In the shadowed annals of Earth-02, where myths bleed into history and artifacts pulse with the echoes of forgotten sins, the tale of the Prototype Excalibur stands as a grim testament to the perils of creation unchecked. Long before the legendary Excalibur was drawn from stone to crown a king in distant realms, its architect—a master smith whose name has been scorched from records by time and terror—bored in secrecy. This enigmatic figure, driven by an insatiable quest for perfection, forged not the final bde of destiny, but its fwed precursor: the Prototype Excalibur. Crafted in the bowels of an ancient volcano on Earth-02, the sword was imbued with raw, untempered power, a vessel of potential that hummed with the essence of war itself.

  Yet, perfection eluded the smith. Deeming the prototype unworthy—a mere shadow of the glory he envisioned—he abandoned it in the depths of a forsaken cavern, where it y discarded amid the ruins of failed experiments. Alone in the darkness, the bde did not rust or fade. Instead, it festered. Resentment seeped into its steel like poison into a wound, accumuting over centuries until it radiated an aura of malice equivalent to ten million tons of unbridled hatred. This was no mere weapon; it had become a sentient force, a repository of abandonment's fury, whispering promises of vengeance to any soul daring enough to cim it.

  The first to heed its call was a man of impure heart, a Bronze Age warlord named Vortigern the Ruthless, whose ambitions burned hotter than the forges of old. Drawn by tales of a gleaming relic hidden in the mountains, he grasped the hilt, and in that instant, the Prototype Excalibur sank its corruption deep into his veins. What began as a surge of invincible strength twisted into something monstrous. Vortigern's mind fractured under the weight of the sword's resentment, transforming him into a harbinger of endless conflict. With the bde in hand, he ignited a cataclysmic war that ravaged the Bronze Age for two hundred merciless years. Kingdoms crumbled, rivers ran red, and the earth itself seemed to groan under the ceaseless march of armies.

  As Vortigern slew his foes, a horrifying phenomenon unfolded. For every life he cimed, a humanoid apparition materialized on the battlefield—ethereal warriors who mirrored the fallen in appearance, fighting style, and unyielding ferocity. These spectral duplicates, born from the sword's dark alchemy, swelled his ranks, turning skirmishes into sieges and battles into genocides. They fought without fear, their eyes glowing with the same corrupted light that now defined their master. Vortigern's legions grew not through recruitment, but through sughter, each kill birthing a new, tireless soldier.

  The warlord's reign of terror culminated in the siege of the great city of Eldoria, where the combined forces of desperate alliances cornered him. Surrounded by walls of stone and steel, Vortigern fought like a demon, his bde cleaving through ranks as his humanoid thralls swarmed the defenders. But numbers and desperation prevailed. In a final, brutal csh atop the city's central tower, Vortigern was struck down, his body pierced by a dozen spears. As he fell, the Prototype Excalibur cttered to the blood-soaked ground, its glow dimming for the first time in centuries.

  In a desperate bid to end the curse, a heroic sage—whose identity remains shrouded in legend—shattered the bde with a hammer forged from star-metal. But destruction only multiplied the horror. From the fragments arose ten identical prototypes, each pulsing with the same malevolent energy. Nine of these shards reformed into soulless bdes, retaining the original's abilities: the power to corrupt, to summon resentment-fueled strength, and to birth humanoid warriors from the sin. These nine lurked in the shadows, their hilts unadorned, waiting for new hands to wield them. The tenth, however—the one that had in at the forefront of the shattered remains—absorbed the essence of Vortigern's soul, along with the trapped spirits of all those he had killed. This front bde became the heart of the curse, a vessel of eternal war.

  Yet the curse's true terror y in its defiance of finality. Every time one of the ten swords was destroyed—whether shattered by divine hammer, melted in volcanic fury, or sundered by the combined might of armies—the fragments did not scatter into oblivion. Instead, the resentment binding them coalesced anew, reforming the bde—or bdes—into exactly ten once more. The cycle was unbreakable: destruction birthed multiplicity, and multiplicity invited further destruction. The ten would endure, the front bde always carrying the accumuted souls, while the nine soulless copies waited patiently in hidden pces across the world.

  Centuries passed, and the prototypes resurfaced like omens of doom. During the two great Roman civil wars that tore Earth-02's ancient empires asunder, two of the bdes appeared on the frontlines, one carving a path through the legions of Asia Minor, the other fueling conquests across the untamed wilds of the Americas. Wielded by successors to Vortigern's legacy—corrupted generals and chieftains—the swords turned battles into attritional nightmares, where death only bred more death. In the throes of major world wars that followed, from the medieval cshes to the mechanized horrors of the 20th century, the prototypes emerged sporadically, always drawn to the chaos of conflict.

  By the modern era, the Prototype Excalibur had transcended its physical form to become a relic of myth and dread. Scattered across hidden vaults and forgotten battlefields, the bdes y dormant, yet their influence endured. The humanoid warriors, now eternal guardians of the curse, persisted in their cycle of violence. Each could be sin—cut down by bullet, bde, or bomb—but death was fleeting. Within five minutes, they reformed, rising from the dust with wounds healed and fury renewed. From the Bronze Age to the closing salvos of 1944, those on Earth-02 who allied with the swords' wielders hailed it as the Sword of War, a divine instrument of victory. But to the foes who faced its endless hordes, it was the Sword of Attrition Warfare—a relentless grinder that wore down empires through sheer, unending persistence.

  In this twisted hierarchy, each humanoid commander clutched an identical Prototype Excalibur, serving not as mere users, but as extensions of the bde's will. They acted as field marshals for the sword's grand design, orchestrating campaigns where strategy bowed to sughter. The front bde, with its imprisoned souls, whispered commands to them all, ensuring that resentment's fme never extinguished. And should any bde fall to ruin? The curse simply remade it—tenfold, eternal, hungry—proving that some creations, once abandoned, forge their own destinies in blood and shadow, forever reforming to feed the wars that birthed them.