(POV, Magnus Ashborn)
My name is Magnus Ashborn, and my life has been absolutely normal and quiet, I had very loving and caring father and a lot of friends, I hadn't even once questioned why they were shadows literally, but I didn't care, the problem for me was that I didn't have a mother because she died when I was very young, I had tried countless times to ask my father to tell me more about her, but he would always say I was too young to know about it. However, everything changed when I turned 25 years old. My father told me his whole story. To say I was shocked that day would be an understatement, but his next words shocked me even more.
Ashborn: my son, I believe that you are old enough and I can now leave you alone and go to meet with your mother, and be able to...
I didn't even let him finish his sentence and interrupted him with a very loud shout.
Magnus: FATHER HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?! WHY CAN'T YOU TAKE ME WITH YOU.
Ashborn: I understand your feelings son, but unfortunately you can't come because you have your whole life ahead of you and I have a job here in the underworld for you. Also, the fact that I want to meet with your mother is not the only reason for my leave. I got news from other fragments that a lot of powerful beings want to destroy or conquer Earth, your mother and I have to use ourselves to create the barrier which will not let them come here, by doing that not only we will get eternal rest but also be able to protect this world. However, you still have to be careful because the leaders of aliens and monsters will still be able to create dungeons with different monsters with different powers and if the dungeons will not be cleared, it will trigger dungeon outburst which will allow the monsters to leave their dungeons and come to earth to destroy our barrier to let stronger beings come here. Your job will be to watch over this world, keep your existence hidden and try to continue our lineage. When an heir to my powers will be born I will come to him as a spirit to train him to become the next Monarch of Shadow. If you want to know how to inherit my powers three conditions must be fulfilled. First of all, a person has to be my descendant. Secondly, he has to have natural affinity and talent with shadows and death but if the first condition is fulfilled, my descendants will have natural affinity to these powers, so this condition is not that important. Finally, the person has to undergo very strict training in the development of mindset, body and skills to become worthy of the powers of the Monarch of Shadows, the training has to be started around the age of 6. I didn't do this training with you because I didn't want you to go through it because I thought it wasn't that necessary considering how we lived and I wanted you to have a normal life, but now I regret that decision, so I am very sorry, that I made a decision without consulting you but you were very young and couldn't really comprehend that. I believe now you understand why you can't come.
Your mother and I will be watching over you from time to time when we will have an opportunity. Finally, thank you for being born and becoming someone I can be proud of calling my son!!
Magnus: Sobbing 😭, thank you for being a wonderful father and I hope you will be happy with my mother over there, and I am not angry at you because I understand everything now!
Ashborn: Smiling 😊, Good bye my son, have a good and happy life and thank you very much again!
Magnus: I will, don't worry. Good bye!
(Ashborn leaves)
( Time skip: 480 years later)
It was about 480 years after my father left. Nobody knew about his existence, he was a myth, but nobody believed that he existed. Also, as my father told me, dungeons started to appear all over the underworld, the main reason why devils could survive the sudden appearance of the dungeons after the war is the genius of Ajuka Beelzebub who created evil pieces and a device to measure the rank of the dungeons, which allowed to not risk of losing devil peerages. I came into contact with the new devil Satans and quickly became friends with them and for my backstory I said I was from a quite poor devil house which wanted to avoid war so we left very far away in the uninhabited area of the underworld to avoid extinction of the house but only I could escape the wrath of the of the Old-Satans so I was all alone without any family after very long lonely time, I met and married a very beautiful woman who had long black hair which was going down until her waist and a good figure, but the reason I fell in love with her was her kindness and motherly aura around her which I didn't have chance to feel when I was a child. Her name was Park Kyung-Hye. She changed my live completely and it was the happiest years of my life after my father left me.
(A/N note: ignore Jiwoo's sister)
We had a very beautiful son 2 years after we married and we decided to name him Dante Ashborn.
( 6 years later )
It was 6 years after we had our child. We were a very happy and healthy family. However, everything good had an ending. While I was visiting Ajuka Beelzebub who was a very good friend of mine, and wanted to give me evil pieces for my son when he grew older, I was surprised by this present and wanted to refuse but he insisted, so I accepted, during our meeting Old-Satans faction was spying on us and after they knew about my existence and the fact that my house rebelled against old Satans and refused to participate in war. Also, the fact that I was married and had a child with a human, didn't help me at all, so they decided to kill me and my family. I obviously didn't know about their plans, so they caught me by surprise when they started to use all kinds of spells to destroy the house, I was their next target and the moment before I could be killed my wife stepped in front of me and before she died she told me to teleport Dante to a safe place and due to her sacrifice I had enough time to send our crying, worried and scared son and a gift from Ajuka far far away in the underworld. I was very sorry and worried about leaving him alone, I could imagine how much pain he would feel. I could already feel my eyes closing and my soul leaving my dead body, but the next thing which happened to me afterwards was surprising. When I died my father's spirit came and told me that my son had potential to become the next Monarch of Shadows and that he would train him personally.
Ashborn's spirit: hello after a very long time my son we meet again, don't worry I will take care of everything from here, I will train your son to become the next Monarch of Shadows, so that he will have powers to protect the ones he deems worthy of his protection. I will not repeat the same mistake twice.
Magnus: What will happen to my wife and me, father?
Ashborn's spirit: don't worry my son, your souls will go to the same place where your mother and I reside where we will all be together again and protect the world as a family and watch how our last descendant becomes the strongest. Also, I forgot to mention it, but I asked the carent leaders of fragments of light for a favour and they gave me an artifact which will allow your son to have access to our place for 2 hours with any number of people with him once a year.
After those words I wasn't worried about my son so I decided that I should come with my wife to meet my mother and rest there with her while watching our son becoming the strongest existence and showing the true power of Shadows. I was very relieved when my father told me that I would be able to meet my son regularly. Without any regrets I was ready to go to meet my mother to find eternal rest with our whole family there and I wasn't worried because I knew that if my son became worthy of that kind of power, he will grow up as someone I can be proud of. Everything what was left for me to do was to watch and wait.
(POV, Dante Ashborn)
My name is Dante Ashborn, I was normal child with normal family. It was an absolutely normal day, in the morning I was studying with my mother while my father was in a meeting with one of his friends and he came back in the evening and said that he already found a gift for my next birthday, but he kept any information about the gift a secret. Until late at night we were playing board games and after that I went to sleep. Afterwards, late at night, I woke up hearing noises, I exited my room and saw how my father was lying on the floor with several devils around him preparing a finishing blow and when they were about to kill him, my mother protected him with her body and before devils could do one more attack to kill my father, he used all of his remaining power to send me far away from our home. For several hours I was crying because I couldn't believe that my parents were dead. After several hours of crying I stopped to look around the place where I was teleported by my father. Next to me was a suitcase, when I opened that suitcase I saw 15 pieces from chess. I knew that they were chess pieces because I loved to play it with my parents. Each time I thought about anything related to my parents I wanted to cry but I held the tears and started to walk around the forest to find food and water. However, while I was going around the forest I started to feel very weak and it was a sign that I don't have much time before I will die as well. However, before falling unconscious I saw a strange man here in the forest and I hoped that he would help me.
(Several hours later)
I woke up and started to look around the place where I was and I was surprised to find myself in a bedroom, even before I could ask myself where I am, a person in a black and purple armour entered the room. I could feel how powerful he was. I thought that I was looking at death itself. After the mysterious and scary person saw that I woke up he started to walk towards me and started to talk with me.
???/Ashborn: Good morning! My grandson, before you ask me your questions I will tell you who I am and what you are doing here.
(Telling his story and that he could feel that Dante has potential to become worthy of his power)
I couldn't believe what he told me I was shocked so much that I couldn't move, talk or do anything I was just trying to comprehend so much information at the same time. After several minutes, I calmed down and finally gathered enough courage to ask him one question with my shaking voice
Dante: Grandfa-a-a-t---her, w-ha--t wi-ll hap-pe-n wi-th me.
Ashborn's spirit: Calm down, my child, currently you have two options. First option, you will undergo a very brutal training to become worthy of my power and become the next Shadow Monarch. Second option, I will stay with you for a year and then leave to survive on your own.
A lot of things were going through and images of my dead parents started to appear in my head and I thought that if I didn't want to let people do something wrong with my family or friends again I had to have power to protect everyone and not allow something like this to happen to other innocent people.
Dante: Grandfather, I want to have a big family in the future and if I want to protect them so that nobody will be able to bring any harm to them, I have to be strong to protect them and protect the innocent from bad people and protect this world from monsters, so I beg you, please train me!!!
Ashborn's spirit: okay, but you have to understand that the training will be very difficult.
Dante: I will do anything to protect those I will care about in the future!
Ashborn's spirit: okay then, relax for now. The training will start next week.
(A/N: if you have any questions or if you find any mistakes in grammar or information please do not hesitate to write that in the comments, I will try to answer all of the questions and edit the mistakes I made. Also, I do not own pictures. They are not mine and belong to their owners)