Chapter 0: A New Era

"Are you happy now?"

"…"

A black-haired man whose body was full of wounds spoke as he readied his stance one last time. Blood oozed out of every inch of his body while his feet tried to balance on top of a corpse with a much worse appearance than he had.

The sky, like the ground, was now red; filled with ash. A permanent shadow was casted upon the battlefield; exalting the barren land where dozens of thousands had perished, and where all those bodies remained.

Limbs, blood, swords and torn clothes covered the ground to the last grain, but that wasn't what made the place a portrait of hell. There were things that stood out of the rest like the trees in the middle of a dark forest; things that would remain deep in the memories of those unfortunate souls that would be unlucky enough to get out of there alive.

The heads, not the objects per se, but the tales they told. A single glance would be enough to see hundreds of expressions; enough to get the gist of the tragedy that befell.

Horror, despair, anger, confusion… Even the faces that had lost their most expressive feature, or the ones that had no time to process their demise, their end; each and every one could tell a story. One that was best untold.

The man was facing a person tens of meters away as he tried his best to control every feeling that his body was desperate to express. His eyes reflected the same emotions that the bodies surrounding him had, but he, at the very least, could keep the rest of his face indifferent.

"Happy…"

The man at the center of it all spoke in a natural way. When one's eyes centered on him, the scene would dramatically transform. He changed it from one of horror to one of contemplation: his attire, contrasting like a drop of tint on water, was nearly as neat as one that had never been worn. His white hair where a crown rested, short and clean like the one of a prince, showed no signs of disturbance.

He stood tall in the middle of the visual commotion, looking at the black haired man and the rest of the few survivors like pitiful wounded animals. He was dressed in black: he had a fur coat like the one of a king; a luxurious inner shirt and pants elegant enough to seem like he was at a party instead of a battlefield.

His eyes scanned the black haired man again, showing their features. They were red, indifferent and complex. His irises had layers of lines that rotated in a strange but mesmerizing way and his pupils were darker than any black the ones present had ever seen.

"Are you happy now that you've destroyed the world!?

"…"

The black haired man questioned again, but this time it seemed that his emotions had taken over.

"You monster! We know you are pretending! It's clear you can't even move!"

A woman that had lost an arm gained a little bit of confidence after hearing the black haired man, thus making her remarks, but it seemed it wasn't enough as her voice broke at every couple syllabus. She wanted to cry, but for some reason her body wouldn't comply.

"I don't act for happiness."

The white-haired man in the center finally answered. His voice was natural, so much that it was hard to believe he was the cause of the current tragedy.

"Don't you have any shame!? You don't act for happiness… Is that why you allowed your people to be slaughtered and your family to be killed!? Is that why you threw yourself to a battle you knew you wouldn't survive and burned everything down before you fell!? Then, for what!? For what reason have you done the things you've done!? "

The one-armed woman couldn't take it anymore. She broke down as she screamed, emptying her lungs. Her consciousness had turned into a chaotic sea of stimuli; one where reason had no space to float. That's why even when she knew the illogicality of her speech, she couldn't help but put the answer she sought before her survival.

"I… allowed my race to be slaughtered and my family to be killed?

I… sent myself to battle?

I… destroyed the world?"

The white-haired man finally showed a change of expression as a hint of anger appeared in his eyes. He slowly made his way through the scattered corpses, stepping on many different textures and forms as the blood splashed out of them and finally stained his clothes.

The few survivors that were watching couldn't help but burst out in tears when this scene unfolded in front of their eyes. These tears, however, weren't of sadness or despair, but of relief.

His clothes getting stained meant that he couldn't block even the small drops of blood that hit him; he was exhausted and out of energy. They would survive, they thought. If not, they would at least be able to kill this monster.

"You were the ones that massacred my people… You were the ones that killed my family… and I allowed that?"

"You killed millions! You destroyed countless families! What right do you have-"

"So what?"

"You-"

"So what if I killed millions? Should I feel remorse? Pain? Regret?

Do you feel remorse when you step on a cockroach because it's ugly?

Do you cry when you accidentally kill a rat?

You step on your own people; on the weak, for your measly benefits yet you blame others when they are no different…

It is the same for me if I kill an ant or if I kill one of you. Meaningless, useless even. But am I supposed to just watch when those ants group themselves above some sort of conceptual high ground of morality and hunt us down like some sort of evil to be exterminated?

Hypocrisy. That defines you, 'original humans'. Your unending ability to rationalize your feelings when we all know; when you yourselves know… that this is just how the world works.

An endless cycle where those fit survive… and those unfit perish."

"Your race is already extinct. Doesn't that make you unfit?"

The black-haired man meddled.

"Maybe it does. So? A new era has arrived. An era of countless possibilities: where the treasures of the world are lost for anyone to find; where knowledge is decentralized and power is sparse. I fixed the mess you made. I was the one who created the closest thing to a fair world. And I was also the one to pay the price...

I wouldn't count on things going back to how they were…"

The pale, white-haired man stopped walking a few meters away from the one-armed woman, who had just fallen to the ground as she tried to distance herself from the one approaching.

The black-haired, wounded man ran as he could along with some others who had gotten sufficiently motivated to deal the final blow and, finally, get rid of that monster.

"A shame… that's what it is."

The man with the crown extended one of his arms towards the terrified woman, grabbing her by the neck and lifting her up like she was some sort of ragdoll.

"We could've lived in peace… there was really no need for all of this. But it seems that's not what the world wants. No, that's not what the laws of the world wanted. That's how life w-"

The man, who was in the middle of his monologue, was interrupted by a sword; one that pierced his chest and punctured his heart. The black-haired man, who was the owner of said sword, let out some words as he panted.

"You… you will pay for all you did."

"…"

"Even if there's no afterlife… even if your ghost won't stay in this world to see what you've caused; to suffer along with all those who are gone… I swear I'll put your body through such humiliation-"

"Who said you're going to get out of here alive?"

"Wha-"

The white-haired man, who was taller than the one who attacked him by a head, turned around only enough for one of his eyes to see the person behind him. It was only one, but it was enough to exude an unspeakable pressure, chilling everyone who saw it with its coldness.

The iris of his eye emitted a soft, red glow as its lines turned more and more complex, until they suddenly stopped.

Silence: that was all that remained. All those who were standing, even those who had been playing dead, stopped breathing. They all fell at the same time, becoming one more of the lifeless corpses that decorated the tragic scene.

The only man standing had a sword that crossed his chest. He wasn't gazing at the sky, or at the dead, or even at the sword. He was looking at his own hand, his pale but pinkish hand that was now being stained by his own blood.

"Haaa…"

He breathed out one last time as he remained standing, forever focused, not on what he had done, but on what he was.