The End War
Introduction
...And then, there was darkness.
In a single moment, every conflict lost its meaning.
For years, the world suffocated beneath fire and hunger and howling sirens. The war cries of men echoed unchecked, louder and louder, until nothing else could be heard.
But then, something finally did.
Reality snapped and its voice , drowned for years, screamed.
A deafening plea for silence.
The final crescendo before the end.
In that one instant, truth shattered into a thousand shards, each a different lie, a strange illusion stitched from broken perceptions.
How did it come to this?To that moment in time when the real and the impropable collided, and the world collapsed into a singularity beyond dimension or time?
It was a war.
The last war.
A senseless war, where good and evil no longer meant anything.
They say history is written by the victor, so truth always stays half-buried.
If that's the case, then perhaps this was the only war whose story remained honest.
Because this time, the only ones left to tell it, were those who lost.
The Sundering
Sparks to Fire
“We thought it began with us.”
Humanity is no stranger to war.
For as long as memory lingers, conflict has been stitched into the marrow of mortal existence; a relentless cycle of blood, pain, and ruin. The reasons men take up arms shift like restless phantoms - land, faith, greed, pride, hatred - yet none hold true meaning. War is a hunger without reason, a twisting of life into endless agony, where no soul truly wins, and the cause is often forgotten before the first shot is fired.
In the final years before the Cataclysm, this bitter truth bled clearer than ever. Men marched willingly into battles fought for reasons they could barely name, some causes nothing more than whispers, others fuelled by fanaticism and fear. Enemies emerged from shadow and rumor, often no more real than ghosts. Lines were drawn and erased in smoke and blood, leaving only ruin in their wake. The world mortals thought they owned shattered like glass, tearing at its fragile dreams. Raging fires gnawed at the bones of cities, screams haunted hollow streets, and shadows stretched where no sun dared to reach.
Yet humanity kept fighting driven by desperation and stubborn pride. They fed the fires of hatred and despair even as the cause slipped further from grasp. They shattered what little order remained, burying truth beneath lies and violence.
In those last years, humans were caught in a storm they believed they conjured , one none could steer, and fewer still could see approaching. Every blow landed, every loss mourned, was a step deeper into silence. The end - no matter how sudden it seemed in the grand scale - was slow, a creeping darkness that swallowed light, piece by fractured piece.
Fire to Inferno
“The world was our feast. And then we began to eat each other.”
The world did not end when mortals first raised their guns. It was condemned long before, when the Lords of Undeath began to turn on their own. For centuries, the Immortals ruled from behind smoke and mirrors; gods of dusk draped in silence and silk. Four thrones in the dark. Four sovereigns chained by blood and the ancient scars of vanity and defiance.
Their true names, cast aside like old skins, vanished into shadowed memory. Mortals were never meant to speak them. Among their courts and bloodlines, they were known as the Four Primordials: first of their kind, and revered for the power that came from defying their mortality.
COALITIONS
‣ MORTAL POWERS
- Strength
- ~4 billion personnel globally (military and paramilitary)
- Dominance through technology, logistics, and infrastructure
- Orbital weapon systems, autonomous drones, and WMD stockpiles
- Casualties
- ~3.6 billion civilian deaths
- ~3.8 billion military dead or MIA
- Collapse of over 190 nation-states
- Loss of 98% of global data and energy networks
- Estimated survivors about 7.5% of pre-war population (~600 million)
- Objectives
- Suppress supernatural insurgents and restore global order
- Preserve human civilization
‣ IMMORTAL POWERS
- Strength
- ~1 million vampires worldwide before the war
- Command of vast armies of thralls, ghouls, and blood-bound servants
- Influence over mortal factions and resources from the shadows
- Casualties
- ~640,000 destroyed or missing
- Civil war fractured the Blood Courts, leaving survivors scattered and desperate
- Remaining ~360,000 suffer from the deepening Curse and dwindling blood sources
- Loss of Sanguinis (vampiric magic)
- Objectives
- Early war: fractured between those who sought to remain hidden and those who wished to rule openly
- Later: unify to prevent the mages from annihilating their kind
- Strive to secure eternal rule by reshaping the world in their image
‣ MAGES POWERS
- Strength
- ~160,000 mages worldwide before the war
- Four major covens, several smaller ones and scattered independent practitioners
- Holders of secret knowledge and reality-warping powers
- Casualties
- ~128,000 dead or missing
- Many lost to the Salem Ritual, Wyld Surges, and vampiric assaults
- Survivors (~32,000) are marked by Wyld Surges, both physically and mentally
- Objectives
- Use magic to halt mortal devastation and contain the apocalypse
- Stop the vampiric civil war by destroying their kind
- Protect the Veil and maintain the balance between worlds
Stefan, the Wildfire. Untamed, disobedient, his charm a blade hidden in laughter.
Christian, the Iron Fist. Carved from law and tradition, a tyrant cloaked in velvet and gold.
Olga, the Serpent. Masked and coiled, her empire built of secrets, sweet words, and silken poisons.
Keiji, the Patient. A figure lost in mist and prayer, ruling through silence, seeking solace in solitude.
Each of the four elders claimed a part of the earth. They had promised unity to each other.
In truth, they shared nothing but contempt; bound together by hubris and hunger. Yet, for very long, they ruled quietly.
In the mortal world, wars were waged, revolutions sparked, golden ages rose and fell, but none of it was truly free. Behind every turning point, a whisper. Behind every throne, a shadow. Humanity danced, died, and rebuilt, never knowing which hunger they served, never suspecting that their greatest triumphs were orchestrated, and their greatest sufferings, savored.
But eternity corrodes. And in the dark, hatred festers.
It began, as most ancient betrayals do: with fear dressed as vision.
Christian looked upon the fire of human progress and saw a coming threat. He spoke of revelation, of rising from shadow to rule in daylight. Of dominion celebrated, not hidden.
Olga refused and Keiji withdrew deeper into his silence.
As for Stefan… Stephan only smiled.
Then came the murder.
In the sacred stillness of Keiji’s court, surrounded by his bloodline and his silence, Stephan struck.
There was no prelude. No warning. No excuse.
Just his claw plunged deep into Keiji’s chest, crushing that blackened, unbeating heart, silencing the wisest voice among them, and shattering a covenant older than kings.
Keiji’s death was a sacrilege. A vile crime that split the Courts like glass beneath a boot.
Olga howled vengeance. Christian, too proud to deny complicity in his ally's crime, stood beside Stefan; whether out of guilt, fear, or hidden purpose, none could say for sure.
Soon their bloodlines rallied and their dominions burned. What began in whispers ended in a flood of blood.
Two years before the Cataclysm, Christian tore away the final veil, revealing monarchs not of flesh but of nightmare. No more myths. No more masks. No more hiding. The Immortals revealed themselves at last: not as fables, but as monarchs.
Monstrous. Eternal.
And so, the twenty-first century, once a blaze of hope, smoldered into silence beneath eternal night.
"Mother,
They said it would be routine. One more village, one more set of ruins with no name. Rebels, deserters, enemies... they don't even bother explaining anymore. Just give us the route, the rations, and the deadline. We expected resistance, but found barricades already burned out. Locals barely looked up as we passed. They just stared through us like we weren’t there at all.
The new lieutenant doesn’t speak much. No one knows where command pulled him from, but the men say he never sleeps. Always watching. Skin too pale for someone who's been in the field. Voice too calm. He leads the night patrols himself.
Orders keep coming, but we haven’t seen a real enemy in weeks. Every time we try to fall back, we’re told to hold. Hold ground. Hold position. Hold your tongue. Half the maps are wrong. Roads that were there yesterday lead nowhere now. Jenkins swears we circled the same checkpoint three times, even though the signs said different names each pass.
But still we move. Still we fight.
I don’t know what this war is anymore, Ma. Feels like we’re ghosts chasing shadows, and sometimes I think the shadows are chasing back. If you get this, stay away from the cities. They are not safe anymore. And if a man in uniform comes to the door after dark, don’t open. Even if he says my name.
Tell dad I' m sorry,
Your son"
He didn’t announce himself.
One moment the hall was still; the sacred silence of Keiji’s court humming like breath between mountains. The next, Stephan was there.He crossed the threshold alone, as if the hall had been waiting for him.
Keiji’s sentinels moved to stop him, and were cast aside in an instant. Shadows flared, walls cracked, and where they stood, nothing remained. Not bone. Not ash. Just absence.
We surged forward, blades drawn, instinct rising like fire. But we stopped cold when Keiji raised a single hand. No words. Just a still command, older than any of us. He rose slowly from his seat. His kimono, grey silk threaded with crimson, fell around him like the last ash of a dying fire. There was no fear in his motion. Only calm and inevitability.
What followed was not a duel. It was... something else.
Keiji and Stephan moved faster than thought, striking with a fury too swift to see. The chamber roared with the clang of fire and forge, though no steel sang. Only wills, unyielding and fierce, collided. And for a breathless moment, it seemed even.
But Keiji was the better.
Stephan was cast to the far side of the chamber, blood trailing from his mouth, staining the marble floor.
Keiji stood tall above him, unharmed and unshaken.
He could have ended it. But he didn’t.
Instead, he offered his hand.
“Your blood stains my house, brother,” he said. “I will forgive your impulse, if you accept your defeat. Then, and only then, may you remain. Then, and only then, may we speak.”
Stephan took the hand. Slowly. Head bowed.
“I’m sorry, brother,” he said as he rose.
He smiled as he drove his clawed hand into Keiji’s chest.
His fingers closed around the ancient heart and wrenched it free. Blood soaked the kimono, blooming through grey like rust through snow and Keiji fell to his knees.
He looked at us, not in pain, not in fear. But with something deeper. A gaze that had already seen this moment. His expression held no surprise. Only sorrow. And perhaps the faintest thread of forgiveness.
Stephan raised the heart high.
“There is no room left for silence,” he said. “No more shadows. No more masks. It is time the world learns who stands at the top of the chain.”
He bit into the heart and consume it.
We stood, paralyzed by something vast and unseen, our blood frozen in our veins. I remember my fingers white around my sword hilt, knuckles cracked and slick. I remember the smell of burning silk.
And I remember thinking: This is not a murder.
This is a prophecy fulfilled.
And the world will burn in its echo.
Inferno to Ash
“We knew the cost, but failed to count the betrayal.”
The mages were the last to rise in the war, and perhaps that was their gravest mistake.
Fear had ruled them for centuries. Not cowardice, but caution forged in pyres, names erased and silent ash piles. For generations, they chose s over sacrifice. But as the world burned, silence began to resemble guilt and betrayal.
The revelation of the Immortals shattered the last illusions of the modern age. When the vampires stepped out of myth and into flesh - when their fangs found the throats of kings and presidents - humanity broke. Fear took the reins. Not ordinary fear, but the kind that steals breath and blurs the line between sanity and survival. Governments fell. Faith splintered. Whole cities were swallowed in nuclear fire - not to win, but in the hope that the eternal beasts might be caught in the flames. Myth devoured reason. And the mortal mind, so rooted in certainty, could not bear the weight of the impossible made real.
In the shadows of that unraveling, the mages finally stirred.
Not all at once. The old ways did not allow for such spectacle. They were creatures of silence and intent, forged in exile and shaped by restraint. But when cities became graves and truth cracked like ice beneath a storm, even they could not remain still. It was the Silent Order who first spoke the forbidden words. The same Order who once forbade interference in mortal affairs. The same who etched the Law into stone after the flames of the Inquisitions died and survival meant vanishing.
They broke their own silence and across the world, all the others heard the call.
The Ashen Circle came bearing ambition wrapped in solemnity. The Verdant Chorus arrived with scars and knowledge, their numbers fewer, but their resolve grown wild once more. Even the Harbingers emerged, those who had never stopped dancing with catastrophe arrived to stop it.
They chose Salem: a wound in the skin of the world, where Aether Paths crossed and met like veins, and the Veil between flesh and spirit thinned to a breath.
Their ritual seemed mad, yet on the same time all knew it was the only hope left.
It was to be the end of this senseless war. And on the same time, the end of all mages.
But then, they came. Appeared as if invited.
The Immortals struck with precision, a chorus of hunger and fury unleashed upon the sacred geometry of the rite. They did not hesitate. They did not question. They simply tore the mages apart. Wards shattered. The Aether Paths howled, cracked and bled.
Some mages tried to hold the ritual together, offering more, burning more: their magic, their minds, their very names. But the design was already broken. The paths twisted.
The rift between the worlds widened. Control slipped.
The ritual failed. Not because it was flawed.
But because it was betrayed.
And the Veil, older than stars and hungrier than death, does not forgive such mistakes.
My voice is steady. I remember every verse. The weight of every breath. The motion of every gesture. This is the most important thing I will ever do. My legacy.
Our legacy.
Hunted. Hiding. Reduced to whispers. And still, we’re the ones who will save the world.
I want to open my eyes, to see it taking form, but I must not. I must keep going. There can be no doubt. No pause. Not now. The Paths snarl around me. I feel their anger coiling like smoke beneath my skin.
Expected. We’re asking too much, but we offer everything in return: will, memory, magic, self.
We burn it all, to tame the storm before it tears the world apart.
Behind my eyes, the darkness fractures. I don’t know how to describe it, not really.
Light, bent the wrong way.
Reality, seen through a kaleidoscope made of will and breath.
Each word we speak collapses a possibility.
Each line drawn pulls us closer to the one that must remain.
We must reach beyond what is allowed. We must remind reality that the dead are not meant to walk.
And then, the rift. Just a tear, small and clean. Enough to let the spirit world drink deep. To let it take the Immortals back into the dark that made them.
It sounds impossible, I know.
But how strange, that something thinner than fog holds back nightmares, gods, echoes, grief, and hunger.
We are almost there. I can feel it in the marrow.
Just a moment longer.
Just a breath away.
And then…
There is no sound. Only pressure. Only cold.
My hand falters at the last sign. My name fades from the circle’s hold.
I try to speak, but my mouth is filled with blood.
Just a breath away...
We failed.
The Apocalypse
That split last second stretched into eternity as the world collapsed. Time unraveled like an almighty god fallen from grace. The sky blackened as the Veil stretched beyond its fragile limits; a breath held too long, trembling on the edge of silence. Light surged toward Salem; a vicious, unnatural current that defied every law known to nature. The air grew thick, heavy as iron forged from regret and sorrow. Then came the sound. Subtle at first, uncertain; a faint crack in the firmament of reality. It shattered like glass, and the void slipped through the cracks.
The earth convulsed, roaring in agony as the dead clawed upward, desperate to breach their graves and reach the surface.
Oceans recoiled, withdrawing their waters in silent fear. Ruins and secrets long buried in their bottomless abyss were exposed, then the seas surged forward, swallowing earth and hope in their fury.
From the bowels of the world, the molten essence of reality burst forth, awakening titans of agony and legend. Storms raged, fires blazed, hurricanes tore across the skies. Billions died in a single breath. Technology unraveled. Nuclear plants melted, turning vast regions into instant wastelands.
And when nature had no more screams to give, the true devastation came.
The thin shroud of the Veil began to tear. Not just over Salem, as the mages intended, but everywhere; countless razor cuts slashing it from within.
Worlds collided. Boundaries wept their black blood.
A choking fog swallowed the sky, smothering the sun to a dying ember, dragging the stars into darkness.
From the tears in the Veil, from the wounds in the world’s soul, things exiled and forgotten stirred.
Your nightmares in flesh.
Your fears made true.
The Impossible itself.
They all stepped through, just before that final second slipped away, resetting the clock once more.
The World Remade
Thirty years have passed since the world tore itself apart, yet the wounds remain open, raw as ever. Civilization survives only in fractured echoes, isolated pockets clinging to life amid endless ruins. The Veil lies shredded and bleeding, its scars visible in every flicker of unnatural light and every shadow that moves where it should not.
Bodies and souls bear the marks of what came before them: twisted signs of Wyld Surges, endless hunger, burdens of sins they didn't commit, whispered bargains made in desperation. The old orders have crumbled, their power shattered beneath the weight of the apocalypse. New terrors roam free, born from the very tears that ripped reality apart. The night is alive with whispered horrors and forgotten things that hunger for the world’s breath.
And yet, despite everything, hope remains. But it is a double-edged blade.
It can save; help you hold onto your sanity, if only for a little longer. Or it can wound deeper than any scar.
Because in this new broken world, you can never be certain what hears your pleas and hopes.
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Imagica, I....I honestly have no words.... Just...wow....
Thank you CG! <3