Divine Resonance

Volume I - Prologue

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The wind continued to howl through the corridors of the dungeon, carrying with it the stench of blood and death; she marched through the carnage with an expression of detached indifference, her visage remained hidden beneath the metallic sheen of her helmet—a mask concealing the emotions that had once been long forgotten. Her fingers, gloved in ice-cold steel, clung to the pommel of her hallowed blade — an instrument of war that had yet to taste the crimson life force pooling beneath her feet.
 
There was no hint of remorse in her eyes, no trace of empathy left in her heart. She was a vessel — drained of human value and reason — her purpose reduced to a single, relentless goal... or at least, that's how it should've been.
 
'... yes. I have committed a sin... a completely foolish, and incomprehensible sin.'
 
With a languid gesture, she conjured another tempestuous squall, a furious gale that tore through the forsaken passages, carrying with it the tormented wails of the fallen. They perished in a chorus of agony, their desperate cries unheeded by the relentless harbinger of their doom — a stalwart figure moving amidst the chaos, her steps measured, her intentions clear. The dungeon, a wretched abyss, bore witness to her solemn march; every footfall reverberated like a mournful funeral dirge, the sound echoing through the very marrow of the earth.
 
A small, yet warm ember stokes within the depths of her unfeeling heart. It was a place where there was no joy nor satisfaction, only a cold, unyielding determination to fulfill her purpose — a purpose devoid of honor and stripped of glory...
 
'In order to make up for that sin, I looked for you...'
 
Once more, the wretched spawn of darkness clawed forth from the abyss — twisted monstrosities driven by mindless hunger for her demise. She disposed of them with the same ruthless efficiency, the howling tempest becoming an extension of her unyielding will — a lethal zephyr that carved its way through their chalk-white frames, leaving behind only a void of silence in the wake of their demise. Their hollow eye sockets stared into nothingness as they crumbled, their futile resistance extinguished like fragile candles snuffed out by a relentless gust.
 
'This whole time, as if trying to find an invisible shadow...'
 
Memories, once buried beneath layers of indifference, resurfaced like ghosts in the night. She remembered their faces — the faces of the condemned who had been vanquished as a result of her actions. Their mournful lamentation, their tearful supplications for mercy; in the end, they had all been sacrificed in the name of what she had believed to be the greater good... a parade of innocents whose pleas had fallen on deaf ears — a macabre masquerade orchestrated by her very own hands.
 
The weight of their deaths rested heavily upon her shoulders, a burden that she could never hope to escape from. It was a heavy yoke; each step she took akin to a journey through the abyss of her own guilt — a spiral staircase that led into the darkest recesses of her soul. Yet even so...
 
'I... I have the duty to stop you!'
 
The echoes of their cries, the haunting specters of her past... they resonated with the flicker of humanity that had been re-ignited within her depths — a symphony of sorrow and despair that refused to be silenced. Her emotions, once locked away in a distant vault, stirred from their slumber — a dormant tempest threatening to consume her yet again; glimmers of something long-forgotten danced behind her cold, steely gaze, like feeble lights in the midst of an all-encompassing, stygian void.
 
'I am Bedivere! A Knight of the Round Table!'
 
No matter how much she had tried to deny it, the 'Holy Selection' had been nothing more than a farce — a grandiose euphemism for a massacre; it was a bloody, senseless act of violence that had ultimately achieved nothing... for each life snuffed out in the name of preservation had been a drop of crimson in an ocean of desolation.
 
'As someone who is righteous, I must strike you down! For you are evil!'
 
In the end, it had all been a grotesque charade — created in the name of an ideal; it was a fool's errand that had brought naught but suffering... and she stood as the most responsible of them all.