"And on that day, when mortality first reached out to touch Godhood, a maiden became the lamb who blessed our foul world. Our unholy Crusader, a scorned Human forged of fire and steel—The First Hero of Battle—was Mi-Yu. Without her war against the Game Masters, without what she sacrificed that day, we'd still be rats in the dark."

  ? A passage from the personal diary of Astara Morningstar, heiress of Gehenna.

  Mi-Yu had learned several truths during her crusade against The Iliad. The most important of which: that hope was no more than a commonly sold lie, for Fate was already written. On that day, as she ascended to the highest peak of her world, Mi-Yu learned how cold it really felt to stand above all others. Mi-Yu brought nothing less than war to that sacred place Mortals called "paradise." She held the raging flames of Battle's unloved children at her side, holding a vow to burn her Gods' garden to nothingness.

  The voice of Master Yama, God of Patience, thundered down from the warring heavens; that unreachable place watching her every struggle with amusement. "Your pain today will only delay the inevitable, Human..." The Game Master's voice, polished and gruff like spackled marble, echoed through every hidden nook of Mi-Yu's forsaken world. Godly pitch crumbled mountains and forced oceans to swell with every Holy syllable. "Our Game will be played."

  Mi-Yu found herself alone when Yama blessed her ears with his call from on high. She had finally made it, higher than any other in her party, wheezing atop the snow-kissed peak of Mount Vera. The crusader's oversized cloak, fashioned from a salt-and-pepper pelt she claimed from one of the many Polarfangs she slew in the tundra of Pantara, hung heavy on her tired shoulders. The furs danced beautifully in those unobstructed winds as natural forces tried their hardest to push the woman away from the world's peak. She didn't let them bully her, for the crusader's eyes stayed fixed on the horrors surrounding her. Below Mi-Yu, the isle of Sedon, which centuries ago had been given the prestigious nickname "The Garden of the Gods", laid marred by the flames of war she had carried with her.

  Mangled and seared bodies of her fallen companions littered the mountainside, waiting to be devoured by an inferno inching ever higher. Mi-Yu's shamrock-colored hair, usually tied meticulously in an elegant series of braids down her back, swayed unbound in the gusts; the brightness of her mane now dirtied by the ash and blood kicked up by those winds. The woman gripped at her chest-plate's left side, shattered sliver armor scuffed beyond recognition throughout her quest, while attempting to apply pressure to the wound she received from Aeon's arrow. As the Champion's poison crept throughout the crusader's body, her pale skin started to crack and crumble to dust, whiter than any snow around her armored boots. The shooting pain in her heart grew more unbearable with every beat as foul toxins pushed further into her core. Muscle and bone deteriorated quickly. She wanted to heave over into the cold filth and release a wail of suffering loud enough for the whole world to hear. But the crusader neither budged, nor whimpered; for there was still work to be done on her cruel world.

  Mi-Yu clenched her teeth until enamel chipped and responded to the God of Patience. "Your 'Game'...? What a joke!" The green-haired widow tried her best to speak with clearly, but due to the pain in her chest and the garden's smoke burning at her throat, the words came out hoarse. "Your "Game" is playing with my life ... the lives of all Mortals!" She managed to crack a slim smile despite the pain in her everything. "You Game Masters sit up there... laughing as we suffer your consequences!"

  The sky boomed around the world again with Yama's deep but stern voice, "Games require structure. Champions provide order. If the Cauldron is spilled, chaos will rule above all else."

  Above Mi-Yu, the source of all Champions' powers, the Cauldron of Infinity floated silently. The orb of shimmering light cascaded through an endless series of shades, never remaining constant for more than a flicker, never being fully consumed by or missing a single shade, breathing, pulsating as if it too was alive. Playful wisps of the Cauldron's light jumped from and back onto the Holy orb, causing momentary contrails to linger in the air and evaporate into tails of smoke, then to nothing. The Cauldron illuminated the snowy peak clearly despite the smoke rising ever quicker from Sedon's ruins below. Her journey's end was ahead, there was no time to look down. The shamrock-haired woman basked in the Cauldron's radiance, finding it hard to catch her breath as her heart continued to pulse poisoned sludge through her.

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  She had given up everything to be here; all for this painful second of vengeance. Years of shedding tears, losing loved ones, even abandoning herself at times all led to this: the end of her quest. She knew her time was short, but her journey still had one final task until it could be called complete; one final labor before she'd allow herself that final rest.

  Mi-Yu craned her neck and shot the heavens a glare colder than frozen steel, declaring her victory with the hope that her whole world would hear it. "For too long... we've prayed for mercy while the Game Masters of The Iliad meddled with our world!" Her gullet began to shred as her voice grew more animalistic. "But, from this day forth... Mortals shall hold the reins of Fate!"

  Mi-Yu reached out to the Cauldron, and with a simple thought, the Holy orb replied.

  Join us.

  The Cauldron's vibrant illuminations sailed down to the crusader in a web of patterns not found in any Mortal land. At first, the lights wrapped her in warmth, a feeling that rushed through her cells like crashing waves of ecstasy. Her pain was gone, down to every uncomfortable tickle of her shattered armor. Her long fight had reached its end, and all the power in the world was in her hands. The widow let herself smile for the first time in over eight years—when her beloved was cut down by a Champion of The Iliad. That painful memory, the very thing that drove her all this way became distorted in her mind thanks to all the rushing lights. Something new—something powerful—swelled within her, and Mi-Yu started to wonder why she was ever mad in the first place.

  But that bliss quickly turned on the crusader as those lights proved too much for her alone to bear. The pain of endless power felt more infectious than the arrow's poison; crueler than any she had experienced on her quest to the garden; miles worse than any she feared in her most haunting nightmares. That light consumed her—destroyed her—causing Mi-Yu to screech out in torment and lurch down to the bloodied snows around her, clenching at her green hair as if she aimed to rip it all from her in two fistfuls.

  Yama's voice echoed through the world one last time. "You will not be the only one to suffer for this crime... Human..."

  The Cauldron's light shredded the crusader apart from the inside; soul, spirit, and lastly her physical form. When that holiest of all powers was done eviscerating her, a beam of pure white surged from her body, slamming through the clouded skies above and sailing into the endless void beyond her world's sight. The brightness of this moment was so intense, historians from all across the world took note of the event. For it was written that on that day, at Mi-Yu's last breath, that for just a second, "the entire world stood at high noon." When that flash of Holy-shine was over, the shamrock-haired crusader, Mount Vera, and the Cauldron of Infinity were no more. All that remained on the isle of Sedon was the dust of Mi-Yu's retribution.

  By morning, the bountiful paradise known as the Garden of the Gods was nothing more than a field of cinders; a funeral pyre for an Age killed by a single Mortal's wrath. "Mi-Yu's Crusade" was cemented into legend as quickly as it could spread, and as the Ages passed, she became immortalized through the story of her sacrifice; becoming simply known by all Mortals of her world as, "The First Hero."

  For the hopeful masses, that night on Sedon was thought of as the Crown Game's end, the night where The Game Masters were outplayed by one of their own pawns. But whispers eventually rose from every corner where Mortals dwelled. A sad song, one sung in so many languages and every combination of words, warning the hero's sacrifice was far from the end of their suffering; that Mi-Yu's death was no more than a flashy conclusion to a cruel prologue; and how the true cruelty of The Iliad had yet to be witnessed by Mortal eyes.

  For Mortals break like cheap toys, but the Gods' Game never ends.

  (To Be Continued...)

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