Julius stared up at Luca in absolute horror.
Just monts ago, he had truly believed that he had escaped.
That sohow, through pure instinct or luck, he had avoided the trap and saved himself.
The relief had been so overwhelming that he hadn’t even felt the sting of Luca’s cruel words.
But now Luca was holding the gun. Pointing it at him.
Talking about using him as a live demonstration as he was having none of it.
"No—no, you can’t!"
Julius scrambled backward on the grass, his voice climbing into a desperate, pleading register.
"You can’t do sothing like this! I haven’t actually hard you! I didn’t pull the trigger! You have no right to—to shoot !"
He was trying to sound threatening, trying to summon so of his old authority, but it ca out as nothing more than the terrified whimper of a cornered animal.
"This goes against the Goddess’s’ wishes! You’ll be punished! You can’t just shoot !"
Luca listened to this rambling with an amused smile, letting Julius exhaust himself.
When the male elf finally fell silent, trembling on the ground, Luca spoke.
"You’re absolutely correct, Julius."
Julius blinked, confused.
Luca continued, his voice light and conversational.
"Even though I really want to do this—"
He raised his hand slowly, then swung it down in a chopping motion.
"—and just whack your head clean off your shoulders, send it flying across the clearing...I can’t."
He waved his hand vaguely, as if feeling so invisible restraint.
"Sothing’s holding back. So rule, so binding. I don’t fully understand it myself, but it’s there."
He shook his head with exaggerated sorrow.
"Really. Such a pity."
Julius’s face flickered with hope.
But then Luca smiled brightly again.
"But that doesn’t an I won’t have a live target to shoot today."
He turned his gaze toward the gathered male elves.
They noticed imdiately.
"No! NO!" One of them shouted, jumping back. "Don’t look at us! We haven’t done anything either!"
"We’re innocent! You can’t touch us!"
"You can’t—you can’t just—"
Luca waved a dismissive hand.
"Relax. It’s not you either." His smile took on an edge. "Not yet, anyway. I’ll kill you all eventually, of course. But the opportunity hasn’t arrived."
The casual way he said it like discussing the weather, sent shivers down every spine in the clearing.
He turned back to the confused elves.
"But there are other living targets. Perfect for this occasion."
Without another word, he raised his hand.
A portal shimred into existence behind him, and he stepped through, disappearing from view.
The elves exchanged bewildered glances.
"What’s happening?"
"Where did he go?"
"Is he actually going to kill soone?"
"Who? Who could he possibly—"
Nyx alone wore a different expression.
Her eyes glead with anticipation, lips curved in a smile that suggested she was very much looking forward to whatever ca next.
The portal rippled again and Luca stepped back through.
But this ti he was dragging two figures behind him.
Gasps erupted from every direction.
The newcors were unmistakably human—bound tightly with rope, their clothes torn and filthy as if they’d been living in a cell.
Gags covered their mouths, muffling their panicked attempts to scream.
They thrashed and struggled, eyes wild with terror as one mont they had been in their prison cell; the next, they were in a forest surrounded by elves who stared at them like exotic creatures.
Nothing about this made sense to their terrified minds.
Luca gestured toward them proudly.
"These two will be our live demonstration subjects!" He announced. "They volunteered for this glorious opportunity to contribute to elven education."
He paused, then added with a chuckle.
"Well, ’volunteered’ might be generous. They didn’t have much say in the matter. But does that really matter, does it?"
The elves didn’t know how to feel.
On one hand, the idea of witnessing an actual execution was horrifying.
Murder, even of a human was not sothing any of them had ever imagined being part of. Their hearts weren’t built for such darkness.
On the other hand...they were humans.
Weren’t humans the enemy? The ones who hunted them, wanted drive them from their lands and kill them?
But no. That wasn’t fair either.
They knew that many humans were simply trying to live peaceful lives, just like elves.
The world wasn’t divided into good elves and evil humans. It was more complicated than that.
Hesitation rippled through the crowd.
Then Luna stepped forward.
"Luca." Her voice was steady, though her hands trembled slightly. "I understand the educational value. I understand you want to show us what bullets do to living flesh."
"But...do we need to do this? To innocent humans?"
She looked at the bound prisoners, who were crying behind their gags, pathetic and terrified.
"Is this necessary? Do we really need to see bloodshed this badly?"
Murmurs of agreent spread through the female elves.
They didn’t want this. Didn’t want to beco the kind of people who watched executions for entertainnt.
Luca held up a hand.
"Don’t worry about that." His smile took on a knowing quality. "These two aren’t innocent."
He walked over to the prisoners, who cowered as he approached.
"Let tell you about our guests." His voice carried clearly across the silent clearing. "These two brothers are quite famous in certain circles."
"They have a very particular...hobby."
He began to circle them slowly.
"They travel through the countryside, looking for isolated hos. Farmsteads. Small villages on the outskirts. And they look for one thing in particular—houses where young won live alone. Or where the n are away working."
"Places with easy targets."
The elves listened, confused but attentive.
"Here’s how it works. One brother covers himself in blood—animal blood, usually, but sotis they get creative—and staggers up to the door, pretending to be terribly injured."
"The other brother plays the frantic sibling, begging for help, for shelter, for soone to save his dying brother."
Luca’s voice remained light, which made what ca next even more chilling.
"And of course, the won let them in. Who wouldn’t?"
"Two desperate souls, one bleeding, both begging for rcy. It’s the compassionate thing to do."
He stopped circling.
"That’s when the act ends."
The clearing was dead silent.
"The mont they’re inside, the pretense drops. One brother holds the woman down. The other..."
He paused, letting the implication hang.
"He takes his ti with her. And they don’t bother tying her up, you see. They prefer to feel her struggle. To feel her fight against them while they destroy her, piece by piece."
Luna’s face had gone pale. Lulu was trembling. All around, female elves were staring at the bound humans with dawning horror.
"And when they’re done—when they’re both completely satisfied—they don’t leave witnesses."
Luca’s voice hardened.
"They break her neck. Then they loot the house and move on to the next target."
He looked at the prisoners with cold disdain.
"These two have done this more tis than they can count. Their victims are scattered across the human continent."
"Young won. Mothers. Daughters. Sisters. All dead because these pieces of garbage wanted to ’have fun.’"
"Now..." He threw the ball back to their lane. "Do you really think that these two are innocent?"
The shift in the crowd was instantaneous and absolute.
Every single elf—female, young, old now looked at the brothers with eyes of pure, cold disgust.
The pity that had existed monts ago was completely gone, replaced by sothing far darker.
Luna’s earlier hesitation had vanished. Her jaw was set, her eyes hard as stone.
Lulu’s trembling had stopped. She was staring at the brothers like she would happily feed them to her chickens herself.
Nyx looked like she wanted to take them to her special shed imdiately.
And the brothers?
They continued to cry, to plead through their gags, to shake their heads desperately as if begging for a rcy they had never shown their own victims.
But no one in the clearing felt an ounce of sympathy for them anymore.
Luca observed the shifting expressions of the crowd with quiet satisfaction.
The pity was gone.
In their place was sothing harder, sothing more prepared for the realities of their world.
And now that there was no more resistance, he picked up the Tommy gun, feeling its familiar weight, and walked toward the two bound brothers.
They thrashed against their ropes, muffled screams escaping through their gags, but he ignored them completely.
Instead, he turned to face the assembled elves.
"The reason I’m doing this..." He began, his voice carrying across the silent clearing. "...isn’t just to show you how bullets tear through flesh."
"That process is...informative, certainly. Interesting in its own way."
He glanced toward Nyx, who was practically vibrating with anticipation.
"I’m sure Nyx over there is dying to see what happens."
Nyx didn’t even try to deny it. She nodded eagerly, her eyes gleaming with an almost feverish light.
Luca chuckled, then his expression grew more serious.
"But more than that, this is about showing you the true terror of this world."
He gestured around at the clearing, at the scattered targets, at the cases of bows and guns.
"No matter how many tis you shoot a gun at a target. No matter how many arrows you loose at practice dummies. No matter how many axes you swing at dead wood—none of that shows you the reality. The cruelty. The pain."
"The absolute horror that this world can visit upon you in the span of a single heartbeat."
He cast his gaze across the clearing.
"This demonstration isn’t for entertainnt. It’s a asure."
"A necessary step to make sure you understand that life isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. That everything can turn into a nightmare in seconds."
He looked at the youngest elves in the crowd.
"Which is why the children don’t need to see this."
Imdiately, the elders began ushering the little ones away. Fefe, Lisa and her friends were led back toward the village, their innocent voices carrying questions that no one answered.
"Why do we have to leave? What’s going to happen? Can’t we stay?"
Their questions faded into the distance.
Luca turned back to the remaining elves—the adults, the young adults, those who had chosen to stay.
"And I’m not forcing any of you to watch either." His gaze swept over them. "What you’re about to see...it won’t be easy to stomach."
"You’ve only recently started butchering chickens, and that was difficult for many of you. This?"
He gestured at the brothers.
"This is a living human being about to be torn apart. It will be grueso. It will be horrifying. It will likely make you sick."
"So, if you want to leave, leave now. No judgnt."
Everyone hesitated.
The thought of watching a human die, of seeing flesh and bone shredded by bullets was nauseating.
After all, humans looked so much like elves.
Sa basic form. Sa expressions of fear and pain.
Watching one be obliterated would feel almost like watching one of their own.
But none of the older elves left.
And the younger ones—Luna, Lulu, Ivy, Selma, and the others held their ground as well.
They gripped each other’s hands for comfort, their faces pale but determined.
They were not the sa elves who had lived peacefully and ignorantly before.
They knew now that danger lurked in the world. They knew they had to prepare themselves for horrors.
So they stayed.
Seeing this, Luca felt a swell of pride.
They were changing. Growing. Becoming what they needed to be.
He then looked down at the two brothers, still crying, still pleading through their gags.
"You know, you two are lucky, in a way."
He said in a ceremonious manner like he was talking to sacrificial lambs.
"Most criminals like you die in obscurity. Alone. Forgotten. But you?"
He smiled.
"Your deaths will be witnessed by the prestigious elves of the forest. What an honor, to have such an audience for your final monts."
But even though he said that, the brothers shook their heads violently, tears streaming, desperate sounds escaping their gags.
Pleading. Begging. Promising anything if he would just let them go.
But Luca just grabbed the first one by the hair and dragged him to the center of the clearing.
The man thrashed, tried to dig his heels into the grass, but Luca’s grip was absolute.
He dropped him in the open space, then stepped back, checking the Tommy gun one final ti.
Loaded. Safety off. Ready.
He aid at the man’s abdon.
The elves held their breath.
...And he fired.
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