4.5: A war to death

I can't remember the date.

It was a cold night, a normal night like any other.

Then it happened, hell broke loose.

After two weeks of traveling through the woods, we have just arrived at a human city in the border of the Elven kingdom in the afternoon.

The city was truly beautiful, women selling clothes in the streets, fancy dress, shiny jewelry and tasty food. Merchants selling cheap gears to the young and the adventures. Bards singing about the great Elven hero conquering the filthy kingdoms and bringing peace to the world. Children playing with the horny-ned rabbits while torturing them like every sane child.

It was a refreshing look after three weeks of only seeing wolves and trees.

I felt like I could afford some luxuries, so I spent 200 greenaries in a room with two beds and a good view from the window in an inn that was located in the commercial district of the city.

The dinner was good, not that fancy, but at least it was tasty. Some mushrooms mixed with chicken Milanese, or that is what I believe it was.

After that, we went to sleep, Frodous in his own bed and me in the other!

Then I heard the screams, the cries and the prayers.

My Weapons echolocation activated and I could hear everything within a radius of a kilometer.

What I heard was something I'll never forget in my life.

The world was screaming, the earth was pleading for salvation as it was burning. People burning, women and girls being raped, old men crying as they were watching the scene in front of them without the power to protect what they held dear.

Hell, I was experiencing it again, the moment were going to you lost everything. I couldn't do anything, my body was shaking and I wanted to throw up.

The fire was almost in our room, but the screams were there. Reminding me how I had failed in the past, how I had lost everything I held dear.

But I couldn't afford to die in this place, I had many things I wanted to do, to feel. I had to survive, survive another day to experience more of this hell.

An evil grin spread across my face as I thought those words. The hell was my home from the beginning, I just had forgotten about it.

I didn't need a reason to believe in my future, I would create a path by myself. It was always like this for me, crying was for the one who didn't have anything better to do, and I had my hands full with shit.

I dragged Frodous' body out of the inn, I didn't want to lose my only companion in this twisted world.

He was my only friend, with his innocent smile following me everywhere I went. The true hero of the story and the greatest treasure of the Elven kingdom, which I had stolen.

The streets were crowded, people fleeing from the city, a child crying on the corpse of her dead father. A woman who was defiled trying to ask for help as she was bleeding to death.

Frodous stood there, looking at the situation before turning to face me. His green eyes filled with tears were looking at me as he was holding his bag thinly.

I knew what was going to happen, he would break. It was too much for him, as he was too young for this. So, I hit him in the neck and he fell unconscious on the floor.

I took him and carried him on my shoulders, I didn't need my hands to defend myself and I wasn't planning to fight in this lost fight.

The enemies were the elves, their vicious smiles as they were killing soldiers and common folk was the same as the one I had seen in the past. Men brainwashed to kill and bring wealth to their country. They were even kidnapping young women and little girls.

I could only pray for them as I made my way through the crow of fleeing people. I would encounter elven soldiers in every corner, but I didn't care. I killed each of them with my spears.

My metal transmutation had evolved in an hour of running through the burning city, now I could create ten spears at the same time and keep them levitating around me every second.

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But I didn't have the time to test their limits as the battle was getting more gruesome, human soldiers defending eastern part of the city while the elves were slaughtering everyone in the western part of it.

It was obvious where the wealthiest people of the city lived as it was the only place being defended. Those guys wouldn't send their troops to defend the outer walls.

Even so, it was a lost cause. The defenses of the eastern part of the city had been broken from the beginning of the attack, and the Elven troops were pushing their way through it, it was only a matter of time before the last inner wall fell, and they were surrounded by the elves.

The moment I thought it was the end, a miracle occurred.

A man wearing golden armor appeared, his long wavy black hair loose on his back. His face full of confidence and his noble aura gave filled the hot air around the battlefield. His air of nobility and wisdom made the elves stop their attacks.

He waved his hand, and an entire building was reduced to dust by a giant fireball.

The impact was so strong, that I was sent flying and crashed at a wall of a bar. Some fell to their keens and if they had seen a miracle, others cursed their luck as a monster had appeared in front of them.

Then, he spoke with a voice as strong as a lion roaring, but with the confidence enough to stop the breathing of everyone in the city.

“Don't give up my fellow humans, the God of the light has sent me as a punishment to the arrogant elves” He looked at the enemies and then declared, “the Elven race has wronged us and committed the sins that provoked the last great war, that's the truth. Kill all of them!”

I knew who he was, the God of light's champion and the Warlord Asteurius. A mad man who had got his advanced job from Weapon Master to Warlord thanks to the God of the light. A man who went around the battlefield to delivering weapons to the citizens in order to defend themselves, a hero!

He handed over thousands of weapons to the common folk, girls carrying heavy knives, grannies holding spears, crippled men carrying swords. All of them swarmed the confused elves, following the mad orders from a mad hero.

I looked at the battlefield, a little girl was cutting a man's precious thigh while screaming that she would take revenge for her sister, a men who missed his right hand was cutting in two a beautiful Elven woman while laughing like a madman.

I could see the truth, it was the playtime of the Gods. The God of the night was playing with our suffering while the God of the light was playing with our desire for revenge.

A sick game where the marked ones tried to get their revenge from the ones who had caused them the most of the pain that they had felt in their lives. Even so, the mark wouldn't disappear with the time, it was like a mark made with a hot iron, it would last forever.

Even though they knew it, they charged against their enemies, there was not a turning point anymore. They would die or they would win, that was all that was left for them to decide.

I knew why the God's champion had appeared in this battle. It wasn't to save the people, he came here to looking for people with a high holy affinity.

How else would you find a people with the highest faith than the ones who were in this hell?

If you are innocent after the purification, then you would want revenge against your enemies and you would create more war. A cycle to give a God more power, it was all that it was.

That's why I had to get out of there as soon as possible, for I knew what would happen if they were to discover Frodous.

His salvation wouldn't come from the fight, he would only broke more than he already was That's why I had to protect him no matter what happened to this world, as I had plans for him in our army.

In the middle of the madness and cripple people, I made my way out of that hell. If we were to stay in that place, there would have been only pain waiting for us there.

-Kang Yong-Suk