In an instant.
All sound vanished at the exact sa mont.
All of it.
The roar of cannons, the crack of rifles.
The sounds of explosions, footsteps, and groans.
The clanging of tal, the whistling of bullets through the air.
Everything.
Every single thing.
It was as if soone had pressed the mute button.
No.
It wasn't silence.
It was as if the world itself held its breath.
Bullets in flight stopped mid-air.
Lead-gray warheads hovered between two souls.
Three inches from one person's forehead.
Five inches from another person's chest.
They no longer advanced, nor did they fall.
They simply stopped there, like insects frozen in amber.
Artillery shells in flight suspended in the sky.
The rotational inertia from the rifling still remained on the black cast-iron shells.
The propulsion flas at the tail solidified into an orange-red flower.
But the petals no longer flickered.
Souls in the middle of falling stopped in their downward posture.
Bodies tilted at forty-five degrees, arms reaching forward.
Mouths agape, eyes wide.
But they did not hit the ground.
Arms swinging blades stopped at their highest point.
Triggers being pulled stopped at the critical point.
Exploding shells stopped at the mont of expansion, the firelight solidifying into a blooming, static, silent flower.
The entire battlefield.
Frozen.
Tens of thousands of souls.
All perfectly still.
Pavela stood in the center of this solidified battlefield.
Surrounded by countless frozen postures.
Postures of slaughter, postures of death.
Postures of fear, postures of numbness.
Like a giant sculpture garden cast from war.
The wind stopped.
The gunpowder smoke no longer drifted, suspended in the air like gray veils.
The distant black-red pillars of smoke solidified into columns pointing toward the sky.
Quiet, absolute quiet.
For the first ti since its birth, this battlefield was quiet.
Boria knelt in the distance.
His lips were trembling.
The eyes beneath his iron helt grew moist.
Pavela looked around.
Her crimson eyes swept over every solidified soul.
She saw the Usar youth with the missing left side of his face.
He had stood up again, rifle still held in his hands.
The smoke from the muzzle solidified into a wisp of grayish-white thread.
That right eye of his was looking at her now.
It was no longer hollow.
There was sothing inside it.
It was very faint, like a speck of starlight at the bottom of a deep well, but it was certainly there.
It was confusion.
Pavela looked at him, and he looked at Pavela.
Their eyes t.
Across the solidified smoke and static barrage.
Pavela gave him a nod.
It's all right now.
Then, a crimson light lit up from her body.
It was as if soone had ignited a star within her chest.
“As I said—”
“The battlefield will be destroyed at this mont.”
The light pierced through her white dress.
It pierced through her skin, through her ribs, through her slender, thin body.
Then, the light began to spread outward.
Crimson light flowed out from beneath her feet.
Along the muddy ground.
Like spiderwebs, like blood vessels.
More like the ridians of the earth itself being relit.
The first thing the light touched was the mud beneath her feet.
The black mud, soaked in blood and gunpowder residue, began to lose its color inch by inch.
Black beca dark brown, and dark brown beca brown.
Brown beca the original color of the soil.
Deep, moist soil with a fresh, sweet scent.
Carrying the kind of sll you only encounter when turning over a field in spring.
Shrapnel in the mud was dissolving.
They were absorbed by the soil.
Lead, copper, and iron seeped underground as if swallowed by the earth.
Becoming minerals, becoming nutrients.
Becoming so dormant possibility waiting to be awakened.
The light continued to spread.
It touched the first trench.
The walls of the trench began to collapse.
Loosening, softening.
The packed earth beca loose once more.
The wooden planks used for reinforcent began to rot, wood fibers splintering into tiny fragnts and mixing into the soil.
The barbed wire rusted, corroded, the corrosion accelerating until it finally turned into a thin layer of rust powder, blown away by the wind to fall into the soil.
It was being filled in.
Filled in by its own walls.
Soil slid down slowly from both sides, like the earth closing a wound.
Slowly.
Gently.
Finally, only a shallow indentation remained where the trench had been.
Like a small creek that had dried up long ago.
The light touched the first shell crater.
The scorched earth at the crater's edge began to lose its color, black burn marks peeling away layer by layer.
New soil slid slowly from the edges of the crater toward the center.
Stagnant water seeped into the ground.
The crater grew shallower.
Shallower.
Shallower.
Finally, it beca a shallow depression.
The kind of depression where a small pool of water would collect after rain, the kind where dragonflies would skim the surface.
The light touched the first cha wreckage.
That iron giant that had been cut in half at the waist.
Its eyes still glowed with a dim red light.
Its two arms still maintained a forward crawling posture.
The crimson light enveloped it.
The armor plates began to rust.
Ti began to flow faster over this steel body.
One year, ten years, a hundred years.
Paint peeled away, revealing the tal beneath.
The tal oxidized, turning dark brown, then rust-red.
Rivets loosened and fell out one by one, dropping into the soil.
Hydraulic lines dried up, rubber seals cracked and crumbled into powder.
Armor plates buckled and bent, as if being peeled away piece by piece by invisible hands.
The teeth of the gears snapped one by one in the corrosion.
The cha was collapsing.
Slowly, quietly, like an old beast that could finally lie down.
The steel skeleton bent and folded, pressing against the earth.
The light continued to spread.
The speed grew faster and faster.
Trenches were being filled in.
One, two, ten, a hundred.
Soil slid down, wounds closed.
The earth was healing itself.
In the distance.
Those black-red pillars of smoke began to dissipate.
Thick smoke beca mist.
Mist beca a thin veil.
The thin veil was blown away by the wind.
Revealing the gray sky behind it.
The gray sky was still gray.
But at least—
The sky could be seen.
Pavela opened her eyes.
There was no madness in her crimson pupils.
Only an absolute, unshakable ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ peace.
She stood in the center of this transford land.
Beneath her feet was no longer mud.
It was soft, dark brown soil.
Moist and warm.
Her high heels still sank half an inch into the earth.
Those souls.
Those souls frozen in combat postures.
The weapons in their hands changed as well.
Rifles rusted into fragile iron rods, shattering between fingers, fragnts rustling down through the gaps.
Bayonets rusted through and snapped.
Grenades beca lumps of rust, impossible to hold, and no longer needing to be held.
Their uniforms were also changing.
Fabric faded, fibers loosened, as if they had been worn for a hundred years.
The gray-green of Usar faded to a grayish-white.
The deep blue of Victoria faded to a light gray.
Epaulettes fell off, buttons rusted away, and badges oxidized into a blurred patina.
They were still wearing clothes.
But those clothes were no longer uniforms.
They were just so old, faded scraps of cloth that could no longer be distinguished by side.
The Usar youth with the missing left side of his face.
The rifle in his hand finally shattered.
The last piece of rusted iron slid from his stiff fingers.
Falling onto the soft soil.
He lowered his head.
Looking at his empty hands.
His fingers still held the curve of gripping a rifle.
But there was nothing left to grip.
The Victorian soldier opposite him was the sa.
The hole in his chest was still there.
But his weapon was gone too.
He also lowered his head, looking at his hands.
The two of them stood on a quiet open field.
Face to face.
Less than three ters apart.
Between them, there were no more bullets, no more smoke, no more trenches.
Only soft soil.
And the wind blowing from afar, carrying the scent of the earth.
The Usar youth raised his head.
Looking at the person opposite him with his remaining right eye.
The Victorian soldier also raised his head.
Their eyes t.
This ti, there was no hatred, no fear.
There wasn't even confusion anymore.
Only a long, bone-deep weariness.
And a sense of relief.
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