In the brutal haze of war, the line between right and wrong blurred until it vanished completely. Morality became a ghost itself— fleeting, fragile, and soon forgotten. In a world where humans and centaurs once shared the land in uneasy coexistence, those ancient bonds were shattered beneath the weight of conflict. The proud centaurs, creatures of strength and spirit, were stripped of their dignity and reduced to mere tools— beasts of burden dragged into the inferno of battle like nothing more than baggage-mules, soulless vessels carrying the weight of human ambitions.

Simon had always dismissed the old stories, the whispered legends of centaurs as myths— fanciful nonsense for children or fools. Centaurs? Half-man, half-horse? Ridiculous. Nothing more than superstition. But all of that changed the moment he laid eyes on the battlefield that day.

Amidst the choking smoke and relentless chaos, he saw something that would haunt him forever. A centaur, shackled in heavy, unyielding armor that dug into their flesh, armor so cruelly designed that it blinded and bound rather than protected. The creature’s proud eyes— if they had any left to meet his— were dull and lost, a reflection of a soul crushed beneath chains and human cruelty. It was no longer a warrior, no longer a living being; it was a tool, a weapon wielded for someone else’s gain. And worst of all— this desecration was done not by a merciful hand, but by those who called themselves “allies.”

That tragic sight struck Simon like a dagger to the heart. In that moment, he understood that war did not just destroy bodies and lands; it destroyed the very essence of what it meant to be alive. And sometimes, the worst enemy was not the one across the line of fire, but the one who forgot the cost of what they sacrificed along the way.