[POV ???]

  The world was nothing but a blur of grays and ashes, and the rhythmic pounding of a heart hammering against my ribs. There was no sky—only a ceiling of oppressive mist that made it impossible to tell the passing of hours. The air tasted of iron and ozone, a suffocating mixture that burned my lungs with every breath.

  I stood in the middle of an endless battlefield. Around me, shadows rose like torn fragments of nightmares. They were amorphous figures—silhouettes that resembled people and demons, yet cked faces, stripped of any trace of humanity. They did not scream when they died; they simply unraveled into clouds of dark particles when my bde cut through them.

  “Die! Just die already!” I roared, though my own voice sounded foreign, as if it came from somewhere far away—outside my own body.

  I lunged forward, and my sword—a bde vibrating with unstable, dark energy—cleaved through three of those shadows in a single stroke. I felt no fatigue. My muscles moved with supernatural power, an agility that defied anatomy itself. Every motion was precise, lethal, dictated by an instinct I did not recognize as my own. It was as if my mind were a forced passenger in a vehicle speeding toward the abyss.

  I fought for what felt like centuries. The shadows never stopped coming, emerging from the fog in spasmodic movements. I swung my weapon in blind fury, severing unseen limbs, decapitating phantoms that dissolved before they touched the ground. There was no pain. No fear. Only the relentless need to advance—to clear a path toward the structure rising at the end of the sughtered field.

  At st, after cutting down the final silhouette, I found myself before a monumental door. It was forged of jet-bck metal, carved with runes that seemed to bleed crimson light. Without hesitation—driven by a will pressing at the base of my skull—I pushed the heavy doors open.

  The world changed instantly.

  The gray mist vanished as though it had never existed, and light—white, cold, merciless light—flooded my vision. It took me a few seconds of blinking before my pupils adjusted. The silence that followed the thunder of battle was absolute, broken only by a steady dripping sound.

  Ploc. Ploc. Ploc.

  I lowered my gaze.

  The door had led me into a circur chamber, something like a temple or throne hall. It was not empty. At my feet, the white marble floor was covered by a scarlet carpet that was not made of fabric.

  My vision cleared completely, and horror struck me like lightning.

  They were not shadows. Not twisted demons.

  All around me, sprawled in unnatural positions, y the bodies of dozens of humans. They wore armor that felt painfully familiar. Their faces, frozen in expressions of absolute terror and disbelief, slowly made sense within my fractured mind.

  “No…” I whispered, my voice breaking into a thread of sound. “You… you’re… Markus. And you… Elena…”

  They were my former comrades. The people I had shared rations with. The ones who trained beside me. The ones I had considered my family in this hostile world. I had massacred them all. The “shadows” I believed I was fighting were them—my allies, my friends. They had been screaming my name, begging for mercy, but I had heard only the roar of wind and the echo of combat.

  I raised my hands before my face. I could not see my skin. They were completely red, drenched in thick, warm blood that was already beginning to cool and turn sticky. The metallic scent overwhelmed me, forcing a violent retch from my throat. I dropped the sword; it cttered against the marble with a sound that felt like the cry of the damned.

  My mind colpsed entirely.

  I fell to my knees, sinking into the blood of those I had sworn to protect. My thoughts fragmented, repying the sshes I had delivered—now overid with the faces of my victims. The emotional pain was so intense I felt as though my chest were physically tearing apart. I wanted to scream, to cw my own eyes out so I would never see again—but my hands refused to obey.

  That was when I caught sight of my reflection in one of the chamber’s polished crystal walls.

  The figure staring back at me was not myself.

  It was a monster.

  My face was smeared with blood, but what terrified me most were my eyes. They were no longer the eyes I remembered. They were two vibrant, malevolent red orbs, glowing with an inner light that seemed to devour my sanity. The eyes of a beast. The eyes of the enemy.

  “Why do you weep, little hero? Is this not the power you always desired?”

  The voice was feminine, melodic, ced with a cruelty that froze the air itself. It did not come from the chamber—it came from behind me, or perhaps from within my own skull. It carried divine authority and pyful malice.

  I turned with effort, but saw no one. I was alone amid the carnage.

  “Your friends were weak. A burden on the path to true greatness,” the voice continued, now closer, like a warm whisper against my ear. “You fulfilled your purpose with admirable efficiency. You have separated wheat from chaff. Now rise. We have much work ahead.”

  “No! Kill me! I’d rather die than remain your puppet!” I screamed, pounding my blood-soaked fists against the floor.

  A soft, almost sweet ugh echoed through the hall.

  “Death is a gift you have not yet earned. Now… obey.”

  An electric current surged down my spine. In an instant, my mental colpse was buried beneath a yer of bck ice. My will was crushed—reduced to a dark corner of my mind as something else seized control of my nerves and tendons.

  My body moved against my will.

  My hands tightened once more around the hilt of the dark bde. I rose with mechanical elegance, my muscles no longer trembling from the horror I had witnessed. My red eyes fixed upon the door at the far end of the hall—the one leading to the survivors’ barracks.

  “That’s it… good boy,” the voice whispered, satisfied. “There are more humans waiting. More sacrifices for the final awakening. Go. Grant them the peace they so desperately crave.”

  I began to walk.

  Every step was mental agony—a silent scream suffocating in the void of my own skull. I wanted to stop. I wanted to fall. I wanted someone to drive a bde through my heart. But my feet kept advancing with terrifying precision.

  I exited the hall and encountered another group of soldiers. At the sight of me, relief lit their faces for a fleeting second.

  “Captain! Thank the gods you’re here! What happened in the hall? Where is the rest of—”

  I did not let them finish.

  My arm moved on its own, tracing a perfect arc that severed the first soldier’s head from his shoulders before he could blink. Blood sprayed across my face, mixing with the tears that continued to flow—even though my expression remained impassive.

  The massacre continued.

  I was no longer a man, nor a warrior, nor even a person. I was a tool of death—a puppet of flesh and bone dancing to the rhythm of a capricious goddess and a dark queen. The war had changed its tone; it was no longer about ideals or survival, but about systematic sughter designed to feed something far greater and more terrible that was on the verge of awakening.

  As I advanced through the corridors, leaving a trail of corpses behind me, one image remained in my mind:

  A girl with green hair who once looked at me with compassion.

  But that image was growing distant—like a star fading in a universe turning bck.

  The arc of destruction had begun.

  And I was its first arrow.