Alice couldn't believe what she was seeing. It was disturbing to witness. No wonder so many Sleepers lost their minds after their first nightmare.
Her mind felt frozen. She was scared, afraid, terrified. How could the Spell have placed someone in a place like this? Was this really a first nightmare? Brutal and bloody? Blood was everywhere—and now even on her face. But Alice was too horrified to care.
All she could hear was the frantic cheering around her. The voices overlapped, yet they were still understandable because they all repeated a single word:
"GLORY! GLORY! GLORY! GLORY!"
This was glory? These people were insane. They had to be. There was nothing normal about this. It was simply disturbing.
Alice looked around. People of all ages were present—some so old they could be the eldest elders of the waking world, others so young they were still cradled in their parents' arms. Beside her, a woman was holding a child. Both their bodies were soaked in blood, which continued to gush without stopping.
Then Alice turned her attention back to the scene before her.
A middle-aged man was gripping another by the hair, slamming his head against the ground repeatedly. He used only his fists, yet the other man's face was already unrecognizable. With each blow, more blood splattered onto the crowd, which watched in awe—as if witnessing a hero vanquishing a terrible monster.
But that wasn't a monster. It was just a man.
If anyone here was monstrous, it was all these people, praising the scene while chanting "glory."
— You really are useless, aren't you? — the attacker panted, yet still managed to shout. — You couldn't even kill me… You had just one job, and you couldn't even do that!
The brutality of the scene was hard to watch. A man killing another while being glorified by those around him.
— Beautiful, isn't it?
Alice was caught off guard by the sudden voice of a girl. She seemed a little older than Alice and had a white cloth wrapped around her face—now stained with blood from the violence.
— What are you talking about?! No one is going to help that man?! — Alice asked, her voice trembling.
The girl laughed.
— Hahaha, it seems you're really not from here. Take a good look. This is the purest love. The truest feeling one can have for another. An endless desire to kill that only a true warrior can understand. Something beyond any prejudice about who you are or which god you serve. This is the love that the Goddess of Life taught us to embrace—unconditional love, which, in the end, always leaves a victor to be glorified… and a loser who will be comforted in the cold embrace of the shadows.
She spoke with such eerie calmness and joy that it made Alice shudder. It wasn't something anyone would say with such cold indifference, yet for them, this was normal. It was their everyday life.
Death… was all they knew.
— You're insane. Just a bunch of lunatics.
Alice couldn't understand how they had come to such a twisted belief. Killing just for the sake of killing? For what? They weren't heroes and villains. They weren't righteous warriors against vile criminals.
They were just two people slaughtering each other before an audience hungry for violence.
They were gladiators, fighting for someone else's entertainment.
— Don't worry — the girl said, turning to leave. — Soon, you'll get used to it too.
Two older women followed her, vanishing into the ever-growing crowd.
"Not a fucking chance." Alice felt her heartbeat quicken. "I need to get out of here as soon as possible."
Before she even realized it, the fight was over. The man was dead, and the other stood over him, bathed in his blood.
It was hard to believe that these people could be servants of the Goddess of War… just like her.
Alice could understand if they were followers of the Goddess of Beasts, but War?
She was a servant of war. Her Aspect said so.
Then how could she serve a god who accepted this?
"What the hell… So this is what it means to be a child of war?"