It was not that the world fell into hell. Hell arrived—and found a world already half-broken, ripe for expansion.
The year was 845.
A time when the world already bled from old wounds—dungeons had torn open the land, spewing monsters without names. Wars between fractured races devoured whole kingdoms. Magic had warped the sky. Empires toppled, rebuilt, then fell again. It was not peace—but it was survival.
And after all that madness… came the Serpentfall.
They did not slither in silence. No—hell had voices this time.
They laughed.
The first to arrive were creatures tall as mountains. Serpents of impossible scale and color—black, crimson, violet, gold, alabaster. Their bodies shattered forests. Their breath ended cities. And the smaller ones came with them: swift as arrows, coiling through buildings like knives through parchment. They weren't mere beasts from dungeons. They were something older. Smarter.
And they spoke.
They taunted.
They sang lullabies as they strangled children. They joked as they shattered towers.
That night, the sky turned red. The moon vanished. Some said it blinked.
All of humanity—mages, swordmasters, hybrids, kings, druids, even monsters from the dungeons—rallied as one. Survival made strange allies. Even the ancient elven orders joined hands with the demon-scarred tribes of the East. They didn't fight for glory. They fought to delay annihilation.
And at first—they won.
Serpents fell by the dozens. Cities cheered. Mountains were painted with their blood.
But the world had been fooled.
The Five Serpent Kings—mountain-tall titans of unimaginable power—had planned it all. Black. Yellow. Red. Purple. White. Each a symbol of death disguised as hope.
The bodies of the slain serpents began to rot. From their carcasses seeped not blood, but a living poison. A thing with purpose. A curse disguised as decay.
It mingled with air. With rain. With thought.
And thus were born the Four Plagues of Serpentfall:
The Pale Reaper's Breath – invisible, inescapable, kills the body slowly.
The Weeping Eclipse – twists the heart, breaks the mind.
The Hollow Hour – locks the victim between life and death, endless coma.
The Black Psalm – corrupts the soul itself.
No cure. No containment.
The war never ended. It only changed shape. For fifty-five years, humanity has lived under the illusion of safety—behind the great cities, behind forged treaties with the Serpent Kings, behind false skies.
But far from those illusions—where the poison still thickens like mourning smoke—a boy walks.
He is fifteen.
He has no boots.
His name is ItharielGenion.
Dark hair slick with rain. Black eyes that have not cried in years. Scars—not from blades, but from surviving others' deaths. Faint black lines stretch across his arms, remnants of grief woven into flesh.
The sky above him is ash-gray. The rain makes the poisoned air barely breathable.
In his arms: two candle apples, fragile and half-melted. He cups them with one hand, protecting their flickering light beneath the storm. A gift. A ritual. A memory.
The town is crumbling around him—half-standing homes, shattered roads, doorways that lead nowhere. A broken town near the edge of the world, where the poison still crawls and the beasts still hunt.
People mutter as he passes.
"That child is so unlucky…"
"Suffering like that at such a young age…"
"I can't bring myself to take his money sometimes."
Women selling bread and fruit whisper as he walks past their rotting stalls. They think he can't hear. But he does.
He always hears.
He does not stop. He follows a straight, cracked path that leads out of the city. The only one. The dead path.
Then it happens.
A granny collapses in front of him, hacking blood into the stones. Her veins shine black.
The Pale Reaper's Breath
The first poison to blanket the world after the First War, The Pale Reaper's Breath is a slow, invisible killer carried on the wind. It doesn't kill instantly—its victims don't drop dead on contact. Instead, it lingers in the air, shortening lifespans over time. Before the poison, humans could live well past 140 years. Now, few survive beyond 70.
Though weaker than other poisons in direct potency, it is by far the deadliest—because it's everywhere. There's no escaping it. With every breath, people inhale their doom. Death is inevitable.
Ithariel doesn't hesitate. Candle apples still cupped in one hand, he kneels beside her with the other, checking her pulse. Eyes dim. Skin trembling.
As he touched her, he felt it—like cold smoke drawn through his fingertips, slipping beneath his skin. The poison writhed briefly, resisting. Then surrendered. He inhaled, slow. The taste of rust bloomed on his tongue.
"Boy!" a voice shouts. The bread woman. "Don't touch her! If she's at her limit—she'll explode! The concentrated poison seeks a new host!"
Another voice joins. "Call the Association! Hurry!"
But the old woman's body begins to expand, swelling grotesquely—
Then... stillness.
The pulse softens. The skin returns to shape. The black fades, not gone, but asleep.
The onlookers freeze.
"What… what just happened…?"
The boy rises. He's breathing harder now. Paler. But not sick.
Never sick.
He looks to the woman by the store.
"Please," he says, voice like cold water. "Take care of her. Call someone. I… I can't stay."
He lowers his head.
"And… thank you. For being considerate of me. I'll repay you. One day."
He turns, barefoot, soaked. The candle apples are nearly gone. He runs. Down the dead path. Into the deeper ruin.
The fruit woman is already on her way to the Association.
The bread seller watches him go.
"Such a kind boy," she whispers. "Such a cruel fate…"
The rain thickens.
And then—a voice.
It is not spoken.
It is inside him. Ancient. Starless.
[How long... do you plan to carry the poison of others inside yourself, child?]
He doesn't answer.
There is no answer.
Only the sound of the rain, and the long, quiet drag of the breath he never seems to run out of.
"What are you babbling about? You know it doesn't affect me." Ithariel's voice was quiet—not defiant, just tired. "I'm immune to all of it. Thanks to… a certain someone."
The voice inside his skull, ancient and unclean, paused. Then whispered like smoke curling through bone:
[Immunity… is not absolution. You absorb the poison, yes—but you cannot contain it forever. There is a limit. One day, boy… it will leak back into the world.]
His teeth clenched. A bitter taste touched his tongue. "I know," he said.
The rain dragged black streaks across his skin, heavy as regret. He walked slower now. The ruined city lay behind him like a graveyard of rusted bones and broken prayer towers. One candle apple was still melting in his hand—warm with memory.
"This voice…" he muttered. "It started screaming inside my head the day that orb appeared. Five years ago. A black light. Like a sun without mercy."
He remembered the rooftop—how the sky had split like torn cloth, the way the air thickened, and that orb descended in silence. How he had screamed without knowing why.
"I thought I was hallucinating… but then it entered me. Changed me."
No one had believed him. They still didn't. He didn't care anymore.
"Ever since that day, I haven't felt poison. Not in my lungs, my blood, or even my mind. The others choke and twist—but I stay standing. That was the gift. Or the curse."
He looked at his hand. The faint black lines that coiled around his wrist pulsed faintly.
"You asked me once to name my wish," he whispered. "I did. I want to heal them—my family. You said you didn't have that power, and you don't have the price. Then why are you still here?"
No answer. Only the soft thrum of the rain tapping the wooden house in front of him.
It stood oddly intact—an old wood home swallowed by forest, the grass eerily green and untouched, a relic wrapped in silence. The stairs creaked under his bare feet as he climbed. He knocked once.
And then—
"Brother!"
"Brother!!"
The door burst open, revealing two shadows that still smiled like sunlight hadn't been stolen from the world. A boy and a girl. Younger. Worn by sickness—but alive.
Jon, ten. A copy of Ithariel, but smaller, with eyes just as dark and hair tinted brown like dusted chestnuts. Yuna, twelve. Tall for her age, long black hair tangled from weeks without combs, skin like paper.
Their faces were bright. But the shadows beneath their eyes… darker than anything Ithariel wore.
"Did you bring it?" Jon beamed, bouncing forward.
"What you promised?" Yuna echoed, voice soft as if afraid to hope.
Ithariel smiled, despite everything. "I did. But… the rain ruined them." He lifted the half-melted candle apples, one in each hand, the wax dripping between his fingers.
Jon didn't care. He leapt up, grabbed one, and licked it like salvation. "Mmmm—still tasty!"
Yuna giggled, brightening. "Big bro, can I have the other one?"
"Of course." He handed it to her gently. "I got both for you."
As they devoured the ruined sweets, Ithariel stepped away.
"I'm going to see mom."
The door creaked as he entered the side room. He didn't bother drying himself. The wooden chair was still there—his chair. He sat.
On the bed lay a woman too young to look like anyone's mother.
Her skin was glass-pale. Her lips still pink. Her hair black as the grave. Not a wrinkle, not a twitch. Not a breath.
"Mom…"
His voice cracked.
"I'm back."
He leaned forward. Rain still dripping down his arms. The silence of the room was a second kind of poison.
"It's been so long since you've been like this. Locked between life and death. Caught in that cursed hour that doesn't end."
He rested his forehead against the bedframe.
"I can take the poison from strangers. Even slow the ones inside my siblings. But I can't… I can't take this one. The Hollow Hour."
"It's not poison."
"It's a prison."
He swallowed. His jaw tightened.
"Yuna and Jon were hit by The Pale Reaper's Breath. I've stopped them from dying three times. I drain the poison from them every time it nears the limit. But I'm just delaying the inevitable."
He looked at his hands. They were trembling.
"I'll do anything. Anything. Even if it eats me from the inside. Even if I have to become something else. I won't let them die."
His voice dropped to a whisper. A vow.
"I won't let you suffer in this half-life forever. I'll find a way. I swear it."
Crack.
A noise.
From outside.
He rose immediately—because kindness would not keep death from knocking again.