spears piercing his back. He had a missing arm. He was also missing an eye.
And lastly a hole in his chest. Haa, haa. Breathing heavily he spoke.
"Why?"
There was no response from the six individuals surrounding him. Then he raised his head and landed his amethyst colored eyes at a particular individual amongst the six.
Someone he was familiar with. No he was familiar with all of them but she hurt him the most.
"Why Aur?"
The girl named Aur didn't respond to his question. But it didn't matter as he kept speaking.
"Everything I did, I did for you, for us, for our future". Then he turned to another one of the individuals also a female and spoke.
"Why, Isabella. My sister. My own blood, why do this to me".
But Isabella with an annoyed look on her face replied. "Don't speak so casually to me, brother. After all the atrocities you've committed, you seriously needed to ask".
"You're a loose cannon brother. It's a shame it came to this". Saying so she turned towards Aurora and spoke. "Aurora, you know what to do right?".
"Yeah". Aur or rather Aurora stepped forward with her sword in hand and approached the kneeling individual while the others just stood guard ready to swoop in and save her just in case.
Aurora strode casually towards the individual in the center. And although her expression and demeanor seemed calm, anyone who looked into her eyes at this exact moment would say the opposite.
Her eyes carried an abnormal level of anger and hatred.
Then she lifted her sword into the air whilst speaking "This is for my mother and father you killed, you monster", and swung it down cleanly cutting his head off.
"And with this, the emissary of chaos is dead".
******
"Wow". In a dim lit room, a blonde haired individual spoke up. "Mehn that was anti climactic. Although I do feel bad for that guy tho. He was one of the strongest characters in the novel too".
Saying so he stood up and looked around his room. To say it was messy would be the understatement of the century. His clothes were scattered all over, dirty plates in the sink, food wraps on the floor. All in all the room was a pig sty.
Wasn't all that surprising given that he had stayed in his room for a full week without leaving all because he was binge reading this novel that recently came out.
The name of the novel was 'Swordmaster's Rise'. The novel came out 7 months ago and it took the novel community by storm, rising to the number one spot in an instant.
"With that volume 7 has ended. I wonder when the next volume will be out". As he said that he started to tidy up his room.
*Ring*
While doing the dishes he heard his phone ring. He cleaned his hand with a napkin and picked up his phone.
There was a message from an unknown number. It read.
[Hello Alex Friedman, my name is Phillip. I'm the editor of Swordmaster's rise. I just came to ask for your thoughts on the novel.]
'Oh. The editor of Swordmaster's rise huh. Nice. Since he's asking for my thoughts on the novel, I guess I should answer him'.
With that thought he replied to the message.
[I really enjoyed the novel. I liked the pacing, the well written characters, the villain arcs, the world building. Basically everything about the novel.]
'And sent'. He hit the send button and replied to the editor's message. But as soon as he was about to drop his phone he got another message from the editor that surprised him.
[What if I told you, I could send you into the novel's reality to live out your life.]
'What?. Is that even possible?. Damn. Here I thought that the actual editor messaged me, didn't think I was talking to a psycho but why not. Oh heck why not '.
And he replied to the text with 'why the heck not'.
And then dropped his phone a bit pissed that he wasted his time with someone who wasn't who he thought they were.
And continued cleaning his apartment. As he was cleaning he suddenly started feeling dizzy.
'Wha?'
He tried walking to the bathroom but he immediately fell on his knees.
'Whats happening?'
He was confused about what was going on. He initially thought he was having his usual asthmatic attack but this was different. Different from the rest.
He tried reaching for his phone to call 911 but he didn't reach it before his consciousness was consumed by darkness and he died.