The sound reached them before the sight.
Hooves. Many hooves. Pounding against packed earth in rhythmic thunder that grew louder with each passing second. Not the scattered pattern of merchants or travelers, but the synchronized cadence of military formation.
The crowd in M'lod's center turned as one toward the eastern approach road.
Six riders emerged from the morning dust. Royal cavalry, their armor bearing the seven-pointed chakra star of Ul'varh'mir, their faces hidden beneath helmets that reflected Ulth'rk's light in cruel flashes. They rode Kresh'mora - the massive six-legged war steeds native to the mountain ranges, each beast standing eight feet at the shoulder with horns curving from their skulls like natural weapons.
But it wasn't the soldiers or their mounts that froze every person in the village center.
It was what they carried.
Bodies. Small bodies. Children's bodies draped across saddles like hunting trophies, their skin pale with death, their clothes soaked in dried blood.
And their ears. Their ears had been cut off. Both ears on every corpse, removed with brutal efficiency, leaving ragged wounds that spoke of sawing blades and zero care for clean cuts.
Misaki's stomach lurched. He counted four bodies. Four children who couldn't have been older than ten or twelve. Their faces were visible - eyes open and glassy, mouths frozen in expressions of terror or pain.
The lead rider pulled his Kresh'mora to a halt twenty feet from the crowd. He removed his helmet with deliberate slowness, revealing a face that belonged to a man perhaps forty years old. Scarred. Weather-beaten. The kind of face that had seen violence and learned to enjoy it.
"GOOD MORNING, CITIZENS OF M'LOD!" His voice boomed across the square, theatrical and mocking. "Captain Drevith of His Majesty's Third Purification Regiment, here to deliver a message from the crown!"
The other soldiers dismounted, their movements coordinated and professional. Each stood at least six-foot-eight, their frames thick with muscle that made even Riyeak look proportional. They wore heavy leather armor reinforced with steel plates, and their swords - gods, their swords were massive. Three feet of forged steel designed for hacking through armor and bone with equal ease.
Captain Drevith gestured to the bodies. "These here? These were mana-corrupted filth from Del'marxo village. Caught them trying to flee north, trying to escape His Majesty's righteous judgment." He grinned, and the expression was utterly devoid of humanity. "We gave them a preview of hell. Seemed appropriate, given where they came from."
One of the soldiers laughed - a wet, ugly sound. "Little shits cried the whole time. 'Please don't hurt us!' 'We're just kids!' Fucking pathetic."
"Cut their ears off while they watched each other," another soldier added conversationally. "King's orders. Every mana user killed gets marked. Ears go in the collection bags for bounty counting. One silver per pair."
The crowd's silence had transformed into something physical. Something dangerous. Misaki could feel it building - the collective rage of a community watching their worst fears materialize in front of them.
"Now then," Captain Drevith continued, scanning the frozen villagers with predatory eyes, "we're here to conduct preliminary identification. Anyone with mana capability needs to step forward for registration. King's law. Non-compliance is punishable by immediate execution."
Nobody moved.
"STEP FORWARD!" Drevith roared, his hand moving to his sword hilt.
Still nobody moved.
The captain's grin widened. "Playing difficult? Fine. We'll do this the fun way." His eyes landed on a small figure near the front of the crowd - a girl, perhaps seven years old, standing next to her mother. "You there. Little blonde one. Come here."
The girl didn't move. Her mother pulled her closer, shielding her with her body.
"I SAID COME HERE!" Drevith dismounted and started walking toward them, drawing his massive blade. The sound of steel leaving its scabbard seemed impossibly loud.
Shy'yao stepped forward, placing himself between the soldier and the civilians. "Captain. There are no mana users in M'lod. We're a chakra-practicing community. Your journey here was wasted."
"That so?" Drevith stopped walking, tilting his head with exaggerated curiosity. "Then you won't mind if we test that claim. Random selection. We'll just kill a few people, see what kind of death energy they release. Mana users give off this specific resonance when they die. Real distinctive." He pointed his sword at the little girl. "We'll start with her."
"YOU FUCKING TOUCH HER AND I'LL—" The mother's scream cut off as another soldier backhanded her across the face. She went down hard, blood streaming from her nose.
The little girl started crying.
Drevith raised his sword.
And Riyeak moved.
The young shield-bearer slammed his hands against the ground, and his Muladhara chakra - earth element - exploded outward in a concentrated pulse. The packed dirt beneath the soldiers' feet suddenly wasn't packed anymore. It liquefied, turned to loose sand, and all six soldiers stumbled as the ground gave way beneath their weight.
Drevith went to one knee, cursing. His sword dipped toward the destabilized earth.
Time slowed.
Misaki's heat-sense vision flared to life without conscious thought, and suddenly he could track every movement with crystalline clarity. One of the fallen soldiers - the one who'd bragged about cutting children's ears - reached for a spear strapped to his Kresh'mora's saddle. His arm moved in slow motion, fingers closing around the weapon's shaft, muscles tensing for the throw.
The target: Riyeak's unprotected back.
Misaki's body moved before his mind caught up. His scout's blade came free of its sheath in one fluid motion. Three running steps. Distance: fifteen feet. Throw trajectory calculated automatically, his Jack class precision abilities taking over, showing him the exact angle, the exact force required.
His blade left his hand.
It spun through the air, end over end, morning light catching the steel in flashing arcs. The soldier's arm came forward, spear beginning its deadly flight toward Riyeak's spine.
Misaki's blade hit the soldier's hand at the moment of release.
The edge was surgically sharp. The angle was perfect. The force was precise.
Four fingers separated from the hand in a spray of blood.
Time resumed normal speed.
The soldier stared at his hand - now missing the index, middle, ring, and pinky fingers - with an expression of pure confusion. The severed digits hit the ground with small, wet sounds. The spear clattered harmlessly to the side, its throw completely ruined.
"What—" the soldier started to say.
Then the pain hit him, and his "what" became a scream that could shatter glass.
"YOU LITTLE FUCK!" Another soldier lunged at Misaki, hands reaching to grab, to crush, to break this small human who'd just maimed his companion.
Misaki ducked under the grasping hands, stepped inside the soldier's guard, and drove his retrieved blade straight into the man's right eye.
The resistance was different than flesh. There was the initial puncture of the sclera, then the pop as the blade penetrated the orbital socket, then the grinding sensation of steel scraping against bone as Misaki forced the weapon deeper, angling upward toward the brain.
The soldier's scream turned into a gurgling choke. His hands flew to his face, to the blade protruding from his eye socket, and Misaki released his grip and rolled away before the massive body could fall on him.
The soldier crashed down like a toppled tree, twitching, blood pooling beneath his ruined face.
"KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!" Drevith roared, his voice cracking with rage.
Riyeak didn't wait. The big man grabbed his shield from where he'd dropped it - a six-foot-tall slab of reinforced ironwood banded with steel - and charged. His Muladhara chakra flowed into the shield, doubling its weight, turning it into a battering ram.
He hit the nearest soldier like a freight train.
The impact sounded like a boulder striking a cliff face. The soldier's armor caved inward, ribs snapping like dry twigs, and he flew backward fifteen feet before slamming into the ground and not moving again.
A soldier swung at Riyeak from the side, that massive sword whistling through the air with force that could cleave a man in half. Riyeak raised his shield and the blade struck the reinforced wood with a sound like thunder. The shield held. The sword didn't - the blade snapped six inches from the tip, and Riyeak kicked the soldier in the chest before he could recover.
Another soldier had retrieved his fallen companion's spear and came at Misaki with a thrust that would have impaled him through the chest. Misaki twisted, feeling the weapon's edge graze his ribs, and slashed at the exposed wrist holding the spear.
His blade bit deep. Tendons parted. The soldier's hand spasmed, grip failing, and Misaki grabbed the falling spear mid-drop and reversed it, driving the point up beneath the soldier's helmet line, into the soft flesh of the throat.
Hot blood sprayed across Misaki's face. The soldier made a wet choking sound and fell, clutching his destroyed throat, drowning in his own blood.
Torran had entered the fight now, the old blacksmith moving with the efficiency of someone who'd seen combat in past lives. He'd grabbed a smith's hammer from somewhere - a ten-pound forging tool - and brought it down on a soldier's helmet with all his considerable strength.
The helmet crumpled. The skull beneath it crumpled worse. The soldier dropped without a sound.
Captain Drevith saw his unit being decimated and made the calculation that many cowards make when faced with real opposition. He ran. Sprinted for his Kresh'mora, grabbed the saddle horn, and hauled himself up with desperate strength.
Riyeak was faster. The young man hurled his entire shield like a discus, his earth chakra giving the throw devastating force. The shield spun through the air and caught Drevith's mount in the side of its massive head. The Kresh'mora's skull fractured with a sound like cracking pottery, and the beast collapsed mid-step, pinning Drevith's leg beneath its bulk.
The captain screamed - not words, just raw terror - as Riyeak approached with the fallen soldier's axe.
"Please," Drevith begged, struggling to free his trapped leg. "Please, I was following orders, I didn't—"
"You cut the ears off children," Riyeak said, and his voice was completely flat. Empty of emotion. The voice of someone who'd already made peace with what needed to be done.
He raised the axe.
"No! NO! WAIT! I'LL TELL YOU EVERYTHING! TROOP MOVEMENTS! SCHEDULES! ORDERS! I'LL—"
The axe came down.
Drevith's head separated from his shoulders in a spray of arterial blood that painted the ground in spreading crimson. The body twitched once, twice, then went still.
Silence fell over M'lod's center. The kind of silence that comes after violence, after the point of no return has been crossed and everyone realizes that life has fundamentally changed.
Six soldiers lay dead. Six representatives of the king's army. Six men who would be missed when they didn't report back.
Misaki stood with a dead soldier's blood cooling on his face, his hands shaking with adrenaline crash, his mind trying to process that he'd just killed two human beings without hesitation.
No. Not just killed. Executed. With precision. With efficiency. With his Jack class abilities guiding every strike to vital points.
He'd become exactly what this world demanded he become.
A survivor willing to kill to protect his community.
Shy'yao surveyed the carnage, his ancient face unreadable. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of absolute certainty and terrible knowledge.
"We have just declared war on the kingdom of Ul'varh'mir. There is no going back from this. No negotiation. No mercy." He looked at each person present, making sure they understood. "In twenty-seven days, an army will come. And M'lod will burn unless we're ready to fight."
Uyr'chev stepped forward, tears still wet on his cheeks but his voice steady. "Then we fight. My village will fight. All of us will fight."
The other chiefs nodded agreement. One by one. Committing their people to war.
Misaki wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve, leaving red streaks across the fabric. His cart prototype waited in his workshop, unfinished. His peaceful plans lay shattered like the soldiers' bodies.
The storm Shy'yao had predicted had arrived early.
And it was only going to get worse.