To some, war is terror — a nightmare that steals homes, families, and peace.
To some, it is survival — brotherhood in fear and courage.
To some, it is an honor — duty, a chance to carve their name into history.
To others, it is a burden they carry long after the battlefield.
To some, war is a tool — power, negotiation, expansion.
To some, a necessity — freedom, justice.
To some, war is business — profit painted in blood.
To some, war is a story, a memory, a warning.
But what is war when no one is left to remember?
When silence has devoured every cry?
When no single soul remains on the planet, what is war to them?
Hot winds tore across the ruined planet, dragging red mist through the air. The land was carved open into valleys of corpses. Mountains of the dead towered like grotesque monuments, some bodies still twitching, eyes wide, condemned to wait for death that would not come swiftly.
A river of blood—thick, hot, metallic—cut its way through the corpse-fields, swollen with men, beasts, and broken armor.
The air reeked of rust and rot.
Silence pressed down, heavy, absolute.
It was the silence of death, louder than any scream.
BOOM.
The land trembled. Fractures split open. The mountains of corpses shifted, avalanches of bodies spilling into the river of blood.
Three figures had appeared. Their battle ripped through the silence, every strike shaking the earth raw.
From within the river, half-submerged in blood and ruin, a pair of hazel eyes flickered open. Blurred, broken, they locked onto the chaos above.
Two humans fought against something that did not belong.
The creature was taller than either of them, its white steel-like skin gleaming despite the gore caked across it. Deep scars ran down its torso, but it moved with strength far beyond its wounds. Its wide mouth split into a mad smile.
From its hollow eye sockets, lined with jagged teeth instead of eyes, beams of darkness erupted. Above them, a single white eye in its forehead opened—watching, unblinking.
The beam carved into a mountain of corpses, liquefying flesh and bone into bubbling black sludge.
The hazel-eyed man tried to move, but his body betrayed him. His left arm was gone. His ribs splintered, bones crushed. His breath came in wet rattles.
Yet his gaze clung to the fighters.
The two humans,
one of whom was a man in his twenties, his hair dyed in blood, and his eyes bloodshot.
Even drenched in blood, his tall frame carried a cruel, undeniable beauty. His burned skin knit back together at an unnatural speed by some strange energy wrapped around him.
In his grip, a blade of midnight writhed with blue fire. The flames hissed and snapped like a living thing, their cold fury enough to send a shiver crawling through the hazel eyes watching from the mire. Recognition struck at once, piercing through the haze of blood and exhaustion.
"…William…" the broken man whispered, the word drowned in the taste of iron
His hazel eyes turned to the human who was fighting alongside William.
The woman — hair red as burning coals, braided into sharp, intricate patterns, every strand alive like serpents of carnage. Blood clung to her, and her eyes burned scarlet with madness.
She fought as though death itself danced through her veins, her hair striking with inhuman speed. Her blade was not steel, but blood solidified, each swing reckless, unrestrained.
Smoke rose from her body as if she were burning herself away.
The broken man couldn't recognize who she was, but he had an inkling.
"Tisha"
'What happened to her?' The man thought.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The ground quaked under their frenzy. The hazel-eyed man forced his broken body to rise. His artifacts lay shattered.
Only a battered grade-2 sword remained.
He pulled on what little nexus energy remained, forging metal into a blade crackling with lightning.
Compared to William's flame, his thunder was fragile. Compared to Tisha's fury, his strength was meager. But it was enough. It had to be.
Weeks before, all three were in the same rank, but for some reason, the two who were fighting didn't seem the same anymore.
He always knew that those two were different; they are stronger than any human, and they are seen as the hope for humanity.
They are stronger than he is, but he is strong enough.
His grip tightened on the blade, knuckles white against the blood-slick hilt.
Cold resolve carved into his eyes as he channeled his affinity, metal reshaping under his will — sharper, more complex, unbreakable. Lightning hissed along the edge, wild arcs sparking brighter, hungrier.
Then he moved.
A streak of light ripped through the carnage, his body vanishing and reappearing above the pale monstrosity. He raised his sword, every ounce of faith and fury poured into the strike.
"Judgment."
The word cracked the air as lightning exploded from his blade, flooding the red sky with searing brilliance. The storm of power crashed downward, precise and merciless.
The sudden flare tore through the chaos, dragging every gaze to the heavens. William's eyes widened, recognition cutting through the haze of battle. Tisha, lost in her frenzy, didn't falter — her blade of blood still tore madly at the alien.
The alien reeled, its eerie grin splitting wider as the lightning bit into it. Charred flesh smoked where the strike grazed, half its body burned black.
William's breath caught.
"Thalen…"
For the first time since the world had fallen silent, joy flickered in his voice. Another human. Another survivor.
The moment's hesitation was all the alien needed.
Its single white eye flared, mouth-teeth gaping as a beam of darkness erupted toward Tisha.
Thalen's lightning crashed down again, forcing the alien to stumble back with a guttural shriek. Flesh sizzled, its smile twisted in rage.
Thalen landed hard before William and Tisha, his chest heaving. He wanted to smile — to tell them he was here, that they weren't alone — but the chance never came.
A torrent of black energy screamed toward him.
He summoned a wall of living steel, but the beam ate through it instantly, melting it into writhing black liquid that lunged for him.
Thalen twisted aside, the sludge grazing past, close enough for the heat of its corruption to sear his skin.
No words were exchanged. No time for a reunion.
Three humans remained on a dead world, and together they threw themselves against the last Alien — not for survival, but for vengeance, for the billions who had fallen before.
Hours blurred together in fire, blood, and lightning.
Thalen's strikes bought William and Tisha precious seconds to breathe, to strike, to endure. Slowly, impossibly, the tide turned.
When it ended, the alien lay twisted in ruin, its mad smile silenced.
Thalen collapsed, his consciousness fraying. William and Tisha stood over him, burned, bloodied, unrecognizable yet unbroken.
"If we hadn't been so drained from the war with the beasts…" William's voice shook.
"…this wouldn't have happened," Thalen finished for him, blood trickling down his lips.
His eyes drifted to Tisha, whose hair and skin bled back into silver, her crimson gaze fading into bottomless black.
Thalen said softly, "William. Tisha. You're engaged, aren't you?"
Neither answered. The silence was enough.
"You'll be alone now," he whispered. He wanted to say something that would give hope to the remaining two, but he is a man of few words, and he still tried.
His chest rattled as he turned his eyes toward the alien's corpse.
"There are ways to travel to other worlds. Find out how those Aliens came here and live. Don't let this ruin take everything."
His voice thinned, breaking into the silence that followed.
"Live... and remember us."
Thalen managed to smile for one last time, as his heart beat seized.