The Legends of Kartas | Ongoing

1. BEGIN

22 Years Later

The Luxian guard was kneeling in an abandoned alley. His wounds cried crimson tears that sent ripples twisting and turning over the blood ocean beneath him, traveling far and wide until they hit a dead body. Mutilated guards dotted the area, and their white uniforms drank the blood like a sponge, disgraced with red sacrilege that caught the moonlight.

Those guards were his companions. Just hours ago, they had a future ahead of them. They were young and lively, happy to return to their families after their shift as the night watch. But now, they were corpses resting in the slums, waiting to be forgotten.

An ominous haze settled over the bloodbath. It thickened and molded itself into a human-esque body, contorting and twitching before a pale hand tore through the darkness and a shadow materialized before the kneeling guard. Heavy boots splashed in blood, and bones groaned as the shadow kneeled, its ferocious eyes piercing into the guard's own. Gagging up blood clotting in his throat, the guard wheezed out his final words.

"Reveal yourself, demon."

The demon snickered as foul strings of miasma accumulated in its open palm and swirled so expeditiously that a miniature bead enlarged into an opaque sphere in a matter of seconds.

"The time is near," it rasped. "The Demon Days are approaching."

The guard shook his head as a trickle of blood leaked down his chin. "You demons will never win. The elementals will stop you just as the first Legends did."

A sinister smile played on the demon's lips, and without another word—without an ounce of hesitation—it crushed the opaque orb in its hand. Whorls of darkness entered the guard's nose, mouth, ears, and eyes as he plopped to the bloody ground, writhing. Stygian tears oozed down his cheeks as black suffused his veins, and with his last breath, the dark mist escaped his mouth and dissipated into thin air.

Running its bony fingers through the blood, the demon smirked at its atrocious art and inhaled the scent of death when its head suddenly snapped up. Its red eyes peered beyond the dead bodies, the alley, when the blood drained from its ashen face. It blindly reached towards an uninvited spectator as an unmistakable whisper left its chapped lips.

"Prince Jeon Jungkook?"

* * *

Jungkook's eyes flew open as he gasped, retracting his hand from the lifeless guard's. A green aura emanating from his pendant waned as he inhaled staggering breaths and desperately wiped the sticky blood coating his fingers on his blue cloak.

This had never happened before. As a time elemental, when browsing memories through Anilium, never was he noticed, yet that demon. . . A shiver crawled down his spine. When he had first stumbled upon the vicious scene, his mouth dried and his legs buckled. Frequent reports detailed royal guards of the night watch dying near the slums, and because of his father's indifference, Jungkook had decided to solve the problem himself.

But this. . . Glancing at the dead men, at the bloodstained uniforms of the Luxian guards, at the blank eyes of the deceased, he gulped. This was realms beyond what he had anticipated.

The clouds overhead masked the moon, and tiny patterns of light danced over the blood puddles drenching the alley. It had been five hours since dusk struck—since he had left the castle—and this had seemed like a good idea until. . .

Until he saw a demon butcher a group of royal guards, proud soldiers who were trained to be cunning and swift and remorseless. And Jungkook—who was training under Elias Novire, the son of the Captain of the Guard and one of his closest friends—had a tiny sip of the grueling training. So seeing about a dozen guards die right before his eyes shook him to the core.