"What has happened here!!??" Asura cried out, rushing towards the ruins that were once her home. There was not a single living soul around; the houses were destroyed and burned. Traces of blood and broken weapons were visible on the streets.
"Papa, sister!!" Asura rushed into the largest house in the center of the village, but there was no one there. Half of the house was reduced to ashes, leaving only a few rooms untouched in the center.
"Asura, calm down!" I pushed her forcefully out of the building before the charred beams collapsed, burying the remnants of the house.
"But Krito, my entire family was here. They couldn't have just died like this. There must be survivors somewhere," Asura pleaded.
"Look around!" I pointed to the charred skeletons of the houses. "The flames have long died down, and there is no smoke. The battle that raged here must have been at least a week ago. If there were survivors, they most likely didn't stay here."
"But what could have caused such destruction?" she wondered.
"I smell sulfur in the air," Ragni sniffed the debris. "This was no ordinary fire."
"And I highly doubt it was a volcano eruption. The residents fought against someone capable of destroying the village without breaching the palisade," I said.
Compared to the burnt houses, the palisade was almost untouched. If there was something here, it came from the air.
"Ragni, there's only one possibility that comes to mind," I said.
"Yes, it could only be a dragon," Ragni replied, sniffing the air a few times. "And most likely, a red one, and quite large at that."
Moving a piece of the roof aside, the dragoness pulled out a severed hand. "Here's a clue," she said, holding up a fragment of bright ruby-colored scale. "If I estimate, a whole scale should be the size of a palm."
"Hey hey! With such a scale, the dragon itself should be at least the size of Ignis!" I exclaimed.
"If not bigger. Red dragons of such size can only be ancient, but I don't know why they would attack a peaceful human settlement on the other side of the continent!"
I looked at Asura, and it was evident on her face that she knew the answer but didn't want to believe it.
"Do you know what this could be?" I asked her.
The girl flinched and slowly walked around the main house, beginning to tell her story.
"We, the White Guardians, have been safeguarding the peace of our Mother, the Time Mistress, and protecting the world from the Red Demon of Destruction," the warrior spoke monotonously, as if recalling an ancient legend from her childhood.
"Who is this Demon of Destruction?"
"I thought it was just a legend, as it was over five thousand years old, but it turned out to be true. In ancient times, atop the sacred mountain, a white goddess fought against the red demon of destruction. Their powers were equal, but the demon fed on the fire of the earth and could fight endlessly.
The goddess retreated, fearing defeat, and he didn't pursue her to maintain his advantage. However, in the forest, she was attacked and almost killed by a bold warrior from a local tribe. Even though the goddess was wounded, it was the first time a human dared to attack her and achieve some degree of victory. As it turned out, the warrior was also hunting the red demon, but mistook the first dragon she saw for him.
The white goddess offered to join forces with the warrior to defeat the monster, but the girl was too proud and didn't want help from an enemy's kin. Then the goddess offered her and her descendants immeasurable power. The girl agreed, and in an instant, her hair and eyes turned snow-white, just like the ancient goddess's skin. Thus, Shiva, the first warrior of the Yukitori clan, was born.
The two great warriors fought together against the red demon. They surpassed him in power, but his inexhaustible source of flame made him practically invulnerable. They inflicted a mortal wound on him, but he started healing without hesitation. So, the goddess made a great sacrifice, using her immortal soul, she sealed him in an icy prison in the heart of a volcano.
Shiva mourned her friend's death but ensured her sacrifice wasn't in vain. She summoned a great blizzard that forever locked the ancient volcano in ice. Devoid of the power of fire, the sacred mountain imprisoned the demon of destruction, and he slumbered for thousands of years, waiting for his awakening."
"That's what the ancient legend says..." Asura circled the main house and walked to the back of the village, where hundreds of identical stone mounds were scattered. "If the red demon is ever freed from his prison, the world will face its end. The White Guardians will fight not for life, but for the lives of all people on the planet."
The warrior took a small torch and approached a stone mound at the center of which a beautiful emerald-hilted katana was embedded. "Rest in peace, father. Even if I'm the last one left in my clan, I promise to fulfill the duty of a White Guardian."
Ragni helped the girl light the torch, and we silently paid tribute to the memory of the great warrior.
"He has awakened, the ancient lord of the red dragons. And I wasn't here when my family needed me," Asura suddenly stood up and headed for the eastern gates of the village.
"Where are you going?" I called out to the weeping girl.
"I'm going to fulfill my duty."
"You're heading for certain death."
"Then so be it, that's my fate. I don't ask you to come with me; it's my responsibility alone."
"Don't you want to find survivors?"
"They're all dead, there's no point anymore."
"And how do you know that?! Look around! Who do you think buried all these warriors? I doubt the Baron would send his people here for this reason."
Asura stopped; she tried to assess the situation, and only one possible course of events seemed to unfold in her mind. Suddenly breaking into a sprint again, the girl rushed back to the graveyard, inspecting each tomb as if searching for something.
"Asura, what are you looking for?"
"Help me. There should be a tomb with a small wakizashi, its handle of emerald color. Help me find it."
We split up and, within twenty minutes, went around all the graves. There were over a thousand of them, but we still didn't find what we were looking for.
"Can you explain what it was?" I asked.
"The leader's blade," Asura gasped but wiped away tears with joy. "They only place it on the tomb of the clan's leader. My father's grave is here, but there's no tomb for my sister. That means she might have survived. Perhaps, before the battle, they took some villagers away from the village, and they are still hiding in the forest, where the dragon can't easily reach them."
"What about the bandits?" I questioned.
Asura stood up and looked angrily towards the castle to the west.
"I'm not so sure anymore that they are ordinary bandits, as the Baron portrays them."
"We need to return to the city. Even if they live in the forest, they must be procuring supplies somewhere. Maybe the locals know something about it."
"Then we have to hurry. The red demon goes hunting at night, and it's best not to stay in the open during that time."