Return Of The Godslayer

Prologue

There is a story my grandmother told me once. A story of an evil god.

I remember how I would tremble as she recited the stories as though they were true...

How my father would scold her for telling me...

How I would wake in the middle of the night screaming from night terrors, my father rushing to cradle me and whisper soothing words.

"Shh... It okay now, sweetheart. Just a bad dream," he'd tell me, all the while hugging and kissing my forehead. "No need to worry anymore. I'm here now and I'll never leave." But nothing even to this day could ever make me forget it.

The Ichor dripping slowly down his bare skin, muscles that glistened like burnished bronze and dried blood like flakes of rust. That powerful aura that seemed to shake my very being. And a smile that dared the world to challenge him.

But it was his eyes that scared me most. Eyes like broken glass, and burning with such passion. Dark and fathomless and without mercy, guilt or pain.

I will never forget that dream and I will never forget the stories my grandma told so many years ago.

"They say that a thousand years ago, a great warrior had walked this Earth. Some claim he was the greatest of all. Mighty, courageous and loyal. He was the very definition of a hero. Throughout the world his name was known. Monsters trembled at his feet, immortals fell beneath his blade and mortals sang his praise.

"Foe after foe, he vanquished them. Half-bloods, monsters, gods and primordials— none could stand against him, and none dared.

"But, in the end, men who battle with monsters never leave unscathed. All it takes is one life, one innocent life— on purpose or accidentally, it never really matters. But then you take another, and then another... Very soon you find yourself sinking into a deep, dark, inescapable void. This void is a prison of your own making, built on lies and blood and subtlety. But by the time you've come to realize this it's too late. Already, you've become the very thing you hate, the very thing you have for so long fought to destroy. You become the monster.

"The gods could never let such a person live. They wanted him dead, exiled, but he was a god, omnipotent and undying, and there was no prison in all the many worlds that could hold him. So, of course, they had one built.

"They blinded him. Stripped him of rank and power. Bled his Ichor, and abandoned him to a thousand years of darkness and pain, hoping that in that time he would eventually fade.

"But he will return, just as the Fates ordained. When the Earth again faces its last days he will be its only hope and once more lead us to victory against our own demise and in doing so make amends his sins of the past. Or, free from his hell, he will continue that which he failed to do before, this time with none to challenge him.

"And who is he you ask? What is the name of this all powerful deity?

"Let all the Wasted World know his name, let the Ruins sing his praise. The great bane of gods, destroyer of worlds, retribution made flesh. His name exalted above all others, ever whispered in awe, fear and reverence is Perseus, our saviour and our king!"