The air hung unnaturally still.
Even the massacre on the field — limbs, blood, dust — felt paused, frozen in a single horrific frame.
Then a voice rolled across the silence.
"I don't know which to commend… your bravery, or your death."
The tone was calm. Too calm. Mockingly calm.
Footsteps followed, slow and deliberate, and a young noble boy stepped into view. Moonlight washed over him, revealing a sharp long face, a thin pointed nose, and hair parted neatly down the middle. His beauty wasn't from his features but from something colder — the scheming intelligence flickering inside his pale green eyes. Like starlight reflected in poison.
Clad in a dark green armor with gold trims, he surveyed the scene as though he was merely inspecting a garden.
Ryanis shifted sideways, bracing himself, watching the noble with exhausted, wary eyes.
"Don't get me wrong," the boy continued with a sly smile. "I'm not the one you need to fear. I'm only here to… clarify what happens next. In case you're too stupid or too hopeful to understand."
He stepped closer, hands behind his back like a teacher scolding a student.
"If before, you had a slim, pathetic chance of surviving another day… now?" He leaned in, voice dropping to a cold whisper. "You don't."
He straightened again.
"You triggered a hidden law. You cursed someone with a divine lineage. Surely even you know what that means?" His lips curled into a sneer. "You won't live. Not for long."
With that, he turned away and addressed the noble girl at the center of the field.
"Nadia, forgive the interruption. You may continue."
He walked off casually, as though he hadn't just declared a death sentence.
The whole field held its breath.
Blood and grit floated faintly in the air, swaying in the quiet.
Then Nadia's eyes ignited — burning with dark starlight — and she vanished.
Ryanis reacted on instinct alone. His body moved before thought existed. He leaped away—
A second later, Nadia appeared exactly where he had been, her sword cleaving through empty space with a vertical slash. Dark starlight bled off its edge like corrupted flame.
Her eyes darted across the field.
Locked on him again.
She stepped once on the dead grass —
Crack
— and disappeared.
"I–I can't see her," Ryanis cried, spinning wildly, terror strangling his voice. "She's everywhere at once—"
He began a prayer, voice cracking as fear swallowed him whole.
"Great God of Weeping Stars… look at your servant with mercy. Please, help me just this once… I pledge my life to eternal servitude, I beg y—"
His words cut off with a choking gasp.
A blade slid through his stomach from behind.
Warm blood spilled down his legs. His breath faltered. Tears spilled uncontrollably.
Two starlight-lit eyes glowed behind him — bright, merciless.
A feminine voice whispered in his ear, dripping venom.
"Can't run fast anymore, can you… slave?"
The sword twisted.
Then she dragged it upward, ripping open his chest in one savage motion.
Gasps erupted across the slaves.
Some collapsed.
Some vomited.
Some simply stared, traumatized beyond sound.
The children with starlight lineage?
They watched with cold, everyday indifference.
Ryanis' body fell with a heavy thud.
"Why…" he gurgled, vision fading. "Why… whyy… whyyy…?"
Blood pooled at the corners of his lips.
"The gods… never answer me…"
His eyes shifted weakly and caught a single figure — his little sister, trembling, tears streaming uncontrollably down her dirt-stained clothes. Frozen in fear. Unable to move. Forbidden to move.
He tried to smile. Failed.
"Ah… my sister… live long… a li—…fe…"
As consciousness slipped away, a soft eerie whisper passed from his lips:
"The Gods… are liars.
To the world… and to themselves…
They are the first breed… of rebellion…"
Then he died.