The war…Was over.
But this was no victory.It was merely destruction that allowed a few to keep breathing.The village... was no more.The earth was soaked in blood.Stone houses had collapsed, roofs caved in, and the roads had turned to ash.
The Orc Lord was dead.The bandit leader was dead.The village warriors, the elders, women, children...All had become one with the soil.
Only a handful survived.Twenty, maybe thirty people.All wounded.All broken.And in their eyes: the silent look of total loss.
But among them was one who bore no scars.No limp.No signs of battle.
Zayn.
He walked quietly.His clothes were dirty, his eyes sleepless.But there were no wounds.He stepped out from between the trees, slowing his pace.He looked at what was left of the place he once called home.And without a word… he kept walking.
Just then, a familiar voice rang out.
"Zayn?!"
Selia came running.Tears in her eyes, hands trembling.But when she saw him alive, her face lit up.
"You… you're alive!"
A step behind her stood Kael, barely able to stand but smiling nonetheless.
"When we couldn't find you… we feared the worst."
Zayn nodded softly.
"I was near the forest. By the time I returned, everything had already happened."
Selia gave a small laugh, her voice tight.
"If you hadn't trained us… Kael and I would've…"
Kael stepped forward:
"But we won't tell our family. This is your secret. It stays with us."
Zayn said nothing.But his eyes… they were filled with silent gratitude.
From the ruins ahead, his mother and father appeared.Exhausted, wounded, but alive.When they saw Zayn, they froze.
"Zayn…" his mother whispered."Is it really you?"
His father stared in disbelief.
Zayn walked toward them in silence.He embraced them.Without saying a word.
"Where were you?" his father asked, voice shaking.
"Outside the forest… I heard the chaos and came back, but it was too late."
His mother held him tighter.
"What matters is that you returned. Everything else… we'll manage."
Kael and Selia watched from afar.Smiling, saying nothing.
Because they knew.They knew the only reason they survived…Was Zayn.
And no one else would ever know.
And Zayn wanted it that way.
Morning had come.The smoke hanging over the village still choked the rising sun.The ground was scorched. Walls had crumbled, roofs turned to ash.Only the crackling of burning wood broke the silence.
The few survivors gathered in what remained of the village square.No one spoke—there was nothing left to say.But their eyes said it all.
Two bodies lay side by side.One was massive, torn with wounds, monstrous in size—clearly the orc lord.The other, nearly unrecognizable, was the bandit leader.Both lifeless.Both still.
"They must have killed each other…" whispered an old woman."Not even the gods could stop this battle. But in the end, they destroyed each other."
Kael and Selia stood at the edge of the crowd, silent.There was something they knew—something they would never speak of.And they had sworn to keep it that way.
In the distance, hooves echoed.Soldiers of the kingdom had arrived.
Armored riders entered through the shattered village gate.The commander in front dismounted and walked slowly toward the fallen warriors.His eyes scanned the devastation carefully.
Stones soaked in blood, shattered beams, torn soil…And then he saw it.
Clutched tightly in the orc lord's lifeless hand—A black dagger.
He knelt down.
It was unlike anything he had seen.The blade was covered in soot, and the hilt was engraved with strange symbols—in a language unknown to the realm.
"Our blacksmiths don't craft such things," he muttered.
One of the soldiers approached.
"What is it, Commander?"
The commander wrapped the blade in cloth, eyes still locked on the corpses.
"Nothing," he said coldly.
No footprints.No blood trails.No name. No sound. No trace of who had truly fought this battle.
Just corpses… and a dagger.
The mysterious battle had begun and ended in the same night.And no one… would ever know what really happened.