The guard froze.

  Ten seconds of silence, broken only by the faint crackling of residual sparks dancing across his companion’s body. He stared at me — at a small boy who had just dropped his fellow with a snap of his fingers.

  I moved my hand again, and sparks flickered between my fingers.

  “Y-yes… right away! Sorry!” he snorted, backing away. His stench grew sharper — fear.

  So they still remember the language. Good.

  We entered the village. Along the “street,” creatures stood peering out from their shacks. They looked at me, then at the guard retreating in humiliation, and said nothing. I felt fear spreading from them in thick waves, mixed with complete confusion.

  How can something so small…?

  I read it in their eyes.

  — What are you thinking about, Zenhald? the voice inside returned. About how they see you? Still looking for recognition in the eyes of these pigs?

  I ignored it and kept walking.

  They led me to the largest structure. Calling it a house would’ve been generous — a mixture of clay, crooked brick, and something resembling manure. The guard pushed the door open, and I stepped inside.

  In the half-dark, ten eyes fixed on me. Five boarfolk sat around a pit of coals. Two sprang up, baring their tusks, but I didn’t let them even inhale.

  Lightning burst from my hands, striking the ground at their feet, and sparks of pure mana seemed to spill from my eyes. The pressure in the room rose so sharply their ears must have rung.

  They immediately crouched, tails tucked.

  I swept my gaze across the room.

  In the far corner, on a small rise made of hides, sat an old boar. His whole appearance spoke of someone who had seen too much for this hole. One eye was blind, white as fog, and a deep jagged scar ran across his face.

  He didn’t stand. He simply looked at me with his single eye, and in that gaze there was no rage. Only heavy, ancient recognition.

  I spoke, and the silence in the room changed. It was no longer tense from fear of my lightning — it was heavy with the hopelessness emanating from the old one.

  “I want you to renounce the current Demon King,” my voice cut through the dimness like a blade. “Stop serving him. Open the borders to humans. End this pointless war.”

  In the corner, one of the younger boars couldn’t hold back. He let out a short, hoarse sound — something between a snort and a bitter laugh. But before he could fully open his mouth, the air around me crackled. Blue sparks slithered along the walls like snakes, illuminating their frightened faces in a harsh, corpse-pale light.

  The laugh died before it was born. They pressed themselves to the ground again.

  The old boar didn’t even flinch. He slowly shifted his one eye to my hands, then back to my face.

  “What do you want from us, human whelp with a monster’s soul?” His voice was dry, like the crack of old bones.

  I repeated my demands. Peace. Coexistence. Rejection of the tyranny of the Higher Demons.

  The old one remained silent for a long time. Then he sighed heavily, and that sound carried such exhaustion that for a moment it unsettled me.

  “No,” he finally said. “We cannot.”

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  I narrowed my eyes, ready to summon mana again, but he continued.

  “You speak of peace when we don’t know if we’ll live to see the next moon. Every three years the High Demons come here. They take our children. The strongest, the youngest — for their insane slaughterfields. They need cannon fodder to fill human trenches with corpses. We don’t want this war. We don’t care about elves, dwarves, or humans. We just want to eat.”

  He gestured around his miserable dwelling.

  “Look at this village. Only ones left here are like me — old ones who can no longer hold an axe. Women. Children too young for the ‘Call.’ We eat larvae and moss. Bread?” He gave a bitter snort. “I don’t remember its taste. No one in this village has ever tasted it.”

  “Why don’t you grow your own?” I asked, though I already knew.

  “We tried. Every time a sprout breaks through the soil, envoys of the High come. They trample everything. They destroy our homes for amusement, to remind us: we are their property. We are slaves whose only purpose is to breed and hand our sons over to their armies.”

  He tapped his blind, white eye crossed by the ugly scar.

  “See this? I tried. I went to them when they were taking my sister’s last son. I begged. I pleaded for them to leave him — he was the only one who could hunt. And see what they did? This is their memory. For life. So I never open my mouth again.”

  The old one fell silent. The others sat with heads lowered. The room smelled not only of smoke and filth.

  It smelled of defeat.

  “You want us to open the borders?” The old boar looked at me with naked pity. “We have nothing to open. We are a cage inside a cage. If we say ‘no’ to the High, tomorrow this village will not exist. They’ll wipe us from the earth just so they don’t waste time arguing.”

  — What are you thinking, Zenhald? the voice stirred again. Here they are, your subjects. They don’t dream of a grand peace. They dream of a piece of bread and of their children not being ground into meat. Your ‘high ideals’ are empty noise to them. You came here as a King — but what can you give them besides new threats?

  I clenched my fists. The sparks on my fingers died.

  “Then,” I said quietly, “I don’t need to negotiate with you. I need to destroy those who come for your children.”

  The old boar looked at me for a long moment. In his single eye, something flickered — not hope, no. Something closer to mad curiosity.

  “The nearest High stronghold is two days east,” he said. “Lord Vaal sits there. If you can kill him… perhaps then we can talk about bread.”

  “He is not High,” the old one continued, his voice trembling with restrained hatred. “Not even mid-tier. Just a winged creature given power over the weak. He comes every year with his detachment to remind us of our place.”

  They were called Alites. They had human faces and leathery wings like angels, but their eyes held nothing except sadism and greed. Degenerate descendants of what had once been the elite of the army — now reduced to overseers.

  “I will destroy him,” I said flatly. “And you… prepare for a new life.”

  I left the hut without looking back.

  The path led east.

  I walked on foot, feeling the gray dust grind against my teeth. The silence of the Wasteland was deceptive. From behind massive boulders, like petrified beasts, a gang of goblins emerged. Thin, skin stretched over bone, eyes clouded with a murky film, burning with one instinct — desperate hunger.

  They rushed me, more from despair than courage.

  I barely flicked my hand. A weak current of electricity tore through the air, throwing them back but not killing them. They whimpered, pressing against the stones.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out an ordinary apple seed.

  Crouching, I pressed it into the dry, dead soil and placed my palm over it.

  “Grow.”

  A surge of pure, constructive mana flooded into the earth. The ground trembled. A sprout broke through the ash, stretching upward rapidly, thickening, covering itself in bark and lush green leaves. Within a minute, an apple tree stood before me, its branches bending under the weight of large, ripe fruit.

  The goblins stared as if witnessing divine miracle.

  “Take them,” I said, plucking one apple. “And carry them to yours. Tell everyone you meet: a human named Ark Grim will change these lands.”

  They didn’t hesitate. With squeals they rushed the tree, biting into the sweet flesh skin and all.

  I walked on without turning back at their chewing.

  On the second day, a silhouette rose on the horizon.

  It was a fortress — but utterly unlike the boarfolk’s hovels. More a palace — elegant, wealthy, with tall spires that seemed alien among the rocks. The lord of this hole loved luxury built on slave bones.

  As I approached, I heard the ring of steel. Behind the palace, on the training yard, someone was practicing.

  Shadows circled above the fortress.

  Alites.

  Three of them, armed with long swords, dove straight at me. In their eyes there was no fear — only anticipation of easy prey.

  I did not slow my step.

  One powerful impulse.

  The lightning that burst from my fingers was so bright it burned shadows into the ground for a heartbeat. Thunder shook the palace walls. The Alites didn’t even have time to scream — their bodies fell lifeless into the dust, wings charred down to skeletal frames.

  The sound of swords in the yard stopped instantly.

  Absolute, ringing silence fell.

  “Well then, Zenhald,” the voice inside whispered. “The show has begun. Do you like how they fall silent when you approach?”

  I walked up to the massive gates and simply pushed them open.