The one thing I hate is change…
Changes in circumstances…
Changes in the body…
Changes in emotion…
In most cases, every change is a degradation… It is decline.
But it seems that I have to change… Lord Muzan.
…..
"Here!"
A soldier exclaimed, throwing a mouldy bread onto the mud, his face twisting into a sadistic sneer as he glanced at the maggots squirming out of it, "Eat!" he spat, his saliva spewing onto the two men chained to a pole by a river.
One of them was a large man, with broad shoulders, broad enough to dwarf two grown men, and the face of a woman's wet dream and a man's nightmare.
His pale blue glare, enough to scare the wits out of hardened soldiers, and a swing of his hammer were enough to cave in the chest of the most courageous. After all, he was the demon—the demon of the battlefield!
Yet here he was… his shoulders deflated like a punctured tarp, his glare reduced to that of a maniac refusing the truth, and his hammer?
Broken.
Cleaved right in half to the middle as it lay in a small crater, held together by two hands—severed hands.
The man's hands…
Beside the man was another one, smaller than him, yet larger than an average man grown. His grey hair was tangled in a pool of mud and blood, sticking to his pale skin where small cuts and bruises made it their home.
Yet there was no wince of pain on his face; his dull eyes had not glanced upon the sneering soldier near them, nor at his friend chained beside him, or at the broken hammer.
No. His eyes were rooted to the river. The mighty river that had decided their fates. The mighty river that had become their battlefield. The mighty river that had become his soldiers' graveyard.
He has been watching it for hours, the river. With just one question that invaded his mind.
…..What just happened?!
In the distance lay the river—the river once fierce as the dragon's breath, now lay choked by bodies, thousands of them. They pooled at its neck, halting its flow while their blood flowed, painting the river red.
Flesh floated; severed limbs, spilled guts, tangled together, forming islands of meat and faeces… like rubies scattered in a river.
And their smell? Putrid enough to kill all life in the river.
Yet this wasn't what the man stared at, no. It was the hill, the hill standing in the middle of the river! It was large, the hill. As tall as the tallest trees and as wide as a fortress. But it wasn't of rocks, no, it was of….
Heads.
Countless of them, severed from their bodies, stacked on each other. Some were missing an eye, another an ear, a few were sliced in half.
Drenched in their own blood, they were scared, shocked, relieved, happy, terrified…dead.
Dead by the man whom they raised their voices against!
Dead by the man against whom they raised an army!
Dead by the man whom they raised their swords against!
Dead by the man… who was now sitting on top of them.
He was white, his skin paler than the northern snow. He was lean, almost half the size of the men he had slain. He was still, like the dead that lay beneath his feet.
In his hand was his sword, a black curved sword that soaked in the blood of his enemies. Crimson veins ran from the hilt of the sword, through the blade, and etched at its guard were two words, foreign words brushed in white, and it read— UPPER ONE!
And in the quiet stillness, he opened his eyes. Beautiful they were, like the purple orchids, shining softly as he glanced down at the world and spoke.
"...It seems that I have to change, Lord Muzan."