A bloody war raged in a remote corner of a vast continent. To call it a war, however, was almost dishonest; it was closer to a genocide, for one side held such overwhelming superiority that resistance seemed futile. Their campaign was not conquest, but extermination. Wherever their armies marched, every man, woman, and child in their path was put to the sword or the bullet. Entire communities vanished overnight, their existence erased in fire and blood.
The soldiers of the Great Star Kingdom advanced in heavily armored columns, clad in crisp blue uniforms that bore the insignia of the crown. Alongside them rolled tanks and armored vehicles, their cannons roaring with mechanical indifference as they shelled the city into ruin. Streets that had once bustled with markets and laughter now ran red with blood, rivers of crimson staining the stone and sand. Screams echoed briefly, only to be silenced by gunfire.
The city under siege was the capital of the Crimson People, a race easily recognized by their distinctive white hair and eyes of gleaming scarlet irises. Their civilization had been an enigma to outsiders: a reclusive people who, centuries earlier, had wandered into a barren desert and somehow made it thrive. Through perseverance, ingenuity, and a quiet pride, they built a nation that had endured the ages, a land of gleaming spires, irrigated gardens, and sacred traditions that bound them together in unity. Against all odds, they turned wasteland into paradise.
But their very success sowed their doom. For generations, previous Star Kings had ignored the desert, dismissing it as an inhospitable wasteland. Yet once the Crimson People proved its potential, envy awakened. The Great Star Kingdom's gaze turned southward. What was once considered worthless had become desirable, and the current ruler, Sunit the Great, was not a man accustomed to being denied.
At first, emissaries arrived bearing words of honeyed diplomacy. They offered inclusion into the kingdom—on humiliating terms that would reduce the Crimson People to slaves in their own homeland. Proud and unyielding, the Crimson People refused. They would not submit to degradation.
Sunit the Great had expected nothing else. The charade of diplomacy was only for appearances, a performance staged to convince his subjects that he had tried peace. When the Crimson People rejected his offers, he vilified them, weaving lies of treachery and barbarism until the common folk of his empire cheered for their destruction. With propaganda as his weapon and greed as his motive, the Star King found his pretext. He declared war not for conquest, but for extermination.
The Crimson People fought with desperate valor. But valor cannot stand against steel and fire. Within a single month, their defenses crumbled. Their capital—proud heart of their desert nation—fell under siege, its beauty shattered beneath the treads of tanks and the marching of boots.
---
Far above the carnage, on a windswept ridge of stone overlooking the city, a child sat alone. No more than five years old, his hair was stark white, his eyes pools of unyielding crimson. From his vantage, he watched as his people were butchered, his home annihilated.
The horrors below would have broken any adult's mind. Yet the boy's face was blank, his gaze steady. There was no trembling, no sobbing, no desperate cries for help. His eyes held no fear, no hate, no grief—nothing at all.
Footsteps disturbed the silence behind him. He turned his head just enough to see five soldiers climbing over the ridge. Their uniforms were stained with soot and blood, their rifles at the ready. A few bore manic grins, lips curled with sadistic hunger. Their gazes fixed on the boy, recognizing him at once for what he was: one of the Crimson People, a survivor to be extinguished.
"Here's one of them," one soldier said, raising his rifle with a gleam of cruelty in his eye. "Let's finish this little rat."
His finger tightened on the trigger, savoring the anticipation of watching a child fall dead.
"Stop!" another soldier barked, slapping the barrel downward before the shot could fire. His name was Jona, and his face was twisted with barely suppressed rage—not at the child, but at himself, at his comrades, at the orders he had been forced to obey. His guilt clung to him like a second skin, impossible to hide.
The first soldier snarled, his smile collapsing into fury. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Jona? Our mission is to kill every one of these vermin!"
"They ordered us to slaughter women and children!" Jona's voice cracked with grief. "How can we obey such madness?"
"You know the price of disobedience," the cruel soldier hissed. "You think mercy will save you?"
Jona's hands trembled on the rifle. His gaze flicked toward the child, then back to his comrades. "We can say we never saw him. No one will know. There's no need to sink further into this depravity." He raised his voice toward the boy, desperate now. "Child—run! Run, before it's too late!"
But the boy did not move. He did not even glance at Jona. His eyes remained fixed on the burning city, as though the soldiers were no more than shadows.
"You see?" the cruel one sneered. "His mind's already broken. Best to end his suffering."
Shoving Jona aside, he aimed the rifle once more at the boy's head. His grin returned, twisted and eager.
The boy lifted his hand. Slowly, deliberately, he clenched his fist.
The ground shuddered. In an instant, jagged spikes of earth erupted upward, spearing through flesh and armor alike. The soldiers had no time to scream. All five were skewered, their bodies lifted from the ground before collapsing lifelessly. Blood seeped into the cracked soil, dark and heavy.
The boy lowered his hand. His expression had not changed. He had killed both the sadist and the would-be protector without hesitation, without emotion. Their lives ended with the same weight as stones cast into a river: none at all.
He turned his gaze once more to the burning city.
"Had I mastered this power sooner," he thought, his voice as flat as stone, "perhaps I could have saved them."
Spoken aloud, the words might have sounded like guilt, like sorrow. Yet in his mouth they were empty, stripped of all feeling. It was neither regret nor self-reproach, only a statement of fact.
---
The boy rose to his feet at last. He cast one final glance at the smoldering ruins of his people's capital, then began to walk away. His steps were measured, steady, the silence of his movements broken only by the whisper of wind.
As he passed the corpses of the soldiers, he raised his hand once more. Blood seeped from their wounds, streams of crimson rising into the air like serpents. The liquid coiled around him, encircling his small body before solidifying into cloth. In moments, a robe of shimmering red adorned him, flowing with an unnatural grace. Across its back, two words gleamed in pale white thread.
RED KING
At four years and three days old, the boy had watched his entire people perish. He had borne witness to a genocide, endured the silence of his own emotions, and claimed a power that could kill with a thought. On that blood-soaked ridge, with no family, no nation, and no childhood left to him, the Red King was born.