Chapter 152: Before the Hunger — The Lord of Ruin (Part I)
Twelve Days Until Arrival
There was a time before the Devourers.
Before the Hunger.Before the Threshold War.
Before monsters consumed kingdoms.
They had names.Families.Dreams.Failures.
History remembered them only as monsters.
Astraeus remembered them as people.
And somewhere within Asterion, Auren quietly whispered,"If Kael is to defeat them... he must first understand them."
The world had spent ten thousand years asking one question.
How do you kill a Devourer Lord?
No one had asked the more important question
Why did they become one?
The Common Beginning
There was an old prophecy that predated even the oldest kingdoms.
It had never been written in any royal archive.
Instead, it was passed from one generation of wandering storytellers to the next.
It spoke of Seven Stars.
Not stars in the sky.
People.
Seven souls whose choices would determine whether the world embraced hope...
Or surrendered to despair.
Every age produced its Seven Stars.
Sometimes kings.
Sometimes beggars.
Sometimes children.
But during the Age of Wanderers...
Something unprecedented happened.
Four of those Seven Stars fell into darkness.
One disappeared from history.
One wandered until the end and one..
Would inherit their unfinished story.
That final Star had not yet been born.
His name would one day be Kael.
The First Star — Garrick
Long before he became Vorak'Thul, the Lord of Ruin, he was simply...Garrick Ashborn.
He was born in the northern kingdom of Hrafnheim, where winter ruled for nearly ten months of every year.
Snow buried entire villages.
Frozen forests stretched farther than the eye could see.The people believed warmth was earned, not given.
Children learned to split wood before they learned to write.Strength wasn't admired.
It was expected.Garrick hated that expectation.Not because he was weak.
Because he was gentle.
The Blacksmith's Son
His father, Torvald Ashborn, was the village blacksmith.
A giant of a man whose hands looked as though they had been carved from stone.
His voice could silence an entire tavern.
Yet every evening...After finishing his work...
He carved tiny wooden animals for the village children."Strength..."
Torvald often said while shaping iron,
"...exists to protect things too fragile to protect themselves."
Garrick believed every word.
His mother, Freya, was the village healer.
She treated broken bones.
Delivered children.
Comforted the dying.
She taught Garrick something different.
"Sometimes..."
she would whisper while grinding herbs,
"...you cannot save everyone."
He never accepted that lesson.
The Boy Who Refused
When other children wrestled in the snow...
Garrick rescued injured birds.
When they hunted wolves...
He questioned why the wolves had come so close to the village.
When they celebrated victories...
He counted the dead.
Many called him soft.
His father never did.
One evening, Torvald placed a hammer into Garrick's hands.
It wasn't heavy.
It wasn't ornate.
Just plain steel.
"What do you feel?"
his father asked.
"Weighs more than it looks."
Torvald smiled.
"Exactly."
"So does responsibility."
Elsewhere...
Thousands of miles away...
A young girl sat beneath an enormous willow tree, reading a book no one else could understand.
Her name was Thalenna.
One day...She would become Thal'Zorath.
Farther south...A healer named Myra spent every waking hour searching for a cure to a disease spreading through her homeland.
One day...She would become Myrathis.
In a distant kingdom...A gifted storyteller named Vael performed before laughing crowds.He believed stories existed to unite people.One day...He would become Vael'Thar.
They had never met.
Yet destiny quietly guided them toward the same future.The Common Thread
Each of them possessed something extraordinary.Not talent.Not strength.
Compassion.They wanted to save people.
Each simply believed the world required a different solution.
Garrick believed strength would save it.
Myra believed kindness would.
Thalenna believed knowledge would.
Vael believed understanding would.
Different paths.One destination.
The Wanderer Arrives
Winter came early that year.
Snowstorms buried roads.
Trade stopped.Food grew scarce.
One afternoon...A traveler entered the village.His boots were worn.
His cloak patched together dozens of times.
A walking staff rested over one shoulder.
Behind him walked a silver-haired boy carrying entirely too many books.
"Astraeus..."the village elder whispered.
"And Auren."Neither wore crowns.
Neither carried legendary weapons.
They simply smiled.
As though arriving exactly where they intended.
First Meeting.Garrick found them helping repair a collapsed stable.Not because anyone asked because they happened to be nearby."You don't have to do this."
Garrick said.Astraeus looked up from lifting a beam."I know." "Then why are you?"
The Wanderer laughed."Because the horses would appreciate it."Auren sighed.
"He's serious."Garrick couldn't help smiling.
For reasons he couldn't explain.Meeting them felt important.Like standing at the beginning of a road.
That evening...
The village gathered around a roaring fire.
Outside, snow covered the world in white silence.
Inside, children laughed while Astraeus told stories that somehow became more ridiculous every time he reached the ending.
Auren quietly corrected historical inaccuracies.
No one listened.
Torvald laughed louder than anyone.
Freya served warm stew.
Garrick simply watched.
He had never seen strangers become family so quickly.He didn't know it then...
But this single night would shape the rest of his life.It would become the memory he returned to.Even after ten thousand years as a Devourer Lord because every monster.Was once someone's son.
To Be Continued...