Chapter 474: In the Face of War’s Cruelty
What is the horror of war?
What makes war so terrifying to so many?
They say death is never closer to a human being than the moment their feet step onto the battlefield.
At any given second, you wouldn’t even realize when your head had left your shoulders.
There are many perspectives one can take when trying to describe the horrors of war. But the truth lies within the reflections seen in the eyes of the soldiers themselves.
The ordinary soldiers .. those who lacked great power, who were not special in any significant way.
These unfortunate fighters become the perfect lens through which the true tragedies of war can be studied.
Among the soldiers of the Empire...
After their ship had been destroyed by the enemy, a girl crawled out from beneath the wreckage, trying to survive before the ruins of her doomed vessel swallowed her whole.
Her sky-blue hair was disheveled, and her pale skin stained red with blood.
She was in unbearable pain .. crushed by the debris that had fallen mercilessly upon her, threatening to bury her alive.
She was a Wave Controller. That meant her body lacked any significant physical strength to survive such a collapse unscathed.
As she pulled the upper half of her body free, the searing pain was unlike anything she had ever felt before.
When she looked down to identify the source of the agony, she found her legs horrifyingly mangled under the rubble of the broken ship.
Seeing the lower half of her body completely flattened .. accompanied by the steady pool of blood leaking from beneath her ..made her heart sink deeper into her chest.
She was beginning to realize, with growing dread, that she might have become crippled for life.
In that moment, she couldn’t stop the panic attack from overtaking her. She screamed at the top of her lungs ..
but her cries were drowned out by the deafening roar of war around her, making her suffering invisible to the world.
She screamed for a long time, trying to shove the heavy wreckage off her legs.
But as the panic and blood loss took over, her vision of the surrounding massacre became blurred. The world she knew seemed to collapse around her.
Not long ago, she had shined among the first-year ranks of the Temple.
But now, somehow, a girl barely sixteen had ended up in the middle of a battlefield.
Fate had been cruel .. forcing her into a life-and-death situation like this.
Minutes passed .. each one feeling like an hour.
Eventually, she began to regain her composure.
"...Pain..."
She whispered softly .. her voice weightless in the burning hellscape around her.
"I can still feel the pain..."
Even after all that time, she could still feel her legs.
The pain was excruciating .. unlike anything she had ever imagined. But it brought with it a faint sliver of hope.
"As long as I can still feel them... it means I haven’t lost them yet."
Her ability to feel pain was proof enough that she wasn’t paralyzed.
It was the only good news she had.
But she had lost too much blood, and her condition was worsening by the second.
Taking a deep breath, she focused her remaining strength, conjuring celestial orbs that formed into violent spirals of wind.
Channeling the last of her power as a Wave Controller, she hurled the storms at the debris crushing her.
Her winds succeeded .. blasting away the wreckage and finally revealing the lower half of her body.
But what she saw made her grit her teeth in agony.
The bones in her right leg had been completely shattered—bent at an unnatural angle.
The left had been impaled clean through by a thick iron rod.
Blood gushed continuously, and she was on the brink of losing consciousness.
Explosions shook the area around her. She knew she had to move somehow or she’d die here.
The ship she was on could sink at any moment.
But her legs could no longer support her. She had no choice but to crawl.
Crawl across the blood-soaked deck, over the corpses of her fallen comrades...
Dragging herself along the floor, she left behind two long crimson trails. The only thing keeping her conscious was her primal instinct to survive.
The Nightmare Sea monsters were true catastrophes .. colossal beasts that had already claimed countless lives and sunk many of the Empire’s ships.
After crawling a surprising distance without passing out, the girl clung to the edge of the ship, pulling herself up just enough to get a better view of the battlefield .. hoping to find a way to survive.
But the scene before her only deepened her despair.
Ships were being dragged down into the depths by massive tentacled creatures ... abominations seemingly pulled straight from hell.
Flames raged atop others, the result of unrelenting bombardment from the Ultras.
The fires were so intense that soldiers hurled themselves into the cursed sea, desperate to extinguish the flames consuming their bodies.
But diving into the ocean now was suicide. The Nightmare creatures devoured anything that touched those waters.
Those who escaped the flames weren’t much better off ..many died from fatal injuries, while others, like her, survived only with devastating wounds that left their faces twisted in pain.
Severed limbs, spilled intestines, and scattered human organs covered the ground...
Endless screams and the terrifying roar of bombardment that refused to stop...
The girl who had lived a peaceful life until now couldn’t help but ask herself ..
"Is this... war?"
Was this what they had come for? Was this truly the first round?
The first round of a war destined to last far too long?
If that was the answer... then what kind of hell had she thrown herself into?
For a moment... she completely lost hope.
Then, in the next breath, a third sound rose—one that wasn’t death or bombardment.
A boy’s voice. Shouting a single name.
"Selene!!"
He looked to be around her age, with short black hair, a handsome face, and striking crimson eyes.
The boy appeared genuinely frantic, gripping his sword as he leapt from ship to ship, clearly searching for someone.
The sight of him reignited a faint spark of hope in the girl’s chest .. the one whose name he kept shouting.
"Max!"
With all the strength she could muster, she called out his name.
At that moment, the boy became her last glimmer of hope in the abyss of this hell.
And it seemed her voice had reached him ... because his eyes widened the moment he saw her.
When Max saw Selene alive, his expression finally broke, revealing immense relief... as if a crushing weight had just been lifted from his heart.
They had known each other for a long time. Max had always lingered near her, hopelessly in love.
Even if she didn’t return his feelings, it didn’t change the fact that he had always been close enough to be her final beacon of light.
"Hang in there! I’m coming!"
Surrounded by a dazzling aura of radiant light, Max charged toward her at full speed.
He too was a first-year student at the temple .. strong enough to have earned a spot in the elite class.
He was undeniably a capable fighter, with a bright future ahead.
Selene sighed in relief, thankful that it was Max who had come for her amidst this circle of hell...
But that relief .. and the soft smile that came with it .. turned into utter horror the moment a bolt fell from the sky.
No... it wasn’t a lightning bolt.
It was a magical shell .. fired from one of the Ultras’ cannons.
A random blast. She didn’t even know who fired it. But that random shot came crashing down without mercy...right on Max, who didn’t even know what hit him.
The impact obliterated him completely, hurling his once-radiant body deep into the ocean.
"MAX!!!"
Selene screamed, trying to summon her winds to save him...
But it was too late. The moment his body touched the demonic waters, nightmare creatures swarmed him, tearing him apart.
The last expression on his face... was a smile.
A smile that showed how happy he had been to see her still alive.