I'm tired. I don't know how long it's been since I've had a good night's sleep. Maybe since that day 50 years ago. The day the war ended. The war I ended. For my reward, I'm hunted. Not that I don't deserve it. Not that it really matters since I've signed my soul away in exchange for the power to end that dreadful war. It was worth it… or so I tell myself.

Who am I? A void dragon and master class mage who happens to be good with a blade.

You mean my name? Ah, I am Leo.

Well, that's who I am right now. Maybe it'll be different tomorrow. I don't stay too attached to names. They aren't worth remembering anyway.

You may think I'm running scared from somebody. No. This is a two way game of hide and seek. I hide from them, they hide from me. The punishment for getting caught is death. There are no exceptions. What's one more body for the pyre anyway?

If you want to know about the war, pick up a history book. If you want to know what I did, well, it's simple: I reduced the tyrants to ash by becoming a tyrant myself. You can't fight deeply fetid corruption with flowery words and platitudes. It must be excised; sometimes with precision, other times with a nuclear bomb. I chose the latter.

To acquire this power, I contracted the power of a patron. There are two conditions of this contract: servitude to their father after my death, and that they're bound to me so they can maintain a corporeal form in our dimension. Don't ask. They'll pop up and tell you themselves at some point. Besides, I didn't expect to live long enough for the second condition to matter. Now some days I regret not negotiating the second part… Anyway. This union allows me to tap into their almost bottomless mana well.

The tyrants' headquarters were conveniently located in the middle of a civilian city. This made it difficult because no one wanted to put innocents at risk. Except they weren't innocent. They allowed this to happen by their laissez faire attitude. It doesn't affect them, so they turn a blind eye. The few that did care were beaten down by the majority until they gave up. Since I'm now their tyrant, I'm their judge, jury, and, most importantly, their executioner.

I anchor myself as close as I can get to their headquarters without being spotted lest the spell be interrupted. An enormous amount of mana swelled in the area around me as the spell takes shape. This spell normally requires a contingent of mages to cast, or at least multiple sources of mana. The sky changes color from a drab gray to a blood red with a whorl appearing above my primary target: their headquarters. I think there are sirens going off, but all I can hear is the quiet atmosphere. Severe pain is coursing through my body as I expend all of its mana and mix it with the borrowed mana. My focus remains on the spell despite the pain. I didn't care if I died. I wanted this to end.

My hand raises up toward the whorl. With one final motion, as if I were stealing an apple from a tree, I pluck a star from the void and command it to fall. No antimagic shielding or armor can withstand this black magic as it effortlessly pierces their shell like someone cracking an egg in their hand. The impact and resulting shockwave decimated everything in its radius. Buildings crumbled, bodies evaporated; a bustling city of around 10,000 reduced to nothing.

There was only one survivor: me. I was thrown from the site where I cast the spell and landed about 500 meters away buried in some rubble. I still don't know how I survived. My patron must've had something to do with it, but they won't tell me for some reason. All I remember is waking up, my clothes in tatters, cuts, scrapes, and blood all over my body, and an arm that was not my own. I was lucky to be alive. Or unlucky.

Typically quiet and reserved, most would mistake this for stoicism. Nothing could be further from the truth. This mask is maintained out of necessity. Only when he's alone or if you happen to be one of the very few he trusts, those he would call friends, does he let his real emotions show. Or when he happens to be found at the bottom of a bottle.

Friend is not a label he applies carelessly. It takes a lot for him to call someone a friend, but once he does, he will do anything he can for them. As such, the number of friends he has is very little, but he values each one of them very highly. He often wishes he had more, though he knows that this isn't something he deserves. The ones that he has barely put up with him. Or that's what he thinks, at least.

While friendly to most he meets, he tends to keep his distance. He will speak when approached, but rarely will he approach first except when necessary. The connections he makes are often shallow, usually related to the job he's working on. His traveling lifestyle doesn't lend to making deep connections unless it's with the spectre of death.

His free time is spent swimming in the local dive. It's the only time he feels like he can loosen up. Still, he tries to keep to himself, though something about him being drunk that attracts attention. Maybe he seems friendlier or more fun. He's not quite sure since he can't ever remember clearly, but at least it's some socialization that's not work. The bite of the alcohol is never enough to hurt though the damage is done all the same.

Romantic relationships are an afterthought. Being on a self-destructive path means he doesn't want form any deep connections on purpose. He'd rather waste his money on courtesans or spend the night with his patron rather than risk the little chance of someone getting attached to him. Though he does wonder if it is he who'll get attached.