Raven held Manoj for a long time, longer than he had held anyone in his life.

His fingers dug into the burned fabric of Manoj's clothes as if he could stop the world from moving by holding tighter.

His tears soaked Manoj's shoulder, warm at first, then cold as the air dried them.

"Manoj… you left me so early, buddy…" he whispered, voice shaking so badly the words almost broke apart.

He pressed his forehead against Manoj's neck, breathing in that faint smell of smoke and metal that still clung to him.

"You idiot… you always rush ahead… why did you go first…"

He hugged him even harder, squeezing him like he could still keep the life inside.

His shoulders trembled, but then something changed.

Under all the heartbreak, something sharp pushed through. Something dark.

"But don't worry…" Raven said quietly, his chin resting on Manoj's shoulder.

His tears kept falling, but his voice gained a strange steadiness. "I'll join you soon."

He meant it. Every word.

For a moment, it felt like the world around him wasn't real.

Only Manoj's weight in his arms felt real. Only that empty space in his chest felt real.

He stayed like that until his tears finally ran out. His eyes were red. His face was stiff.

And behind all that grief, something wild flickered in him.

A hint of madness. A hint of a man who had lost the last thing tying him to sanity.

Slowly, gently, he laid Manoj down on the cold ground.

He brushed a bit of dirt from Manoj's cheek, the way an older brother might fix the clothes of a younger one.

He gave him one last look, long and heavy, as if trying to carve that face into his memory forever.

Then Raven stood up.

The green gas was gone now.

The sky above looked too clear, too calm, like it had forgotten what happened.

But the ground… the ground remembered everything.

No sound moved across the frozen battlefield. No wind. No cries. No voices.

Twenty thousand soldiers lay where they fell, their armour cracked, their faces twisted, their eyes wide open.

Rows and rows of bodies stretched until they touched the fog at the far edges.

Only Raven stood.

A single man in a field of death.

A single man whose heart had broken in a way that could never be fixed.

And as he stared across the dead land, something inside him shifted, slowly, quietly, towards something darker than anything he had ever known.

Raven wiped his face with the back of his hand, though the tears had already dried into rough streaks on his skin.

His eyes still burned, but now they looked empty, like something important had been scooped out of him.

He turned his head toward the tall stone wall in the distance.

From where he stood, it looked far, but not too far.

About two hundred and fifty meters, maybe a little more.

The enemy soldiers stood behind that wall. The ones who fired the poison.

The ones who killed Manoj. The ones who killed everyone.

Raven's gaze drifted down, and something caught his eye, a cannonball resting on the ground, half-buried in the snow.

It hadn't exploded. Its metal shell was cracked, but the powder inside was untouched.

He walked toward it, legs shaking from the poison still lingering in his veins.

He knelt beside the cannonball, touched it, then stored it in his subspace.

Then he saw another one a few steps away.

He grabbed that one too.

And another.

And another.

He didn't hurry. He didn't rush.

He moved slowly, almost calmly, like a man picking up stones on a quiet morning walk instead of gathering weapons on a graveyard of comrades.

Each time he placed a cannonball into his subspace, the madness in his eyes grew a little more steady.

A little more focused.

Behind the wall, the enemy soldiers moved around excitedly.

On the highest platform stood an old man with a huge bushy beard that looked like it could hide a small bird.

His eyebrows were just as thick, hanging over his face like heavy curtains.

His right eye socket was empty, a hollow space where an eyeball should have been, but even without it, he looked more dangerous than anyone there.

A strong aura swirled around him, sharp and heavy. A swordmaster's aura.

He wore light armour, scratched and worn from countless battles.

When he stepped forward, the soldiers pressed closer, almost fighting for space just to hear him speak.

He raised his hand for silence.

"Today," the old man said, his voice booming across the wall, "we have created history."

The soldiers cheered, proud, thrilled, swelling with victory.

The one-eyed old man lifted both arms, drunk on his own excitement.

His beard shook as he shouted, every word crashing into the walls like thunder.

"We have killed—" his voice cracked from how loudly he spoke, but he didn't care, "—around thirty-five thousand enemy soldiers! And this number includes one vice general and thirty-seven captains!"

For a moment there was silence, like the army had stopped breathing.

Then the entire wall exploded with noise.

"YEEEEE-AAAH!"

Thirty thousand Trampling soldiers stomped and roared at the same time.

Armour clashed, shields banged together, men hugged each other, some even jumped in place like excited kids.

"We won!! We won!!"

"Hip hip hurray!!"

"Hurray! We defeated the empire!!"

Voices piled on top of voices until the cheering felt like waves crashing again and again, shaking the stone under their feet.

Some men laughed. Some cried. Some shouted so hard their throats bled.

For them, this was the greatest victory in years.

The old man watched them with a smile that pulled deep into his beard.

He let them cheer. He let them celebrate. He let the pride burn in their chests.

But soon he raised one hand.

Just one.

The cheers died at once, like someone had thrown a blanket over a fire.

Every soldier turned to him.

"We have won the battle," the old man said, his voice steady now, filled with confidence, "however the war is not over. This was only the first step. We need to end this war as soon as possible."

His single eye narrowed, burning with ambition.

"Then…" he said, letting the word hang in the air, "we march toward the empire."

A slow murmur spread across the wall, men nodding, gripping their weapons tighter, imagining glory, imagining fame.

None of them knew what was happening outside the wall.

None of them knew the lone figure standing among twenty thousand dead.

None of them knew he was gathering their own cannonballs.

None of them knew the storm walking toward them had already buried its heart beside a friend.

The old man lifted his hand again, bringing the attention back to him.

"But none of that matters right now," he said, voice steady and filled with pride.

"Now that we have won this battle and put a huge loss on the enemy… we attack tomorrow."

A ripple of excitement spread across the soldiers.

Some whispered. Some grinned. Some slammed their fists against their chests in agreement.

This was the plan from the beginning.

The weapons they received from that faraway continent, those deadly gas shells, were unstoppable the first time.

No shield, no armour, no formation could defend against them.

But the second time? The enemy would be ready.

They would spread out, cover their faces, run, hide, anything to avoid another massacre.

So the Trampling Kingdom planned to finish everything fast.

Strike once with the poison. Cripple the enemy.

And before they could recover, launch a full attack the next day, crush whatever remained, and end the war before the Empire could even breathe.

The old man nodded to himself. Everything had gone smoothly. Perfectly. Just as he had predicted.

Only the final sweep attack remained.

"Rest up," he began. "We will—"

He stopped.

His words froze in his throat.

His one eye slowly turned toward the battlefield outside the wall.

Something had pulled his gaze. Something small. Something faint. But something wrong.

He narrowed his eye.

Did he just… see movement?

A cold wind suddenly blew past the wall, carrying a thin flurry of snow that rolled across the stone like a curtain.

It blurred the distance for a moment, covering everything in white.

The old man blinked.

"Must have been the wind." He thought

He forced himself to continue. "We will attack tomorrow, so res—"

His jaw tightened.

Again.

Movement.

This time it wasn't a trick of the snow. It wasn't the wind. It wasn't his imagination.

He walked to the very edge of the wall, each step slow, his boots scraping against stone.

His aura flickered for a moment, sharp as a blade, as he leaned forward and squinted into the thinning snow.

The wind calmed.

The white mist drifted aside.

And there, standing in the open field, was a lone figure.

A single person.

Surrounded by twenty thousand corpses.

"What…?" the old man whispered, his voice losing all its strength.

Because the figure was walking straight toward them.

Step by step.

And not a single soldier below him was alive.

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