To the north of Vastos is a country layered completely in snow. No matter the season, whether spring or summer, this country would snow. However, the inhabitants of this land were sturdy and mighty. They could live freely in this country despite such challenging conditions, as both the men and the women born in this country were nothing if not strong; they fashioned themselves with woolly leather boots and coats covered with fur hunted from bears and other wild animals.
"At night, the stars shone brighter than in any other country."
Famously said by one of the very first people who had pioneered and discovered this snow-covered land, now known as Coldera.
Coldera, over time, had rapidly become more populated and, as expected, more advanced, even becoming so great as to rival the country of Vastos. People born in this land had a high aptitude for ice or wind magic. Yet, one boy named Shun hadn't been born with the same strength as the others, nor had he been born with any ability to manipulate either ice or wind. Soon in his life, he would quickly learn what it felt like to be alone. He became isolated and ostracised by his own people. The inhabitants of Coldera were proud, but their savagery and arrogance knew no bounds.
"He can't even make a breeze! How pathetic!"
"I'm disappointed in ever having a son like you. It would've been better if I never had a son."
"Why did I ever give birth to you?"
"A person of Coldera who can't manipulate ice or wind!...Truly a disgrace."
Unloved by his parents. Mocked by the village he was born in. Abused ever since he could remember. Shun, every day, had ended up with new wounds on his body. Whether they were bruises or deep, infected cuts, there was nobody in that village who would care for or treat him. Shun was born with black hair; however, it turned white by the time he was six years old. It could be said that he experienced the pain of an average person's lifespan in only these short few years. He suffered every day, enduring this agony for eight years.
"I'll kill every last one of you!" He clung to this thought for as long as he knew the pain brought to him by others, and this thought alone kept him alive. One night, he tucked himself away with the village's dogs; he was filthy, and the rags he wore were tattered.
He was tired and hurting from being stoned earlier by other kids in the village. His skin was white and pale. His face was sunken, and you could see the outline of his skeleton as he was starved. He was fed worse than the dogs he slept beside.
The villagers had decided to just about keep him alive only to teach the other children about weakness and how truly disgusting it is to be weak. Shun was that example. He was mocked and ridiculed by every single villager. Tears had soon come out, but they became stuck to his cheek, frozen by the cold nights he slept through every day.
"Today feels colder than most nights... I'm so hungry..." Shun thought to himself, curled up as his whole body shivered. He tightly clutched his rumbling belly; unfortunately, he had not been given his usual scrap of stale bread today.
"?htgnerts rof hsiw υoγ oႧ"
Shun heard a quiet, distorted sound. He sat up and looked around for a bit, only to see the dogs soundly asleep.
"Do you wish for strength?"
The voice had become coherent, yet louder and ear-piercing. "Goddammit, who said that?!" Shun shouted, sealing his ears with both his hands. However, the voice only grew louder no matter how hard Shun pressed against his ears.
"GAHH!" Shun soon fell flat on his back, his head feeling heavy as the voice grew more deafening. Soon, his body became unable to move, and his vision grew darker.
The voice then stopped. Everything became quiet once again. Yet, his body was still unable to move, and his vision became completely dark.
"I see... I must be dying. This is how it feels to die... so cold..."
"Do you wish for strength?"
"Do you wish for power?"
"Do you wish for strength?"
"Do you wish for power?"
"Do you wish for strength?"
"Say it and it shall be yours!"
Shun mustered every last bit of strength that his frail body could; these are the last words he would ever speak.
"I wish for power..." Shun weakly raised his arm and clenched his fist tightly in the air. His vision had completely blackened. Then he felt a warmth of some kind. A strange and unfamiliar warmth he had never felt before. This sensation of feeling warm was a first for Shun.
The dogs woke up, turning their heads all towards Shun, and soon they began to growl and bark. Those barks soon became whimpers as each one of them burned, one after the other; even their bones had turned to ash. Shun's parents had woken up from the cries of the dogs. They came running out of their home only to find ferocious flames enveloping the village, continuing to spread in the middle of this cold night. Soon, all the villagers woke up; they acted quickly by surrounding the village with walls of ice to keep the source of the fire from spreading any further.
However, all the attempts to stop this rampaging flame were melted away instantly. It grew hotter and hotter. This ferocious flame carried a deep-rooted anger, and as it grew hotter, the people of Coldera began to sweat profusely. The raging flames began scorching their clothes as they grew closer.
The flames began enclosing further, leaving less and less space, bunching up the villagers in one small, confined space surrounded by an inferno.
"Shit... my throat feels dry."
"Are we going to die?!"
"Who the hell is causing all this?!!"
The villagers began to panic and cry out in fear. One villager pointed out a child-like silhouette in the fire.
"There's someone in the fire!"
That silhouette in the fire was Shun, and the blazing fire grew closer and closer to the bunched-up villagers, indiscriminately burning and melting them one after the other.
One after the other, the screams of the villagers began to cry out and then cease. Soon, no life was left, only the burned corpses stacked on top of one another. At the age of eight, Shun had killed a village full of Colderians. He walked across the piles of bones in a night filled with warmth and left the village.
His eyes turned from yellow to red. His voice had completely gone. Shun felt absolutely no remorse; he only focused on the warmth he felt for the first time in his life.