It starts with the woman, Whisper of the Seven Towers saying “This is what it means to be a Nephilim.”

  Retribution, in a cloak of darkness, had come to the Clanhold of Clan Harris of Dorchest. It moved quickly and efficiently through the Clanhold to find the leadership that had voted to kill the King’s heir. Many loyal members of Clan Harris were killed trying in vain to protect their leaders. Retribution did not care. If you got in the way of its sacred mission, you died. She cut through the defenders like they were wet tissue. The leaders were guilty. There was no doubt. They tried to have a 12-year-old boy killed for the sin of being his father’s son. Retribution found this to be an evil act and evil acts needed to be shown to have a cost. Today Retribution would be showing the world what it cost to try to kill a child.

  Rosalie looked at the bodies surrounding her. At least 20 bodies lay around her. Each died violently. Crushed skulls, stabs through the heart, missing limbs, blood splatters on every wall were all indicators of the high level of violence, not only in this room, but throughout the Clanhold. Rosalie herself was covered in other people’s blood.

  Rosalie was sick of violence. This was just the latest battle in a lifetime of violence. Sometimes it seemed that all she did was fight. Every day it was something or someone, and she was sick of it. She couldn’t remember a time that she wasn’t fighting. She couldn’t even remember the last time she laughed.

  She wanted nothing more than peace. A life where she could get up each morning and not worry about who or what she had to kill that day. A life where she could laugh, love somebody, maybe even raise a family. A life free of the ever-present violence that consumed her every waking hour.

  She stared at the bodies for another minute, then in disgust, she threw her blood covered sword away and walked out of the building. More bodies as she walked through the Clanhold. All the people were cowering or trying to hide so as not to be seen until Rosalie finally left the Clanhold.

  Rosalie continued to walk. She walked out of the Clanhold, the city, across the farmlands, past the forest. She walked for days, weeks, then months. From morning until deep into the night. Through the plains and the rivers, she walked. She barely slept, barely ate, but she always kept moving. Nephilim needed very little food or sleep, and Rosalie used the extra time to walk. She came to the mountains and kept walking.

  High in the mountains, she found an abandoned monastery. She went in. It looked abandoned, all run down and broken. She looked around. She did not see the broken tiles and windows. She saw an opportunity. An opportunity for peace. Peace and quiet. This abandoned monastery could be the answer she was looking for.

  “This, this could be a place of peace for me” she thought. “Far from people, far from the call to violence.”

  Rosalie settled in. As she wandered around the place, she found supplies stored in a dimensional pantry. Vegetables and meats fresh as the day they were stored. Enough to feed her for twenty years because Nephilim don’t require much food. If the gods hadn’t abandoned her 200 years ago, this place may have been created just for her. It didn’t matter. It was here and here she would stay. Rosalie had stopped walking.

  Fifty years passed in a heartbeat. Rosalie was content, even happy, in her new life. She had peace and quiet. Every day was a gift. She would wake in the morning, make breakfast, then tend her small vegetable garden. After lunch, she would spend her time working on the Monastery. Patching the walls, fixing doors, and washing the walls. Then she would make dinner in the evening, followed by reading one of the many books in the library. It was a beautiful simple time. No humans, elves, dwarves, or any of the enlightened races came in that time. Monsters instinctively knew to stay away. If a predator animal came by, then meat would enter her diet for a week. Even that little bit of violence didn’t interrupt the inner peace she had found.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The next fifty years were mostly the same. She still had her peace, but every few years she had visitors. People who were fleeing the violence that had seemingly engulfed the world. Law and order for the most part, were gone. Power was the only law. Might makes right carried to the extreme. Common men and women were nothing more than slaves now. As the years turned, more and more people would come by the monastery, stay the night and move on the next day looking for a place to settle down.

  It was a day that started like any other. Rosalie was working in her garden when the visitors came to the monastery. At first, she thought they were like her other visitors, fleeing tyranny and hoping for a better life. They weren’t. They were armed men. Badly wounded armed men. She went to meet them. When she showed herself, the men raised their hands and said they meant no harm. They were just looking for a place to heal up. The leader said they were the last guards of a caravan seeking a better life for their children and asked if the caravan could stay the night. Rosalie agreed and many families came into the monastery. Rosalie led them to rooms to use. She talked to each family, hearing accounts of thief, rape and murder being commonplace in the kingdom. The royal family was dead, killed by an assassin. The nobles were fighting for the throne, and the common people were either forced to serve as poorly trained soldier or taxed into poverty. Nobody was around to stop the evil. Rosalie was moved by their plight. She told the leader of the caravan that they could stay here as long as they like, because she would be leaving in the morning.

  At Rosalie’s 100th anniversary at the monastery, she got up, tended the garden for the last time and bade goodbye to her little sanctuary of peace. It was time to leave her sanctuary. She was grateful of the time she spent here, but she knew it was time to restart her Path. She had not grown, not a single level, or even a single experience point, in the last hundred years. It was time to start growing again, and that meant embracing her violent path. Reminding the evil doers of why then needed to fear their actions, why restraint was required.

  Rosalie waved goodbye to the monastery. Knowing she would not see it again. She smiled as she walked away.

  Retribution was once again on her Path.

  The woman says “Nephilim may step off their path but always return. Return or die. That is the way of the Nephilim. Nephilim gain power through following their path, their Power. Nephilim must fight to improve, fight to live, fight to ascend. Or Nephilim die.”

  This is where I normally wake up, but instead the woman stared directly at me. “You are Nephilim now. This world is not yours, but you must find your power, find your path. If not, you will die. You may die following your path, but you will die if you don’t. Rise to level 50, become your power. Be Nephilim, embrace it. You are NEPHILIM.”

  Then suddenly, I am awake. Now, I know they were not dreams, but something else. Maybe a vision, maybe a sending from Whisper or the system? I don’t doubt they were actual events in the lives of Nephilim. Was she trying to show me what it meant to be Nephilim? I was unsure.

  I don’t know if I trust Whisper. She was adamant that all Nephilim must follow a path of violence. Every example had violence as the main theme. Even Rosalie, who had turned her back on violence, went back to it. I found this to be disturbing, because I do not want a life of violence. What good is immortality if you have to fight every day? That sounds a lot like Arigulius and Zemoculus. It just doesn’t appeal to me.

  I need to find out more about Nephilim.