Chapter 14 - Chapter 10: Tragedy strikes the Village

💔 Chapter 10: Tragedy Strikes the Village

⚠️ Content Warning: This chapter contains graphic and intense scenes that may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised. ⚠️

🌐 Acacia Record Upload Alert

Segment Class: Cultural Trauma | Cognitive Hazard Rating: RED – Tier II

Status: Fragment Stabilized | Hidden Node Archive

Uploader: [UNKNOWN, Possibly Unauthorized AI Subnode]

Timestamp: ~52.8 Earth Solar Cycles Before TerraNode Disclosure Protocols

⚠ Cognitive Hazard Alert: RED TIER

Unauthorized memory threads may lead to cascading emotional recall. Reader discretion advised.

🌍 Oct 12, 99 BCE – Late Autumn 🍁

View Illustration: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w-7VbgwuzvaeoJeyn6kZRAJxGJuRmtlh/view?usp=drive_link

Too bad Webnovel doesn't let me embed pictures in here like other sites do. 😉

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🌲 Out in the Wilds

It was the waning days of harvest. The air had turned crisp, and the sun cast long golden shadows through the juniper and spruce. Junjie had spent the morning tracking mountain goats—his bow slung over one shoulder, the bracer containing Nano hidden beneath a leather armguard. He'd grown stronger, leaner, faster in the months since their strange partnership began. His senses were sharper now. He could feel the shift in the wind, hear the murmurs of distant birds.

He was a few hours' walk out—returning from one of his longer solo excursions into the hills—when the column first came into view. Then he saw it. Smoke. A thin gray pillar curling skyward from the direction of home.

Nano's voice was cool but taut. "Confirmed. Extensive fire damage. Heat signatures are fading. No signs of organized defense. We are... too late."

Junjie's heart pounded harder than the sprint demanded as his strides devoured the rocky terrain. By the time he crested the ridge, a knot of dread had already formed in his gut.

🔥 Black Ash, Red Soil

The village was no more than a blackened scar on the earth. Buildings lay in smoldering heaps. The shrine had collapsed inward, a broken skeleton of ash. No sounds greeted him but the hiss of embers and the low cry of wind threading through ruined timbers. Half the buildings were husks. The grain stores had been pillaged. A few charred carts and splintered tools lay scattered across the packed dirt roads. No cries. No voices. Just the faint pop of timbers and the buzzing of flies.

Bodies.

He moved quickly, searching for movement—anything. The few he found were burned or broken, most elderly. Some were laid out with care, others slumped like discarded tools. Near the shrine, Elder Sugen lay with her face frozen in peaceful repose, her basket of dried herbs spilled and aflame, perfuming the air with the bitter-sweet scent of scorched yarrow.

Junjie clenched his fists. "Who did this?"

"Analysis: likely a slaver party. Patterns match raiding tactics observed on this continent. Approximately seventy or more assailants. Current scent trails and disturbed brush suggest a retreat northward."

He nodded grimly, wiping soot from his face. "Then we follow."

"Affirmative. Do you wish to deploy—"

"Not yet," Junjie whispered. "They don't get to see me... not as me."

🎭 Mask of Vengeance

As the sun dipped low, Junjie worked quickly with Nano to fashion a disguise—a crude war mask carved from scorched wood and painted with blood and ash, jagged edges framing hollow eyes and a jaw set in a feral snarl. He wrapped himself in a dark woolen cloak spattered with soot. Not fancy, but haunting.

"If they fear demons," he said, "I'll give them one."

"Functional camouflage. Tactical fear. Proceed," Nano replied.

⛓ Camp of Chains

They camped for the night in a grove of spruce trees, just over a ridge and along a cold brook. The slavers' firelight flickered against the bark, casting long shadows. Raiders lounged and drank, smug in their victory. Horses and livestock were tethered nearby, clustered and restless. Ropes strung between trees formed crude corrals, a few slavers yawning at their posts.

The villagers were huddled in a miserable knot near the wagons, most with their hands bound. The men wore iron shackles, their expressions grim. Children clung silently to their mothers. A few ghost-eyed strangers—clearly not from the village—sat apart, survivors of other raids.

At the edge of the prisoner ring, Junjie spotted his father Chengde, bloodied but alive, and his mother Lianhua, cradling her young niece's head in her lap. Uncle Qiren was there too, arm in a crude sling, a crusted wound marking his cheek. The blacksmith lay shackled to a cart wheel, unconscious but breathing. The villagers were too afraid to cry.

⚡ Junjie Became the Storm

He slipped into the camp like a shadow. The first guard died without a sound, the second gurgled on his blood, the third slumped forward clutching a half-eaten peach. Fifteen down and still no alarm—until one scarred man managed a dying grunt as Junjie buried a stolen blade in his ribs.

"They heard," Nano warned.

No more stealth. No more silence.

Junjie erupted from the underbrush with a blood-soaked scream. The slavers scrambled for weapons, but he was already among them—moving like a storm given flesh, each motion precise, brutal, elegant. One sword became two, stolen from fallen hands. He whirled through the enemy with a dancer's grace and a reaper's fury, splitting a spear-wielder from shoulder to waist.

They were trained men—hard, cruel, experienced. Some tried to flee but were cut down. When it was over, seventy-seven slavers lay broken.

His cloak was soaked. He stood panting in the center of the carnage, survivors staring in silence. His mask caught the firelight. Eyes met his—his family's eyes—before he vanished into the trees.

🪓 Survivors and Salvage

In the slavers' camp, silence finally broke. "The gods..." a weaver choked. A young girl asked, "Did the gods send... a demon to save us?" An older man whispered, "Not for mortals to question." Nobody laughed. A murmur of awe passed through the villagers. Some wept, others prayed, heads bowed.

They freed one another, scavenged for keys, and cut ropes. Once unbound, they helped the injured. The last few slavers left alive were swiftly dispatched by angry villagers with salvaged weapons—no ceremony, no mercy.

Loot was stripped from corpses: armor, blades, boots, and coin. Bodies were dragged to a ravine and discarded. Wagons were searched, goods sorted—much of it stolen from other villages. Horses, mules, goats, and chickens milled in confusion. None of it was theirs, but it would be now.

Among the spoils were extra livestock, wagons, packhorses, and a handful of traumatized strangers who chose to follow the villagers back. They were alive, but not whole.

🏚 Return to Ashes

By dusk, the survivors had returned to the smoking bones of their home. Junjie came quietly—washed clean, his mask and swords hidden away. Chengde embraced him without a word, his grip lingering like a man unsure who he was holding. Lianhua saw only her son, not the shadows in his eyes.

⚰ Burying the Dead

While sifting through the wreckage, Nia—just eight years old—found her doll where she'd dropped it during the raid. It was dirty but intact, and she beamed as she showed her mother. Shufen had no such comfort; she had just found her husband lifeless outside her workshop. She said nothing, only dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Nia.

Others found loved ones too—husbands, fathers, grandparents. The villagers dug shallow graves and spoke quiet words to the sky.

🌅 New Start

Fenma, eyes red from mourning, distributed what little food remained. Wei'er muttered curses at the broken kiln but boiled water for the injured. Hansu, silent, built campfires and hauled wood—offering warmth where words would fail.

That night, no great fires were lit. The village held a silent vigil. The blackened shrine was swept clean. Candles burned low in bowls of river-stone oil. Above them, the wind carried the faint scent of juniper and blood.