Dawn broke over Kiernen like a golden lie, its rays caressing the thatched roofs with deceptive tenderness. For Han, this fifth birthday was meant to mark a turning point, a celebration his adoptive parents had prepared with unusual care. But in the folds of his dual consciousness, the sharpened instinct of his former existence whispered warnings that his child's body could not yet understand.
Elina was already bustling about their modest kitchen, her skilled hands kneading dough with maternal devotion. The intoxicating scent of wild honey and roasted nuts floated in the morning air, promising the cake she had secretly crafted for him. Every gesture of this woman breathed unconditional love, that raw tenderness which had warmed Han Iruma's frozen heart since his rebirth. Outside, Adran sharpened his woodsman's axe against the whetstone, the metal singing a metallic hymn in the dawn's silence. His muscles bulged beneath his linen shirt, testament to a life of honest labor, of that simplicity Han had never known in his previous existence.
Everything appeared deceptively normal, falsely peaceful, barely masking the palpable tension that had enveloped the village these past weeks. Whispered conversations between adults, worried glances cast toward the forest edges, weapons discretely sharpened... Han had noticed everything. His analytical mind, remnant of his life as a businessman, catalogued every detail, every anomaly.
Sitting on the small wooden bench polished by years in front of their cottage, Han watched the first rays of sunlight pierce the dense canopy of the surrounding forest. His child's senses, paradoxically sharpened by the maturity of his transmigrated soul, caught the morning symphony with troubling acuity: the melodious chirping of blackbirds, the silky rustling of oak leaves, the crystalline murmur of the river winding through the village's heart. But something else slipped into this harmony, a discordant sound that birthed a muted dread in his chest.
A rumbling. Distant at first, then increasingly distinct. It wasn't the familiar roll of thunder preceding a storm, no. It was something more organic, more menacing. The dull hammering of thousands of boots on earth, the sinister clinking of clashing armor, the growl of a war machine inexorably approaching their haven of peace.
"Han, my little wolf, come have your breakfast!" Elina's voice resonated like a melody in the morning air, sweet and warm, ignorant of the peril creeping toward them. Han rose, an icy premonition gripping his heart like a vise. His instinct, that intuition sharpened by years of ruthless corporate warfare, screamed danger.
He didn't have time to cry out the alarm.
A piercing scream tore through the peaceful air, followed by another, then a cacophonous chorus of pure terror. The rumbling became a deafening roar, a sonic tide that submerged the village. The protective forest, their natural rampart, suddenly transformed into a gaping maw from which apocalypse erupted.
Dark silhouettes burst from the woods like a black tide, helmeted, armored, their spears and swords glinting in the morning light. Their black banners snapped in the wind, struck with Osterion's double-headed eagle, symbol of tyranny that Han recognized immediately. Those bastards were finally here, come to claim their tribute of blood and tears.
Chaos descended upon Kiernen with unheard-of violence, transforming the peaceful village into a vision of hell within seconds. The soldiers, without warning, without the slightest announcement, threw themselves upon the villagers with methodical savagery. The cries of men, women, and children mingled with the clatter of weapons, the nascent crackling of flames that began to greedily lick the thatched roofs.
Han, frozen in place by the horror of the spectacle, saw his father drop his axe and rush toward him, his face distorted by a panic he had never seen in this stoic man. Elina appeared at the threshold, her blue eyes wide with horror, one trembling hand brought to her lips. In that maternal gaze, Han read the unspeakable: the terror of losing her child, that primitive fear that transcends all other considerations.
"Han! Run, damn it!" Adran screamed, his voice strangled by urgency and terror. Never had he heard his father swear in front of him. But where to run? The village had become a death trap, its narrow streets transforming into corridors of death where the dying's last rattles echoed.
A soldier, his helmet adorned with ram's horns, threw himself at old Gareth who was trying to flee, his arthritic legs allowing only a pitiful run. The sword fell with a dull, sickening sound, cleanly severing the old neck. The head rolled in the dust while the body collapsed, a fountain of scarlet blood gushing from the gaping wound. Han felt acid nausea rise in his throat, but his mind, that fucking analytical mind that had dissected so many financial statements, recorded every detail with chilling clarity.
Adran grabbed him, lifting him in his muscled arms with the brute strength of the woodsman he was. "Through the forest, damn it!" he shouted to Elina, who joined them running, her face pale as a shroud. They bolted, dodging soldiers, leaping over bodies already lying in their blood, the burning houses casting dancing, macabre shadows. The acrid smell of smoke and the metallic smell of blood saturated the air, a nauseating cocktail that Han would never forget.
"Papa! Mama!" He wanted to scream, but his throat knotted under terror's grip. His little legs beat the air as Adran carried him, his child's body suddenly seeming strangely heavy, a burden in this desperate race toward survival. Around them, the familiar faces of villagers twisted in agony: some begged on their knees, others fought with futile bravery, all doomed to the same bloody end.
A group of soldiers spotted them in their flight. "Over here, bastards!" shouted one of them, a scarred colossus pointing his spear in their direction. Adran accelerated, his muscles tensed by effort, his breath becoming hoarse. Elina, despite her dress hindering her run, followed him with desperation's energy, her gaze frantically sweeping the surroundings searching for an escape, a miracle.
They finally reached the forest's edge, hope briefly rekindling in Han's heart. The forest, their ancestral refuge, their sanctuary... But hope was short-lived, a cruel lie that reality crushed.
Archers, positioned in ambush in the foliage, unleashed a volley of deadly arrows. One of them whistled near Han's ear, embedding itself in an oak's bark with a sharp, definitive crack. Others found their targets: Han heard the agonized cries of other fugitives, the soft sound of collapsing bodies.
Adran suddenly put him down, drawing his hunting knife, that derisory blade against their pursuers' arsenal. "Hide, Han! Damn it, hide!" he ordered, his deep voice vibrating with fierce determination. "Don't move, whatever happens! You hear me, boy? Whatever happens!"
Elina pushed him behind a thick thorn bush, her maternal face inches from his. Her blue eyes, usually so gentle, were filled with fierce determination, with a love so pure it was painful. "We love you, Han, more than our own lives," she murmured, her fingers caressing his child's cheek one last time. "Never forget that, my little wolf. Never."
Then she straightened, joining Adran who faced the soldiers, his knife pathetically small against their weapons and war armor. Together, hand in hand, they confronted their executioners with the simple dignity of common people.
Han, crouched in his makeshift hiding place, watched the scene, his child's heart beating frantically against his ribs. He wanted to scream, rush forward, do anything to save them. But his little body was paralyzed by terror, and his adult mind, cold and calculating, knew that any intervention would be not only futile but suicidal. He was condemned to powerlessness, mere spectator of the horror unfolding before his eyes. The rage, that cold and silent rage he knew so well from his former life, began to rise in him like a black tide, amplified by the revolting helplessness of his current body.
The Osterion soldiers approached with the arrogant confidence of predators facing their prey. Their faces, masked by their iron helmets, let filter only the cruel gleam of their eyes. Adran fought with the fury of a lion protecting his cubs, his knife tracing desperate arcs in the air. He even managed to deeply gash one assailant's forearm, tearing a sonorous curse from him.
"Damn dog! You'll die for that!" spat the wounded soldier, retaliating with a sword blow that the woodsman barely avoided.
Elina, armed with only her bare hands but animated by maternal instinct, tried to distract another soldier, her natural agility barely saving her from a sword blow that whistled near her throat. "Run, you others!" she cried to the other fugitives. "Save your children, damn it!"
But the fight was revoltingly unequal, brutal, without the slightest mercy. Han saw his adoptive father stumble, a spear sinking deeply into his chest with the sickening sound of pierced flesh. The iron emerged red with blood, and Adran collapsed, spitting a scarlet flow. He extended a trembling hand toward Han, his lips silently articulating a final "I love you" before death veiled his eyes.
Elina's cry was that of a mortally wounded animal, a howl of pure pain that resonated throughout the forest and was forever engraved in Han's soul. She threw herself on her husband's body, vainly trying to stem the hemorrhage with her bare hands already reddened. A soldier seized her by the hair, brutally lifting her up.
"Pretty little bitch..." he sneered, bringing his face close to hers. "Too bad we don't have time to play..."
The sword pierced Elina's heart with a clean, professional blow. She collapsed on her husband's body, their blood mingling in the forest earth. Then there was silence. A deafening silence, broken only by the distant crackling of flames and the sporadic cries of the last survivors.
The soldiers approached the bodies, their boots crushing dead leaves in a sinister rustling. One of them, the very one who had pointed his spear, knelt near Adran, checking the pulse with chilling professionalism. Han, eyes riveted on this nightmarish scene, felt a part of his child's soul break definitively, while another, darker, more ancient, awakened like a beast emerging from its den. Hatred. Pure, cold, devouring. A hatred that transcended what he had felt for Tanaka, for all his former enemies. An absolute hatred for these men, for this shitty world, for the sadistic divinity that had allowed such an abomination.
Footsteps approached his hiding place. His child's heart raced, pounding against his ribs like a caged bird. He was discovered. It was the end. But the silhouette that appeared wasn't that of a soldier. It was another child, barely older than him, face smeared with tears and soot, eyes filled with the same absolute terror as his own. Their gazes met for an instant, silent communion of two broken souls. Then the child ran away, disappearing into the forest depths like a ghost.
Han remained motionless, holding his breath until his lungs burned, every muscle tense like a bowstring. The soldiers finally moved away, leaving behind the bodies of his parents lying in their coagulated blood. The sun, which had risen with the lying promise of a feast day, now shone on a tableau of carnage and desolation. The village of Kiernen was nothing more than a column of black smoke rising toward the indifferent sky, a giant funeral pyre for all its inhabitants.
He never knew how long he stayed there, crouched in his improvised hiding place, watching the motionless bodies of those who had loved him, who had offered him a home, a name, a family. Death's cold seeped into him, deeper than dawn's cold, more glacial than anything he had ever felt. Han Iruma's consciousness, the cynical and calculating businessman, inexorably superimposed itself on that of the terrified child. He saw again Tanaka's face, that hatred in his eyes. He saw again Dread, the divine entity, and his mocking challenge. This world, this fucking new world, was just as brutal, just as merciless as the previous one. Perhaps even worse, for here, innocence was merely a pretext for slaughter.
A single tear rolled down his child's cheek, but it wasn't from sadness. It was a tear of pure rage, of abyssal despair, and of icy resolution. He had lost his parents a first time in his adult life, then a second time here. He had been betrayed, humiliated, murdered, and now he was alone, a five-year-old kid amidst the ashes of a world that never ceased to break him. But he would not break. Never again. He would not submit to this fucking destiny. He would have his revenge. On those who had perpetrated this massacre, on this shitty world, and on this sadistic divinity that had thrown him here like a die on a game board.
Silence fell again, heavy and oppressive like a shroud. The distant crackling of flames was the only sound, accompanied by the buzzing of the first flies attracted by the smell of blood. Han, the innocent five-year-old boy, had died with his adoptive parents. In his place, another being was born, forged in pain's brazier and tempered in injustice's blood, a being whose soul, already lost in reincarnation's meanders, had just sunk definitively into the deepest darkness.
The Ash King was born, not from a grandiose prophecy, but from the purest suffering and the most absolute hatred. And his coming reign would be as merciless as the world that had created him.
In the distance, the flames continued to devour what remained of Kiernen, and with them, the last vestiges of Han's innocence. The child was dead. Only rage remained.