Lue no longer knew what was right and what was wrong.
Or perhaps-
he had simply forgotten how to care.
The line that had once separated the two had disappeared long ago, washed away beneath something darker, something far more consuming than reason or morality. He could no longer remember when it had happened. Maybe there had been a moment when he still understood the difference, when some small part of him had hesitated before crossing that line.
If there had been-
he couldn't find it anymore.
Thought itself had become distant. Unnecessary.
A burden he no longer carried.
All that remained was instinct.
Lue moved forward.
And everything in his path ceased to exist.
He did not cut them down with anger. He did not strike with force or fury. There was no hatred behind his movements, no expression of rage on his face, nothing that could make what he was doing feel human.
He simply erased them.
One after another.
Like a hand tearing a page from a book.
No blood-curdling screams.
No bodies left behind.
No struggle that lasted long enough to matter.
Just absence.
As though they had never been there in the first place.
As though their lives had never been written at all.
Lue had lost count.
He no longer knew how many people had fallen beneath his blade, how long he had been moving, or where it had all started. Time had become meaningless somewhere along the way, reduced to nothing more than movement after movement after movement.
But the hunger-
that never faded.
It didn't slow.
It didn't weaken.
It only grew.
More.
More.
More.
The word clawed at him from within, tearing through the hollow space inside his chest and filling it with a need he couldn't understand and no longer tried to resist. Every time another existence disappeared, there was a brief silence inside him.
And then the emptiness returned.
Larger than before.
Hungrier.
So he kept going.
Until, at some point, Lue reached his limit.
Not the limit of killing.
Not the limit of destruction.
But the limit of pretending.
The fragile shell he had wrapped around himself- the one that had managed to resemble something human for so long- had begun to crack.
And this time, he didn't try to hold it together.
He tore it away.
Lue stood in the middle of a river.
Not a river of water.
A river of blood.
It flowed beneath his feet, thick and endless, carrying with it the remnants of countless lives. The ground was no longer recognizable beneath the crimson flood, and the air itself felt heavy with the scent of death, clinging to his skin, his clothes, his breath, as though even the world around him had been stained by what he had done.
Lue looked down.
At what remained of humanity.
Nothing.
For a long moment, he simply stood there.
Around him, silence spread.
Not because the battlefield had grown quiet.
Because fear had swallowed every voice.
No one moved.
No one dared.
No one attacked.
They only watched him.
And Lue-
he had always been the one to make the first move.
So when he finally did, they ran.
Panic shattered whatever courage remained.
Bodies collided as soldiers stumbled over one another in their desperate attempt to escape. Footsteps scattered across the blood-soaked ground. Voices broke into frightened cries, some calling for others to run, some simply screaming without knowing what else to do.
They fled from him.
From the thing that stood where a person should have been.
Lue didn't chase them.
Not immediately.
His vision had begun to blur, the battlefield around him dissolving into a sea of red and movement. Faces became indistinct shapes. Voices blended together until they were nothing more than meaningless noise.
Meaningless.
All of it.
He could no longer tell where one person ended and another began.
Then-
something stopped.
In the middle of all that chaos, among the bodies rushing away from him, one figure remained completely still.
Lue's steps slowed.
His eyes settled on the figure.
Something inside him shifted.
Not the hunger.
Not the instinct.
Something else.
He didn't understand why his feet began moving again, but they did.
Slowly.
One step.
Then another.
As though something deeper than instinct had taken hold of him and was quietly pulling him forward.
In his vision, there was only blood.
Only red.
Only ruin.
And yet-
that figure didn't disappear into it.
Lue's steps faltered.
Just for a moment.
His eyes widened.
Something flickered inside them.
Something that had not existed within him for a very, very long time.
"Qian…?"
His voice broke around the name.
The word felt strangely unfamiliar in his mouth, even though he had said it before.
So many times.
It was fragile.
Almost afraid.
Lue stared at him as though he were seeing something impossible.
Then his pace quickened.
One step became another.
Then another.
Until he was running.
Faster.
Desperate.
As if the distance between them mattered.
As if, somehow, it could still be closed.
When he finally reached him, Lue didn't stop to think.
He didn't hesitate.
He simply stepped forward and pulled Qian into his arms.
For the first time-
it was Lue who held on first.
"Qian… Qian…"
His voice was softer now, trembling at the edges. The weight he had been carrying for so long seemed to shift all at once, cracking open something he had kept buried beneath layers of emptiness and blood.
"I- "
The word caught in his throat.
He tried again.
Nothing came.
"Pia- Mom… Xiao…"
His arms tightened around Qian.
"They… they…"
His breathing became uneven, each breath catching somewhere between his chest and throat as though even speaking had suddenly become difficult.
"You know- Xiao… she let me hold her…"
His voice trembled harder.
"Why…?"
His fingers curled into Qian's clothing.
He held him tighter, as though anchoring himself to something real.
"She didn't even move…"
The words came slower this time.
A pause.
"She was cold…"
His voice nearly disappeared.
"…in fire."
Silence followed.
Qian didn't pull away.
He didn't tell Lue to stop.
He didn't ask him to explain.
Instead, he slowly lifted his hands and held Lue's face.
Carefully.
Gently.
As though he were touching something fragile.
His fingers moved through Lue's hair, brushing away the strands that had fallen messily across his face. The touch was steady- far too steady compared to the chaos surrounding them.
Lue went still.
For a moment, everything seemed to.
The battlefield.
The blood.
The distant footsteps.
Even the voices that had been screaming moments ago.
Qian stepped closer, closing what little distance remained between them.
And then-
he leaned in.
Closer.
Closer than usual.
His voice was so quiet it almost disappeared beneath the silence.
"Live a long life for me… a good one, okay?.."
Lue stared at him.
Qian's eyes never left his.
His hands brushed through Lue's hair one last time.
Then his expression softened.
"I'm sorry, Lue…"
And then-
he collapsed.
Just like that.
Lue froze.
For a second, his mind simply refused to understand.
Nothing connected.
The words.
The movement.
The weight suddenly falling against him.
None of it made sense.
"Qian…?"
There was no response.
His knees hit the ground hard.
He caught him before he could fall completely, pulling him close as his hands moved over Qian's face, his shoulders, his arms- almost clumsily now, searching for something.
Anything.
Some sign that this wasn't real.
That he had misunderstood.
That Qian would open his eyes and look at him again.
But his skin-
was cold.
Again.
"Hah…"
The sound that escaped Lue barely resembled a breath.
Something inside him broke.
And then-
he laughed.
"Hahahahahah- "
The laughter tore through the silence, sharp and uneven, cracking apart at every edge.
It wasn't happiness.
It wasn't madness in the way it had been before.
It was something far more broken.
Tears began falling from his eyes.
Uncontrolled.
One after another.
The way they never had before.
Not for all the people he had erased.
Not for all the blood that had covered his hands.
Not even for himself.
Until now.
And now it was too late.
His fingers tightened around Qian slightly, as though refusing to let go.
As though if he held him tightly enough, he could keep him here.
Keep him from disappearing.
Ever again.
His hand reached blindly across the ground.
His fingers searched through the blood and dirt until they finally found it.
The doll.
Small.
Light.
Blue.
The one Qian had given him.
Lue stared at it for a long moment.
"Stupid… doll…"
His voice barely held together.
He lay down beside Qian.
Just like before.
Just like those nights they had once shared- quiet, close, safe, when the world outside had felt far away and neither of them had needed to say anything.
Lue turned slightly and pulled Qian closer, wrapping his arms around him in a way he had always wanted to, but had never allowed himself to do.
His face was close to Qian's.
His tears disappeared into the blood beneath them.
"Your eyes… they are unusual too…"
His voice broke.
"Blue…"
The word had been stuck in his throat for far too long.
Now, finally, it came out.
Weakly.
Barely more than a whisper.
He raised the little blue doll toward the sky, his eyes following it for a moment as it rested against the distant light above them.
Then his gaze slowly drifted back down.
Back to Qian's face.
The battlefield stood still.
No one moved.
No one attacked.
No one dared to disturb what lay before them.
While Lue simply remained there in the blood beside Qian, holding him tightly, as though he could hide from reality if he refused to let go.
The one who had erased existence itself-
lay there defenseless.
Broken.
Human.