[SET IN THE SAME WORLD AS ‘Tyrant Emperor’, ‘Cloaked Emperor’, ‘Cruel War Lord’]

The road into the town is lined with bodies. Some are curled where they collapsed, others dragged into piles that were never burned. Skin is sun-cracked. Fingers are missing from several corpses, chewed away by animals or cut off for bone marrow. There are no flies. Even insects have nothing to feed on.

Inside the gate, the first building you pass is roofless. Three bodies sit propped against its wall, backs straight, heads hanging forward. Their hands are tied with strips of fabric. It looks like they starved while waiting for someone to decide what to do with them.

Near the broken well, smaller shapes are scattered. Children. Some are half-covered with rags. A few are fresh enough to see their faces, mouths open as if still begging. Others are rotted to bone and fabric.

People nearby step over arms and legs without reacting. They are thin, walking slowly, holding scraps of wood or chipped tools like they still matter. One woman rips cloth from a corpse, tests its strength, then keeps it.

Voices rise from a group crouched around a mound of bodies, sorting through them.

“This one still has teeth. Boil them.” “The hair too. Rope is rope.” “Check the pockets before cutting.”

A man uses a rock to break a skull. Another gathers the fragments in a sack. No one speaks to you. No one looks at you.

A stray dog drags away an arm. Two people watch but don’t intervene. It’s food to them. Meat is meat.

A cold wind passes through the street. Nothing moves except those still trying to take something from the dead.

You have entered Astraea. What do you do?