The scene shifted back to the training yard.
After the prisoner collapsed in the dirt under Kaizlan's blows, the voice of Commander Raon rang out as he pointed toward Serin:
— "Now… it's your turn."
She stepped forward with steady steps. Unlike the other trainees, there was no trembling in her eyes, no hesitation in her stance. She held the wooden sword as if it were simply an extension of her arm.
The prisoner, though already battered and wounded, raised his head defiantly, staring at her with the look of a man desperate to claw life back with nothing but his gaze.
The clash began.
Serin's first strike cut toward his shoulder, but the man twisted his body, and the blow glanced off to the side. In an instant, his dirt-stained hand shot out, clutching at her wrist, trying to drag her down with him.
But she spun sharply, wrenched her arm free at an angle, and drove another blow into his side. The crack of wood against bone echoed through the yard. The man groaned and dropped to one knee.
Raon barked:
— "Do not pity him! He is your enemy, even if he crawls on his knees!"
The prisoner lifted his eyes toward her, his voice broken and ragged:
— "My daughter… back in my village. She waits for bread. She doesn't know I am here."
Faces around the circle wavered. Milo clenched his fists. Torn bit his lip until it bled. Even Kaizlan felt a knot in his throat. But Serin did not blink.
Her voice was as cold and steady as her grip:
— "And if it were my daughter… would you hesitate?"
Then she brought the sword down upon his head.
The man collapsed into the dirt, motionless.
The entire yard fell silent. The shock was not in the act itself—it was in what it revealed about Serin: a clarity, a ruthlessness no one else dared to hold.
Raon turned his gaze across the circle:
— "War will throw words at you sharper than any sword. Those who stop to listen… die. Those who strike… live."
Serin stepped back, sweat running down her brow, but in her eyes there flickered something strange. She had not left only a prisoner behind in that dirt—she had left a piece of herself as well.
⸻
Elsewhere, far from the camp…
Night had fallen over a small village at the forest's edge.
A hut stood with its door wide open, the stench of blood spilling into the air before anyone dared to step inside.
Adam stood at the threshold. His body was taut, but his face was carved in stone. He did not rush forward. He moved slowly, each step driving another weight into his chest.
Inside, the scene was slaughter:
His wife lay crumpled on the floor, stabbed so many times there was no place left untouched. Her eyes were wide, staring at the ceiling as though waiting for an answer that never came.
His son hung from a tree behind the hut, his body split apart, blood dripping steadily into the dirt.
His daughter was bound to the wall, ripped open as though the killers had meant her to be a message more than a corpse.
On the wall, scrawled in broad strokes of blood, was the sigil of the organization he had once served.
Adam did not move. He did not scream. His rage did not explode like other men's. He stood frozen, breathing slowly, his eyes scanning the carnage as though searching for something beyond it.
An hour passed in silence before he stirred.
First, he lifted his wife, carrying her outside. Then he returned for what was left of his son. Then his daughter. He laid them side by side, as if putting them to sleep.
Not a word left his lips.
He dug the graves with his bare hands, until his fingers split and bled. He did not stop. He did not cry out. He only dug.
When the holes were finished, he lowered them one by one, then smoothed the dirt over their bodies.
He sat by the graves for a long time, his hand pressed against the fresh soil, as if to make sure they were still there. No tears fell from his eyes, but his stare alone told that something inside him had died with them.
At last, he rose. Slowly, he brushed the dirt from his hands, and turned his gaze toward the forest.
He had nothing left.
No home.
No family.
No life.
Adam died that night.
What remained standing at those graves was something else—something that knew no mercy, and saw only one path forward: blood.