Long before the attack of the eight clan, in the village of khar-valdum, a blacksmithing village, once renowned during the age of the war. It now housed few blacksmith, one of them is Haldrik, the one of the best in the village, and he is the archetype of a Blacksmith, being able to turn the decay into magic. He is obsessed with forging, if he isn't forging, he is learning a method to smith, or teaching his son to be an exceptional blacksmith. It can be said that he expected his son to succeed him.
His son, Xerathin, is equally obsessed …. But not by blacksmithing! He grew up with a hammer in the hand and charcoal in the lungs, but he is obsessed by the battle that his craft would undergo. Still he is a good blacksmith. When forging with his father, he would ask
"Dad, why is it that the general would stay in the rear when commanding troup and not participate in the battle itself?"
Or
"Dad, why would warriors treat the weapon in their hand as just expandable tool, not companion?"
He is often being scolded by his father for thinking out of what was within his reach. But still, he is intrigued.
At the age of thirteen, he would battle with the other children in the village. Sometimes defeated sometimes victorious, but he was more defeated than victorious as he isn't bullying the other weaker than him, but just search for the thrill of battle, so he challenged the kids stronger than himself resulting in his defeat. But that didn't discouraged him, as what he seek is to understand, not victory.
At fifteen, he took a sword that he forged as a practice with him and had gone to battle in the skirmish in the border with the Tal'khar, a remnant force from the war of God. There, he fought with all his might, during these fight, he began to awaken something, he began to fight brutally, if before he held lofty knight honor, now he see the true face of a battle, being good to the enemy is to bring harm to yourself, that's a lesson he learn at the price of fatal injury, if not for the captain leading the attack, he might already be a goner.
At twenty, he was famous in the villages in the vicinity as "the berserk madman", he was still wielding the sword he used five years ago, but since then he had reforged it countless time. It now is in a form that might not be called sword anymore, its edge are now unnaturally jagged and uneven, not for elegance but to tear flesh and armor alike with brutal efficiency. It even began to absorb the blood left on it when fighting, strengthening itself. He participated in battle every time there is, he became even more brutal with each fight, and he became awfully efficient in killing. He began to strike fear in the heart of his enemy. In battlefield, he killed without pause and learned from every battle, from every failure, every scare on his body represented a new lesson, until death itself became the second language he knew the best.
At twenty five he integrated a special corps, composed of people like him… all are battle maniac!! This corps is an movable corps that is deployed everywhere battle rage too intensely to end them faster, because, they are as powerful as they are battle maniac. Xerathin showed more of his potential there, he rapidly ascended the echelon.
At the age of thirty, he became the captain of this corps that he is the most powerful within. They became renown throughout the kingdom, and the surrounding realm. At thirty seven, they assisted in the defense of the fort Vaeldrin, the fort was assaulted by an army of tens of thousands they held on for a whole day before reinforcement arrived, in that siege, and he lost many of his subordinate. After the victory during the battle, this corps disappeared from public's sight, everyone thought that Xerathin fell down in that battle and the corps disbanded due to lack of personal, what they didn't know was that, Xerathin asked the king to allow him to retire temporarily. In this battle, he came to know the drawback of just being able to fight and not to command. He decided to go to the Black Monastery of a certain old Argen, not for healing but to study!
During his study, he read the scrolls of Valthenyr, book that that depicted the general of the old, he learned from their failure, absorbed their strategies, studied the action of every opposing general, deducted their strategies, and refined his mind further. He reshaped himself, not into a general commanding from the rear, but one that lead the charge. A tactician master, defeating his enemy with both overwhelming might and calculated strategy.
He reappeared again in the siege of Varkhul, at the age of forty. The fort was almost breached when he and his corps arrived. They had also trained during this time, they all ha degree of improvement. With a force of their corps and the solider stationed there, they repelled and overwhelmed the enemy, they even killed a quarter of the enemy's army, creating a new legend of the berserk madman, who will come to be known as the berserk general.
After that, they began to work in the shadow, not to show themselves in the eyes of the public anymore, and under the order of the king created the "nightshroud" a force reckoned with. They became the shadow of the king, decimating every enemy that stood before the kingdom.
At the start of the attack of the eight clan, the nightshroud was in the capital of the kingdom. They fought brutally like always, but this time they were the one being overwhelmed by the sheer number of the enemy, But they still fought, since it was thrilling, and they also needed to protect the civilian. As the fight continued, they began sustaining causality and the slaughter of the civilian render them even more brutal, like mad wolves. Their number reduced but they fought more relentlessly, killing their ways through the rank of the enemy. But in the end they were only so much.
As they began to lose hope, they and the other civilian still surviving were encased in white light. At the same time they heard a voice in their head
"DING!"
"CONGRATULATION HOST ON AWAKENING THE SERAPHEL SYSTEM"
"DING!"
"PROCEDING TO THE AWAKENING OF THE HOST'S BLOODLINE"
Then everything went dark.