Prologue

“Wherever there is light, there will always be darkness.”

It happened more than a thousand years ago. I was only a boy then, so my memories of that time are fuzzy. But what I do remember was the fear. The fear of those times was unmistakable. It was not the same kind of fear elicited by war or by plague, for the truth was that we were dealing with an adversary that seemed to be somewhere in between. Though the carnage took place very far from my homeworld, and I never saw any direct consequences of the conflict, as more outskirt planets fell, there was always this nagging thought in the back of my mind that it might happen on my world ... that they might take my family as they did to many others.

We called them the Parasites, for there was no better word to describe them. They were not a race so much as they were a disease. A tumor on the universe. Originating from a system on the edge of the Forbidden Galaxies known only as Black Star Prime, these creatures seemed to have a very simple purpose. To infect, devour, and spread to other worlds. Entire species were wiped out by the pestilence and later revived as mindless, ravenous slaves to serve their new masters. The Parasites were unlike any enemy that the Tarrus Empire had faced at that point. They were not motivated by logical things that most sentient lifeforms crave. Power. Control. Belief. Words were meaningless to these creatures which understood only one thing. The primal need to survive, and to consume.

It was their bestial instincts that made them so terrifying. They could not be reasoned with, they could not be intimidated, and they could never stop. Eventually, the threat was dealt with. The Parasites were driven back to their homeworld thanks in large part to the efforts of the Elementals. I thought the nightmare was over. But I was still young; I was still naïve. I could not understand that just because the Parasites had been defeated, that didn’t necessarily neutralize the threat.

Time and time again, they returned to Tarrus space and each time enslaved millions to their legions of the undead. I, myself, had to repel their invasions several times after I had become the Sacred Vessel of Purity. Eventually, I decided that it was time to obliterate their threat once and for all. And so, I used my considerable powers to decimate every planet within the Black Star Solar System. I burned billions of Parasites to ash with the power of the elements, and even more of their slaves that had been turned. Despite the fact that I knew full well that the people I turned to dust were beyond saving, my actions still haunt me to this day. I would have completely destroyed the entire galaxy if not for the unimaginable repercussions it would have had on the gravitational orbits of neighboring systems. Even the total loss of a single planet can have dire consequences.

After my actions, the Tarrus Government took it upon itself to keep a vigil over what was left of Black Star. To this day, the star systems surrounding Black Star are a dead place in the universe, filled with planets that have been either shattered or set ablaze. I am still not sure if I did the right thing or not. If it might have been better to look into a cure. But if the Parasites ever returned, I’d probably do it all over again ... only next time, I won’t leave a trace.