Tunik Hasin stood on the great wall of Senkeht, overseeing the vast, empty land ahead of him. It was his turn to stand as sentinel. In any case of movement, he would communicate his findings to his leader, and in the situation of a delayed response, as a sentinel, if it’s an enemy, he would be required to engage first and buy time for reinforcements.

Because of this, a weak person was never selected as a sentinel. At the very least, a sentinel would be a Tier 2, Elemental Core Formation.

Tunik was around when the strangers came to the town, and they were a very strange batch. In Senkuht, only natives of the town lived there, and they were all humans. And since most of them stayed in the town their whole lives without travelling anywhere, seeing a group of different races together was very strange to them, Tunik included.

This shouldn’t have been any huge news. It was just a new experience, and it should have been taken as such, but Tunik was different.

Tunik was a mixbreed of a human and a dark elf. His mother was a human, a native of Senkeht, and his father was a dark elf, a noble one at that, from the elf kingdom of El’goroth. This should have been something good, but Tunik hated elves to the core. And the reason was because of his father.

After impregnating his mother, who had left the town on a mission, he left her to fend for herself. That would have been a bit normal since it was a known fact that nobles would always marry nobles, nothing less. But, after she gave birth to him and cared for him to grow up to 10 years, the man came back... as a slave master. Yes. He had actually marked his mother with a slave mark, so she was essentially his slave. Even if she had returned to Senkeht, she wouldn’t be able to escape slavery. The man was a very powerful elf, and his slave mark was so powerful that he would be able to track her across kingdoms.

Her fate was sealed from the start. The man took her in as his slave and maltreated her. He used her for almost everything... cooking, washing, sex, and even torture. He was a sadist who loved to torture women. As a slave, you were essentially property, a toy with no legal rights. Even if your master killed you in public, he wouldn’t face any consequences. So, his mother had nowhere to go.

It made Tunik hate his father, hate his mother, and hate all elves, because in the elven kingdom, slavery was a norm, a common act. It was backed by legal laws, and those who were used as slaves were mostly humans and half or mixedbreeds of different races. Tunik himself would have been made a slave if not for his mother using an artifact she had on her as a last resort to help him escape.

He never heard of her again, whether she was dead or alive. She was most likely dead, but how would he know?

Seeing Exildra and Sel the day before awakened the hate he had for elves, and he wanted nothing more than to make them feel pain, especially...

"That elf boy... I am sure he is the last prince..." Tunik muttered as his eyes darkened. The way Sel walked, the air around him, the hair color, and that face that was always calm... He was very sure.

"I could also play with the elf girl... I will just have to kill the blind kid..."

...

Bahamut looked at himself in the mirror, admiring his current appearance. He’d been given new clothes by Hakim, the clothes they all wore, but his were white with black details. Those were the clothes for visitors. His blindfold had also been changed to a white one, and the newest detail was...

"To think you looked good with short hair," Lily commented with twinkle in her eyes.

"You think so?" Bahamut smirked while turning around, exposing his chest and a bit of his abs, causing all the girls to blush and the guys to show disgusted expressions.

"Cover those bones up!" Ren exclaimed, making Bahamut’s eyes twitch.

"Piss off, fluff ball!"

"At least I’m soft. Girls will kill to hold me," Ren countered with a smirk, but it only made Bahamut’s smile widen. Ren felt a chill down his spine as he realized that he’d dug his own pit and was going to fall in.

"I’ve got three. Where are yours?"

"Three what?" Exildra’s voice sounded in the room, making them halt their banter. It sounded very sweet, but everyone could feel the danger behind it. Bahamut turned around to see Exildra, Lily, and Alana staring at him "sweetly."

"I can explain! I didn’t mean it that way!"

"Then what way?" Exildra question.

"Mean what in what way?" Alana inquired while stretching and cracking her neck.

"I’m heartbroken..." Lily added as they all moved towards him.

"I’m outta here..." Ren said as he hopped off the chair he was on.

"Me too..." Sel said his prayers to Bahamut and set out.

"Wai- WAIT! AHHHHHHHHHH!"

...

Tunik Hasin remained motionless on the great wall of Senkeht, his gaze fixed on the distant rooftops where the strangers had been given quarters. The wind carried dust and the faint scent of cooking fires, but his attention was elsewhere, on the people who had walked into his town as if they owned it.

"That elf prince." His fingers tightened around the haft of his spear. "And that bitch of an elf girl."

He had spent the night thinking. The sentinel rotation meant he had hours of solitude to let the hatred fester and bloom. His mother’s face, worn and hollow, rose in his memory. The way she had pushed him through that glowing portal, screaming for him to run. The artifact had burned her hands black.

And now elves walked freely through Senkeht. Laughing. Living.

"I could take them one by one," he murmured to the empty wall. "The blind one first. Then the elf girl. Then the prince."

Down in the visitors’ quarters, through a window left slightly ajar, he could hear voices, playful, teasing. The women’s laughter rang out like bells. He watched as the three of them cornered the blindfolded boy, Bahamut, against a wall. Their bodies pressed close, their hands moving over his chest, their voices dropping into something warm and intimate.

Tunik’s jaw tightened. "They play their little games. They think they’re safe."

He could end it. A single arrow from this distance, infused with his elemental core: the blind boy would never see it coming. And in the chaos, he could slip into the building, take the elf girl before anyone understood what was happening.

But no. That would be too quick.

He wanted them to suffer. To feel the same helplessness his mother had felt. The same degradation.

Below, the banter continued, Exildra’s hand on Bahamut’s chest, Alana’s teasing flick to his forehead, Lily’s soft fingers tracing his jaw. They were so absorbed in each other, so trusting. Tunik smiled, slow and cold.

"Let them have their fun tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll remind them what the world really is."