[Trigger Warning: This Chapter contains depictions of graphic violence, gore and distressing themes. Reader discretion is advised.]
But just then, as he was desperately struggling, something cold brushed across his neck.
It wasn’t painful.
Not at first.
It simply felt...
Wrong.
The world suddenly spun.
The sky.
The burning houses.
The blood-soaked ground.
Everything rotated violently before finally coming to a stop.
Kael immediately understood what had happened.
Silen’s head had been severed.
There was no pain.
No darkness.
No death.
Only silence.
His vision remained fixed upon the burning village.
He couldn’t blink.
He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t even breathe.
Yet...
His consciousness remained painfully awake.
Kael’s heart clenched.
This wasn’t natural.
A child who had been decapitated should have died instantly.
Instead, something refused to let Silen pass on.
His consciousness remained trapped inside his severed head as though the heavens themselves had decided that death was too merciful.
Then...
He heard it.
"Please..."
His mother’s voice.
Weak.
Broken.
Filled with terror.
She cried for help.
She screamed.
She begged them to stop.
Every desperate plea echoed clearly through Silen’s ears.
Yet he could do nothing.
He couldn’t even turn his head.
All he could do was stare helplessly in one direction while listening to his mother’s cries grow increasingly desperate.
Kael could feel it.
The rage.
The hatred.
The overwhelming helplessness threatening to tear Silen apart.
More than anything...
The child wanted to die.
Anything would have been better than listening.
Anything.
Even Kael, fully aware that these were only memories, found his fists unconsciously clenching.
His jaw tightened.
A cold fury settled inside his chest.
People like these...
They deserved no mercy.
Time slowly lost all meaning.
Eventually, the crying stopped.
The village became quiet once more.
Kael never saw what happened.
Neither did Silen.
His severed head faced only one direction, denying him even the mercy of witnessing his mother’s final moments.
But silence spoke louder than anything else.
She was gone.
The bandits wandered through the village for some time afterward, laughing amongst themselves as they looted whatever valuables remained. Some surviving women were dragged away in chains while others simply disappeared into the flames.
Not once did any of them look back.
When they finally left...
The village became a graveyard.
Yet Silen remained conscious.
Minutes became hours.
Hours became something longer.
Kael eventually lost all sense of time.
The fires gradually burned themselves out until nothing remained but smouldering ruins and drifting ash carried by the wind.
Still...
Silen refused to die.
His consciousness remained imprisoned inside that severed head, unable to move, unable to speak, unable even to close his eyes.
It was a fate far crueler than death itself.
Then, after what felt like an eternity...
The distant sound of galloping horses finally broke the suffocating silence.
Multiple riders.
They approached quickly before coming to a stop somewhere within the ruined village.
Footsteps followed.
Heavy.
Numerous.
An authoritative voice rang through the devastation.
"Spread out!"
"Search every house."
"If anyone is still alive, bring them to me immediately."
Hope.
For the first time since the massacre began, Kael felt hope surge through Silen’s heart.
Someone had come.
They were saved.
Silen desperately tried to shout.
He tried to move.
He struggled with every fragment of strength his broken body no longer possessed.
Nothing happened.
His severed head remained exactly where it had fallen.
All he could do was listen.
The footsteps moved closer.
Closer.
Then farther away again.
Voices drifted through the ruins as the newcomers searched every corner of the village.
"They’re all dead..."
Another weary sigh followed.
"We were too late."
"Another village destroyed."
The footsteps slowly retreated.
One after another.
The horses eventually rode away, carrying with them the last trace of hope Silen had desperately clung to.
Silence returned once more.
Time continued to pass.
Days.
Perhaps weeks.
Silen no longer knew.
Eventually, even hope disappeared.
He had accepted that no one was coming.
Until...
Footsteps echoed through the ruins once again.
The footsteps drew closer.
At first, Silen didn’t react.
Or rather...
He no longer knew how to react.
Hope had abandoned him long ago. The first group had arrived too late. They had searched the village, sighed at the sight of the corpses, then ridden away without ever noticing the severed head lying among the rubble. After that, countless hours had passed, perhaps days or even weeks. Time had long since lost all meaning to him.
For all he knew, these footsteps belonged to nothing more than a wandering merchant passing through the ruins.
Then the footsteps stopped.
A figure entered his field of vision.
It was a middle-aged man dressed in simple but finely tailored robes. His features were strikingly handsome, possessing the sort of appearance that naturally drew one’s gaze without him making any effort. His face carried a calm smile while his deep blue eyes quietly examined the surroundings, as though the sea of corpses and burnt houses before him were nothing more than an ordinary sight.
It was an odd thought.
Even Kael found himself wondering why Silen noticed something as trivial as the man’s appearance after everything that had happened.
Yet perhaps...
When all you could do was stare in a single direction, even the smallest details naturally became engraved into your mind.
The man slowly crouched until his face entered Silen’s limited field of vision. Their eyes met, one calm and composed, the other filled with endless despair.
"What a strange child."
His voice was gentle, almost amused.
"Even after death, you still cling to life."
He remained silent for a few moments before the corners of his lips curved slightly.
"You have suffered a great injustice."
"You have witnessed the ugliness of this world."
"If you refuse to let go of life, then come with me. Together... we shall restore order to this world."
Before Silen could even comprehend those words, the man raised a single hand.
Ancient runes woven from pale golden light appeared beneath the severed head, expanding into an intricate magic circle that covered the surrounding ruins. The air itself trembled as an unfamiliar power spread throughout the village, carrying with it an aura that neither resembled mana nor any form of energy Kael had ever encountered.
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So, what do you guys think of the last two Chapters?