The smoke was gone.
The village was nothing but blackened husks and bones that no one would bury.
The boy stood at its edge, the cold dawn pressing against his skin.
His ribs showed through his dirt-crusted flesh, and his eyes had hollowed into pits that reflected nothing but hunger.
He whispered the name his mother once called him, as if speaking it into existence would keep it from fading.
"Ren."
That was all he had left. Not a family, not a home only a name echoing among corpses.
Ren tightened his grip on the shard of bone he carried, jagged and bloodstained.
A child's toy turned weapon. He glanced back once more at the ruins.
The silence answered him. No warmth. No voices. No one left to curse him or bless him.
His lips moved.
"If I stay, I rot. If I leave, I bleed. But blood flows. Ash does not."
And so Ren walked.
The path away from the village was not a road, just trampled earth and broken cart wheels left by the raiders.
Crows circled overhead, descending in flocks to pick at whatever scraps remained. Their caws grated like laughter.
Ren's stomach growled, but he ignored it. He had grown used to the gnawing.
Hunger was not an enemy. Hunger was a teacher. It reminded him to move. To seek. To devour.
By midday, he found others.
A group of survivors crouched near a stream, their faces gaunt, their clothes torn. Men, women, and even children the ones who had hidden while their kin burned.
They looked up as Ren approached, and their gazes sharpened, wary and hostile.
One man, older, with a crooked back and sharp eyes, rose to meet him.
He held no blade, only a heavy branch stripped of bark. But the way he gripped it showed he was ready to kill for it.
"Another rat crawls out," the old man rasped. "You from the village?"
Ren said nothing.
The man studied him, then nodded slowly. "Doesn't matter. You lived. That makes you competition."
A woman beside him hissed, clutching a little girl to her chest. "He's just a boy. Look at him. He'll starve before the week ends."
The old man snorted. "So will you, if you keep wasting breath on pity. Every mouth is a thief of bread. Every hand without strength is a shackle."
Ren's eyes met the old man's. For a moment, neither looked away.
Then Ren spoke, voice hoarse but firm. "The world is meat. Men are knives. To live is to carve. To die is to be carved."
The survivors shifted uneasily. The old man chuckled, a sound like dry leaves. "Hah. A child who already knows. Better than most men I've buried."
He lowered the branch, but not his guard. "Name?"
"Ren."
The old man's eyes narrowed, as though weighing the word. "Then hear this, Ren. Follow us, and you'll eat when we eat, starve when we starve. But if food runs out, don't expect mercy. We'll cut you down same as any beast."
Ren gave a thin smile. "If food runs out, you won't need to cut me. I'll cut you first."
The old man laughed a dry, cracked laugh, but genuine. "Good. Hate I've seen. Fear I've seen. But that look in your eyes… that's hunger. Maybe you'll last longer than I thought."
They walked together, a ragged band bound not by trust but necessity. The world beyond the village was worse than the ruins.
The land was stripped bare, fields abandoned, rivers poisoned with corpses.
They passed bodies hanging from trees, mouths stuffed with dirt punishments from some warlord's decree.
None dared stop. None dared bury them.
At night, the group huddled around a fire of damp wood.
The flames sputtered, the smoke stung their eyes, but no one complained. To complain was weakness. Weakness was death.
Ren sat apart, chewing a strip of dried bark, his eyes on the flames. The little girl across from him stared, her face pale, her stomach sunken.
She whispered to her mother, thinking no one could hear. "Mama… why does the world hurt us?"
Her mother stroked her hair, eyes shining with tears she tried to hide. "Because the world is sick, child. One day it will heal."
The old man spat into the fire. "Fool's words. The world isn't sick. This is its nature. The wolf doesn't bite because it's sick. It bites because it's a wolf. Remember that, girl mercy is not in the world's bones. It's a lie told by the dying."
Ren spoke then, his voice low. "If the world is a wolf, then we must be wolves sharper still."
The fire cracked.
No one answered. But no one denied it either.
The days blurred. Hunger worsened. They fought over scraps, argued over paths, eyed one another with suspicion.
On the fifth day, a young man in the group tried to steal food while others slept. He was caught with a half-rotten carrot, clutched to his chest like treasure.
The old man didn't hesitate.
He smashed the boy's skull with his branch. One blow. Quick, final.
The survivors watched in silence. No one wept.
The old man turned to them, his face expressionless. "One thief today means ten dead tomorrow. Remember this. A hand that steals once will steal twice. Better cut it off before it spreads."
He wiped the blood from his branch. "Mercy is a debt only fools pay."
Ren's gaze never left the corpse.
The words sank into him, heavy as stone.
That night, he sat by the fire and whispered to himself.
"To live is to carve. To rule is to devour. Mercy is a debt only fools pay."
Each word became part of him, etched deeper than scars.
On the tenth day, the group reached a crossroads where a warlord's banners hung black cloth marked with crimson blades.
Armed men blocked the path, their armor crude but their eyes sharp.
"Travelers," one called, his voice like gravel. "This land belongs to Lord Yao. Passage demands tribute. Food. Women. Or blood."
The survivors froze. Whispers rippled.
The old man stepped forward, back bent but voice steady. "We have nothing. Only bones and hunger."
The soldier sneered. "Then you have blood. Lord Yao accepts that too."
They moved forward, blades glinting.
Panic erupted. Some survivors ran. Some begged.
One woman fell to her knees, clutching her child, wailing for mercy.
Ren did not move. His hand tightened on the bone-shard hidden in his sleeve.
His gaze locked on the soldiers not with fear, but calculation.
The old man laughed bitterly, even as steel pressed to his throat. "See, children? This is the world's truth. You think you're at the bottom, then you find there's still more pit beneath your feet."
Blood spilled. Screams followed. The weak died first. The strong died slower.
Ren moved through the chaos like smoke. He did not shout.
He did not plead. He struck only when eyes were elsewhere, sinking his shard into throats and kidneys, vanishing before the bodies fell.
By dawn, the ground was slick. Few lived. Ren was among them.