In a world where the lights of the sky had faded, and darkness reigned like an inevitable fate, ten masked figures gathered around a circular table in a hidden chamber untouched by time.
A young man in a black mask stepped forward, his voice eerily calm:
"Lady Maya, has something happened? You summoned us unexpectedly."
Maya raised her hand slowly and said:
"Leaders... you may remove your masks now."
They all unmasked themselves, revealing their faces.
One of them asked anxiously:
"Maya... is there imminent danger?"
Before she could answer, a blood-curdling human scream echoed from behind the walls—the cry of a man being torn apart in the darkness.
"So... they've begun torturing him."
"He was a traitor, wasn't he?"
Maya replied coldly:
"Yes. The leader of the Green Squad. He didn't realize the teleportation orb reveals its user's location."
One of the commanders chuckled darkly:
"Brilliant, Lady Maya... Shall I make his torment eternal?"
Maya smiled a frosty smile:
"My dear leaders... We now have the locations of all teleportation users. Tomorrow, deploy Squad Zero. The time for Phase One has come: assassinate the new Hero."
She stood and added with finality:
"Now... dismissed."
---
Each returned to their base, but Maya, upon her return, found a man sitting in a desolate garden on a stone chair, wearing a black mask known only to a select few.
Without looking at her, he said:
"It's been a long time... Maya."
She bowed her head respectfully:
"Our movement has begun, my lord. We will be ready to fight by your side when you command."
He replied in a voice heavy with the weight of the world's suffering:
"When I first began my life... I wondered, why was I created? Did the heavens forge this body only to endure pain? I longed to return to the realm of death... where there is no agony."
A pause. Then he continued:
"But I was reborn, and now walk a path of no return."
Maya lifted her head:
"What are your orders, my lord? You summoned me for a reason."
"Bring me the leader of the Blue Squad."
"At once, my lord."
She opened a blue portal with the tip of her staff.
The man whispered faintly:
"So... your tools were not wasted, brother."
Then, as if recounting a buried history, he began:
"There was once a child, unlike his people—he did not love what they loved, nor believe what they believed. On a dark day, the king and his soldiers stormed the child's home, slaughtered his family, and dragged him to the village square. The king ordered him hanged, declaring to the heavens: 'Those who reject our traditions... are demons.'
Their tradition was to offer food to the king monthly and worship him as a god. But the child... refused to submit.
Before his execution, a demon emerged from the void. Its laughter shook the earth, then it slaughtered the soldiers before the crowd's eyes. It approached the child and said: 'Your kind has lost its freedom... but you will not follow this wretched king. I will liberate you.'
The villagers began to applaud—until the child commanded the demon to unleash beasts upon them all. As they screamed and wept... the child laughed.
Then he vanished with the demon.
The weak are nothing... Only the strong possess freedom.'
The man fell silent, then murmured as if speaking to the sea:
"If we throw a stone into the water... will it come back to us? No. All that is lost... is lost forever."