It's been awhile since I've updated here, got the next few chapters 90% done so those should be out in the next few days. This is a one-off chapter from Zan's PoV. It raises questions but answers will be found eventually. Thanks for any who are reading this.
Chapter 12 - A sorry tale
Standing in this wretched abyss, breathing in ash and dust. The air is stagnant, as if the wind has never reached this place. A dark plain littered with corpses and holes, weapons and armour. The remnant of a long lost battlefield.
Ha. When Kad told me about his dream… that he has such a peaceful world. While I have this, it's hysterical. Completely unfair. Unused to my human body I step forward carefully, until I regain proper balance. Before me are rolling hills, stretching on for miles in the mire. I come here every night, always to a different part.
It's too quiet… Once I made the assumption that I was alone here, but that's never the case. My vision is hindered my mist and the eternally overcast sky, yet in the distance I can make out a shape. A figure wading through the mists. Never a friend appears here, always doomed to fight. At least until I wake up.
I have long wondered what this place is. Why I have such a wretched landscape etched into my soul, and the endless phantoms. Who never let me rest. Every night I play a part, I choose my tools and fight. The first time I saw this was around age five, mother told me it was just a nightmare. That I'd dream each night of dying.
Then one night a change come over me, and I grabbed a broken blade. In that moment I knew how to fight, that morning I awoke having slept soundly. Although the skills or knowledge never stay after I wake up, it's a start.
When I was seven I told my mother again, of how I'd dream of an endless battlefield. She wouldn't believe me no matter how I pleaded, leading me to run out into a storm. From that night on I had made myself resolute, to never be a victim to my own mind.
I grab a sword from the ground, rusted and dirtied it's better than nothing. It's too long, but better than nothing. A familiar sensation comes over me, knowledge I've never once had in the waking world. Proper stances, muscle memory, trained reflexes and the mystery contained within the blade all. It's still clumsy, it's the training a much taller person did after all.
Clumsily I struggle down the hill into the shallow crevice, to meet my opponent. A phantom in the mist, two bright eyes pierce the veil and stare at me. I walk on down the hill, becoming firmer in my steps and balance restored. Looking at my mark in the distance I tighten my grip on the blade, causing a burst of information to enter my mind.
Wind type sword arts, unnamed sword art manual, not speed related though it's more suited for a heavy sword. Uses air to create bludgeoning effect, three skills. Pretty good for a common soldier. The fact that the manual is unnamed is a negative for this set but it still works nicely. The more prolific a skill, the easier it is to perform powerful attacks with it. Each use engraves it further into the world, causing it's mana to gather ever greater.
The mana in the air here is as thick as the fog, granting my foe or foes another layer of cover. I can't detect a skill without seeing it. The phantom is maybe only thirty meters away now, in preparation I raise my sword. This isn't magic, mana doesn't leave my body but sinks into my flesh. Every bone, every muscle and every tendon I enfuse with arcane might. A thin aura covers my skin, blue and green, bands of lightning and wind mana.
Lightning mana grants high speed and high damage, wind grants even higher speed. Such a combination, I picked well. High speed heavy sword techniques? Ha. The idea is laughable, confident I stride out further against my foe. Our eyes meet, I see empty black spheres, if those are even eyes at all. He, and I'm sure it's a man, wields a longsword with both hands. Hand and a half, maybe only a little heavier than my own sword. My palms are sweaty, a strange feeling considering I know no warmth nor the bitter cold.
The phantom escapes the veil, charging mad towards me sword primed to strike. Abandoning all form or reason, he reaches me, and he begins his first swing. It's a mad sweep at neck level, I duck my head and prime myself to parry the next blow. A feel a hint of magic in the air, mana not my own but his, a light green sliver of mana. Nature mana? I try to recall what it's used for in warriors. High regeneration, high endurance and mental attacks… this guy is going to be a nightmare.
His second swing comes, another wide sweep without any form. Our swords meet and I try to tip my foes balance, as if by some alien muscle memory I perform a swift maneuvers. I forget one thing however. this guy is much heavier than me… The disgruntled berserker swings down hard at me, a prepare to dodge but see a glimmer of light. A fleck of an image from my right side, I jump left and hold my sword out ready to receive the invisible blade.
We exchange these blows a dozen times, never once giving way or ever losing ground to the other. It's a tense interaction, I think he plans to outlast me. Or to push me into making a mistake, a single mistake that may mark my end. A rhythm is forged, faint and nearly indistinct from normal swordplay. Seeing a gap I then seize it.
Like he has before my ethereal nemesis strikes out against me, a horizontal slash. Instead of dodging to the side as I would normally I instead parry, loosening my grip on the ground beneath me.
Our swords clash and the momentum of his strike propels me back and what I can only perceive as surprise fills it's gaze. He's off-balance and out of position. His sword is heavy and even if he switched to one hand it wouldn't block me in time. My opening! My foot slams into the earth, lightning mana becomes an attractive force tethering me to the ground and then a repulsion to send me forward. I bring my blade to my side and prepare for a final upward horizontal strike.
Everything comes together, my opponent is off balance and my sword is still between me and his yet I am still ready to strike. I reach the end of my charge and prepare to deal a fatal blow. I begin my slash and then…
Fuck fuck… He dropped his blade.
My promised victory has been denied, my blade barely scrapes his arm as he falls to the side. Now I am the one out of position, no matter how I move I can't stop him from tackling me. I loosen my grip on my blade and bring my arms to my chest as the phantoms pale limbs connect and push me back. Reeling from the blow I land on my ass a metre back but the phantom still stands ready to fight.
I try to get off the ground but he kicks me in the face, both my hands on the ground try to cover my face but instead kicks me in the crotch.
Asshole!
I grunt trying to withstand the pain of that reinforced kick, pain and anger try to blind my senses but my mind remains clear. His nature mana will allow him to heal any minor injuries… just trying to use lightning magic wouldn't work. The phantom looming over me kicks me again but I've already curled my body up to buy a few more moments.
I'm still as powerful as I was using the sword? The mana in my body feels undiminished, from the presence of the phantom I can tell we are on the same level. I have mana so I can reinforce my body… an interesting line of thought comes over me, something I had never considered before. Too sadistic or brutal for my tastes… But it's the ideal solution.
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I'm going to claw his guts out.
The phantom before me is a simulacrum of the human whose skills it possesses, if you cut it it bleeds. It's a warrior and of the nature attribute at that, it's skin will be tough, it's body is hard. But mine is harder! Either way I'm out of time, I can't keep letting him kick me, even if as a dragon I have tough skin and scales as a human I'm still pink and squishy on the inside.
I form my left hand into a claw and my right grips his leg, he seems alarmed and tries to go for the only sure kill he can. The phantom lunges for my neck, narrowly missing as I bring myself up and as I ready my claws I gather mana in that arm.
In an explosive release my claw pierces his intestines and I grab at the tender organs for dear life and try to yank it out. The pain must be overpowering because his hands become less coordinated in searching for my head. I let go and try for another incision before I feel the brush of a palm against my skull. The man pushes me down to restrict me and then tries to grab at my skull but as I fall I bring up my legs between us, leaving my feet on his chest and my skull out of reach.
He tries to get closer so I let him, my right hand hand becomes a claw and I dig it into his stretching arm. I gather mana in the other and relax my legs before using his impaled arm as leverage to pull him down and force my left claw into his chest.
My heart is trembling and I can feel his tremble as well, his limbs have gone weak and the black marbles, only inches away from me, show a distinct terror. He gargles and moans as words escape his pained gullet.
“What is my name?” The labored voice asks me.
I don't know.
I'm sorry I just don't know.
Even with his own within my grasp I lack the heart to say it. Even feeling his warm breath over me and his painful shivers and the shrill whines. Despite this intimate connection we seem to share, I know not even his name. My silence is as telling as any words and a single salty tear lands in my mouth.
My claws turn inwards and I crush and pierce his heart, I pass large amounts of lightning mana through it to reduce it to charred slush and the man releases a final pained gasp before collapsing on top of me. Devoid of the energy nor will to move I stay there.
The dead man sometimes twitches, the phantasmal threat left behind a very human corpse. Even to the point that I can feel it's urine seeping onto my leg, gross but not intolerable, I really don't feel like moving.
Do I see them as monsters to protect myself? Or is there something deeper to it? I muse in silence, deafening though it is with my labored breath and racing pulse. I can't think straight anymore.
It seems though as the fatigue clouds my mind the mist clears in this one, in the distance I see a familiar face causing me to worm my way out from under the man. Seteri? The dragon god sits upon a rock looking into the distance, his human form greatly resembling the man I saw not a few hours before.
He doesn't seem to be in a hurry. I think as I hobble towards him, the dragon god peers my way a moment before returning to his watch. Eventually I manage to reach the rock and lean again it catching my breath a moment before I speak.
“Are you well?” I ask the dragon god, knowing from prior experience he prefers well mannered conversation.
“As usual, you seem rather best up however.” The god tells me bluntly before looking at me again. “Are you going to ask me the same questions as before?”
“Only so long as your give me the same answers, your Holiness.” I tack his title on the end which makes him smile a little but he doesn't like my answer.
“Why this world? What does it have to do with me?” I ask, straining my voice between the sentences, Seteri takes a moment to compose his answer.
“Nothing at all, and that is why you are angry. Isn't it.” He says. But I can only nod in response.
“Before you were born, what were you?” He asks me, normally he doesn't go this line of discussion so I play along. I can think of only one answer… “A soul?”
“Yes! A soul, and where does a soul come from?” He says before pausing and answering his own question. “Well it's complicated, but either an old one with no memories is used or its pulled from the aether, the mass of mana people call the world veins.”
I follow his line of reasoning but I don't see how it's relevant.
“You weren't, Marek needed a soul and Maru provided the materials.”
“So Maru used the souls of the very men who died along with Marek, his army, his soldiers. Marek took them and used himself as the medium to reincarnate you instead of the world and here you are.” Seteri finally finishes, but my mouth is left agape.
“What the fuck, why did you do that?” I yell at the dragon god who seems unphased by the abuse.
“Because the souls needed a connection with himself and his son. You've never been to the south, past the shallow sea.” He raises his voice as if he's lecturing to a child, or I mean as if I'm his child.
“In the north legends and heroes are a plenty, each kingdom has their idols and their myths and their stories. But dark continent has one kingdom, the kingdom of Aeteria and that kingdom has one king. He is their hero, their legend everlasting and unmatched.”
“If your Eldwyre lost its king you might face a revolt. When Marek died the clans instigated civil war on how and if he should be succeeded, many of them didn't even believe him dead! Now half the people there are dead and four-fifths of the country is wasteland.”
“Ok, ok I get it.” I half shout at the god. Seteri gets overwhelming on topics like these… does he like talking about him- I mean his other self? But then a realization comes over me.
“This is their battlefield? The one they died on?” I ask Seteri who smiles and then lets me continue. “... Do the people here recognise me? As someone else I mean.”
“A certain soul was used as the core, yes he was the court magician if I recall. Cole Arzant of Manstolland.” I remember that Manstolland is a kingdom to the west of Eldwyre, it's about the same size but dwarfed by the many lands around it. “Your past self led this army.”
My own soldiers? My own men… A dread comes over me, that these ghosts too may only realize who I am near death, that despair I saw may have been a deep regret. But even knowing this a curiosity comes over me, what kind of man was Cole? I feel I may never know.
“It's not all bad you know.” Seteri says as his gaze once more turns to the horizon, he raises his hand and points at it. “I see the end of the battlefield in the distance, green grass and a warm sun.”
“Nothing lasts forever after all.” He says as I join him, looking into the horizon.