Chapter 419
"And in that moment, realization struck me."
Fhaaah!
"That fog did not separate us from the outside world. It protected us. It protected this village from a world that turned out to be far darker than our worst nightmares."
And when the group of strangers prepared to return to the outside world after delivering their mission, when the village was still in turmoil over the news they had brought, when the elders were still gathered to decide the next course of action, the young Xavier and his group of childhood friends made a decision that could only be born from bravery mixed with the foolishness of youth.
They followed the group in secret, moving like shadows between the bushes, holding their breath whenever one of them nearly slipped or stepped on a dry twig.
The thick fog that had always been a terrifying specter, the very fog feared by every villager, was now approached by them with hesitant yet determined steps.
And when the fog finally enveloped them, when the world around them turned into endless gray-white, when breathing became heavy and their vision nearly blinded, they kept walking, following the faint sound of the newcomers' footsteps ahead.
Passing through the fog felt like walking in a dream, like floating between existence and nothingness, like crossing the boundary between life and death.
Yet eventually, after a stretch of time that felt incredibly long but might have been only a moment, the fog began to thin, light began to appear, and a new world unfolded before their eyes.
But instead of joy at successfully crossing the boundary that had long remained untouched, what greeted Xavier and his small gang was a shock that nearly stopped their hearts.
The truth revealed before them was completely different from what they had always believed.
For all this time, their village had not been separated from the outside world by the fog.
On the contrary, their village had been protected by it.
The fog was not a prison wall trapping them within limitations, but a massive shield that hid them from the threats lurking beyond.
And when they finally saw with their own eyes what the outside world truly looked like, when they witnessed the sight that lay beyond the fog, terror began to creep into their still-young hearts.
Because the outside world—or perhaps even the entire civilization beyond the fog—was controlled by an entity they had never imagined before.
The Obrim Dynasty.
A form of government that ruled the outside world in a manner that was insane, ruthless, and utterly without compassion.
Under the rule of this dynasty, human values had long been eroded, replaced by institutionalized cruelty, by fear used as a tool of control, by sacrifice turned into public spectacle.
And as Xavier and his childhood companions were still trying to process this horrifying truth, while they remained hidden behind bushes at the edge of an open area, their eyes accidentally caught a sight that would remain forever engraved in their memories.
With their own eyes—without filters, without distance enough to soften the horror—they witnessed that the Obrim Dynasty was celebrating something.
A grand celebration, with torches burning along the roads, black banners fluttering in the wind, and citizens forced to cheer with artificial enthusiasm.
Slowly, through fragments of conversations heard faintly, through cheers echoing among the black stone buildings, through an announcement read loudly by a herald, the truth began to emerge.
The Obrim Dynasty was celebrating in joy because they had finally discovered Xavier's long-lost village.
A discovery they considered the greatest achievement in the history of the dynasty, a gift from the cruel gods they worshiped, a key toward even more absolute power.
The visitors who had come to the village with friendly faces and sweet words, who spoke about research and cultural richness, who called the village a precious time capsule, were nothing more than spies.
They were merely the spearhead of the Obrim Dynasty's expansion, venomous snakes slipping in under sheep's clothing.
And the true intention behind searching for the long-lost village was not research, not cultural preservation, not admiration for local wisdom.
That intention was far darker, far more horrifying, far more inhuman than anything the innocent minds of village children could imagine.
The Obrim Dynasty planned to exploit every form of wealth from Xavier's village.
Not wealth in the sense of material treasures—not gold and jewels that could be carried away in carts, not fertile land that could become new farmland.
But a far more dreadful kind of wealth, a secret that had long been the dark core of the insane and brutal dynasty.
They intended to harvest the flesh and organs of the villagers, one by one, through the cruelest methods, to be offered upon the magma of a volcano they worshiped as a god.
Human bodies would be sacrificed in horrifying rituals, lives would be taken as offerings for collective madness, blood would flow heavily into rivers of lava.
And all of this would be carried out with celebration, with festivities, with cheers from people who had long lost their humanity.
Xavier and his childhood companions, still hiding behind the bushes, still struggling to control their racing breaths, still processing horror after horror flooding into their young consciousness, felt fear for the first time in their lives.
And then the banner appeared.
Black and red.
The emblem of the Obrim Dynasty.
From behind the bushes where they hid, through the narrow gaps between the leaves that served as the only shield for their trembling bodies, Xavier and his friends watched as the massive banner was raised in the center of the ceremonial field.
Black as a void that reflected no light, red as fresh blood newly spilled.
Two colors that spoke of death and cruelty, of absolute power built upon suffering, of a dynasty that had long ruled the outside world with iron hands and stone hearts.
That symbol was not merely colored cloth, but a declaration of war, a statement that its owner had arrived and would never retreat.
Beneath that banner the newcomers stood proudly, their once-friendly smiles now twisted into satisfied grins, their once-warm eyes now gleaming with greed.
They were no longer guests carrying messages of peace, but the spearhead of a war machine that had long waited for the right moment to strike.
Yet Xavier and his small gang did not remain still watching all of this.
With courage born from innocence mixed with survival instinct, with small trembling legs that kept moving forward, with racing breaths they struggled to suppress, they ran.
They ran away from the outside world that had just revealed its horrifying true face, ran through the thick fog that now felt like the most loyal ally, ran back toward the village they had once believed to be a prison but which was actually their only protection.
The fog that had once been frightening now felt warm as it enveloped them, the fog that had once been a barrier now felt like the embrace of a mother protecting her child from danger.
And when they finally emerged from the fog, when the fresh village air once again filled their lungs that felt ready to burst, when the solid village soil once again supported their feet, they did not stop.
To be continued…