Chapter 12: The Harvest of Sorrow

The silence that had fallen over the fields before Jade City was more profound and more terrible than the cacophony of battle that had preceded it. The great Rose offensive had broken against the Jade Ring like a wave against granite, leaving behind a tide of wreckage and flesh that stretched as far as the eye could see. The once-green plains were now a churned, muddy morass of blackened earth, splintered steel, and crimson.

General Guths walked through this landscape of ultimate ruin, a solitary figure of calm amidst the carnage. He moved with a slow, deliberate pace, his polished boots sinking into the mud thickened with blood. The air was a foul cocktail of scents—cordite, spilled fuel, the coppery tang of blood, and the first, faint, sweet hint of corruption. The morning sun, pale and weak, struggled through the haze of smoke and rising steam, casting long, distorted shadows from the countless broken forms.

It was a gallery of the dead, curated by the brutal hand of modern warfare. Bodies, most in the now-filthy and tattered sailor uniforms of the Rose Kingdom, lay in heaps, tangled in the wire, slumped over shattered machine gun nests, or simply lying where they fell. Limbs lay severed and distant from their owners. Torsos were ripped open, revealing glistening, dark ruins within. The faces, many of them still hauntingly beautiful even in death, were frozen in a spectrum of final emotions: agonized screams, vacant stares, or a terrible, peaceful repose. The sheer scale of the slaughter was biblical.

In Guths’s hands, he carried not a rifle, but an object of personal reverence: a long, exquisitely crafted Loran officer’s katana, a spoil of war from a previous campaign that he had personally refinished and maintained. The polished steel of the blade caught the sickly light, a sliver of cold purity in the universal filth. His grip on the tsuka-ito (hilt wrap) was tight, his knuckles white, and a fine, almost imperceptible tremor ran through his hand. It was not fatigue, nor was it revulsion. It was the physical manifestation of an excitement so profound it threatened to overwhelm his usual icy composure.

His storm-grey eyes, wide and intensely focused, scanned the horrific vista with the rapt attention of a connoisseur in a grand museum. He didn't see tragedy; he saw potential. A low, breathy whisper escaped his lips, meant only for himself. "So many... so perfectly broken. A harvest of exquisite sorrow. Each one a masterpiece... I want them all."

A squad of his veteran soldiers followed at a respectful distance, their faces grim and set. They had long grown accustomed to their general's peculiarities, the way he spoke of the dead as if they were art objects. They exchanged silent, knowing glances, a mix of unease and weary acceptance. This was the price of serving under a genius; you had to endure his madness.

Guths paused beside a particularly high pile of Rose soldiers, their young bodies intertwined in a final, macabre embrace. He gestured with a casual flick of his hand, his voice cutting through the oppressive silence with chilling clarity. "The heads. Harvest them all. Catalog them by unit and approximate location. I want them prepared for my review." He then added, as an afterthought, "And the bodies... do not burn them. Transport them to the central cold storage warehouses in the city. Ensure they are preserved."

A collective, sharp intake of breath came from the soldiers behind him. The order to decapitate the dead was one thing—a brutal but known form of psychological warfare. But to preserve the entire mountain of corpses? The logistics were monstrous, the implication unnerving. They looked out at the thousands, the tens of thousands of bodies, and felt a primal dread. But they were his men. They nodded mutely and began the grisly task, their movements mechanical.

The "cleaning" began in earnest. Soldiers moved through the field, their bayonets ready. They checked for signs of life, not to offer aid, but to deliver a swift, merciless end. It was a systematic culling.

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Guths participated directly, his katana finding its purpose. He would approach a groaning, twitching form, his footsteps silent in the mud. He would look down at the face, often still beautiful despite the grime and pain.

"Age? Name? What did you do before this?" he would ask, his voice unnervingly calm, a professor conducting a morbid survey.

Some would answer through gritted teeth, begging for mercy. Others would curse him. Their responses determined nothing; the outcome was always the same. A quick, precise thrust of the katana's point, or on rare occasions, when the mood took him, a slower, more ceremonial cut. He documented their final moments not on paper, but in the gallery of his memory.

It was then that a sound, sharper and more vibrant than the low moans of the dying, caught his heightened senses. A pained, gasping cry, laced with a fire that had long been extinguished in the others.

His head turned, predator-like, towards the source.

There, propped against the shattered wheel of a Rose artillery piece, was a girl. Her hair was a striking, azure-blue, cut short at her shoulders, a vibrant splash of color in the monochrome gore. Her eyes, wide and blazing with defiant pain, were a brilliant, clear cerulean. Her features were delicate, a perfectly sculpted nose, high cheekbones, and lips now bitten raw. A dark, wet stain spread from a gunshot wound in her side, but it was the fury in her gaze that held him captive.

Guths walked over, his earlier tremor now completely stilled, replaced by a focused intensity. He looked down at her, and an audible, involuntary swallow moved his throat. The raw, untamed beauty, the life that still burned so fiercely in her eyes... it was intoxicating.

"You," he said, his voice a soft, intimate murmur. "What is your name?"

The girl glared up at him, her chest heaving with ragged breaths. "Go to hell," she spat, each word a dagger. "Just kill me and be done with it, you monster."

A genuine, appreciative smile touched Guths's lips. "Splendid," he breathed. "I do so admire spirit. It makes the transition so much more... poignant."

Without another word of warning, the katana flashed. It was not a killing blow. The blade, razor-sharp, swept down in a clean, brutal arc, biting deep into the junction of her shoulder and neck. It severed muscle, bone, and artery, and her left arm, from the shoulder down, fell to the mud with a soft, wet thud.

The girl's scream this time was not one of dull pain, but of sheer, uncomprehending agony and horror. It ripped through the air, a brief, piercing shriek that was swiftly choked off as she stared at the place where her limb had been.

"Now," Guths's voice was still calm, a gentle prompt. "Your name. Let's not make this more difficult than it needs to be."

Tears of utter agony and broken will streamed down her face, mingling with the dirt. "L... Lina... My name is Lina... Please... no more..."

"Age?" he continued, as if taking down information for a form.

"Nineteen..." she sobbed, her body going into shock, her head lolling back against the wheel.

"Nineteen," Guths repeated, savoring the number. He watched the light of defiance in her brilliant blue eyes gutter and fade, replaced by the void of overwhelming suffering and impending death. He had recorded it. The moment of breaking.

He raised the katana again, its blade now stained with her blood. This time, the motion was slower, more deliberate. He did not chop. He began to cut, with precise, sawing motions, through the remaining flesh and vertebrae of her neck. It was a gruesome, intimate act, a craftsman finishing his work.

The terrible sounds of the process were the only ones that mattered in his world. When it was done, he knelt in the mud, paying no mind to the filth on his immaculate uniform trousers. He picked up the head of the girl named Lina by its striking blue hair. Her cerulean eyes were still open, the final expression one of shattered pain and terror, a perfect contrast to the vibrant life that had been there moments before.

He held it up, studying it from every angle, completely engrossed.

"A perfect addition," he whispered to the silent, dead face. "Welcome to the collection."

He stood, leaving the headless, armless torso against the gun wheel, and continued his walk through the field of the dead, his men silently following in his wake, the scale of his darkness now as vast and immeasurable as the slaughter surrounding them.