Warning: these next few chapters are heartbreakers! If you can't handle them, skip straight to chapter 29. I truly don't know how to revise these chapters, so readers who can't take it, please skip ahead.
I've warned you three times already! I tried my best (_).
Barbarus.
.
Herrela was an ordinary Barbarus woman.
The first half of her life was a reflection of countless ordinary Barbarus girls.
Herrela was born in an unnamed village near Nac'Lare's territory. Since she could remember, her world had consisted of murky yellow poison gas and endless fear.
She had stayed obliviously in a room piled together from yellow earth bricks, waiting eagerly for her parents to return.
When her mother came home, she would stroke Herrela's cheek with cracked hands, smile at her, then turn around to cook porridge.
When she grew a little older, she would hold her younger sister's hand as they stumbled along the muddy, pothole-ridden village roads. They would stand at the village entrance, gazing into the distance as they waited for their parents to return from working the fields.
In the distance stood mountains shrouded in poisonous gas, their indistinct peaks hidden within misty shadows. Her parents had told her that the true masters of this planet lived there.
Herrela had been young then. She did not understand why those lords could withstand poison gas deadly enough to kill people.
Once she was old enough to hold a hoe, her parents took her out to cultivate their family's land. She picked up the hoe and broke apart the bitter clods of earth, one strike at a time.
Her sister stood at the village entrance, continuing to watch Herrela and their parents, waiting for them to return.
The village alarm bell rang. Night was approaching, and she ran home with her parents, frightened yet excited.
Her life slipped away amid day after day of farming, amid every second she spent breathing poison gas.
Once, bold and curious, she had walked toward the edge of the fields. There, the thickening poison gas formed a wall that seemed almost solid, imprisoning the humans within.
Herrela raised a hand and carefully touched the seemingly living poison gas with her fingertips. It lightly corroded her skin. She cried out and quickly pulled back her fingers, pale corrosion marks starkly visible upon them.
Herrela did not understand. Could life truly exist atop those lofty mountains, where the poison gas was tens of thousands of times thicker and more violent than it was here?
But she learned the answer that night.
As the dim night fell and the muddy yellow air slowly climbed over the city walls—
The slavers' puppets tore through the walls Herrela had considered impregnable as easily as tearing paper. Those creatures that utterly defied the laws of physics, those monsters forcibly given life through Witchcraft, stood in the doorway, their stitched eyes fixed rigidly on Herrela and her family.
The puppet, around two and a half meters tall, looked as though it had been haphazardly stitched together from corpse parts. Thick black hemp thread was crudely exposed to the air, its knotted ends sunk into flesh. Yellow pus seeped from its bloody meat, climbing the threads and congealing into yellow scabs in the air.
It blocked the door with its bloated body, its cloudy eyes staring at Herrela with malice.
Her parents were nearly fainting from terror, yet they still clung tightly to her and her sister, trembling all over.
But it was useless.
She was lifted from her warm, fragile nest like a chick, evaluated, then put back down—
She was too thin and weak. She did not meet the lords' standards for sturdy experimental material.
Her parents and sister were lifted up and assessed in turn. Her father was put down. Her sister was put down too.
Her mother was taken away.
Her mother stared at Herrela in despair and collapse. She had been utterly broken. Tears now filled her weary eyes. She looked at them as though hoping they would go on living well, and as though hoping they would save her.
But Herrela, her father, and her sister had all been completely crushed by fear.
There was no hope.
Threatened by death, her mother began struggling violently in the puppet's grasp. She thrashed her limbs wildly, futilely beating against the huge hand that held her.
As though it had seen something amusing, the puppet's ugly face twisted, revealing a bizarre and cruel smile.
Its other slime-smeared hand reached out easily, casually, and snapped all four of the woman's limbs in turn.
Blood and chunks of flesh flew everywhere. Red blood, white bone spikes pierced through. Those tiny red droplets fell through the black gloom, turning gray and rotten the instant the mist touched them.
Her mother screamed.
She convulsed.
Herrela fainted.
When she woke, there were only three people left in their home.
Life had to go on.
After that, Herrela carried farming tools and followed her father out to cultivate the fields every morning, then ran home every evening with the ringing bell.
The village walls she had once believed would protect them were utterly useless. The village was as dangerous as the wilderness, but whenever the bells rang, she still ran back with everyone else.
She had gotten used to it.
She returned home, stroked her sister's face with cracked hands, smiled at her, then went to cook porridge.
Her mother had never taught her how to cook. Her father was little more than a vague, silent silhouette in her life.
The first porridge she made boiled over and scalded her hand.
It was okay.
She would die.
She would die like her mother had.
It was okay. Everyone was like this.
It really was okay.
When screams rang out again at dusk, Herrela clutched her sister tightly and hid in the cupboard at home.
Her father had already gone mad the moment the screaming began.
Perhaps remembering the horrific way her mother had died, her father broke down. This man in his twenties, his hair already streaked with gray, flung open the door and ran outside like a madman.
He wanted to escape, but he was only running to his death.
Herrela wanted to save her father, but she could not.
There was only death.
The barking Pus Hounds on the village road rushed over, and flesh and blood splattered.
It was okay. Everyone had to die.
She held her sister tighter.
But Herrela wanted her sister to live just a little longer. She wanted her sister to pass through the poisonous mist and see the world beyond the village, even if it too was a barren wasteland.
Herrela gently patted her sister's head. Her sister's hair was as dry and tangled as hers, eroded by the poison gas.
"Shh. Big Sister is going to find Father. Stay here and don't move, okay?"
Her sister was crying. She grabbed Herrela.
"Don't go, okay? Let's stay together, Big Sister."
Herrela pulled her sister's hands away.
"Be good, okay? Live well."
Then Herrela started running. She did not look back.
She started running. Her calves trembled, her heart pounded wildly, her lungs spasmed—she was going to die.
She ran desperately onto the main road. The Pus Hounds tearing apart her father's corpse spotted her. Her father's flesh and blood mixed with the hounds' drool and dripped from the lips wrapped in skin.
Those fangs turned toward her.
Herrela wanted to scream, wanted to shout something, wanted to tell them she was not afraid of death.
But fear had seized her completely. It slowly ground over her bones and tore apart her flesh.
She could no longer control herself. She stopped, trembling all over, unable to take another step.
No, I'm brave. I'm trading myself for my sister's life.
I'm brave.
Herrela thought desperately, but as though they had pierced through all her courage and pride, the drooling hounds raised their heads and ran—
Toward their house.
No!!!
Her sister!!! Laisa!! No!!
Herrela wanted to run. She had to save her sister, she had to save her sister!!!
She had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her mother she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister she had to save her sister
She could save no one.
She had lost everything she could rely on. She had no reason left to live. Her life was nothing but meaningless grayness. She had never accomplished anything, never managed to do anything. She had merely lived, then would die meaninglessly and without worth.
It was okay, Herrela. Everyone died.
It was okay.
Tears and snot covered her face. Herrela felt herself breaking, felt herself going mad. She dropped to her knees in despair, both hands clutching at her face as her hands and tears obscured her vision.
Nothing mattered anymore.
She no longer cared about any of it.
Come eat me. Come tear me apart.
I'm a worthless piece of trash who didn't even have the courage to protect her sister.
She was tired.
She gave up.
Yet she did not hear her sister scream.
The fierce whistle of a blade cutting through flesh rang out. The Pus Hounds whined and barked miserably, followed by a dull impact—
Herrela no longer had the ability to understand any of it. By sheer momentum, she continued wailing in despair.
"Stop crying."
A hand reached over and gently moved her hands away, carefully wiping the tears and snot from her face.
"Your sister isn't dead. Hurry and comfort her."
"Stop crying, both of you. We've already killed those hounds."
Her violent sobbing left Herrela unable to stop hiccuping.
She raised her head.
The young man held her sobbing sister in one arm. A gas mask covered his face, but he was indeed smiling.
He stood against the light, his figure outlined in white radiance.
The man crouched down, holding a scythe in his other hand.
"You were very brave just now. You sacrificed yourself to draw those hounds' attention, right?"
"Brave girl, join us. Let's protect our families together."
"Oh, right. My name is Hades. I'm a Death Guard."
This was Herrela's story before she joined the Death Guard.
It was also the story of how Herrela regained hope.
Leaving a Barbarus girl here.
I added the QQ group number to the description.
I got a recommendation notification!!! Oh oh oh! Awesome!
So nice
Before you continue