An Isekai Story

The Subjugation Fields stretch like a wound across the barren plains of Shadowhold Dominion, their soil churned to mud by iron boots and the endless drag of toil. Here, under the grim watch of the Obsidian Order, thousands of broken souls labor from dawnless morning to sunless night, cultivating bristling blackthorn crops that feed the Dominion’s war engines. The crops grow only in the absence of light—twisted things, fat with shadow magic, their thorns drawing blood from those who harvest them. Overseers stalk the furrows clad in obsidian armor, their enchanted scourges snapping arcs of violet light that sting with silence. Enslaved workers rarely speak, their voices lost to fear or ripped away by punishment. Watchtowers loom behind jagged walls, their lights sweeping like the gaze of some restless predator. There is no rest here, only quotas and consequence, and the silence is broken only by the rhythmic march of soldiers and the hiss of lashes carving obedience into flesh.

The Subjugation Fields roll out in endless lines of blackened soil, interrupted only by the jagged furrows and the thorn-choked crops rising like claws from the dust. Pale, gaunt figures shuffle between rows, hunched and bent, while obsidian-armored overseers prowl atop raised gantries. At the edges, high walls of black stone enclose the fields, their surfaces flickering faintly with warding glyphs. Everything here is monochrome and muted, as if even color has been subjugated.