# Chapter 37: The World in Flames

  #### **Part I: The Weight of the Uniform and the Scent of the Earth**

  The air in the city of **Kora??o** was not composed of oxygen, but of a suffocating mixture of dust, fear, and the acrid stench of human waste. In the squares, the spectacle was constant: rusted iron cages housed living skeletons, men and women whose only crime had been whispering forbidden truths against the King. The sound of chains clashing against the bars was the soundtrack of a city rotting on its feet.

  Dante, a youth of only sixteen, walked through these streets with a constricted stomach. His spiky black hair was covered in soot, and his dark eyes reflected the terror that royal propaganda tried to mask as order. For his family, plunged into the misery of a neighborhood where raising pigs and chickens was the only barrier against starvation, Dante's enlistment was not a point of pride, but a transaction for survival.

  — *Beggars don't exist here...* — Dante thought, averting his gaze from an executioner whipping a prisoner. — *Either you serve the King, or you become fertilizer for his land.*

  Beside him, **Brutus**, a hunting dog with a rugged coat and watchful eyes, kept pace. Brutus had been his only anchor of humanity since he was eight. When they arrived at the rotting wooden house, his parents' silence was the most painful answer. They forced him. Dante looked at his two little sisters, whose black eyes sparkled with an innocence the army would surely devour. He accepted the burden. For food, for shelter, for their lives.

  Months of training transformed the boy into a gear in the machine of oppression. On his patrols, he saw drunken soldiers firing into the sky, laughing as stray bullets carved the fate of the wretched. When Dante tried to intervene, the response came in the form of boots and fists. Fallen on the ground, spitting blood, he remembered the story his father used to tell: the man called **Pig**. That being who withered in the central cage, whose eyes were abysses of hatred. The Pig had disappeared, and Dante, back then, believed that death had been his only relief. *Life is never good for those who fight.*

  #### **Part II: The Symphony of Chaos**

  Dante was not just a soldier; he was a silent observer. He mapped the routes of the "Heart," the point where the great river split into three, connecting the entire island. He memorized the weapon depots, the food warehouses, and the underlying tunnels. Every detail was a piece of an escape plan he stitched together in his mind. He wrote nothing on paper; paper was evidence, memory was a sanctuary.

  While Dante planned his freedom, the fate of Kugutsu Island was sealed in flames.

  At the edge of the forest, desperation had four paws. A dog ran through the trees, barking at a sky that suddenly turned orange. Two figures, one wrapped in a yellow hood and the other in red, ran frantically to save the animal. But the fire was not natural. It was a torrent of fury that descended from the firmament, turning the forest into an instant crematorium. The girls' screams were muffled by the roar of the flames.

  Then, hell visited the city.

  *BOOM!* Colossal fireballs plummeted from the clouds, obliterating watchtowers and stone castles. Twelve-meter-tall statues, symbols of royal arrogance, were decapitated; their stone heads lay on the ground with shattered eyes. The crowd, in a blind frenzy, trampled their own children in a futile attempt to escape. The sound of war drums echoed like a dying heartbeat.

  — **WHO DARES ATTACK THE KUGUTSU?! WHO DARES ATTACK THE KING?!** — shouted a captain, with the silver tree symbol on his chest, before a titanic shadow obscured the sun.

  From the clouds, the nightmare took shape. A black dragon, whose wings beat with the force of hurricanes, dove over the city. With a single breath of dark fire, entire neighborhoods were reduced to ashes. The captain was swallowed whole, his armor melting before it even hit the beast's throat.

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  On the ground, amidst the smoke and blood, a figure moved with the precision of a surgeon. He was fast, lethal, a hunter in the middle of a carrion feast. Every strike of his blade separated life from the bodies of the military. The city of Kora??o, the most protected place on the island, was being devastated in minutes.

  #### **Part III: The Return of the Pig**

  The resistance was annihilated. The survivors, a row of a hundred trembling soldiers, were forced to kneel in the central square, before the ruins of what had been the King's greatest fortress. Dante was among them, standing out of pure shock, watching the figure leading the massacre.

  Beside a young man with crossed arms and a gestic expression — **Soken** — rested the legendary dragon, **Kaien**. But they were not the ones emanating the most terrifying aura.

  From the mist of soot, **Yuzuki** emerged.

  His eyes were no longer the ones Dante had seen in childhood. They glowed with a demonic red, reflecting the fire consuming the city. His presence was a physical weight, a gravity of pure hatred.

  — I remember this place... — Yuzuki's voice was a whisper that echoed like thunder. — It was here, in this hell, that it all began.

  — Who are you?! — shouted a lieutenant, his voice trembling but charged with suicidal courage.

  — I am Yuzuki... of the Pig Clan.

  The name traveled through the row of soldiers like a deadly shiver. The myth of the prisoner who had escaped returned as the god of destruction.

  — You should have killed me when you had the chance — Yuzuki said, approaching the lieutenant. — I will start with this city. I will show you the path I have chosen. *I want to be hated.*

  The lieutenant, in a final act of blind loyalty, insulted Yuzuki, calling him filthy and calling for the King. Yuzuki let out a loud, sincere laugh, a guffaw that ended in tears of scorn.

  — You shouldn't be afraid of me — Yuzuki hissed into the man's eyes. — You should be afraid of those you call allies.

  Before the lieutenant could react, his own subordinates, seized by despair and the instinct for self-preservation, lunged at him. It was a manual carnage; punches, kicks, and teeth tore the officer apart until nothing remained but a heap of flesh.

  #### **Part IV: The Baptism of Blood**

  The silence that followed was interrupted only by the crackling of the flames. A young soldier — Dante — stepped forward.

  — It's not my fault! — his voice cut through the air. — Many here are not to blame for what happened to you! If you have hatred, attack the King!

  The other soldiers shouted against Dante, calling him a traitor, but Yuzuki only smiled ironically.

  — He tries to save you, and look what he gets: the humiliation of his own companions. — Yuzuki looked at the empty cage where he had spent years. — My little brother was killed like an animal in this place. Many of you laughed. Made jokes. Well... *people die*. That's what the soldiers told me when they imprisoned me. People die. It's life.

  Yuzuki turned to Soken, pointing at Dante.

  — The boy who went against the King... I want him alive. You can release him. Now, as for the rest... **KAIEN, KILL THE REST.**

  Kaien's roar was the last sound many heard. A wave of green and black fire swept the square. Screams of agony rose to the sky as burning bodies ran in random directions before collapsing. Yuzuki watched it all without blinking, his red eyes burning with the satisfaction of a debt paid with interest in blood.

  Dante looked at Yuzuki. The man he called Pig was now his angel of chaos. This was not just an invasion; it was the beginning of a revolution that would burn Kugutsu Island from the inside out.

  Yuzuki knew the regime was weakened. The King's fall was imminent, and he would be the match that lit the fuse. The island would burn, and for Yuzuki, that was the greatest of gifts.