"Silence."
The world obeyed.
Mercy's eyes widened.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Then—
A feeling.
No sound.
No scent.
No movement.
Just... wrongness.
She tilted her head slightly. Just enough to see the men around her.
They weren't speaking anymore.
None of them were.
Frozen.
Shaking.
One bandit's mouth opened slightly, slack-jawed. Another dropped the potion he was still holding.
Even the boss—rigid, jaw clenched, sweat pouring down his temple—was staring ahead, unable to move.
They were all slowly... turning.
So was she.
Because they had to.
Because something demanded it.
At first, the leader thought 'Killing intent...'—a sharp, suffocating pressure. He had felt it before from those who truly meant harm, but this... 'No...' This was different. Far worse. It wasn't anger, or bloodlust—it wasn't anything he could name. His instincts screamed at him to run, but his legs refused. He couldn't move. Couldn't even think.
The world was cold, but the bandit leader didn't feel it. Not the chill creeps through his skin or the sweat dripping down his face. Yet, his body trembled, every muscle seizing up, yet there was nothing to fear—no visible threat. But he knew... it was there.
Something was there.
No, it was always there.
And then—they saw him.
A figure stood, though the word "stood" didn't feel right.
It wasn't standing, it was being.
A presence, a shadow, a distortion that their eyes couldn't make sense of.
The boss tried to focus on it, but his gaze slid away, as though his mind was protecting him from truly seeing it.
"This is our world now."
A step.
A sound like skin meeting water.
A single ripple—nowhere near any water.
They looked.
It suddenly became clear, the mist was scattering.
Liam!—The boy that just died!
Or what was left of him.
Chains still clung to his frame, wrapped tightly—digging into his wrists, ribs, and throat.
His skin, pale and dry, hung from bones like wet cloth left too long to rot.
He stood.
He was standing.
The chains held tight. Didn't break. They were as taut as before.
But he moved as if they weren't there.
His arms lowered.
The chains stayed perfectly tight—as if the laws of motion had forgotten he existed.
His head tilted-lifted.
So did theirs follow...
'The Moon!?' Their eyes reflected, the blood tainting The Skies.
Step.
'Red...' Her mind froze just like the bleeding world. 'Mercy, breath!' The voice screamed in her head.
'...!' That was the moment her eyes turned hazy, suffocation. 'I... can't...!'
'You can! He didn't deny breath! It's your mind unable to process and make sense of him, so it forgot everything! You just have to breathe, think of only that, the air, only the air flowing! THINK!'
'A-ir...' *GASP* Her gasp resounded through the still world. With that, her body moved, staggered, but she was free.
'Good, now, we have to run before he truly binds us!' Though she was gasping and wheezing, she followed the urging words.
Her steps were heavy and slow. She wanted to run, but her body couldn't.
Frozen solid yet still shaking, her legs, her body was completely numb, she stepped, but she couldn't even feel it right.
And then—
'...!' Her body froze again.
"You can't."
'FUCK!'
'What... what do we do now?' Her body fully froze, not even shaking anymore, it just stopped... Mercy was truly scared. She couldn't follow the situation, and her only help was the voice now.
'This...' But even the voice fell into silence.
Step.
"Ah, my apologies.
Thou art allowed to breathe the air.
To taste the first taste of all who're born, to gasp the last gasps of all who died."
Resounding, clear in unison, the words freed them, their suffocating selves.
'What... what the hell is this?' The leader stumbled forward, only to support himself with his knees. But it wasn't just him, all his men, falling to the ground, gasping, reaching to their chests. Some might even have lost consciousness for just a moment before waking up now. The only outsider was the girl still frozen in place, but she was also clearly breathing now.
Step.
'...!?' A sound. The man looked up. His eyes still couldn't fully capture the boy, but now they focused on something different.
One after the other... His steps, the pool of blood he was standing in, the grass around him withering, the earth breaking apart into fine sand, even that...
Everything dies...
His eyes traveled up, to the legs, the abdomen, the chest, the head, the face, the eyes...
But him...
That bag of bones... it suddenly became fuller, healthier... it became alive, no, it was always alive.
Step.
"This body, this form... such deep wounds in you... Brother, let me heal it for you." The hand moved, the chains rattled and clanged, but they did not disturb it from being placed on his chest.
"But this disturbance..."
Crush... the fingers traveled in so smoothly, it didn't even seem real.
"...!?" But it was, and the leader saw it too, as that boy reached into his own chest, as he dug out his own heart just like that.
"This is, trying to fake itself to be a heart."
'...?' The leader hesitated, but he could also tell the words were right, it seemed like a heart, but that thing was no muscle, no tissue...it shone, the dripping blood made it glisten under the red moon's light, a stone 'A heart of stone...?'
"You still dare speak!? And to order me!?"
'Uh? He is speaking to himself...?'
"To destroy or not... is... my choice." Crush, his hand closed, shattering the heart made of red gem.
"But this... It's like that man's..."
'!?' He saw it again, following the boy's eyes, he saw it again, as that curshed heart reformed in the open chest... as that chest just mended.
Drip. Ripple.
'Why is there still the sound of water!?' He wanted to focus so much, be he still couldn't, that sound of steps, the ripple, and now even the dripping, 'What the hell is dripping!?'
His eyes traveled there, the drops, the blood on the boy's hand, and he followed its course.
Drip, drop... ripple
His eyes widened, the ground was melting, no, the earth, no, there was no earth.
The ground was gone.
In its place stretched an ocean—deep red.
The moon above bled. The sky turned into old velvet, stitched with veins of crimson.
A sound came. Soft. Wet.
Step.
Someone was walking—yet not on earth.
To the left, to the right, his head turned from side to side, no, this is not possible, everywhere, it was everywhere, the ocean... the ground was truly gone.
But how, it's just not, he didn't even blink, but the ground, the sand, the withering grass, everything he just saw, in an instant, no, not even an instant, it was the same moment... what he saw, what he heard, they were different yet now they are the same... reality, it has been owerwriten.
The leader's eyes shook. He just couldn't make sense of anything, even as he tried, but it does not matter to the 'world' what someone thinks, it just takes its own course.
As such, the ocean just stretched—deep red, without ripple or shore. Yet somehow, the burning village, the bodies, the smoke—they all remained, suspended above it, real and unreal.
'What... do I...' Hesitation, doubt, fear, it was settling into him. He was a seasoned mercenary, even if he was now more like a bandit; he still saw many things, he lived a long life, but... no experience or sense mattered here, where nothing made sense.
*Ding*
'The System!?' Like a ray of hope, a sound came from the system, it surely had a solution, all its job was to protect and develop its Host, it surely had... he thought as he glanced to the side.
[ERROR!!!]
"HA.. HA... HAHAHH..." The flashing red text crushed all the hope, desperation, anger, and fear, he could only laugh at the joke he was now.
"He who laughs in the face of fear and danger..."
"Uh?"
"Will, in the end, finds himself the victor."
"..."
"Don't thou think so as well, William Eswal?"
"!!?"
'My... my name... my real name!? But no one should know it, even the fake, only my man and some other know... this... how...?" William, the bandit leader, glanced up at the boy, the one looking down at him with a strange yet warm smile.
"Who—what are you?"
"Hm... to ask such, thou should introduce thyself first, it is only courteous. Though I already know all, as such I shall overlook such an insolence."
'I-insolence...? Uh!?' Sudden tremors below his feet, a still and eerily perfect ripple spreading out from behind the boy.
*Spurt* A stretched out sound, a sudden burst behind the boy, a tree, developing from a sapling to a huge existence with each moment.
'...!?' The boy stood still, and without even a movement, the next moment he was sitting below the red-leaved tree.
"I, to introduce myself, let's see... people used to call me, The son... of God, The son of War."
'G-God...!?'
"But, I suppose, in this life, in this world, this wouldn't mean much. Then... Amongst the seventeen of us, I am called the strongest... the only one chained... and the name, the name I was given... Monster, The Monster."
'Monster...?'
"Why... why are you talking to me...?" He couldn't make sense of it, such a being, one that so brazenly claims to be a god, why would he...
"William, don't be mistaken, I am no god, never did I say I am such a fool as those things, but also, William, am I truly only speaking to thou?"
"W-what?" He hesitated, was he speaking to him, what does this mean, speaking to only him...?
That was when he looked around, his man, the other bandits, they were the same as him, looking around, kneeling before this being, he understood, each heard their own words, but again, why did he kneel down, no, when did he kneel down, why, no, this is right, it should be...
"And, for why I am speaking... I am in a good mood, I just met a new brother thanks to thy actions... Though I am also sad that I had to bury him as soon as we met. His soul was too weak, no, I shouldn't even call it a soul, just a jumble of memory, but still, excuses all, in the end, I was the one who failed."
'Bury...?'
"Afraid not, I do not hold grudge, as much as it was thy's fault, so did some blame rest on his shoulders, and in the end it was his own inadquacy that ended him..."
'Sigh...' A sigh of relief, but a rather short-lived one.
"But... thy other sins, they are rather severe..."
"I... I tried..." Why did he feel like saying this... was he begging?
"I know, I know all too well, thy origin, thy emotions, thy decisions, thy steps... but in the end, thou knowest it too, the sins that inevitably occurred even on thy path of rightful vengeance. To be judged is to be freed..."
"Judged..."
"No, no one gives me the right to judge, and also I don't need it, after all, the one to judge thyself is... you."