The world spun in disorienting circles. Erika lay broken, her limbs heavy and lifeless, her ribs screaming in agony. Blood pooled beneath her lips, warm and metallic, a reminder of the destruction her body had suffered. She tried to push herself up, but strength had long since abandoned her.
"Her mind screamed, a voice so faint it was barely a whisper. Fight back, Erika. Don't let him win. But there was nothing left. No strength. No hope. Just darkness, creeping into the edges of her thoughts."
Her fingers twitched, weak and desperate, reaching forward in futile defiance. She couldn't accept this. She refused to.
"You… I will… I will not let you escape from here…" Her voice, once fierce, now cracked like glass, brittle and fading. "I will kill you…"
Veythor stood only inches away, watching with a faint smirk not arrogant, but amused. To him, this wasn't a fight. It was a game.
"You annoying little bitch," he said, his voice calm, almost lazy. "Can't you see your situation? The entire Yamika tribe is dead. Wiped out for daring to stand behind you. You challenged me. You attacked me. And now?"
His smirk faltered, replaced by an unsettling stillness.
The air thickened, suffocating.
His voice grew cold, precise.
"So what should I do next? Rape you? Take your dignity?"
The words hung in the air, heavy and final, like the blade of a guillotine descending.
Ralf's fingers twitched.
A small movement, barely noticeable to anyone else. But to Veythor, it was a sign one that amused him.
Ralf clenched his fists, confusion and anger surging within him. Why do I care? he thought. She never listens to me. Never listens to anyone.
Veythor chuckled softly, the sound laced with mockery.
"Hmph. Relax. I was just joking." He tilted his head, crimson eyes gleaming. "I'm no lustful beast. I wouldn't do something like that…" His smirk deepened, darker, more sinister. "Unless necessary."
Then, he crouched down, his hand gripping Erika's bloodstained chin, forcing her to meet his gaze.
"But you?" His voice dropped, a whisper soft yet cruel.
"You are worthless."
Erika's breath caught in her throat.
"No…" she gasped, the word barely escaping.
"You are weak."
"No…"
"You lost."
His grip tightened, the pain shooting through her jaw with brutal force.
"Say it, Erika."
Tears blurred her vision, pooling like venom, her body broken, her mind unraveling. She wanted to resist. She wanted to spit in his face, to fight back, but there was nothing left.
Her voice barely escaped, cracking under the weight of it all.
"I… lost."
Veythor's smirk returned, a predatory satisfaction in his gaze.
"That's right."
He released her, letting her head fall limply to the dirt. Then, he rose to his full height, looking down at her with a mixture of amusement and indifference.
"'You are weak.' His voice echoed in her mind, louder than her own thoughts. She didn't even know who she was anymore. Was this who she had become? Nothing. Broken. A pawn."
"Don't worry, Erika," he said, his tone softening just slightly, almost kind. "This isn't the end. You will learn. You will change. You will break."
He turned away, stepping into the dark expanse ahead.
"And when that happens... you will belong to me."
The battlefield fell silent.
Blood. Ash. Defeat.
Erika's trembling hand reached toward him, her last defiant act. One last attempt to hold on to something, anything her fingers curled around his boot.
Her voice was barely more than a whisper, broken and raw. "Where… where are my younger brother and sister?" She choked on the words, her breath ragged. "Return them… please… I beg you…"
Veythor didn't respond.
Instead, he twisted his foot free with a casual kick to her ribs. He held back just enough to avoid killing her outright but the force of the blow was enough to send her unconscious, her body crumpling like a discarded rag.
"For a moment, there was something an image of her holding a sword high, leading her people a dream but the dream shattered like glass, and all she saw now was the dirt beneath her, the endless abyss above her. She wasn't a leader. She was a broken girl and nothing more."
"Once, she had believed in herself, in her power. But now, all that remained was shattered glass, fragments of who she thought she could be."
Veythor turned toward the darkness, the Eternal Forest looming before him, an endless sea of shadows.
And then, he stopped.
Without looking back, his voice echoed through the dead air, cutting through the silence like a knife.
"Ralf… you didn't tell her the truth about her father, did you?"
Silence.
A long, strained pause before Ralf sighed, his voice low, heavy with something that bordered on regret.
"...No. In the end, I didn't have the guts."
Veythor chuckled softly, the sound cold, almost pitying.
"Since when did you become a coward?"
Ralf exhaled, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. "Maybe I always was one."
Veythor stepped forward, closing the distance once more.
"I don't think I need to explain what comes next."
And with that, he vanished into the abyss.
His whisper lingered, a ghost in the wind.
"Farewell. We'll see each other soon enough."
The battlefield lay in silence. Veythor's footsteps had long faded, swallowed by the consuming darkness of the Eternal Forest. Yet his presence lingered, a suffocating aftertaste of power and cruelty that clung to the air.
Ralf stood motionless, his jet-black eyes fixed on the path Veythor had taken. Though the man was gone, his words remained, gnawing at Ralf's mind like a slow-burning poison. Slowly, his gaze shifted.
Erika lay on the bloodstained earth, broken and still. Her once fierce, defiant face was now pale, streaked with dirt and crimson. Her black hair, wild and tangled, spread around her like a dark halo. The faint, shallow rise of her chest was the only sign she still clung to life.
Ralf walked toward her. The wind rustled through the trees, cold and indifferent, carrying with it the scent of blood and ashes. He crouched beside her, his green hair falling over his face, casting shadows across his sharp features. For a moment, he simply watched her the fragile, shattered form of a girl who had dared to stand against a Demon.
He reached out. His pale hand brushed against her forehead, her hair slipping through his fingers like silk soft, yet streaked with sweat and blood. The contrast was bitter.
He exhaled, a long, weary breath, his voice breaking the silence in a low rasp.
"Love… It's a disease. The deeper you fall, the sicker you become, until nothing remains but madness."
The words hung in the air, and Ralf wasn't sure if he spoke them to her or to himself.
He lingered there, his hand resting lightly on her head. Then, a question, one he had asked himself far too many times, quietly rose within him.
"Why do I always try to save this girl?"
The answer should have been simple. She was Miral Krules's daughter his master's daughter, the only man Ralf had ever truly respected. But was that all?
He remembered the flicker of anger he'd felt at Veythor's words. The twitch of his fingers, a small, involuntary movement when Veythor had humiliated her. That irritation... that ache... What was it?
He closed his eyes.
"Why did I flinch? Why did his words cut so deep? Why do I keep trying... even when she never listens?"
The silence offered no answers. Only the cold, the darkness, and the gnawing emptiness.
Ralf sighed, sitting down beside Erika, his back pressed against a half-burned tree. His sword, cracked and chipped, lay across his lap, barely holding together. The weight of exhaustion pressed down on him, but sleep would not come.
Not yet.
Because even now, in the ruins of their defeat, one question still haunted him.
"Maybe... it's not just duty."
He didn't finish the thought. He couldn't.
Instead, he watched over the broken girl beside him, over the darkness that surrounded them, and over the pieces of himself that he could not yet understand.
Morning broke over Narzan. The royal capital of Narzan,Kranel stirred to life. The air was thick with the sounds of merchants calling, horses clattering on cobbled streets, and the laughter of children under the morning sun. Birds flitted through the clear blue sky, their songs weaving through the hum of the bustling city.
But beneath the warmth and life, there was something else a tension, lurking just beneath the surface. The laughter was too fragile. The footsteps too hurried. The ever-watchful eyes of armored guards patrolled the alleys, a quiet reminder: joy was a dangerous thing in Narzan.
A shadow passed overhead an eagle, larger than any ordinary harpy eagle. Its wings sliced through the air, feathers shimmering in shades of black and silver. Its keen eyes scanned the city below, then fixed on the heart of the capital. It flew toward the towering fortress of dark stone the royal castle. At its highest peak, a massive black flag rippled in the wind, the symbol of an eagle emblazoned on its surface. It stood proud, unyielding ike the empire itself.
Beside the castle stood the royal court, a sprawling structure of ancient stone and cold authority. The day had only just begun, yet its halls were already stirring with whispers of power, ambition, and fear.
Far beyond the castle's reach, the forest still waited, where broken warriors lay and fate's wheels turned ever forward.
What will happen next? Can you guess?