Honor, Dreams, and Divine Revelation

Assassination!

Kas's instincts immediately shifted into combat mode; his exceptional core strength allowed him to remain as steady as a bronze bell even as his upper body dodged the strike.

His arm slid across the butcher's table, gripping the axe used for cleaving bone.

He tilted his head, discovering that his assailant was a woman.

Her hands gripped the butcher knife stiffly, freezing for a moment when the weapon missed its mark, as if she were unsure how to proceed with the next attack.

Suddenly, she raised the knife high above her head and brought it down toward Kas's neck with a posture of absolute determination.

The attack appeared swift, yet to Kas, it was riddled with openings; he easily read the trajectory of the swing and raised the axe blade to parry the second, utterly formless strike.

"Who are you? I don't know you."

Under normal circumstances, Kas would have beaten an assassin half to death before attempting any dialogue, but this woman's situation was bizarre.

He scanned his surroundings and found that while the crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle, most stood with arms crossed in cold indifference, showing not a hint of surprise.

This was abnormal; even if the Rishiman People were barbarians with many savage and backward cultural customs, committing murder in the street was illegal in any society that possessed order.

It meant that life was precarious, and no one would willingly live in such a chaotic environment.

Furthermore, the woman's movements were strange; she showed traces of some combat training, yet it was only at the level of a tribesman who knew how to use a pitchfork or spear. To expect someone of this caliber to succeed in an assassination was pure madness.

The woman did not respond to Kas; she swung the butcher knife wildly, aiming for his neck and head, yet she never once broke through the defense of the battle-axe.

"Brother, what is going on? Who is she?"

Kas asked the butcher watching the scene, only to find there was no response.

He turned his head and saw the tall man standing behind the stall, seemingly oblivious to the commotion at the door, fully focused on cleaning a blade stained with meat scraps using a linen cloth.

In that very instant, the woman managed to break through the axe's defense by some stroke of luck, the butcher knife grazing Kas's shoulder as it swept toward his chest.

Blood soaked his robes, and his calm heart.

She really wants to kill me!

Enduring the pain from his shoulder to his chest, Kas flipped the axe.

The dull, heavy back of the axe struck the surface of the butcher knife; the violent impact was too much for her to handle, and the weapon she held tightly was instantly sent flying.

He calmed himself slightly, and before the woman could crouch to retrieve the knife, he kicked it far away and roared in a low voice:

"Who exactly are you?"

She still did not respond, and suddenly a commotion erupted in the crowd as Kulan arrived at high speed with the War Chief's attendants.

Kas thought this was the end of the matter, but he did not expect the woman's eyes to turn fierce as she pulled a slender dagger from her waist.

The dagger was not aimed at him, but at herself...

Suicide was the most unacceptable act among the Rishiman People; it was viewed as weakness. Neither the Vagha Palace in the heavens nor the Lady of Death Canyon in the underworld would accept those who took their own lives.

Kas watched in a daze as the woman plunged the dagger into her own throat. There was no resentment or unwillingness in those gray-brown eyes, only a sense of relief and release.

She looked like a mother who had seen her fledgling fall from the nest, determined to break her own wings and rush toward the land of death alongside her child.

He walked forward in disbelief and cradled the dying woman in his arms. The gasps from her pale face as she lingered caused blood to surge from her throat, flowing onto his own bleeding wound.

He looked around and found that everyone's face wore a smile of satisfied anticipation; even the hunting dogs that usually barked incessantly were now bowing their heads to pay respects to the suicide.

Kas finally realized: this was an honor killing!

The person lying in his arms was a blood relative of Xipel Blackheart. She had chosen suicide, using the same method to accompany the relative who was suffering eternal punishment atop Iron Peak Mountain.

He stared at the woman whose eyes were losing their light and muttered to himself:

"Stupid... this isn't revenge, it's just following the will of the gods to let a blood relative rest in peace, but goddamn, it is truly stupid!"

Intense emotions caused his thoughts to scatter in an instant, much like the trance experienced when deducing Sacred Number Theory. The "Spirit" hidden within his heart floated into the sky, watching the Black Ember Tribe frozen in this moment.

The woman died on the silent street. Countless eyes watched the wound spill its sweet nectar, and the blood-stained dagger fell into the mud, allowing her soul to seep into the earth alongside her blood, bound for the underworld.

With her final, ragged breath, she commanded her stubbornly beating heart to stop. Her moist lips moved with a gurgling sound, and a bubble escaped her throat, floating amidst the endless delusions that grew more vivid as death approached.

On the calm and quiet street, not a single tear fell. The Blood-Ash Furnace continued to roar with flames, morning dew slid from the mountain peaks across the face of Blackheart, and the dull, rhythmic sound of hammer and anvil continued to strike at a soul that had long since departed.

The only child capable of moving within the frozen time symbolized an innocence unaware of the honor killing.

A boy with a rat-tail braid swung a goblin tibia in his hand, pretending to be a heroic warrior. His face beamed with a sunny smile, and his joyful laughter seemed like an angel guiding her toward the summit of Iron Peak Mountain, a place filled with pain and torment.

"Mom, look, Sister Tina is so beautiful, just like a red velvet doll."

Plan: Honor, Dreams, and Oracles

Status: In Progress

Inspiration: I know that for the Rishiman People, there are many who cast aside their lives because they feel insulted, many who destroy themselves because of an illusory dream, and no small number who go mad from oracles.

I cannot understand this meaningless, religious, retaliatory act. Her persistence, their indifference, the oracle of the god...

But I need to know why. Is life truly this ridiculous?

The momentary stagnation returned to normal; the world would not stop turning just because an innocent person had died.

Kas laid the woman gently on the ground, his cold, silent body resembling a beast that had been provoked.

He spun around violently, kicked over the wooden butcher's table laden with fresh meat, grabbed the greasy collar of the butcher who was still scrubbing his blades, and effortlessly hoisted the two-hundred-pound burly man into the air with one hand.

"The butcher knife in her hand is the same style as the one you use. You saw her holding it and stabbing at my back—why?"

"What are you referring to? I don't know anything, my lord."

The butcher held his hands up gingerly, his bewildered expression only fueling Kas's rage; he punched that surly, rough face, forcing the man's nose and mouth closer together.

He yanked on the butcher's collar, murmuring with a blank expression:

"You beast, you knew full well she was carrying out an honor killing, yet you still gave her that knife. You stood by like a bystander, watching me treat her as an assassin."

"If you—if all of you!"

Kas's eyes, cold yet burning like a raging inferno, swept across the surrounding crowd:

"If you had spoken a single word, if you had told me this was an honor killing, she wouldn't have had to die!"

"But she was seeking death herself; this is our greatest honor! To sacrifice oneself to the gods."

The words that suddenly popped out from the crowd caused Kas to fling the butcher aside; he shoved through the crowd violently and dragged the speaker out.

Facing that fearful face, the ferocity on his own did not cease as he tightened his fist:

"I can send you to sacrifice yourself to the gods right now."

Kas punched the man in the face, leaving a mottled mark of blood on his knuckles:

"How young was she? Her clan, her husband, her family—including all of you—just watched her seek death?"

"If you still have a shred of conscience in your hearts, a sliver of pity for her..."

He rained punch after punch onto the man's face, the fury in his heart never fading.

If the girl had begged for mercy at the last moment, or had been taken away by the War Chief's attendants, Kas would not have been so deeply shaken.

But she chose to commit suicide... which meant this honor killing was entirely the will of the gods, devoid of any personal vendetta.

Following a divine oracle to attempt to assassinate a warrior with a frail body, and after failing, abandoning all attachment to the mortal world to walk alone toward her kin and accept eternal torment together.

Her courage was firmer than any warrior's, but this... was too stupid!

Is the will of the goddamn gods, or the baseless fate of a dead person, really worth the loss of a life?

If I had known about the honor killing, if I had known that girl was so determined, I would have left the Black Ember Tribe immediately...

But...

Kas struck the indifferent man's cheek again and again, flesh mangled and teeth flying.

This was not directed at him alone, but at the strange, cold customs of Reshman, and at these bystanders who had never realized the value of life.

A hand grabbed his arm, and Kulan's stern voice made Kas stop his assault:

"He is about to die. Although you are an outsider, this is the territory of the Black Ember Tribe; we do not allow wanton killing."

"If you pity Tina, you should go find her sister, Delin. Let us hope that girl is not as stupid and stubborn as her sister."