Kasus Khzar

“What have I done?”

The First Blackblood

A crow soared above a frozen wasteland. Steel and brick laid strewn among the broken cobbles of the old empire. Covered in fine sheets of ice and snow, among the dead branches of old trees.
Huddled up in the corners of the empty street were pale blue corpses. Preserved perfectly for a thousand years. Their ragged gothic clothes gently flowing in the breeze as a hundred lifeless eyes looked back at the crow.
The avian soared fourth, until it landed on the shoulder of one man. A middle aged corpse dressed in a black coat weathered ashen by the elements. A matching scarf and hat covering his face, as if it would’ve made a difference to the inevitable demise he had suffered by the hands of frost.
Cracks now appeared around his bluish skin. Veins once frozen over melted as an inky black stream flowed through him. Eyes darkened, limbs cracked as his chest slowly started to heave again.
With agonising spasmic hands and a shaking reality, hollow eyes reflected his destroyed world, as an incorporeal shade made manifest before him.

Lament

“This destruction we’ve wrought. Are we even worthy of a second chance? Would it not be better if all our sins were laid to rest and all of us cast to hell. To see this pain, this sickening cruelty. I… I can’t believe, I can’t accept. Is this evil truly part of us all? A part of me?”

Destroyer of False Gods

As he awoke among the rubble. Somehow still clinging onto life, onto all his memories, personality and physical properties. He remembered his name, Kasus Khzar, as it was spoken by the shade in front of him.
Then it all came back to him. As if the day when his world ended was just yesterday. He could see the umbral rifts flash inside of his head, the faces of the twisted bastards who caused all of it. Laughing at him. Mocking him. Though pain and sorrow filled his ink beating heart, this entity, this Sarak, had brought him a seed of hope among the fields of despair.
In Sarak he would find more than just the power of death. He would find a friend and voice who guided him on an impossible mission to hunt down and eradicate the fiends that brought forth all the misery.
Thus, he would wander the wastes of the Frozen Deadlands. Ever hunting and sparking little candles of hope for whatever races would come after the world thawed. Or at least, so he thought as he eradicated abyssal lord after abyssal lord. Only for them to return time and time again.
If he could not destroy them, he would have to imprison them instead. Though as he locked them away, the eldritch entities whispered sweet little lies into his mind.
A seed of discord was sown within the man, if these so called gods were so easily struck down by him, though would deny death its final toll. What if he could steal their powers and use it to bring back his people, to bring back everyone. It would be to betray his promise to Sarak but, it was worth it to save them all.

Writing by Tonarus
Art AI generated with Midjourney
Divinity: Abyssal Lord
Realm: Death
Element: Ice, Dementalism, Shadows

The Book of Kasus Khzar

In modern times, Kasus Khzar is a revenant forgotten by most. The only one Sarak refuses to speak of.
All that seems to remain of the man is his old book. A lexica occultica that explains the nature, powers and weaknesses of various abyssal lords and their minions. While this piece of literature is considered black magic and outlawed the world over, some hunters of the occult have been legally allowed to utilise it as a weapon against forces from the beyond.

A noble raven spreads its wings.
Madness becomes crowned a king.
We dance on the icicles edge.
Pray for a man who sanity left.

False Hope

Kasus devised a plan to infiltrate the old empire's largest remaining energy source. A magical power reactor to which he would connect the abyssal lords' prisons and reverse engineer it into a syphon.
When Sarak tried to stop him, he pulled out a gun and shot the deity. Praying for forgiveness, as his only friend returned to the realms of death.
Though it was a price he would gladly pay, to forget all those flashing images of the dead. He could see the millions of faces in front of him, all crying out for salvation, as he rose to the engine of the foul machine he had created.
With trembling hands, he slammed his fist into the button. It whirred and sparked, as jolts of energy blasted through the air.
The entire Deadlands lit up in an electric sheen, as the dead started to stir. A hundred thousand souls, crying in despair as they were pulled from the stream and forced back into their bodies. Twisted, malformed, devoid of control as the void now pulled the strings.

Despair

“Is this it? Is this madness what I laboured for? Is this twisted design all part of their plan? No, no, no. I must not lose! This is not my final act, you have but seen my first hand play out. I will find whomever is behind this and make them pay. One way or another, we will all return to the world we lost. This I swear, by my name as Kasus Khzar.”

Divine aspirations

Having created an undying army, controlled by the very eldritch horrors he contained, Kasus now lives on through an eternal crusade to prevent them from being released.
It is his hope that eventually the mortal realms beyond the ice shall flourish again and that they might challenge the hordes. With their help, perhaps he could finally take the steps needed to permanently destroy the dark gods and take their power. Only then can he unleash an eldritch storm powerful enough to engulf the world in immortality. To kill death.