The little girl lifted her head, her face filled with terror and her eyes overflowing with tears, and looked at her brother. Tears fell from her cheeks like drops of rain. In a broken voice, trembling with sobs, she said,
"Miran… big brother…"
At that very moment, the whip came down hard across Miran's back.
Miran let out a loud scream.
The whip rose again and struck his back once more.
Another cry burst from his throat—louder, more painful than before.
The slave trader glared at him with anger.
"I told you I don't like seeing slaves doing things like that… You're nothing more than animals. So stop showing human feelings."
And without pause, mercilessly, he kept bringing the whip down again and again across his back.
Heavy blows rained down on Meera's back. Endless tears streamed from his eyes—just like those of his sister and the two other children beside them—and his cries of pain echoed through the forest without end.
Miran felt the heavy, relentless blows crashing down on his back. Each strike of the whip burned against his skin like fire. Warm blood flowed from the wounds across his back, soaking into his worn clothes and dripping onto the dirt.
The endless tears of his sister and the two other children fell onto the ground without pause, mixing with their broken cries.
The pain became so intense that the sounds around him slowly lost their shape. The soldiers' venomous laughter and the slave trader's cruel cackling no longer reached his ears clearly—it was as if everything came from behind a thick wall.
The world spun around him.
His vision blurred, yet he could still make out his sister's tear-soaked face—her trembling lips calling his name.
His own groans grew weaker and weaker. Breathing became difficult. His chest burned, and his legs no longer had the strength to hold him up.
In his mind, only one thought repeated itself, stubborn and desperate:
' I have to protect Rona… I'm her big brother… it's my duty...I have to protect Rona'
But the thought remained unfinished.
Suddenly, everything was swallowed by darkness.
The strength left his body, his knees buckled, and he collapsed lifelessly onto his sister.
When Miran's body fell onto her back, Rona felt his weight and her breath caught in her chest.
In terror, she cried out,
"Miran… big brother? What happened? Why aren't you saying anything? Can you hear me? Miran?!"
She struggled to pull herself out from under his body and gently laid his head on the ground. His face was pale, his eyes remained closed, and his breathing rose in weak, uneven breaths.
With trembling hands, Rona grabbed his shoulders and began shaking him.
"Brother… please wake up… open your eyes…"
Her tears fell endlessly onto Miran's face and chest. Sobbing, she said,
"I won't ever ask for sweet water again… I promise… just wake up…"
Then, with fear gripping her entire body, she turned her head toward the two twin boys who were clutching each other tightly, trembling from their crying.
"Toncha… Goncha… Miran won't get up… he won't open his eyes… what should I do to make him open them…?"
The trader and his three men only responded to the scene with loud laughter. Long, ugly smiles stretched across their faces, lifting the corners of their lips as if the children's suffering were a spectacle worth watching. Their heavy breaths mixed with the short, dry chuckles that escaped their throats.
Their gazes slid over the trembling bodies of the children without a trace of mercy. It was as if every scream and every tear had a sweet taste to them, something they savored as they watched.
Among them stood another man—Zobi. Unlike the others, he did not laugh. He simply watched the scene with cold eyes, his expression unmoving. Yet the tightness of his jaw and the hard lines on his face made it clear that what he was seeing did not please him.
Within the endless darkness of Lioran's inner world, Anahita stood with her translucent body, a very faint light radiating from her.
Tears fell from her eyes, but even those tears never fully reached the ground; before they could touch anything, they vanished into the darkness.
Her lips trembled with grief, and her breathing was heavy and uneven, as if every word she spoke burned another piece of her soul away.
"You damned idiot… when are you finally going to move? Go… or they'll all die from the pain and the crying…"
Lioran, however, remained exactly as he always was—unchanged. There was no sign of sympathy on his face. No frown, no hesitation. Only a cold silence.
His gaze moved calmly and without emotion across the scene before settling on the soldiers—eyes that held neither anger nor urgency.
"Check their levels. It's time to teach those bad people a lesson."
Anahita wiped the transparent tears from her face with her hands.
"Fine, you bastard… but please save them quickly."
Her gaze fell upon the three soldiers who were laughing loudly, mocking the children's suffering. The expression in Anahita's eyes changed; it was as if something inside her went quiet, and something else replaced it. Her normal sight faded away.
The soldiers' faces blurred before her. She no longer saw their features—only faint orange auras leaking from their bodies, unstable and flickering in the air.
After a brief moment of observation, she spoke.
"Those three… they're orange-aura swordsmen."
Anahita then shifted her gaze from the soldiers and fixed it on the whip-holding trader. She saw no aura coming from him at all.
With a voice that carried a trace of anger, she said,
"And that damned trader isn't a warrior either."
Lioran, who had already guessed as much from the beginning and knew they were nothing more than weak men, withdrew his cold gaze from the trader and the soldiers.
His eyes slowly shifted and locked onto Zobi—the man standing a little farther away, silently leaning against a tree trunk. He wasn't laughing, nor was he interfering. He was simply watching.
"I already figured these idiots were weak… so that just leaves the last one."
Anahita didn't waste a second. Her gaze moved straight to Zobi, the man who stood motionless against the tree.
The aura leaking from his body was red—heavier, denser, and at least twice as strong as the soldiers' aura.
"He's stronger than them… an early-stage red aura."
Hearing Anahita's explanation, Lioran calmly lifted his legs from the tree branch he had been sitting on. His body slipped silently through the air and landed softly on the ground; even the dry leaves beneath his feet made no sound.
Daylight filtered through the branches above, shifting the shadows across the forest floor.
"So they're all weaker than me… what a shame."
"What are you going to do?" Anahita asked. "Kill them?"
Lioran didn't answer immediately.
He began to walk—slowly, deliberately. Sunlight slipped through the trees, brushing across his red hair before disappearing again as he moved.
The children's cries, their sobs, and the filthy laughter of the men still echoed through the forest.
"No… I'll turn them into my dogs. For now, I need subordinates to see how things are in this world… and to find a clue about my mother's killer."
Then he spoke aloud, his voice cold.
"I don't like people who separate children from their mothers."
The slave trader, Zobi, and the three soldiers suddenly froze when they heard Lioran's voice. The filthy laughter of the trader and the soldiers died in their throats, and at the same time their heads turned toward the direction the voice had come from.
Their eyes darted between the tree trunks, where daylight broke through the branches and restless shadows stretched across the ground.
A moment later, a faint movement appeared among the trees. Branches parted, and a tall, steady human shadow stepped into their view.
"Who the hell are you? Show yourself, bastard!"
One of the soldiers shouted angrily, though a trace of uncertainty lingered in his voice.
The shadow moved closer. Boots settled softly against the dry earth. Lioran's figure slowly emerged from between the trees. Daylight fell across his emotionless face, yet the coldness in his eyes did not change even under the light.
"Don't worry… you'll know who I am soon enough."
Lioran stepped fully out from the trees and began walking toward them. In a cold voice, he said,
"But here's a piece of advice… when you speak to me, choose your words carefully—unless you have a death wish. Because I'm not a patient or kind man."