I was feared. No, I was worshipped. Kings paid homage, their thrones built on my victories. I was the unbroken storm, the hammer of men, the butcher of gods. My name (Taraka) echoed through the halls of power—a legend carved in steel and blood.
But legends lie.
Now, I knelt in the dirt, shaking like a beaten dog. My army—my immortal legion—lay scattered behind me, their bodies split and broken as if the earth itself had swallowed them whole. Blood pooled at my knees, warm and sticky, and the iron tang of death choked the air.
I couldn't lift my head. I didn't want to.
He was there. The boy… No, not a boy. He couldn't be. No mortal moves like that, kills like that. He was death—manifested. He said nothing. He didn't need to. The shards moved as one, slicing through armor, flesh, and bone with terrifying precision. One moment, my men had been charging, an unstoppable tide. The next, there was silence. The battlefield turned red, the screams fading almost as quickly as they began. When the dust settled, there was only silence—and R.
Not the scream of the dying, not the clash of steel. Just silence. And then they fell, all at once. Heads rolled. Limbs tumbled. Their eyes—their eyes—still wide with disbelief, staring into nothingness.
It took a single swing. One.
My body trembled as I tried to process it, my mind clawing for logic where none could be found. This… thing had reduced my army to ash with a flick of his wrist. Thousands. Thousands gone in the blink of an eye.
"Look at me."
The voice froze my blood. It was soft, quiet, like a whisper carried on the wind, but it cut through me sharper than any blade.
I didn't want to obey, but my head moved of its own accord. Slowly, trembling, I raised my gaze.
He stood before me, untouched by the slaughter he had wrought. His scarf, white as new-fallen snow, drifted in the breeze, a cruel contrast to the crimson-streaked battlefield. His sword—the Thousand Sword Seeker—floated behind him in fragments, each piece humming with an unholy energy, waiting for his command.
He wasn't human. He couldn't be.
His eyes… gods, those eyes. They were empty, black as the void, but within them burned something deeper—a calm, quiet hatred that whispered of eternity.
I opened my mouth, but no words came. My pride, my strength, my name—they all meant nothing here.
"You... you're a monster," I managed, my voice cracking like brittle glass.
He tilted his head slightly, his expression unchanging. "Monsters are born." His voice was even, devoid of feeling, yet it carried the weight of a thousand deaths. "I was made."
I felt my bowels loosen as he stepped closer, the fragments of his blade vibrating with lethal intent.
"Please," I begged, the words spilling from me like blood. "I'll do anything. Gold, women, power—it's yours. Just spare me. I—"
"You've lived as a tyrant," he interrupted, his tone flat, but it carried the weight of judgment. He stopped a few feet from me, his gaze boring into mine. "Do you fear death?"
"Yes!" I screamed, tears streaming down my face. "Yes, I fear it! I, I…—"
"You shouldn't."
And then he moved.
I didn't see it. I couldn't. One moment he was standing there, and the next, the fragments of his blade had reformed into a single, gleaming weapon. A flash of silver—and pain.
I fell to the ground, my chest heaving, blood pouring from the gaping wound he had carved through my side. My vision blurred, but I saw him turn away, already walking back toward the horizon.
"You…" I choked, clutching at the dirt. "You're no man."
He stopped, his back still turned to me. For a moment, I thought he wouldn't reply. But then, his voice came, soft and haunting, carried on the wind like a funeral dirge.
"Men die. I don't."
And then he was gone, his scarf the last thing to fade into the haze of battle. The lives he had ended? Just another tally in a ledger he no longer cared to keep.no, To him, this wasn't victory. It wasn't anything. Just another mission completed.
The chapter ends with Taraka's whispered realization, his voice trembling as life leaves his body:
"They sent us to fight a boy. They didn't tell us he was a monster."