Another day before the gate… and I stand alone guarding it.
The wind slips through the cracks in the walls like the long moan of a dying city, and the sky above me burns orange neither leaning toward dawn nor acknowledging day. From time to time, the beasts crawl out from beneath the ruins twisted creatures, with incomplete limbs and eyes gleaming with blind hunger. They come to devour the piled corpses outside the walls, bodies no one dares to bury anymore. And some of them, with cold insolence, turn toward the city… toward me.
So I am forced to kill them.
There is no honor in it, no glory. Just a silent strike, the creak of bones, then stillness.
The stillness… what frightens me most here is the silence that follows the screams.
The nights in this city are unlike any nights I have ever known. Each night feels as though it gives birth to new faces among its people faces harsher, more broken.
There are those who turn on their own families and slaughter them as if they were strangers who broke into their homes.
There are those who slowly devour themselves not with teeth, but with despair… fading until they become shadows wandering without purpose.
And there are those who become twisted, in body and soul, until they are no longer human, but something that lives among the shattered houses, hiding in corners, breathing as if stealing air.
And in the morning… the city looks like a vast grave.
Closed doors. Darkened windows. Streets without footsteps.
No life in it for anyone to call upon.
As if everyone has agreed to hide, to leave the entire burden on my shoulders as if I had never been a stranger to them.
Sometimes I laugh… a short, dry laugh.
"What is Selina doing, I wonder?"
Since she was appointed leader, I have only seen her on the nights when they hold their grand feasts. Nights when lights blaze, laughter echoes, and the scent of roasted meat fills the air.
But otherwise… she is absent.
I know leadership is a heavy burden, that ruling is no trivial matter, but… leading them?
These people who leave everything to one man to protect them, to fight for them while they grow idle and wait for food to come easily to their trembling mouths?
"What a disgrace… that this nameless city belongs to such cowardly monsters."
I tighten my grip on the hilt of my sword until my joints let out a faint crack.
"If only they would move… just a little.
One step beyond their fear.
If they expanded their territory, if they went out to search for food instead of waiting for blood to be handed to them…
Maybe we would have taken control. Maybe we would have lived… not merely survived."
Sometimes I wonder… how did that old man endure them?
Just by looking at him, pride took form. He was one of the summoned, as they called them a man who looked at the sky as if it were another city he could conquer.
And now… after I have gained the power of a "complete knight," as Selina explained with a look of pity she could barely conceal, I understand that look.
She said I had reached the first tier the level that surpasses any ordinary human.
She said it calmly… as though delivering an irreversible verdict.
This power made me realize something terrifying:
Pride is nothing but the shadow of power.
The greater the power, the larger the shadow… until it devours its owner.
But what can break the pride of a giant is not wisdom, nor regret
but a greater power, one that crushes it until it becomes dust unseen.
I look at my hands.
My sword is a weapon.
My entire body is a weapon.
My bones, my scars even my breath… a weapon.
I am a weapon.
And everything I have… is a weapon.
...
Among those piled corpses outside the gate, darkness began to spread.
It was not yet sunset, and the day was still clear, yet something spilled over my vision.
Or perhaps… the world was not covered only my eyes were.
I felt a cold weight descend upon my shoulders.
Then… it happened.
All the corpses that had been nothing but cold flesh moments ago raised their heads at once.
White, glassy eyes staring at me.
A mouth open here, a hand reaching there.
Complete silence… yet it spoke louder than any scream.
I did not care.
I convinced myself I did not care.
But my body… refused to move.
My limbs froze, as if the ground had swallowed my roots.
A step.
A corpse before me… the one I had stripped of everything it had days ago. Its armor, its sword, even its iron ring.
It stared at me with empty eyes… then it spoke.
"I forgive you…"
Its voice was hoarse, like stone grinding against stone.
"And now… kill yourself."
I did not blink.
"A soldier?"
A laugh came from its mouth, but it was not its own.
"No… a slave. In the past, in the present, and in the future."
How can a lifeless corpse speak?
How can it hold all that emotion contempt, pity, anger without a beating heart?
I felt myself sinking.
Not into water… but into something heavier.
A dense darkness wrapping around me layer after layer, until I could see nothing but faint threads of light.
Then the largest shadow among them rose.
It looked… like me.
But taller.
Larger.
With a single, enormous eye in the middle of its face, wide open, staring at me as an executioner looks at the condemned.
"Your sins have not been forgiven, O one who came from afar."
Its voice did not come from its mouth, but from everywhere.
"Time does not permit you to remain."
It stepped closer, and the ground trembled beneath me.
"For your life… offer it.
For the sake of all humanity."
It was pressure.
But not suffocating as I had expected.
Not like before that force that crushed my chest and broke my ribs.
No… it was…
Comforting.
More comforting than it should have been.
As if someone placed a hand on my head and told me:
Stop fighting.
Stop guarding.
Stop being a weapon.
Sleep.
And for one moment… just one moment…
my heart almost believed it.
...
Blood… dripping, drop by drop.
It was not the blood of beasts this time, nor the scattered blood of monsters at the gate.
It was my blood.
I could feel its warmth as it slid down my neck, seeping beneath my armor, falling onto soil soaked in ancient blackness.
A wound… yes. But not by my hand.
I had not gone mad enough to kill myself.
"Wake up, you nameless one! Wake up!!!"
The voice pierced my head like a rusted stake.
An extremely thin man, his bones nearly protruding through his pale skin, unnaturally tall as if he had been stretched from his limbs to the brink of tearing was bent over me… his teeth sunk into my shoulder.
'…?!'
"Get away from me at once!!"
I shoved him away with force. He hit the ground like a rag, then scrambled back, panting, his sunken eyes flickering with madness.
Only then did I realize I was no longer at the gate.
I was in the city square.
A fire burned at the center.
Many faces surrounded me… faces that neither trusted nor showed mercy.
I was bound in chains.
Thick, cold chains… yet they would not truly restrain me.
Some were ready to throw me into the fire.
I could see it in their clenched fists, in their eyes searching for an excuse.
Then a shout was heard.
"You useless bastard! How could you let your guard down?!"
Selina.
She stood before me, her dark hair moving as if alive beneath her cloak, her eyes burning with anger and fear.
"The darkness almost devoured that mind of yours and cursed all of us with you!"
She shouted in my face.
Not the shout of a leader to a subordinate… but the shout of someone scolding a disobedient dog.
…She is shouting at me?
Me?
How dare she?
I am the one who fought.
I am the one who bled.
I am the one who stood alone at the gate while they hid behind closed doors.
I am the one who sacrificed my life for the goal of the supreme emperor…
Memories crashed into me like a flood of iron.
I… apologized to a corpse?
Just because I took its weapon?
I followed her orders out of fear of those thread-like strands she planted inside me?
Did I really… at the mere sight of that god-like entity, surrender my entire will?
Am I truly nothing more than a speck of dust in a storm?
Fury surged within my chest.
Pure anger, without hesitation.
How can I rebuild the empire… when I yielded like that?
Thanks to that darkness they fear.
It did not curse me… it reminded me of who I truly am.
All eyes were fixed on me.
Some despised me for killing their former leader… the man they claimed protected them.
Some feared me, afraid I might turn on them at any moment and strip them of everything they had.
Not a single positive thought about me existed in their minds.
And they… were right.
For who knows when a tiger will break free of control?
Even if its fangs are removed, it remains a tiger.
I rose slowly.
The chains screamed as they scraped against each other, yet I stood… in complete calm.
I wiped the blood from my face, then looked at them all.
"First… you monsters."
Murmurs rose.
Some gripped their weapons.
"I am not nameless."
I paused for a moment, then said it with deliberate weight:
"I… am Elia."
Shock appeared on their faces, but it did not conceal their anger.
"You're just a slave! Shut up, slave!"
"Go back to guarding the gate! Everything happening to us is your fault!"
Even Selina… her eyes flared.
I saw her shoulder move.
I felt it before she did it.
The threads.
Those fine strands she planted inside me moved, piercing my nerves once more.
Pain…
It exploded at the back of my head, then flowed down my spine, then into my entire body.
Pain like being torn apart from within by invisible claws.
But I… endured.
One step.
Another step toward her.
A boy rushed forward to block me.
"Stop!"
…Thud.
I struck him with the back of my hand.
His body flew like a rag doll, crashing through the wall of a house, wood and stone turning to dust.
The silence shattered.
Some charged at me.
Men, women even those deformed with tails and inhuman limbs.
I showed no mercy.
A head fell.
A hand scattered.
A tail severed from its body struck the ground like a cut serpent.
"Stop! Don't torture my siblings!"
Selina's voice was choked.
She tried to control me… but controlling a fanatic who has remembered his identity is not easy.
"You…"
I raised my sword, black, rotting blood dripping from it.
"You are the ones who reminded me why I am here."
I walked toward her as she stepped back.
"Perhaps this city is beautiful in your eyes… a refuge, safety."
I stopped directly in front of her.
"But in my eyes… it is ruin."
I drove the sword into her chest.
She screamed.
A real scream.
But… no blood flowed.
I smiled slowly.
I pulled a stone from the ground and shoved it into the open wound.
Then another stone.
Then another.
She screamed, her body regenerating, her bones reforming under the contract with that entity.
Her ribcage tore… then healed… then tore again.
Until there was no space left for another stone.
"But rejoice."
I looked at the others, trembling.
"Here… a better life can begin. A life without fear."
I slowly pulled the sword out.
"As you have seen, you want someone to rely on."
I lifted my chin.
"And I will be that person."
Absolute silence.
"But do not expect me to protect your lives. Whoever falls… has only himself to blame."
Children cried.
Some hid behind cracked walls.
Men and women finally realized… that keeping me alive had not been a wise decision.
Even Selina.
She thought controlling me was possible.
I leaned slightly toward her.
"And you… Selina."
My voice became calm… terrifying.
"Remove what you planted in me."
I smiled without warmth.
"It hurts… like hell."
I raised my head toward the gray sky.
"Your reward… your life and theirs. Perhaps."
I was not joking.
And if she did not…
She tried to attack.
All those strands burst from her back, like a forest of living needles.
But my sword was faster.
I cut them.
One after another.
Her ribcage tore again, her spine shattered and reformed, the pain made her tremble soundlessly.
I continued… until she yielded.
The threads inside me went dark.
I felt them being pulled from my nerves, like venom being extracted.
I took a deep breath.
"Good girl."
I smiled at her.
And in my gaze, she saw something that planted in her heart a fear she had never known before.
"It seems the entity you contracted with is quite useful."
I stood straight.
"So you will live. No matter how I tear your heart apart, or cut off your head… you will return."
I leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Keep that thought in your head… as I will."
Then I turned away.
Blood covered my body.
Black… rotting blood…
The blood of monsters.
But it reminded me of who I was… and who I will be.
I raised my sword high.
"From this moment on…"
I looked at their faces, one by one.
"There is no place here except for my obedience."
The nameless city…
finally found its name.
And its name… was Elia.