Got it! Here's a draft of Chapter One of your fantasy webnovel featuring Velarios, a tragic hero defending the planet Helio
The sky burned crimson.
Velarios stood alone at the edge of the shattered mesa, black armor cracked and bloodied, his cloak tattered by the winds of war. Below him, the Valley of Aetherium stretched wide—a once-beautiful expanse of golden trees and shimmering rivers, now marred by craters, scorched soil, and the crawling advance of the Unseen Legion.
They came from the stars, veiled in shadow and hunger, not for conquest, but consumption. Their target was the Core of Helios—an ancient heart of pure solar essence, a living flame beneath the crust of the world. It pulsed in harmony with all life on the planet. If taken, Helios would die, and with it, all who called it home.
Velarios gripped the hilt of his blade, Solbrand, forged from a shard of the Core itself. It pulsed faintly with light—fading, like everything else.
Behind him, there was nothing left. His army, his people, his family—gone. The last stand had become a one-man war.
And yet, he did not kneel.
The first of the invaders emerged from the smoke: towering creatures of living void, limbs that bent in unnatural angles, eyes glowing with sickly green light. They moved silently, as if even sound recoiled from their presence.
Velarios stepped forward.
"For Helios," he whispered, more to himself than to any gods who might still listen.
He raised Solbrand, and the blade erupted in flame—not the wild, roaring fire of life, but a sorrowful glow, a flickering echo of a once-glorious sun. The closest of the Unseen lunged, its maw gaping with rows of shifting teeth.
Velarios moved like wind through leaves—silent, sure. His blade carved through voidflesh, searing it into smoke. More came, swarming like locusts. He danced through them, every strike precise, every parry a prayer.
But for every creature he felled, two more replaced it.
"You will not take it," he snarled, even as pain flared through his side where claws had found purchase. Blood—his and theirs—stained the earth. His vision blurred, his limbs slowed. But still he stood. Still he fought.
Time became meaningless in the storm of chaos. Minutes? Hours? Days?
The tide did not end. And Velarios, for all his fury, was still only one man.
As the final wave closed in, he dropped to one knee, Solbrand buried in the ground. He looked to the sky, where Helios's twin moons wept light onto the battlefield.
In the heart of the planet, the Core pulsed once more—as if in farewell.
Velarios smiled bitterly.
"If I fall," he whispered, "then I fall as the last flame of my world."
And with a roar that shook the heavens, he rose once more.
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