?Chapter 1: Prologue (I)

A bloody war raged on in a remote corner of a large continent. However, it would be more fitting to call it a genocide due to the significant military superiority one side had over the other and how they did kill every man, woman, and child in their path.

Heavily equipped soldiers in blue military uniforms, alongside tanks and other forms of armored fighting vehicles carrying guns, invaded a large city, butchering its people.

The city, whose streets were stained red with blood, was the home of the Crimson People, a race known for their characteristic white hair and eyes with red irises.

Crimson People were a reclusive race that reached the desert hundreds of years ago. Despite the harsh environment, through their hard work, they managed to thrive, constructing a country that resisted the passage of time.

Unfortunately for the Crimson People, the desert they occupied drew the greed of the Great Star Kingdom.

Previous Star Kings had never cared for those territories since they believed it was impossible to make them habitable, but the Crimson People did it.

Now that the desert had value, the current Star King, Sunit the Great, decided to take it. The Crimson People have proven to be too tenacious and hard to control, so he chose a more direct approach instead of wasting time making them part of the kingdom.

The original appearance of this chapter can be found at N0v3l.B1n.

At first, the Great Star Kingdom implemented a diplomatic approach, but the Crimson People would never accept the kingdom’s conditions since it basically degraded them to slaves.

.....

The Star King knew that would happen. After putting on a charade for the masses, vilifying the Crimson People, and making it clear that diplomacy was no longer an option, he took a random excuse and began a war of extermination.

Although the Crimson People fought bravely, they were no match for the enormous Great Star Kingdom, and in less than a month, the enemy army invaded their country’s capital.

A boy no more than five years old sat on a nearby mountain. His white hair and red eyes made it clear he was part of the Crimson People. He saw everything that happened in the city.

The brutality and atrocity of any war could create deep psychological wounds in any adult, so that horrible scene should have been too much for a small child to handle. Yet, the boy showed nothing.

Those small eyes showed no fear, no hate, no sadness, nothing at all.

Footsteps alerted the child, and he turned to the right only to see five men clad in military uniforms rise through the mountain edge and reach his location.

He saw their weapons and how some of the soldiers had smiles full of madness and bloodlust, but even then, he showed nothing. After giving the five a glance, he turned his eyes toward the city.

“Here is one of them. Let’s finish this small rat.” One of the soldiers raised his rifle and aimed at the boy. A twisted smile emerged as he pictured what would happen once he fired the bullet.

“Stop!” Another soldier yelled to his fellow countryman while pushing down the rifle aiming at the child. This man’s eyes were so full of rage and guilt that he could not hide it even if he wanted it.

Seeing how someone dared deprive him of his fun, the soldier with the twisted smile burst with rage.

“What do you think you are doing, Jona? Our mission is to kill every single one of these rats!”

The guilt and rage in the soldier named Jona only grew stronger as he heard that.

“They order us to kill women and children. How the fuck can we obey such insane orders!”

“You should know the price for going against our orders!” The soldier with the twisted smile was relentless and would not give up.

“We can say we did not see him. There is no need to keep falling into this depravity.” Jona did not let go of the rifle as he turned toward the child. “Child, run now!”

The child did not move and kept looking toward the city. Anyone that saw such behavior would think that the child’s mind had broken and could not process what was happening.

“You see, he has lost his mind. It is best if we end his suffering now.” The soldier, full of bloodlust, managed to push Jona away and aimed the rifle at the child.

Before the soldier could pull the trigger, the boy aimed his hand toward them before clenching his fist.

Immediately after that, earth spikes emerged from the ground, impaling the five soldiers and killing them instantly. The child killed both the good and the bad with that mere hand movement.

Just like seeing his people dying did not cause anything on him, killing those soldiers also failed to generate a reaction. Now that the distraction was over, the boy concentrated on the city again.

“Had I dominated this power sooner, I could have saved them.”

Those words sounded like a man riddled with guilt, but the boy expressed them without emotion. He was merely stating a fact, nothing more and nothing less.

He gave one last glance to the city before standing up and leaving. As he walked away, he aimed his hand toward the dead soldiers, pulling the blood out of their bodies and toward him.

Blood streams moved around the child’s body before solidifying and forming a red robe. There were two words in the back written with milky white threads.

“RED KING.”

At the tender age of four years and three days old, the Red King saw how everybody he ever knew perished.