1 Beautiful, Broken World

The fires around the village grew larger and larger, as if growing in proportion to each civilian killed. The smoke from the broken huts and smouldering corpses congregated in the sky like a dark storm waiting to unleash the forces of nature on the land.

As the wind blew, the stormy smoke shifted positions, and the crackling of the fires died down.

Circling above even the highest wisp of smoke was a murder of crows, waiting to feast on the charcoal flesh on the ground. They were only waiting for the perpetrators of the massacre to leave first.

Through the haze of the fires, vague silhouettes could be made out. They had surrounded the remaining few villagers and were closing in, laughing among themselves, making idle chatter, and occasionally saying things that the villagers could not understand.

With a smirk on his face, one of the men in fine armour swung his sword, severing the head of a mother protecting her children. The head fell to the ground with a thump, and before the children had even realised what was happening, a warm, red rain started to pour on them.

A moment later, a great weight pushed down on them, knocking them to the ground. When they crawled out from under their mother's corpse, they saw her head on the floor, and with wails of agony, they put two and two together.

"Why… why are you doing this?" asked an older gentleman among the crowd whose only hair on his head was a long, white beard. "We are all fellow humans. Surely there is some way we can settle this. If we have offended you…"

Alas, no matter how much the old man pled, the surrounding attackers acted as if they had not heard it and continued going about their business, leisurely slaughtering the village.

…

In a dingy, tribal village, orcs were feasting on roast pork over the corpses of their dinner's children. Beneath the piles of pig-like human bodies, the few survivors trembled silently, gagging at the stench of their roasted kin's flesh, swallowing back the vomit that threatened to spew from their mouths lest they attracted the monsters' attention.

With fear in their eyes, those orcs on death's door could only wait for death—either the monsters from their own race would kill them and eat them, or they would die from their wounds. Given that the tribe's shaman had been one of the first to die, there truly was no chance for those shivering orcs to survive. Yet, perhaps due to the frequency of such atrocities, the survivors did not give in to madness and hung on to the hope of survival, the hope of living for those they had lost.

Alas, that simple hope was worthless in the face of overwhelming power and brutality. When the pile of corpses was reduced, the survivors were discovered and quickly turned into pork chops like the rest of their clan.

…

From the sandy shore of a summer resort, residents and tourists alike crowded to view the spectacular battle at sea.

With every strike from the gargantuan sea serpent, huge waves would be sent towards its adversary, the spray from which formed beautiful rainbows in the gorgeous blue skies.

As though it were holiday entertainment, the crowds began applauding, cheering on the hero who was battling such a ferocious beast.

His flowing blonde locks dazzled in the sunlight, and even from such a distance, the crowd could tell that his eyes were as deep and mysterious and the ocean itself.

Swirling his gold trident, the hero yelled, "Hydro-uppercut: Ocean's Wrath!"

Although it sounded like a load of nonsense, the crowd still cheered because as he said that, a whirlpool had formed around the sea serpent. Before the sea serpent even realised what was happening, the whirlpool seemed to reverse itself, shooting huge volumes of water into the sky along with the serpent.

With a dazzling smile on his lips, the hero leapt into the sky to launch a barrage of attacks at the serpent before landing delicately on the surface of the ocean.

As the serpent's blood mixed with sea water showered down on the man, he stood motionless, as if in a daze.

A moment later, someone among the crowd noticed something and asked, "Eh? What's going to happen when that massive beast hits the ocean?"

It took less than two seconds before all hell broke loose in the crowd.

"This is it, we're doomed!"

"It'll cause a tsunami, won't it? We have to run!"

"Don't worry, that hero will stop it," a young boy shouted, brimming with confidence in the hero.

Alas, the hero turned his back on the helpless civilians. As the serpent's body crashed into the ocean, a colossal tidal wave soared up into the sky and rushed toward the shore. As if worried that the tidal wave would not reach those civilians quick enough, the 'hero' launched himself off the ocean and into the sky, resulting in a blast of air that sped the tidal wave up.