He couldn’t remember how many times spring followed autumn. He wasn’t happy with the birds and sunbeams that settled on his hard shoulders for brief moments of rest. He was a statue, a hewn stone replica of an unknown four-armed creature by an unknown artist, standing in the forests of Wilheim since time immemorial. The indifferent giant, armed with spears, had carried out this strange service for dozens of years in the snow, rain, and wind – he didn’t care at all. Sometimes wars broke out nearby, or a careless traveler started a big forest fire — no emotions. The statue simply didn’t have them! So the years passed until one girl collapsed on the pedestal.

Her face was wet with tears, and her clothes were stained with blood. Her whole body dirty and her hair disheveled, her eyes rimmed red from crying, cuts spotting nearly every bit of bare skin.

The girl sprawled at the base, breaking the idyllic forest landscape. The pale skin of the stranger, deep crimson splashes spotting her dress – everything seemed wrong, terrifying. The stone warrior stood by as an unconcerned statue.

The girl’s eyelids suddenly snapped open, her pupils dilated rather manically, a trickle of blood flowing slowly but surely from the corner of her mouth. The bloodied lips forced themselves to whisper: “Leticia… Robert… baby Jocelyn… Mom, Mommy!” A single drop of — what? — rolled down the statue’s cold cheek. Had it started to rain?

“Sweet home, my betrothed… where are you?” continued the wounded stranger in a hoarse, broken voice. “The darkness destroyed everything I loved… Now she wants… my soul…” The statue’s hand suddenly trembled, as if it were alive. Had time weakened the ancient stone?

And then the trees that grew nearby fell as if they had been knocked down. The image of a tall, statuesque woman in black robes appeared from the shadows and slowly took on a somewhat pretty, yet terrible form.

“Ah, there you are, my dear!” she said with a little smirk and took a step forward. “The last survivor of my long-hated Wilheim. This does put us in a bit of a situation, doesn’t it?”

“Sylfide.” the girl rasped, her eyes clouded with pain, clutching her bloody side, struggling to rise. “No matter how many of our lives and souls you take, you will not be satisfied with them, because you are empty… and hateful… your heart forever dark.. the Spawn of Darkness will forever suffer from hunger…” She glared with steely determination at her attacker, blood now streaming down her legs.

The woman in black’s face hardened. She scowled and something that looked like a black lightning bolt appeared in her hands, cracking with energy — and certain death for the already fatally wounded girl.

“Perish!” she yelled and pierced her victim with the bolt.

Boom! Blood splattered in a dark red streak on the statue’s pale stone, and the girl fell, crashing against the statue and slid down, dead, her hair matted with blood, her eyes wide with shock, her hands splayed and wide open, her chest, which had been struck by the dark lightning, sizzling and black. From her open palm tumbled a medallion in the shape of a heart with the name “Dante”, faded from time. The woman straigtened and smirked, her murder done, she turned to leave.

Suddenly, the weapon in the hands of the statue flashed with an unbearably bright light. The statue shuddered, shook its head as if remembering something, and then swiftly raised one of the spears and hurled it at the killer. He threw the second spear, and then the job was done. The witch collapsed onto the grassy ground, staring up at the stone giant in fear and amazement, then sprawled unmoving at his feet, the two spears jutting out of her chest.

Then suddenly, she melted into shadow, and was gone. The weapons clattered to the ground, and the statue slowly picked them up.

The stone warrior, until recently only an ancient statue, stood for a long time. Then he picked up the medallion which had fallen from the dead girl’s hand, contemplated her corpse for a while, then straightened up and announced: “Someone else’s pain and suffering touched me, and made me alive. But it is better to be a statue than to take away lives and souls. I don’t know who else were killed, but I will protect this last legacy, this remnant of a fallen’s life. I will henceforth be known as Dante(Hero Wars Dante), and oppose all who prey and torture the weak and defenceless, extinguishing their life!