Western Fantasy: Long Live the Holy Emperor

[An abstract world, abstract people like us, a chaotic mishmash. Across the long years, add a spoonful of magic, a spoonful of war, a spoonful of satire, a spoonful of political intrigue, a spoonful of human nature, and maybe one more spoonful... of a little love?]

At the end of the first millennium, the Holy Emperor retrieved one-eighth of his soul from Hell.

Now, he lacked nothing...

In the second millennium, the gods had long since withdrawn from the world.

War spread to every corner of the myriad realms, and the sacred Empire faithfully carried out the plans of its great master:

Conquest! Until victory or annihilation!

Yet the endless sacrifices had numbed most people. Power, status, wealth, death, and insatiable desire intertwined into a vortex of destruction. People gradually began to realize:

Perhaps the Holy Emperor,

perhaps the Empire,

perhaps the thousand-year Great Crusade,

were not as sacred as they had believed...