Helias The Red

The Fallen Warrior

They called him Helias the Red, once the greatest warrior in all the kingdom of Etherne. His fame was built on glorious victories, epic battles where his sword, as broad as a man?s arm, cut down enemies with the fury of a storm. But now, Helias was nothing more than an old, worn-out man, his body marked by scars, his mind shattered by grief. He had lost everything.

His wife, Selene, the light of his life, had succumbed to a mysterious illness that even the healers couldn?t cure. His children, two proud and strong sons, had fallen in battle, victims of the endless war consuming the kingdom. Helias had prayed. Day after day, he begged Kelar, the god of war and justice, to save them. But divine silence was his only answer.

One evening, overwhelmed by sorrow, Helias knelt one last time before Kelar?s altar, the statue of the god towering over him. His desperate gaze lifted to the heavens, his fists trembling with rage.

"Why?!" he cried, his voice hoarse, half broken. "Why have you forsaken me? Why did you turn your back on them? I served you loyally, spilled blood in your name. And this is how you repay me?"

The silence persisted, relentless, cruel. Helias?s heart shattered one final time, but this time it wasn?t from pain. It was from anger. An anger that consumed everything in its path, burning away what was left of his weary soul.

"Very well," he murmured, almost too calmly. "If Kelar abandons me, then I renounce Kelar. I have no gods left. Only my blade."

That day, Helias abandoned his faith. He donned his scarlet armor, old but still sturdy, and gripped his sword, as sharp as it had been in his glory days. What he lacked in strength, he made up for with blind fury. A fury unleashed by his betrayal of the gods.

Helias became a storm. He no longer fought for honor or for his king. He sought neither justice nor redemption. He only wanted to inflict on others the suffering that had consumed him. Village after village, he hunted down enemy soldiers, carving his way through their ranks with unprecedented brutality. Each strike of his sword was a curse cast at Kelar. Each life taken was a challenge hurled at the heavens.

His enemies spoke of him with fear. They described him as a man possessed, whose eyes burned with an inhuman rage. Some whispered that he had sold his soul to the shadows, others said he had become the embodiment of vengeance itself. But Helias paid no mind to the tales. He lived only to slay, to strike, to spill blood.

One day, on a battlefield, Helias fell to his knees, worn out by fatigue. His sword, drenched in blood, slipped from his trembling hands. But this time, instead of exhaustion or pain, it was a cold sensation that enveloped him.

When he looked up, he saw her. The Reaper, the Angel of Death, standing by his side. Her face was hidden beneath a black hood, and her scythe gleamed with a pale light. Strangely, Helias felt no fear. He had defied death for so long that she now seemed like a familiar companion.

"It is time, Helias," whispered the Reaper in a soft, eternal voice.

The old warrior smiled weakly. "Not yet," he replied. "I?m not finished."

The Reaper said nothing, but she did not leave. From that moment on, she followed him, always by his side. Wherever he went, she walked in his shadow, silent and patient. On every battlefield, Helias became a whirlwind of destruction, and behind him, the Angel of Death harvested the souls he reaped.

The warriors who fought Helias no longer feared just his blade, but the spectral presence that accompanied him. They said he had become the agent of death itself, her armed hand, destined to spill blood until the end of time.

Helias the Red was no longer just a warrior. He had become a living legend, accompanied by death itself. Wherever he passed, silence reigned. And as he walked, the battlefields were filled with shadows, with the specters he had torn from life. The Reaper, at his side, said nothing. Together, they roamed the world, sowing terror, the sword of a man and the scythe of an immortal, united in a macabre dance that would never end.