They continued on their way, drawing closer to the roadside with each step.
A deadly silence hung in the air. Not even the forest seemed willing to make a sound.
Evandro silently crouched down and picked up two stones.
"Alexander, you light it. I don't have the courage to ignite a flame in my own home."
His face was stern and slightly pale, but when Alexander looked at him to take the stones, he was strangely surprised.
Evandro's expression had changed abruptly. When he stood up, his chest was slightly puffed out, the corners of his mouth subtly lifted, his gaze serene and kind — and there was an inherent glow in his eyes.
Alexander unconsciously frowned. Evandro frowned back.
"What is it?"
Alexander looked down. "Well… It's just that you changed your expression very suddenly..."
Evandro smiled.
"Ah… The time is drawing near… So I figured it was necessary to focus and be more optimistic right now."
Alexander shook his head and struck the stones together as they walked.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.
...
They walked along the same path they had taken earlier when Evandro found the lost Alexander. Now they were nearing the square.
They crouched near an old, slightly crumbling stone structure.
There were five soldiers patrolling the center.
Wasting no time, Evandro and Alexander drew their swords, still stained with blood from before.
Alexander's hands were still sticky and grimy with the blood from his hand, which had dried and mixed with dirt. He should have been in pain, but he chose to keep ignoring it.
Evandro cleared his mind, just as he had done before. All he thought about was fulfilling the mission.
The nearest soldier, who was distracted, was taken by surprise from behind.
Slice! Slice!
Alexander and Evandro ran forward, and with an alarmingly fast strike, they each landed a blow directly on one of the soldier's legs.
The soldier fell to his knees in agony. Two others were just a few meters away.
Without even a second to react, they saw only their legs meet the same fate, collapsing to the ground in agony. It seemed that their growing experience had made them more precise, causing even worse pain and further incapacitating those they struck.
Slice!
As Evandro pulled his sword out of the third man's leg, another swung vertically, grazing the sleeve of Evandro's shirt as he fell backward.
Just as the soldier was about to drive his double-edged sword anywhere into Evandro, Alexander intervened, thrusting his sword into the soldier's stomach. Though it didn't cut through the crimson armor, it shoved the man backward.
Alexander quickly ran and jumped over the man, landing on another soldier who was still drawing his sword.
Evandro grabbed a sword from the ground and stabbed the left leg — almost severing it — of the man, taking advantage of his position on the ground. The other soldier met a similar fate at Alexander's hand, but worse — not just one, but both legs and feet were slashed.
The entire environment was grim, especially under the silent night. The air was filled with the incessant sounds of agonizing screams.
The soldiers writhed on the ground, trying to escape the excruciating pain — two of them even took their own lives in agony.
Evandro stood up and, exasperated, opened the cloth container with the liquid attached to his belt and ran toward the east side of the square.
He began to carefully pour it over the smooth, polished stone surface, starting first with the letter T.
But before he could finish the first letter, six soldiers came running furiously with swords, and one of them had a spear and wore crimson armor.
Alexander crouched and grabbed one of the groaning soldiers by the neck, pressing the sword close to it.
He gritted his teeth, his brows half-furrowed. "MOVE A STEP AND YOU'LL SEE HIM DIE!"
The soldiers froze in place; Evandro froze where he stood, finishing the T.
Two soldiers stood there, staring at Evandro.
The soldier under Alexander's threat then pushed the sword into his own neck, killing himself.
Evandro had already moved ahead and grabbed a sword, slicing off the arm of the spearman who got distracted.
But it cost him; two soldiers came at him much faster than he expected.
However, this time, he was ready, and the moment the first approached, he impaled him through the neck with the spear, piercing not only the neck of one but also the face of another behind him — though this was not his intention, just as cutting off the arm hadn't been.
He himself was unaware of his own strength.
In the same frenzy, Alexander ran and severed the legs of two more distracted soldiers.
First, he knocked the taller one to the ground, then kicked the leg of the shorter one, making him fall too.
Swiftly — so fast that it was almost impossible to see his movements — he severed the leg of the soldier he had knocked down.
Then he rolled to the side, cutting the legs of the other.
Without a moment to breathe, another soldier came at him with a horizontal sword strike, giving Alexander little time to block.
He fell onto his back, the soldier's sword grazing him, slicing off some strands of his hair as Alexander struggled to hold the sword back from smashing into his face.
'They're all young and inexperienced... Didn't they expect us here? This is all too easy... It feels like it's their first time fighting'.
Alexander frowned as he kicked the young soldier's leg. Taking advantage of the moment when the soldier fell and opened his guard, he managed to thrust his sword into his neck.
Blood spilled heavily onto Alexander's face and torso as the young soldier collapsed on top of him, bleeding profusely.
Coldly, he pushed the body aside and stood up, pulling his sword from the man's neck.
He paused for a moment, trying to use his eyes, then wiped his vision with his arm. Looking at the blood on his sword, he wiped it on his shirt.
Finally, he focused his gaze forward and saw that Evandro had already finished writing the word.
Anxious, with imperceptible sweat, Alexander clumsily grabbed the stones from his belt and lit each letter. With a bit of room to spare, the word stretched almost the entire eastern side of the square.
As expected, the fire did not spread beyond where the alchemical liquid had been poured. Without much expression on their faces, only sweaty from the sudden heat, they ran back the way they came.
They reeked of death and corpses.
Before leaving the place entirely, Evandro paused for a moment, looked at the fire, and then stretched both hands forward, first the left, then the right, with the sword.
Fresh blood was still running down his hands and arms.
Inside him, an inexplicable urge to cry arose. He remembered the dream.
Something had changed within him. As always happened when he fought... his humanity was slipping away.
...
It was almost morning, and King Tarquinus — a tall man with skin as white as snow, an ethereal appearance, but a cold, emotionless expression — approached. His eyes were black and deep like an infinite abyss.
From afar, he looked like a zombie.
Tarquinus was on horseback. A powerful, purebred, dark brown horse, taller and much more robust than ordinary horses.
He came galloping from the north side, tearing through the streets of Evandro's village like a hurricane.
Tarquinus reached the square, almost toppling his horse, trampling two soldiers standing near the north entrance.
He slowly approached the fire on horseback through the small group of soldiers.
His eyes were stunned, and a chill ran up his spine. His body was sweating — not from the heat, but from fear.
Tarquinus didn't want to finish reading the word written there, even though he already knew how it ended.
One of the soldiers then completed his thought.
"My parents told me about this..."
Another soldier beside him asked innocently,
"About what?"
The first soldier frowned and cast a sharp look, pointing at the fire.
"Idiot! Of course, I'm talking about that word there—"transmigration!"