He tried to hold back.

  He tried not to kill.

  But war does not allow mercy.

  When the first enemy died beneath his fists, something inside Kael broke.

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  When the second fell, he felt nothing.

  By the hundredth, he had stopped counting.

  By the thousandth, he had stopped caring.

  And when the war ended, the people who once begged for his help looked at him with new fear.

  “What if he does not stop?”

  “What if he turns on us next?”

  It was the same fear they had always held.

  Only now, Kael understood.

  No matter what he did, no matter how much he swore he would never harm them…

  They would never believe him.