National Guardian's Gone and We're Done

Wherever the light reached, even the motes of dust that usually drifted unnoticed through the air

were now infused with a mysterious vitality and began to dance with nimble grace,

like a host of Elves rejoicing in the faint glow, adding a touch of vibrant life to the strange scene.

In that fleeting instant, the jade-green blade of grass seemed to have fulfilled some sacred and secret mission.

Its form began to blur, veiled by an invisible layer of gauze.

Gradually, its silhouette grew hazier until it vanished completely from everyone’s sight,

leaving behind only a faint, dreamlike green light that lingered alone in the air,

unwilling to disperse, as if recounting its brief yet brilliant existence.

At the same time, in the highest reaches of the sky,

a wave of energy—so sharp it felt as if it could tear the very world apart—erupted without warning.

It was a sharpness that could not be described in ordinary words.

It was like the most dazzling bolt of lightning in the night sky,

splitting the endless firmament in an instant and setting the dark heavens ablaze with light.

It was also like a peerless sword being drawn swiftly from its sheath, the biting sword intent so strong

that even the vast, boundless heavens and earth trembled before it.

In the face of this power, everything in the world seemed small and fragile.

What was even more astonishing,

was that this impossibly sharp sword intent did not manifest as a physical blade, as one might expect,

nor did it leave any visible trace in the sky.

It was like a mysterious, peerless master

who, in a formless, shadowless way that struck directly at the heart,

branded itself deep into the soul of every person present.

All who felt it were shaken to their core,

their very souls undergoing a baptism in the face of this immense power.

In that instant, the surrounding air seemed to solidify,

and time itself, as if by Magic, stopped flowing.

The entire world fell into a dead silence.

The young people, their necks tightly bound by coarse hemp nooses and their bodies cruelly suspended in mid-air,

were now like kites with their strings cut, cruelly toyed with by fate,

swaying helplessly in the sky.

Their faces were twisted in agony and bone-deep terror,

their eyes bulging from their sockets, filled with a desperate craving for life and a dread of death.

Drool of despair hung uncontrollably from the corners of their mouths,

trickling down their chins and dripping into the air like their shattered hopes.

Faint, intermittent whimpers escaped their throats—desperate cries that seemed to come from the depths of their souls,

a manifestation of their most primal, intense desire to live and struggle for survival.

Then, these living beings suspended in mid-air

began to fall from the sky one by one, like puppets with their strings severed.

Their forms traced irregular arcs through the air,

like some bizarre and absurd "dumpling feast,"

only these "dumplings" were living, breathing people.

The faint sound of the air being torn as they fell,

along with the gasps of terror from the crowd below,

combined to create a tragic scene that was both shocking and heart-wrenching.

Just in the nick of time, as the young people were about to crash violently onto the ground,

an invisible energy, as gentle and soft as a spring breeze, descended in silence.

This energy, like an unseen guardian, gently caught their falling bodies,

bringing them to a slow stop just a few centimeters from the ground,

before finally letting them rest safely and steadily on the solid earth.

This sudden turn of events made everyone present involuntarily hold their breath,

their hearts filled with indescribable shock and profound confusion.

They stared wide-eyed at the scene unfolding before them,

as if trapped in a fantastical dream,

unable to believe that what they were witnessing was real.

After landing, the young people were in various states, a miserable sight to behold.

Some were pale as paper, completely drained of color, their eyes vacant and dull, as if their souls had left their bodies and they were on the verge of fainting.

They had just been brutally dragged back from the cold edge of death,

and it seemed their souls still lingered in that dark abyss, not yet fully returned.

They were like puppets devoid of life and vigor, collapsed motionless on the ground.

Others knelt on the ground, hands pressed firmly against the earth, greedily gulping down huge mouthfuls of fresh air,

each frantic and desperate breath like a precious gift arduously snatched back from the depths of Hell.

Their chests heaved violently, like surging ocean waves,

and ragged gasps echoed from their throats, startlingly clear in the silent air.

Accompanied by occasional bouts of vomiting brought on by violent coughing,

they expelled the acid from their stomachs along with the fear from deep within their hearts.

It was a complex mix of indescribable pain and relief.

Only in this moment did they truly understand the preciousness of life and the difficulty of survival.

Upon their faces,

was etched the pure terror and lingering fear of the heart-stopping, near-fatal suffocation they had just experienced.

That terror was like a cold, venomous snake,

slithering through their veins and deep into the marrow of their bones.

It was the desperate cry of a life on the brink of being mercilessly extinguished.