Richard could only stare as the two figures faced each other, hands locked in a desperate grip. Why not him? Why shouldn't he have been the one blessed by power?
Power… it solved everything, didn't it? With it, you could do anything. And yet, as he stood there, the thought barely formed before a shove knocked him aside. He looked up. It was the same soldier. His abdomen was torn, blood seeping through the uniform, dark and stubborn against the fabric.
Nameless. That was all he was in Richard's eyes. Everyone was. Even those you saw constantly throughout the day, moving like ghosts, never spoken to, never known.
"There…" Richard pointed.
The soldier followed the gesture. His face was blank—nameless, and just as Richard had suspected, he didn't know the soldier's name. And the soldier, surely, did not know his.
Gloved hands pressed against the wound, and something dark oozed between his fingers.
"Oh… this?" the soldier muttered, with a shrug that carried both pain and resignation. "Guess I got mauled. I'll need a patch once this battle's over."
No. No, that wasn't right. Wait.
"Soldier injured? RIGHT HERE!!" The cry brought medics swarming, hands busy as they tried to staunch the bleeding. His armor was torn, his flesh ravaged, injuries that would have killed most men. Half his blood was gone.
But this time… it was almost everything. Almost all his intestines and organs had been ripped apart...Missing...
I didnt know...
leaving only heart and lungs clinging to life as they threatened to fall with each step. The only thing keeping him alive was magic. Someone's healing, someone's intervention—barely enough to hold him upright.
He handed Richard his sword. Through the soldier's eyes, there was no bravery—only fear. And still, he smiled, faintly, reassuringly, though Richard could barely comprehend it, his own life teetering on the edge.
"Here…"
Then, as quickly as he appeared, the soldier pushed him away, fading into the crowd of formations, soldiers bracing for the threat that had arrived. These two men alone had shifted the fates of countless lives, the outcomes of battles, the rhythm of so many heartbeats.
Lives.
Dandelions struck Richard's eyes... Remembrance of his childhood field of flowers.
As he pressed against the soldier, shouting futilely against the annoyance of the other men.
"Wait! Hey! Over here!"
His mind raced back to the past: his father, a farmer, felled by sickness, and him lying powerless at the deathbed. His grandfather, helpless as life slipped away. All stolen by war.
Everywhere, iron lungs, disease, some wound causing death on the dirt. The world had always been like this. Fragile. Brutal. Unforgiving.
Wait—
"Sir, I know you can hear me!"
The voice tore through the camp like a blade through wet cloth.
A man—mud-soaked from the knee down, breath ragged, eyes burning with something that didn't care about rules—came sprinting across the churned ground. He slipped once, caught himself, and kept running anyway, even as soldiers surged to intercept him. Hands reached for his arms. Someone shouted for him to stop. Another barked an order that sounded rehearsed, like they'd done this before.
He didn't slow.
He fought forward with raw desperation, throwing his weight against the bodies trying to restrain him, stumbling through the narrow gaps between tents and supply crates as if the very air was pushing him back.
And then—
A knight stepped into his path.
Not a common guard, not a foot soldier in dented steel and cheap leather, but something heavier. Something official. A full clad figure of iron, broad-shouldered and unmoving, the kind of presence that didn't need to raise a weapon to feel like a threat. His helmet was oblong, the visor narrow, unreadable. He didn't rush. He didn't flinch.
He simply blocked the way, like a wall that had decided to stand upright.
"This is a restricted area," the knight said, voice dull behind the helm. "You are not permitted to enter, soldier."
The desperate man's chest heaved. His hands trembled—not from fear, but from being absolute of order...
"Now," the knight continued, tone flattening into command, "go back."
Behind them, soldiers tightened their hold, pulling the man away by the arms. His boots dragged through mud, leaving deep grooves, like the earth itself was trying to hold onto him.
And somewhere within all of it, I stood there then—frozen.
My hand tightened, not around a weapon, not around a banner, but around nothing at all. My fingers curled as if they could grip the air and force it to make sense. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what I was allowed to do. My lungs worked, in and out, in and out—obedient, automatic—while my mind screamed so loud it drowned out everything else.
He saved me.
That was the truth. Simple. Brutal. Unavoidable.
And yet—
Did I really want to sacrifice myself?
I didn't.
I don't want—
I—
The thought broke apart mid-formation, like it couldn't survive being fully spoken.
The world didn't blur gently. It cracked.
Reality twisted into something jagged and wrong, as if everything had been placed inside a jar and shaken until the edges shattered. The sounds of the camp became warped—voices stretching, footsteps snapping too sharp, metal clinking like glass. Even the light seemed off, like it couldn't decide what direction to fall.
Why am I like this…?
"I…"
My voice didn't come out right. It barely came out at all.
Paladins stood along the perimeter, guarding the walls of the battlement, armor polished despite the mud, tabards stiff with the weight of tradition. Their hands rested near their weapons, not because a threat was present—but because defiance was.
...
Adam's POV
"I hear you!" someone bellowed suddenly, cutting through the tension like thunder. "You annoying bastard—don't make decisions against our order!"
A wizard stepped forward from the gathered ranks, the hem of his robe spattered with wet soil. His hat was tall and pointed, dyed a deep blue that looked almost black beneath the overcast sky. A gray-white beard spilled down his chest in an untamed mass, and small glasses clung stubbornly to the bridge of his nose as if refusing to fall even in the middle of a war-camp dispute.
In one hand, he carried a staff of iron—cold, old, and unornamented except for the red orb fixed at its peak. The orb pulsed faintly, not glowing like a lantern, but breathing like something alive.
The knight didn't turn to face him fully. His posture stiffened, though—just slightly—like irritation had found a crack in his discipline.
The wizard took another step, jabbing the end of his staff into the mud with a wet thunk.
"There are other things you could do..." the wizard snapped, "than this...Who even aremyou"
The black-armored knight—plooked away. The movement was subtle, restrained, and somehow heavier than if he'd shouted back.
"Forgive me," the knight said, voice low and controlled, "but I cannot follow your decision. This is a decision followed by the Order."
The way he said Order made it sound less like a group of people and more like a law of nature. Like gravity. Like death. Like something that didn't ask permission to exist.
Something inside me tightened again.
Something just can't happen.
Not if it has been happening for generations.
Not if changing it means breaking whatever fragile structure the kindom is standing on.
The wizard's mouth curled in disbelief, his eyes narrowing behind the lenses.
"So by what I'm hearing," he said, each word measured now, sharper for being controlled, "your purpose is to invade. Take over enemy territory. Make the enemies your servants." As the knight cant even utter the word ofmit
His tilted slightly, the red orb catching the light like a bloodshot eye.
"But what does that follow in the future?"
The knight's head turned back, slowly. The visor's slit seemed thinner now, more severe, like even the helmet was judging the question.
"If you conquer your enemies," the knight replied, "why can they not become your people as well?"
The words dropped into the space between them and sat there, heavy and unresolved.
No one spoke.
Even the soldiers restraining the desperate man faltered, their grips loosening for a heartbeat as if the conversation had reached into them and pressed on something they didn't want touched.
The air felt colder.
Adam stood among it all like someone forced to remain awake during a nightmare. His hand crossed over his own wrist, fingers gripping tight—an unconscious attempt to hold himself together.
His expression was unreadable, but the tension in his jaw wasn't.
[Adam]
…Yeah.
I hear you.
Beside him, Rehan shifted awkwardly, shoulders pulled in as if trying to make himself smaller in the middle of all this. His eyes flicked between the knight, the wizard, and Adam, unsure where to land—like every direction carried danger.
"U-um…" Rehan started, voice soft, hesitant. "Among the tents… someone's calling you."
She swallowed, then added, a little quicker:
"And it's… it's desperate."
Adam's gaze snapped away from the confrontation, following Rehan's line of sight.
Far across the camp, past the clustered tents and stacked supplies, a figure was shouting—hoarse, frantic, fighting against restraint. Guards had him shackled, hands locked around his arms and shoulders as they shoved him back again and again.