Chronicles of Carnivex

Series Review

Written by Kineograph

The Abyss runs on souls — mined, carted, feasted on — and Carnivex is its rising champion: the demon who took the northern soul pit from the Black Blade and came home dripping with tribute. His reward, demanded before the two-masked god Xerathis, is a title and a quest no one sane would take: find the God Slayer, the weapon the gods themselves shattered and scattered across a world they are sworn never to enter, and use it to bring Xerathis his own sister’s heart. Meanwhile the man he humbled, Daruub, is being dragged home to punishment by the one champion worse than disgrace — Zanyara, who collects prisoners the way other people play games.

Episode 1, Part I — All Hail the God of Gods (8:57)

The series opens on its economy: a corpse-strewn battlefield under a beam of light, and below, the soulpit — souls dug, crated and carted like coal while the demons who haul them complain they haven’t eaten in weeks. It is world-building by logistics, and it works instantly. Then the court of Xerathis, god of greed and lust, all appetite and gold, and into it the herald’s announcement: Lord Carnivex, champion of Xerathis, has returned from the campaign against Lord Daruub with the spoils of the northern pit. The court’s jealousy is the episode’s real subject — favour is currency here, and everyone can see Carnivex’s rising. It ends with the chant that gives the episode its title, half worship and half warning: “All hail the God of Gods.”

Episode 1, Part II — The God Slayer (14:27)

The tribute is accepted, and Carnivex names his price with a smile: the title of Inferna Archon — and, to earn it, the one errand that would make him untouchable. Ages ago the gods forged a world, Grendorsia, as the board for a cosmic game, and forged the God Slayer as its prize; then, fearing it, they shattered it into six pieces and scattered them across that world, binding themselves by pact never to set foot there. Carnivex will go where gods cannot. He will recover the weapon, kill Xerathis’s sister, the goddess Ilindra, and deliver her heart — ruling her realm as Xerathis’s vassal. The god’s answer is the series in one bargain: bring me the heart and the weapon — or face torment. Around the edges, the courtiers are already plotting, and one of them, bored, asks when it ends. It isn’t ending. It’s barely starting.

Episode 2 — Fall of the Black Blade (15:09)

The other side of the victory. Daruub, the Black Blade of the North, sits broken in the wreckage of everything Carnivex took from him — “My fortress, my soul pit, my name. You took it all” — while his own master Vhalgor’s soldiers arrive to drag him home for punishment, two of them openly plotting to crush him on the road and eat his soul power for themselves. He hears them. It goes the way it goes. Intercut with his fall, the throne room prices Carnivex’s quest: the portal to Grendorsia burns one hundred million souls, and a first fragment waits with an ancient witch, Haza, the mother of all eyes. Carnivex, informed he’ll be left as weak as a low-class soldier, calls it a drop in his ocean and is granted one treasure from the god’s vault for the road. And then Zanyara arrives to collect Daruub — twin-tailed, pink-lit, delighted — with her games: tag, played with an exploding friend (“If my little friend tags you, you lose a piece”), and the Wheel of Doom, whose rule is “the more you scream, the more you get zapped”. The episode ends on the shift its title promises: the toy fights back, and the game’s mistress hears the words no one says to her — “You are not supposed to hit me!”

Episode 3 — A Personal Debt (6:46)

The duel, concluded — and Zanyara, pushed past her playful limits, finally shows what she was hiding. Daruub, who was half dead when she found him, matches her anyway, and what falls out of the fight is the series’ best relationship: two champions who respect exactly one thing, and have just found it in each other. He will not go back yet. There is a personal debt to settle first. Her answer deserves framing: “He said bring you back. He didn’t say when.” While they set out together, the episode’s other thread opens the Great Vault: the overseer Humm, who has opened these doors once in a thousand years, and the one absolute rule, delivered like a headsman’s courtesy — “Whatever you touch, you choose. Look with your eyes and decide with your hands.”

Episode 4 — Some Wounds Never Heal (10:39)

On the road, the debt gets its name. “So, he’s the one who beat you?” “He did not beat me! We ended in a tie.” The debt is Carnivex himself, and the pair head for Rasmus, the Voided Heart, to find a tracker who can locate him — fighting off a winged thing of the wasteland on the way, bickering like an old marriage (“Shall I burn it shut?” “Stop touching it!”). In the Vault, Humm presents the treasures, and one above all: the Malagoth Shell, armour bound with the power of Malagoth the Destroyer, the war god — wear it, and no blade, claw or fist in the universe can touch the flesh beneath. Only the God Slayer could pierce it. There is, Humm concedes, one tiny complication: “Malagoth is still in there. Malagoth will begin fighting you for your body.” And it is there, among the relics, that the buried thing surfaces — a memory from Carnivex’s own mortal past: a birthday, honey buns carried all the way from River City, a butterfly pendant, and a woman named Diana. The episode’s title tells you how it ends. The quest can wait; the wound can’t.

Best Scene (Episode 4, ~7:10–9:20)

Where It Strains

Part I is a slow door: eight minutes of court intrigue before the quest is even proposed, and viewers who bounce off demon politics may never reach the good stuff. The series is dense with names, titles and factions, and it does not stop to help you — Vhalgor, Ilindra, Haza and the rest arrive faster than they can be filed. The long throne-room scenes lean on looped crowd reactions, and Xerathis’s court, all greed and lust, is costumed to make the point in a way that will narrow the audience. And the honest structural note: five videos in, the God Slayer has not been touched, the witch has not been met, and the debt has not been paid. This is a serial spending promise at a rate it will have to honour.

Final Thoughts

A champion bargains with a god for the right to kill another god, while the man he destroyed goes hunting him with a torturer for a travelling companion — dark-fantasy anime with a mythology, a heart, and one man’s name on every job.

Start at Part I and give it its hour. By the time a demon in a vault whispers “Malagoth is still in there”, you will be as invested as Daruub is angry. And Daruub is very angry.

Scene Breakdown

Part I, 0:00–1:00 — The battlefield under the beam; the soulpit below.

Part I, 1:00–2:30 — The soul economy: souls crated as cargo; demons who haven’t eaten in weeks.

Part I, 2:30–4:00 — The court of Xerathis, god of greed and lust, at feast.

Part I, 4:00–6:00 — The herald: Carnivex returns from the Daruub campaign, with spoils.

Part I, 6:00–8:57 — Court jealousy, and the chant: “All hail the God of Gods.”

Part II, 0:00–2:00 — The tribute accepted; the court put in its place.

Part II, 2:00–4:30 — The price named: the title Inferna Archon.

Part II, 4:30–7:30 — The proposal: the God Slayer, Ilindra’s heart, a vassal’s crown.

Part II, 7:30–11:00 — The gods’ game explained: a forged world, a shattered weapon, a pact.

Part II, 11:00–14:27 — Sanction: the heart and the weapon. The courtiers plot.

Episode 2, 0:00–3:35 — The fate of Daruub: “My fortress, my soul pit, my name. You took it all.”

Episode 2, 3:35–6:25 — The throne room: six fragments, the witch Haza, and a toll of 100 million souls.

Episode 2, 6:25–8:05 — Zanyara’s cruel games: tag, with an exploding friend.

Episode 2, 8:05–9:35 — The price of entry — and one treasure from the vault.

Episode 2, 9:35–13:08 — The Wheel of Doom: “The more you scream, the more you get zapped.”

Episode 2, 13:08–15:09 — Shift in power: “You are not supposed to hit me!”

Episode 3, 0:00–2:30 — The duel unleashed: “How much was she hiding?”

Episode 3, 2:30–3:30 — Half-dead and even: “Too bad I was already half dead when you found me.”

Episode 3, 3:30–4:20 — The deal: “He said bring you back. He didn’t say when.”

Episode 3, 4:20–6:46 — The Great Vault: Humm, and the rule — “Whatever you touch, you choose.”

Episode 4, 0:00–1:30 — On the road: a wound, tended badly. “Shall I burn it shut?”

Episode 4, 1:30–2:00 — The debt named: “He did not beat me! We ended in a tie.”

Episode 4, 2:00–5:20 — Rasmus, the Voided Heart; a tracker to find; a winged thing in the wasteland.

Episode 4, 5:20–7:10 — The Malagoth Shell: “Malagoth is still in there.”

Episode 4, 7:10–9:20 — The buried memory: honey buns, a butterfly pendant, Diana.

Episode 4, 9:20–10:39 — “Diana!” — and the vault again. Some wounds never heal.

Series by Rendered Arc (Max Blaze). Episode details are from the episodes’ YouTube pages, the creator’s descriptions and our own viewing. Chronicles of Carnivex is an ongoing solo series; the creator’s Episodes 1–4 (Episode 1 in two parts) are released so far, and we present them as they stand.