The world was already burning by the time they reached the town.

Smoke curled into the sky like black veins spreading through a wounded body.

Fire clawed at rooftops, swallowing the morning light.

The streets of Artimia—once warm, alive, and ordinary—were gone, buried beneath rubble and screams.

The clang of steel.

The thunder of hooves.

And above it all—the silence of soldiers who didn't need to shout to kill.

In full armor, they stormed through the town like a plague.

Swords drawn.

Faces hidden behind dark, glass-paneled helmets that reflected the sunlight in ghostly smears.

They moved in unison—cold, efficient, and silent.

No mercy. No hesitation.

They dragged screaming civilians into the streets, barking orders meant not to be questioned or answered.

Orders that no one dared defy.

"The town… it's burning..." Dawn's voice was low, almost lost beneath the rising tide of destruction.

Theo stared, eyes wide and body locked in place.

"What… what's going on?"

David yanked them both behind a crumbling stone wall just as a soldier galloped past on horseback.

Fire. Steel. Screams.

David's brain scrambled for answers but came up short.

He muttered, half to himself, half hoping he was wrong, "Is this... a raid?"

The words felt thin. Not enough to match what they were seeing.

Theo dropped to a crouch, heart hammering against his ribs like it wanted to escape. 

"This can't be real."

Dawn's eyes scanned the streets. "Who would do this?"

Civilians moved through the smoke.

Fire burned homes to the crisp. 

Storefronts collapsed under the weight of fire.

Soldiers kicked down doors.

"We should split up," Theo said, standing suddenly. 

David grabbed Theo's shirt and yanked him down before he cleared the wall.

"No way. We stick together."

Theo yanked his shirt free, frustration flashing in his eyes.

"You don't get it. If something's happened—I need to—"

"And you think running out there alone is gonna help them?" David snapped, keeping his voice quiet but firm. "You're not helping anyone if you get yourself killed first."

"You think I'm gonna sit here while they're out there?"

"You think you're the only one scared for their parents right now?"

Theo's hands balled into fists. 

"We stay alive first. That's how we help everyone," David assured Theo, and he froze.

His breath was shallow and sharp, like his lungs didn't know whether to hold or release.

The space between them thickened—tight as a drawn bowstring.

Words hung in the air, unsaid but heavy, like they might snap the moment either of them exhaled too loud.

But before the heat between them rose, Dawn stepped in.

"Theo," she said, steady and sure, "remember what they taught us. If something like this ever happened, we don't split up."

David nodded beside her. "They'll be at the safe point. That's what it's for. That's where they'll be."

Theo looked between them—David's nerves barely masked beneath his sarcasm, and Dawn, who somehow always managed to stay calm when it counted most.

"…Okay. Fine."

They moved like ghosts through the wreckage, hugging walls and ducking behind cover.

Fires crackled beside them. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered with a sharp crack.

Something was wrong with the way the air tasted.

Wrong in a way that the body recognized before the mind could.

It was thick, choking with the sour stench of burning chemicals.

Beneath it all was the heavy, unmistakable copper tang of blood.

Ahead, David raised a hand, signaling them to stop.

Soldiers continued breaking into homes, dragging people out, and slamming them to their knees in the street.

"What are they doing?" Dawn whispered.

"Seems like they're looking for something," Theo muttered.

David pointed to the center of the street. "This isn't a raid... It's extermination."

A group of townsfolk knelt in a line—shaking, terrified.

Before them stood a man wrapped in brilliance.

He wasn't tall. Nor was he particularly imposing.

But the aura around him suffocated the street like a blanket of static.

His armor shimmered with threads of gold and starlight.

A cloak, deep blue and flecked with color like an oil spill, billowed behind him as if it had a life of its own.

His face was smooth—too smooth—and doll-like.

His hair was long, blonde, and braided into an elaborate style.

Sedgwick Fullerman—Section Commander of Sector Five.

"Really? Nothing? After all these months?"

Sedgwick's voice carried through the street like a performance—lilting, theatrical, polished for an invisible audience.

A man near the front of the kneeling crowd dared to look up.

His voice trembled.

"Please, sir. There's been a drought. The crops wouldn't grow. We're barely scraping by. If we had more time, more support—"

"Oh? And are you suggesting His Grace does not provide for his people?"

Sedgwick's smile didn't waver, but his eyes sharpened like glass.

The man's face had lost color.

"N-no, sir! I didn't mean—I mean—we're grateful—truly—"

"Grateful," Sedgwick repeated the word, testing its flavor on his tongue.

Then the smile vanished.

Without warning, he raised his hand and hovered it just inches above the man's neck.

A small chip beneath the skin pulsed in response—faint and glowing.

The man's panic spiked.

"Please, please, I'm begging you—!"

Then a flash of white light. A sharp electric whine.

The man screamed—a short, garbled sound—and dropped.

His body convulsed.

Foam bubbled from his mouth.

Eyes rolled back.

Muscles jerked, then went still. 

The silence that followed felt colder than the scream.

The moment the man collapsed, panic rippled down the line of kneeling townsfolk like a crack through glass.

Someone bolted. Then another. Then five more.

Screams tore through the silence as feet scrambled over dirt and cobblestone—some people fleeing blindly, others tripping behind them.

Sedgwick didn't flinch.

His eyes tracked the horde with mild interest as if watching leaves scatter in the wind.

He exhaled slowly as if the display had taken the edge off his morning. 

"Give them a head start," he said with a lazy wave of his hand. "Kill whoever you catch."

The soldiers charged without hesitation—silent, efficient, merciless.

Sedgwick took a slow, luxurious breath, his expression dreamy as if he were sipping fine wine.

His eyes fluttered half-closed.

"Ahh," he exhaled, stretching his arms. "Nothing like a good mind-wipe to start the morning. Cleanses the soul."

Theo clenched his jaw. "What was that? What did he do to him?"

Dawn's voice was low. "I… don't know."

David's eyes remained on the fallen man.

"It looked like he did something to his KC."

The stillness that followed was unbearable.

Thick. Trembling. No one moved.

"I'll forgive this town's… unfortunate existence," Sedgwick said, voice smooth and venom-laced. "Children are the purest coin you pathetic scum can produce. Give them to me."

His smile widened, a sickly sweet, hungry, rehearsed one.

Then one man rose from his knees.

His shoulders shook. His voice trembled.

But he stood anyway, defiant.

"...There are no children here."

Sedgwick's grin vanished.

"How brave and profoundly stupid... I shall not waste mercy on the stubborn. Let me show you the price of pride."

Sedgwick took the man's words as a challenge and answered them with a flicker of light that sparked from his palm.

It was dead white, like a spark stripped of warmth.

The man's KC lit up beneath his skin, glowing through the back of his neck like something trying to escape.

FLASH!

A single jolt. The man's spine seized. His body jerked violently.

He let out a sharp gasp, then went rigid—eyes rolling, foam spilling from his lips.

He dropped like a marionette with its strings slashed, dead before he hit the ground.

"Lies!" Sedgwick snarled. "All of you lie! I give you everything—protection, order, purpose—and this is how you repay me? With lies!?"

Theo and Dawn locked eyes.

Neither spoke, but their faces said everything.

Fear. Rage. Helplessness.

"We need to move," David whispered, urgency polluting every syllable. "Now."

Theo didn't argue.

Not yet, at least.

Just as the trio turned to slip away, the sound of armored boots crunching gravel snapped their attention back.

Two soldiers marched up to Sedgwick, dragging a man and woman between them—bloodied, bruised, but upright.

"Section Commander, Sedgwick, sir!" one of them called out.

"What is it now?" Segwick growled, annoyed. "Can't you see I'm busy cleansing this town of scum?"

"Apologies, sir," the soldier said. "But we found these two."

That got his attention.

Sedgwick turned slowly, expression twisting from disinterest to sudden intrigue.

His gaze drifted down to the captives now kneeling in the dirt.

A man and a woman—dust-smeared, breathing hard, still rebellious despite the chains around their wrists.

Sedgwick tilted his head. "A man… and his whore?"

He sniffed disdainfully, cloak swaying as he stepped closer.

"Don't waste my time. What exactly do you think I'm supposed to do with these two?"

The soldier straightened.

"Sir, we found them with three children."

That changed everything.

Sedgwick's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile, more like a sneer dressed up in gold.

"Three?" he repeated, tasting the number. "Better than nothing. Keep searching."

The soldiers saluted and stormed off, leaving the couple at Sedgwick's feet like discarded prey.

He crouched, looking them over like meat at a butcher's counter.

"Where are the rest of the children?" he asked gently. " Tell me… and maybe I'll let you beg for your life."

Behind the wall of rubble, Theo's heart stopped.

"...No..."

His eyes locked on the woman kneeling in the dirt.

Her petite frame shook with exhaustion.

Tears cut clean lines through the dirt on her cheeks.

Her hands, calloused from years of work, clasped tightly in prayer.

"...Mom?

Then, on the man kneeling in the dirt.

The broad shoulders.

The gritted jaw.

The quiet fury.

"Dad…?"

Alicia Gray and Alvin Gray.

Sedgwick didn't know who they were.

But Theo did. And he watched—paralyzed—as the nightmare continued.

Alvin's face tightened.

Blood streaked his temple, but his eyes burned like firewood that refused to go out.

"As if we'd ever cut a deal with filth like you."

Then—with zero hesitation—he spat on Sedgwick's boot.

Time froze.

Sedgwick's smile twitched.

The theatrics drained from his face, replaced by something colder.

Rawer.

His eye twitched once.

Then he lashed out, boot slamming into Alvin's face with a sickening crack that echoed off his jaw.

Alvin fell sideways, groaning.

Alicia reached for him instinctively, her actions ragged with panic—but she didn't scream.

She held it down, trembling as she steadied her husband with both hands.

"Take a good look," Sedgwick sneered, stepping over them like they were debris. "A matched pair. In love. In harmony. In dirt!"

He raised his voice like a circus ringmaster announcing a finale.

"Let it be known—I'm a merciful Section Commander!"

"Yes! You are!" the soldiers howled with laughter. 

"So, I'll make sure to send them to the grave together."

Boots circled the couple, their jeers loud enough to shake the buildings still standing.

Theo's body locked up.

He couldn't breathe.

Couldn't blink.

His fingers dug into his palms so hard it felt like his skin might break.

Then he moved—heart first, reason second.

But arms caught him mid-surge.

"Don't!" David hissed, locking Theo in place.

His grip was tight—panicked—but not unkind.

"You go out there, and you'll die with them."

"Let me go!" Theo's voice cracked with fury. His arms thrashed. "They're my parents!"

"I know!" David barked back, muscles shaking to hold him. "I know, Theo—but you can't help them..."

Across the burning square—like he'd heard them across the wind—Alvin lifted his head.

Through the confusion, his gaze found Theo's.

In that instant, everything else faded.

There was no war.

No soldiers.

No Section Commanders or God-King.

Just father and son.

Alvin smiled at him.

One full of pride.

He squeezed Alicia's hand.

"Live!" Alvin yelled.

Not just to Theo, but also to David and Dawn, who were watching as well. 

"Live—and change this world!"

A hum of energy cracked in the air.

Light exploded from Sedgwick's palm, blinding, and when it faded, they were gone.

Alvin and Alicia crumpled in unison, their hands still locked.

Silent. Still. But Sedgwick wasn't finished.

He raised his finger once more—glowing like a branding iron.

Another flare. Another flash.

A beam struck Alvin's skull and snapped his head back with a sickening jolt.

Bones cracked.

Blood sprayed the dirt.

The soldiers erupted in laughter.

Sedgwick exhaled, brushing imaginary dust off his spotless cloak.

"What a lunatic," he muttered casually. "Started shouting nonsense out of nowhere."

He turned back to the line of survivors like nothing had happened.

"Now then… who's next?"

Theo couldn't breathe.

Not because of the smoke that curled around the burning town or the ash thick in the air—but because something inside him had ruptured.

Tears blurred his vision.

The air reeked of smoke and blood, and somewhere in the haze, the last pieces of who Theo was as a person crumbled.

Not slowly.

Not with a warning.

But like a blade through glass—sudden, brutal, irreversible.

His knees nearly buckled. His fists trembled at his sides with the weight of all he couldn't say.

His parents' bodies lay still, hands entwined even in death—proof of a love that refused to surrender, even when everything else did.

The image seared itself into his mind like a brand that would never fade.

His ears rang.

He couldn't hear the soldiers laughing anymore.

Couldn't hear the screaming.

All he heard was the sound of his heart pounding so loud it felt like it might burst out of his chest and throw itself at Sedgwick's feet.

Something hot was bubbling beneath his ribs—rage, sure—but not just rage.

Grief.

Helplessness.

A scream stuck behind his teeth, too wide to escape, too jagged to swallow.

He turned toward the bodies again.

Alvin's hand still held Alicia's.

Even in death, they hadn't let go.

And that—somehow—hurt more than anything else.

Something inside him snapped.

He tore away from David.

From reason.

He stepped out from the rubble and ran.

Toward the soldiers.

Toward the monster in the cloak.

Dust exploded around him.

His lungs burned. His legs screamed.

But nothing—nothing—mattered more than the man standing at the center of it.

Sedgwick Fullerman.

The name carved itself into the walls of his mind like a curse.

Theo ran like he was falling off the edge of the world—and didn't care if he landed.

David shouted behind him. Dawn screamed his name. But their voices drowned beneath the roar in his chest.

The world narrowed to one.

Just him and Sedgwick.

"I'll kill you!" Theo's voice tore from his throat, cracked and bleeding with everything he couldn't hold anymore. 

"Sir! A target is approaching!" a soldier barked.

"A child?" Sedgwick muttered.

Theo didn't stop.

His eyes stayed locked on Sedgwick.

That smile—cold, certain—welcomed the charge like it was inevitable.

Theo didn't care if he died because they were gone.

And someone had to pay for it.

Then for one breathless moment, the world went silent.

Then everything exploded.