The crowd let out earth-shattering cheers, drowning out all of Zelas's reactions. Azir put on his helmet and stood on the altar, his retinue preparing him for a divinity he would never receive.

Standing in the shadow of the sun's disk, Zelas knew that a catastrophe was coming that would destroy the entire empire.

It's too late, friend. It's too late, bro. It's all too late for us.

The country where Hekarim was born has long since been destroyed, and he was once the lieutenant of the Iron Order, a brotherhood of knights loyal to defend the King's territory.

Hecarim rode his high war horse to victory after victory, and the commander of the Iron Order saw in him the potential of his successor...... But at the same time, I also saw the darkness that was expanding more and more. His obsession with merit was eroding his sense of honor, and the Knights Commander finally realized that the young lieutenant could never be their leader.

When told of this, Hekarim was furious. But he swallowed it and returned to his post.

When the Iron Regiment re-entered the battlefield, the commander was surrounded by the enemy and cut off from the main force. Hecarim realized his chance had come. He rode back and abandoned the commander. When the battle was over, the Iron Regiment was kept in the dark, and they fell to one knee on the blood-stained ground, swearing to follow their new leader, Hekarim.

Hekarim travels to the capital to take the oath of office, where he meets the king's most trusted general, Callista. She saw Hecarim's bravery and leadership, so when the queen was wounded by the Assassin's poisonous blade, Callista was relieved that the Iron Order was able to stay with the king, allowing her to go out in search of a cure.

The king's obsession began to become extreme, and some people tried to persuade him to die and mourn, but the king was furious, and he ordered the Iron Order to purge the whole country of disobedience. The Iron Order thus gained a terrible reputation as ruthless enforcers of the King's will. Towns and villages were burned. Hundreds of people were corrected on the spot.

Disaster is coming, and there is no way to avoid it. After the queen's death, Hecarim turned the king's grief into hatred with slanderous words, and obtained the king's permission to lead the Iron Order on expeditions beyond its borders. He wants to avenge her death, and at the same time to gain more dark prestige for himself.

Just before he could leave, Callista returned. She found what she was looking for on the distant island of Fuguang, but it was too late. The king, unwilling to believe such a fact, threw Callista in prison on charges of treason. When Hekarim heard about Fukuko Island, he had evil thoughts and visited Callista in prison. The two talked about the pale mist that protected the island from foreign invasion...... It also talked about the great wealth of the islanders, as well as the legendary eaux-de-vie.

Knowing that only Callista could take them there, Hecarim struggled to convince her to lead the king's fleet through the veil of magic to the island of Fuguang, hidden from the sight of mortals.

They landed in the city of Helia and solemnly carried the queen's body forward. The Iron Regiment opened the way ahead, and all they encountered was the masters of the city. Now they don't want to help. Enraged, the king ordered Callista to kill them, but she refused to do so, and Hekarim made a fateful choice that would cause him to suffer an eternal curse. He pierced Callista's back with a spear, then ordered his knights to sack the city and loot the treasure trove.

In the midst of the chaos, a lowly custodian agreed to take the king in search of the eaux-de-vie, but even that didn't distract Hecarim from his bloodthirsty orgy, and the ensuing curse of the ruins of Fukuko Island caught him off guard.

A blast wave of magic swept through Helia, destroying all buildings and leaving the wreckage hovering in a scorching lightlessness. Then came the Black Mist, a hurricane that turned over the sea, and any living thing that touched it was swept into its roaring, tumbling embrace. Hecarim wanted to rally the Iron Regiment, hoping to return to their ship, but one by one, the Mists took away the fleeing knights.

Hecarim was left alone, and in the end, he was still invincible, and the Shadow finally took the Knight Leader. He and his mount are fused into a ghostly ghost, a reflection of Hecarim's inner darkness, a mad creature full of rage and malice, becoming one with the Black Mist, and at the same time a slave to the Black Mist.

Imprisoned in the Isle of Shadows forever, Hecarim has existed for centuries in a strange reinvention of his former form, patrolling the land he once wanted to conquer under a curse. Whenever the black fog spreads beyond their shores, he and the Iron Order's army of ghosts ride out to slaughter the living and reminisce about long-lost glory.

Waves mingled with ice crashing against the desolate shore, and red blood trickled from the corpses beneath Hecarim's butcher's knife. The mortals to be slaughtered are retreating in terror towards the coast. The black rain soaked them, and the storm clouds churned under the mourning of the heart of the island. He heard them shouting something to each other, what seemed to be some kind of tactical code language he didn't understand, but the meaning was obvious, and they thought they had hope of making it back to the ship alive. Indeed, they know some tactics. Their movements are uniform, and their shields are interlocking. But they were mortals after all, and their fear of the smell of flesh made Hecarim drench.

He circled around them, treading on the shattered wreckage, the shadows of the white sand obscuring his tracks. His iron hooves trampled on the black rocks, bursting with sparks and reverberating with thunderous sounds, each of which ate away at their courage. He watched the group of mortals through the gap in the helmet and armor, their poor souls flickering with a faint spiritual light through the **. The soul's dislike for him is as strong as his desire for the soul.

"No one survives," he said.

His voice was muffled in his helmet, like the deathbed wail of a hanged man. The sound creeped them out, like a blunt knife scraping their nerves. He drank their fears and smiled as a man dropped his shield and ran desperately to the boat by the sea.

With a loud roar, he leapt out of the overgrown ruins, lowering the barbed halberd in his hand slightly, feeling the ancient and familiar charge. A memory flashed through its mind, and he led a silver cavalry regiment to the top of the line. The memories faded, and the man had reached the dark shallow shore of the broken waves, looking back.