Prologue
10360 B.C.
Half-naked, bloodied, and bruised, the mighty King of Atlantis knelt before the gods, his body bound by chains that cut into his flesh.
The King’s head did not bow in shame; rather, it seethed with rage. Despite the trials he endured, his heart remained ablaze with hatred directed squarely at the gods he once beseeched. In his eyes, they bore the blame for the ruin that befell his once magnificent realm. Among them, Poseidon bore the brunt of his fury. If only the god had granted his plea to reunite him with his beloved wife, none of this devastation would have come to pass.
His wife. His cherished wife, the mother of his children, the beloved Queen of Atlantis, whose absence left his heart shattered.
A resounding thunder shook the halls of the King’s palace in Kastro, the capital city of Atlantis. The King lifted his gaze, meeting the stern visages of the gods seated high above him. In the centre sat Zeus, flanked by his brothers Poseidon and Hades. Their expressions were etched with anger, yet as the great King met the gaze of his god, Poseidon, he discerned a deeper emotion - shame.
Zeus rose and looked down at the once proud King. “King Atlas, ruler of a nation once so great and wondrous, now reduced to rubble because of your hubris. Do you believe yourself to be greater than a god? Did you think you held more power than the divine to bring your dead queen back? Your arrogance has led to the destruction of your once-proud civilization and nearly brought ruin upon the entire world!”
The King remained silent, his head still bowed before the gods. Another thunderous sound resonated within the walls of the great hall. “Speak,” commanded Zeus, his voice echoing like a storm.
For a moment, the King said nothing, his lips trembling. Then, in a voice barely more than a whisper, he uttered, “I begged you.”
He repeated the words, his voice growing louder and more insistent with each repetition, “I begged you. I begged you.”
His body shook with the force of his words, the raw emotion breaking through his composed exterior. The repetition grew into a chant, his voice reverberating off the grand marble pillars and golden walls of the hall.
Finally, the King raised his head, his eyes burning with a mixture of pain and fury. He locked his gaze on Poseidon, the god he had once revered above all others. The god who had now become the target of all his anguish and wrath.
“I begged you!” he screamed, his voice cracking under the weight of his grief and rage. “I begged you to bring her back, to spare my children this torment, to save my people from this ruin!”
The King’s voice echoed through the hall, a desperate cry that seemed to linger in the air long after the words had been spoken. Poseidon’s eyes, filled with a mixture of anger and sorrow, met the King’s unflinchingly. At that moment, the silence between them was deafening, a testament to the shattered bond between mortal and god.
Zeus turned to his brother Poseidon and declared, “He is your creation, and his folly is yours. Therefore, you will be the one to punish him.”
It was cruel of Zeus to demand this. He knew how deeply Poseidon was pained by the suffering of his creation, Atlantis—a once-proud civilization now reduced to ruin, all because of one King’s fatal flaw. Not hubris, but love. King Atlas’s devotion to his queen had blinded him to everything else, leading him to commit the unthinkable.
Poseidon closed his eyes, the weight of grief pressing down on him. After a moment, he delivered his judgment: “King Atlas, your punishment shall be eternal. You will spend the rest of your days in the underworld, chained, forever separated from the one you love—your queen.”
The King trembled, his voice barely a whisper as he repeated, “No, no, no…”
Poseidon continued, his tone sombre but resolute. “For your mistake, your people too shall suffer. The rift between worlds cannot be sealed, and beings from the underworld will invade this realm. It will fall upon your people to fight them back, to return them to their rightful place.”
He paused, his gaze hardening. “As it was your love for the queen that nearly brought ruin to this world, the future kings of Atlantis shall be denied love. When they come of age they will feel nothing but their duty to me. Yet, I am not entirely without mercy. If the time comes when a being worthy of a king—worthy of Atlantis, and most of all, worthy of me—appears, the King will feel everything. But know this: it may destroy him. Only a queen of equal worth will be able to bring balance to him.”
Poseidon raised his trident high, its power crackling in the air. “This trident, once a gift to the people of Atlantis, has been misused. For this, it shall be broken into pieces and scattered to the farthest corners of the world. But a day will come when it will be needed again. Only then will it be found and reassembled, and only the true King of Atlantis—one worthy of my power—shall have the strength to restore it?”
His voice deepened with finality. “I have spoken, and so it shall be.”
With a swift motion, Poseidon slammed the trident into the ground. A blinding light flooded the room, enveloping everything. When the light faded, King Atlas, the trident, and the gods had vanished, leaving only silence in their wake.
Standing alone amidst the ruins was young Anemion, barely ten years old, now burdened with the crown of a broken kingdom. He was left with an impossible task—defending this world from the horrors of the underworld and bearing the curse of a king who could never love.
Upon reaching manhood, emotion drained from Anemion, leaving him cold and detached. Faced with the heavy burden of a curse placed upon his family by Poseidon himself, he created a group of warriors, bound to carry out the task his bloodline could no longer escape. Using the few remaining mages left after the devastation, Anemion placed the same curse on these warriors that had been cast upon his own line.
The moment their blood mixed with his, all emotion left their bodies, transforming them into perfect, unfeeling warriors—single-minded in their purpose. From that day forward, they came to be known as the Anemion Sentinels.
