"SLASHHhhhh...!"
The saber came down, and the man fell with it, his body striking the ground hard enough that the sound carried through the ruined field. Blood followed after, splashing across trampled earth already dark with it, spreading beneath boots that had nowhere left to step.
The young man did not look back as he lifted the wine gourd with a hand that no longer steadied itself. He took a long drink and let the excess spill freely as he moved forward, the black saber dragging slightly at his side, its edge dark and wet, leaving a line behind him with every step.
Someone shouted.
The sound broke halfway through, rising too fast, cracking under its own weight.
The attack came from the side, rushed and desperate. The young man turned with it, his movement loose and unbalanced, as though the ground itself refused to stay still. The saber rose once and came down, and the arm fell away from the body, blood spraying across the men behind it.
The scream followed, high and thin, drawn out until it tore itself apart.
"Aaaaaaa—!"
The young man stepped in before it could finish. The blade passed again, heavier this time, and the sound ended abruptly. The body crumpled where it stood, knees folding, head striking the ground at an angle that left the mouth open, as if still trying to speak.
He swallowed, wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, and spoke without raising his voice.
"This ashen world is filled with sin."
Blood dripped steadily from the saber's edge, striking the ground in a slow, persistent rhythm.
No one answered him.
They had stopped advancing.
Weapons shook in hands slick with sweat and blood. One man took a step back and nearly fell when his heel slid on something soft beneath him. Another turned as if to run, only to freeze when he realized there was nowhere left to go.
The young man moved again.
The saber described a low, brutal arc that cut one man down at the waist. Another tried to parry, arms raised too late, eyes wide as the blade split through guard and bone alike. He collapsed backward, breath leaving him in a wet rush, fingers clawing uselessly at the air.
The young man laughed, the sound uneven and hoarse, wine dripping down his chin.
"I walk the land as drunken flood."
Steel struck him hard in the chest.
The impact drove him back several steps, his boots skidding as pain tore through his body. The white robe split open, already soaked through, and blood spilled freely as he staggered, breath catching sharply in his throat. One eye had swollen shut. Blood ran down from his hairline, blurring what little vision remained.
For a moment, he swayed.
Hope showed itself in the way their shoulders straightened, in the way one man lifted his blade higher than before, teeth clenched hard enough to crack.
The young man dragged air into his lungs and forced himself upright, leaning forward as if gravity itself were pressing against him.
"To lose myself…""…and make you win."
He closed the distance in a stumbling rush, leapt despite the pain, and brought the saber down with both hands. The blade tore through the man from shoulder to hip, and what remained collapsed in two directions at once, striking the ground with a sound that silenced everything else.
The field broke.
They ran.
Some dropped their weapons as they turned. One fell and crawled, hands slipping in blood, mouth opening and closing soundlessly as he looked back over his shoulder again and again. Another dropped to his knees where he stood, blade clattering from numb fingers, forehead striking the ground as he bowed again and again.
"Please—please—I didn't—!"
The saber fell.
The head rolled only a short distance before stopping, eyes still open, staring upward at nothing.
The young man drank again, though his hand shook badly now, wine spilling down the front of his robe as he walked past the kneeling dead and toward the last man, who had already given up trying to stand. He raised the saber once more and ended it without pause.
"I cleanse this land with crimson blood."
When it was over, the silence pressed down harder than the noise ever had.
Bodies lay piled beyond counting, stacked where they had fallen, some pierced through, others twisted into shapes that suggested their final attempts to escape. Blood ran in dark channels between them, soaking into the earth. Faces stared upward or sideways, mouths open, eyes wide and glassy, frozen in the moment they had understood too late.
The young man took a few more steps, then stopped as his legs failed him. He staggered to a half-buried stone and sank down heavily, driving the saber into the ground beside him and leaning against it to remain upright. His breathing came in ragged pulls, chest rising and falling unevenly, his gaze drifting without focus across the field of dead.
A quiet chuckle escaped him.
It turned into a cough, sharp and wet.
Blood spilled from his mouth into his palm.
He stared at it for a long moment.
How did it come to this?
The wind carried the stench of blood across the land, the horizon stretching out beneath an indifferent sky.
Ah.
Right.
It was that damn sentence, wasn't it?
The young man lifted his head and looked toward the horizon.
The land lay silent beneath the sky, soaked in blood, empty of movement, yet the wind carried something else with it, something that did not belong to this place. It pressed against him softly, cutting through the ringing in his ears and the ache in his bones until the memory surfaced with quiet force.
A voice.
Clear. Steady. Unyielding.
"Ming'er," the voice said softly, yet with a weight that refused to fade,
"Remember this and carry it with you.
In this world, lives end, but debts do not.
A kindness once received must be repaid,
even if the road ahead is buried in ash,
and the whole world stands against you--
Through ash and silence."