In the lifeless wastelands of Skars, a terrifying silence prevailed after a brutal battle.
Beneath a sky of mixed light veiled by gray clouds, black, jagged trees stood—impaled with fresh corpses.
Their eyes and mouths remained wide open as the sharp branches pierced through them in countless ways: through mouths, backsides, necks, and more.
The manner in which these bodies hung from the trees or lay scattered across the ground—numbering well beyond the dozens—made it unmistakably clear that their deaths had come suddenly, without warning, and by a force far beyond their capacity to resist.
In the profound stillness of the empty surroundings, the echo of footsteps resonated—coming from within the ancient structure upon which the statue of the Virgin maiden stood in full majesty, clad in a meticulously engraved robe, raising the palm of her hand upward at the heart of this barren, blood-soaked land.
Inside, a mature young man walked calmly.
His name is Alengard.
He stood one meter and ninety centimeters tall, carrying a medium-sized steel box in the grip of his left hand.
He wore gleaming black armor that caught the light filtering in through the partially ruined structure, damaged by age.
His gaze was cast downward as he advanced in silence, sharp golden eyes beneath medium-length hair that curved over his forehead, and a smile that blended satisfaction with resentment. His skin was bright white.
He lifted his head and stopped before a wall to his right, where an empty coffin rested—his eyes fixed upon it.
He briefly held his forehead as a faint pain passed through his mind, then looked up at the sky through a breach in the ruined ancient structure and spoke in a surprised tone:
"There's something I can't remember… something vast and important."
___
Tens of thousands of people shouted beneath the execution platform in Place Chan, in the city of Gars, located in the southern state.
With light steps, a young man named Regas moved through the crowd, his white, glowing eyes fixed on the platform. Nearly two meters tall, his black robe covered his entire body.
He watched the five intruders about to be executed, just like the rest of the crowd. His medium-length white hair concealed most of the upper part of his face.
"Today is the day of justice. These five are intruders from the lower realms who have come to violate our rights in our world, and today is the day of their annihilation."
A voice shouted from atop the black building behind the execution platform, dressed in a long, loose robe and wearing a mask with three eyes, holding a horn that echoed the sound throughout the vast, colossal Shan Square, which was designated for public executions.
"Kill them."
"Move!"
"We don't want them in our world."
"Let them be destroyed."
"Cast this human filth out of our world."
Savage, chaotic chants erupted from faceless individuals amid a deafening clamor of overlapping voices, impossible to distinguish one from another.
On the five execution platforms—each a "wooden tower" identical in form—each of the five knelt, stripped bare except for their undergarments, a hangman's noose tight around their necks, their heads and faces shrouded in cloth, and their hands and feet bound, every detail designed to make their deaths excruciatingly torturous.
The masked speaker, through the horn in his right hand—a trumpet-like instrument half a meter long—spoke in a loud, confident tone: "Your request, ladies and gentlemen, is an order we must fulfill. As you wish, kill them." After his command, the bottom of each of the five execution platforms opened, and they were dropped abruptly, yet a thick, spiked rope yanked them up violently, halting their fall.
The tension was so extreme that blood ran down their faces, visible despite the cloth covering them, exposing the grotesque cruelty of the hanging.
Their legs twitched uncontrollably, and their toes jerked in random, spasmodic motions, while the crowd relished every agonizing second of the execution.
The spectators who had gathered to witness the execution numbered in the thousands—people from different social backgrounds, with varying tastes, morals, values, principles, and life goals—but the only thing that united them was their relish in the deaths of these individuals.
One might ask why so much hatred was directed toward the condemned, whose legs lay still and whose souls had fled.
An excellent question.
The truth is, it all relates to one of the greatest fundamental conflicts in this world.
_
This world was engulfed in a great, multipolar conflict, but the primary struggle of the original humans—the native inhabitants of this world—was against the intruders.
Intruders who are viewed with extreme negativity, regarded as humans from vile, lower worlds who do not belong to the original system; their very existence is seen as a severe violation and an extreme threat.
They are mysterious humans whose emergence began after the War of the Century of Sin, a legendary and bloody war that gave rise to numerous historical and mythical accounts.
One thing remains certain: it was the greatest war to have ever occurred in the Unified World, 150 years ago, and it caused a catastrophe later known as the Disruption of the Space-Time Law in the Unified World.
And this led to the emergence of humans from other worlds, some ordinary and mundane, and others endowed with powers beyond human limits.
For 150 years, the conflict raged relentlessly between the original humans in particular and the intruders, who were despised and rejected in this world.
_
And the speaker added through the horn, after the public execution of the five intruders: "And thus, the execution show has concluded, yet the struggle endures while the remaining human scum intrude upon our world, and as we always repeat, these executions are a message to them that this is their fate, whether they like it or not."
The spectators screamed, and Regas departed in utter silence amid the crowd's collective frenzy after witnessing everything that had happened.
It was the first time he had ever witnessed a public execution in this world.
_
He walked through the middle of the city, his eyes fixed straight ahead with a calm expression, paying no attention to the people or the military knights who marched upright in pairs, dressed in elegant white uniforms with long black boots, their sharp gazes surveying the surroundings.
"Have you heard about the Skars Land massacre fifteen days ago?"
"Yes, they say that 1,000 international hunters of class D died in ways unimaginable to humans. Some were even impaled on trees in disgusting ways."
"That's why it's heavily guarded by the National Guard."
"Yes, when I was driving my vegetable cart, they didn't allow me to take the Skars route, even though it's the closest path from the farm to here."
"But class D hunters are weak."
"For those above them, yes. But don't forget—they were 1,000, not just one, and each of them is stronger than us ordinary people."
"Alright, that's not our concern. But did you know that five intruders were executed in Shan Square just now?"
"What! Why didn't you tell us?"
"I thought you already knew."
"Damn you, you fool."
Among the whispers of the merchants, their quarrels, and hitting their companion with tomatoes, one of the tomatoes fell at my feet.
He bent down, picked up the three tomatoes, and stood before the merchant.
"Thank you."
"No problem."