Red cloud

Alkiya, once a peaceful and beautiful kingdom, is now a battlefield of the greatest war. The ground is a blood-soaked canvas of red and despair. The air throbs with the symphony of shouts, groans, and the guttural cries of dying men. The once-tranquil blue sky twists into a somber painting of red smoke and ash, a haunting reflection of the devastation below.

Ankle-deep pools of blood spread across the battlefield, each scarlet stain a chilling monument to the lives being lost. The stench of rot and death clings to the air, a sickening, inescapable reminder of the carnage.

"STOP IT! STOP IT ALL!" Yuui screams.

Her voice cuts through the chaos, raw with desperation and defiance. Her wide, anguished eyes take in the horrific scene around her as she stands amidst the slaughter, the blood dripping about her like a horrific curtain.

"What is the purpose of this?" she cries, her voice trembling with despair.

“BLOOD RAIN,” Winter replies coldly.

The sky transforms into a haunting canvas of crimson, swirling with dense clouds that seem to pulse with a life of their own. The air on the battlefield becomes abnormally cold as the crimson smoke, a horrifying memory of the dead, rises.

Suddenly, the clouds part, unleashing a rain of blood droplets that fall like a torrential downpour. Each drop shimmers ominously, morphing mid-air into vicious spikes, sharp and unyielding. They pierce the armor of soldiers and strike down magicians, who conjure their spells too late, their incantations drowned out by the cacophony of chaos.

The battlefield erupts into screams as the crimson spikes find their mark, each one a token of vengeance from the slain, a reminder of the merciless winter that claims so many lives. In moments, the ground is littered with the fallen, a testament to the brutality of their struggle.

“Why? Why? Why has it come to this?” Yuui’s voice breaks, her anguish pouring out like the rain that falls around them. She feels the weight of every choice pressing down on her, each moment leading them to this grim battlefield.

“Is it all because of the people? The king? God?” Her thoughts race, spiraling into despair.

“No, no—this is all happening because of me. I’m the one who draws the circle. If I hadn’t done that, we’d both be sitting on the bench, listening to music right now, laughing like we used to.”

Her sobs dissolve into the storm, lost amidst the endless rain of blood and the deafening screams of a kingdom tearing itself apart.

"Help!" a young soldier cries out.

"Run!" a grizzled veteran shouts.

“We’re all going to die!”

“We can’t stop him,” Yuui whispers to herself, her voice trembling with fear.

Her sword hangs limply at her side, the weight of hopelessness pressing down on her shoulders. Every breath feels heavier than the last, and each second that passes only deepens the dread gnawing at her insides.

The battlefield is littered with the bodies of her comrades, brave souls who had fought with every ounce of strength they had left. And yet, even in death, they cannot escape Winter’s grasp.

Yuui’s eyes widen in horror as she sees the blood—thick, dark, and alive—slithering out of their corpses, winding across the ground like serpents drawn to their master.

“No,” she mutters, stepping back, her legs shaky. “No, this can’t be happening…”

But it is. Winter stands in the center of it all, a twisted figure of power and death. His pale, gaunt face shows no emotion, only cold calculation as the streams of blood coil upward toward him, gathering into a swirling mass above his head. The blood cloud grows thicker with each passing moment, darkening the skies like a storm of death.

Yuui’s stomach churns as she realizes what is coming next. The cloud, now bloated with the blood of her fallen comrades, pulses, and from it, drops start to fall—heavy, sharp droplets of blood that rain down like daggers.

Screams echo across the battlefield as the blood rain tears through armor and flesh alike. Each drop is a weapon, lethal and unrelenting.

Yuui stands frozen in horror as she watches more of her comrades fall, their cries swallowed by the storm of blood.

“He’s using them,” Yuui whispers, her voice shaking. “He’s using their blood… as a weapon.”

Her mind races, but every thought ends in despair. The longer they fight, the stronger Winter becomes. Every death is a victory for him. Every drop of blood that leaves the bodies of her comrades feeds his power, turning the battle into an unwinnable nightmare.

“We can’t stop him,” Yuui says again, barely audible over the sound of the blood storm. She feels the weight of it sinking deeper into her chest, a truth too painful to bear.

Winter is unstoppable.

And the more they fight, the more they fuel him.