Vol 1 Chapter 3: The City Witnesses the Birth of the Urban Legend

POV: Townspeople Watch a Hero Being Overtaken

Morning broke slowly—
not like a beginning,
but like the remains of a dying night.

The sun rose not to shine,
but to witness.

The sky seemed too clean, too peaceful,
as if the universe itself was trying to forget
that last night it had drunk blood.

But the city was too quiet. There was no sound of the market. No children. Only the wind— cold, and carrying the smell of drying iron.

A mother walked along a stone path. The rattan basket in her hand swayed lightly. She wanted to buy bread and milk, as usual. But this morning…was not an ordinary morning.

The town square that was usually full of the laughter and shouts of traders was empty. Silent. Spread out like an altar for something that had been sacrificed.

Her steps stopped. Her breath tightened. In the middle of the field, a cross towered.
Not of wood… but of black thorns and blood-red rose stems, as if grown from the sins of the earth itself.
And hanging above it— a body. Weak. Staggering. Silent in eternal humiliation.

“What… is that…?”

She approached, slowly.

But as soon as he saw the blue face— her eyes widened, and terror screamed from her chest.

“B-Body…! There’s a body on the cross! HELP! MURDER! MURDER IN THE SQUARE!”

Her screams shattered the morning, rattling the wooden windows, waking the city from its false dream.

The windows flew open. The doors kicked open. Step by step towards the center of the square. And when they arrived the world changed.

The screams turned to sobs. The sobs turned to roars. And the morning became an open hell.

Gilles de Vire.

The name, once considered the protector of the economy, the minister of finance, the hero of the people, the light in the crisis, now hung lifeless, displayed like a dead dog, atop a cross of blood roses.

His head was bowed. His eyes were blank. And his lips were frozen in the last expression of fear that came too late. People gathered.

“Impossible! It’s not Gilles! IMPOSSIBLE!”

a fat man shouted, his breath coming fast.

“This is slander! This… this is CRAZY!”

a thin man shouted, his face shaking.

But then—
they saw it.

A single rose rose from the ground.

And at its tip,
hanging a piece of faded paper,
damp with dew and blood.

A List of Sins.

It said: Gilles de Vire. And beneath it line upon line of accusations:

No denied it. Too detailed. Too cold. Too real. And below it:

"When the law of the kingdom dies, I will be the law. Blood for blood." —Blood Rose Princess

It wasn't just an announcement. It was a verdict. Written in ink from the torn veins of the world.

And the people knew... this wasn't murder. This was judgment.

"Blood Rose... she did it..."

whispered a young girl, her voice trembling.

"This... this... TERRORISM!"

Shouted another, looking around in panic.

"Or... maybe... this is justice... that never came."

Said a young man standing far from the crowd, his eyes never leaving the crucified body.

Then...
they appeared—
the ones who carried wounds deeper than the others.

The families of the victims.

And that day, under a sun too bright for a world too rotten the people witnessed that their hero was not a savior. And that the thorny rose that grew from blood was the only one who dared to uproot the rotten roots from the soil of a kingdom that had long since rotted.

—

POV: Victims’ Families

They walked slowly. As if every step was a repentance for past sins that had never been judged.
Silence enveloped them, until their eyes read the sheet of paper— and the world in their chests collapsed.

The faces turned red. Not because of surprise. But because of anger that had long been buried without a tombstone.

“I… entrusted my daughter to Gilles…”

The old man’s voice was barely audible, his body knelt in front of the cross, as if his bones could no longer support the regret.

“He… promised to find a job.
He promised to take care of her…”

He stopped. His eyes were empty. His hands clenched, then hit the cold, hard ground.

Once. Twice. Blood seeped from his knuckles. But he kept hitting, as if only pain could replace the tears that didn’t come out.

“BUT MY DAUGHTER NEVER CAME HOME!”

His tears were not sad. His tears were broken.

“I… left my nephew in his orphanage… Because I couldn’t afford to feed him…”

A young man spoke, his voice more like a whisper from the grave. His face was as gray as a freshly dug corpse.

“So…I gave him to the devil’s mouth…”

They rose one by one. Some spat on the ground. Others stared at Gilles’ crucified body with eyes that had once cried, now burned.

“Princess of the Blood Rose…”

“Whoever you are…you are the one who opened our eyes.”

“Goddess of Judgment… If you hear us… Don’t stop.”

That day, something changed. Fear slowly gave way to a strange belief. Not in the kingdom. But in a rose that didn’t speak—it crucified. The rose wasn’t just a killer. It was a voice from the sky that came down without light.

And those wounds, for the first time, didn’t just cry…they bit back.

—

POV: Free Journalist

In a small room hidden in a back alley of the central district,
my window is slightly open—and the night pours in like an unstitched wound.

Inside there is only a rickety table, a gas lamp that flickers like dying breath,
and me—
my aging black eyes, my ink-stained fingers,
and my heavy breathing that seems to carry a history that doesn’t want to be written.

My name is Eslaih.

In front of me, a piece of news has just come off the printer.
The paper is still warm…
but it feels cold like a tombstone.

A single name is emblazoned there—
bold, red, like a bloodstain on snow that never melts:

“Princess of the Blood Rose: Shadow Executioner of the Kingdom.”

I have written many things—
massacres, coups, wars that have swallowed kings and crowned butchers.
But tonight…

My hands are shaking.
Not because of fear.
But because of the naked truth that stares back at me from behind the ink letters.

I have interviewed many people.
A knight. Nobles. Beggars. Intellectuals banished from the universities.
And they all spoke—in their own languages ​​tainted by interests.
The knights reviled him as a ruthless terrorist.

“There is no law in his sword. He is no hero. He is a murderer in a gown.”

The nobles denounced him as a threat to order.

“If everyone could judge with blood, the world would be destroyed.”

But other voices began to emerge.
Soft. Broken. But sharp.
From the deepest chambers that had been silenced:

Thinkers without podiums. Shadow lawyers. Street philosophers. Academics without homes.

“The Blood Rose is not a cause. It is an effect.
It is a mirror that is stoned… because we are afraid to look at our own faces.”

And most piercing—
a voice from the loneliest space of time:

An old mother, clutching a photograph of her daughter who disappeared seven years ago.
Her hair had turned white. Her eyes were swollen. But her smile…
the smile of someone finally being witnessed.

“All this time… no one heard us.
But she came. The rose came.
She heard our screams…and carved them
on the bodies of the monsters you worship.”

In that instant, the world split.
The world finally heard.
But not with its ears.

But with the screams of blood
dripping from the crosses of tyrants.

And I knew—
this was not a report.

This was a stain.
A stain I could never erase from my pen.
Or from my heart.

—

An Urban Legend was Born...

That day, an urban legend was born...
When the law had died...
And the cries of the victims were not heard...
A mysterious girl appeared carrying a rose in her hand...
Not to declare love...
But to judge the tyrants who were untouchable by the law...
With roses and blood...
People called her...
Goddess of Judgment
Blood Rose