The scrambled thoughts.

The torrent of memories.

The mind can only take so much. Especially when there’s an endless amount of foreign memories drifting inside one’s head, which has yet to be integrated to the embodiment of “self.”

About millions of years worth of memories, in fact.

Under a moonlit night, within the silence of the forest, a man in a dark coat strolled in between the massive tree trunks. The darkness of the woods didn’t seem to affect his vision at all, as he traversed his way across.

Dracovus organized his thoughts as he walked, trying to make sense of the current conundrum he was going through. The memories that clearly weren’t “his” lingered in his brain, but his mind was telling him that those were indeed his memories.

He pondered about the previous encounter with the dire wolves. He had instinctively called upon Myst back then, but when he thought about it now, he simply could not comprehend what exactly spurred him to summon the shadowborn. Why did he believe that there was a creature hiding in the shadows? How did he know that the ominous creature was the exact same one as the one in the video game he played?

How the hell did he know that those were Dire wolves, a common animal found in the game Beyond, to begin with?

At least the said memories were somewhat familiar to him, as it was similar to the events of the video game he played as his character.

But it was much more.

Those memories weren’t just him playing the game through the screen; it was as if he had experienced everything first-hand. Even the skills that he had no interaction whatsoever in real life, like blacksmithing or swordsmanship, came to him naturally. For example, if someone put him into a blacksmithing forge and told him to make a sword, he was sure that he would be able to do it with such skill that a piece of iron would turn into a legendary sword.

‘Well that’s only fair, since I reached the pinnacle of blacksmithing in-game. Hell, I even got a fancy title for it.’

Dracovus concluded as he pieced everything together. The new knowledge that he abruptly got was slowly beginning to make sense to him, which he thought was a good start.

In the corner of his eyes, Dracovus noticed that the trees were starting to open up. The sudden change of scenery caused him to pause on his guesswork, as he found himself standing on the edge of a small lake.

The scenery itself was dazzling. The brilliant lights of the moons and the stars reflected off the peaceful waters, like thousands of sparkling diamonds.

When he glanced at the water, he saw a man with golden eyes staring back at him. This confirmation was all he needed for solidifying his conjecture of this whole event. This was indeed reality. Excitement prevailed in his mind like a child who found a new toy, but at the same time, he felt a little melancholic. Will he ever find his way back home? Would he ever try?

He snorted at such a thought. There was nothing left for him back home. He would have to resume the cycle of desolation all over again. He didn’t have any dreams, regrets, or even a life. Perhaps he never had them in the first place.

He closed his eyes, and the memories of his ‘human’ past came rushing in, as if they were waiting for a chance to remind him over and over again.

The darkness of the night. The scent of gunpowder and steel. The look of despair on a dying soul. The chill of their body as they drew in their last breath.

The blood on his hands.

The scene repeated itself in a cycle, but each time with a different face.

A different ember of life that he snuffed out.

He soon found himself trapped in this vicious loop, leaving a crimson trail behind him. There was no way for him to stop though, as it was his whole life. These memories dated back even when he was still a little kid.

He was raised as a killer, and lived his whole life as a killer. When he lost his legs, he lost his only purpose that his entire life was built around in.

A sigh escaped his lips. Maybe his life predetermined the entire time.

He opened his eyelids slowly, and stared at his reflection on the clear waters once again.

What looked back at him wasn’t a man he knew, but a dragon in human skin. It was Dracovus Aregon, his game character, but also one of the four Primordial beings that ruled over the four Primordial Powers. He looked at his palms, and clenched them into a fist with firm determination.

He didn’t know what exactly happened to him to end up in the body of his game character, but one thing was for sure.

No more would he be dragged along by fate.

No more would he be lost without purpose or direction.

The Primordial Void shall break his chains, and set him free.

With a light thrust of his legs, Dracovus shot up to the clouds in the sky with pure physical leg strength, generating a deafening shockwave. The overarching trees that threatened to swallow him soon became little green dots beneath his feet. A vast landscape, covered with an ocean of greenery on a scale he has never seen before, lay before his eyes as the moons above gently illuminated the darkness. The wind brushed past his face on his ascent, giving him a soothing feeling and shaking off his feeling of uneasiness.

Once he was hundreds of meters up in the air, his eyes caught the sight of faint light coming from the far edges of the forest. It was at a distance that a mere human eye won’t be able to discern, but he was no human. He immediately recognized that it was the place where he felt the presence of humans.

The scent of blood tingled his nose, as he looked towards the direction of the presence. His near omnipotent senses of a transcended dragon picked up screams of desperation, and the shouts of men.

It was the scent of conflict. The kind that involved blood and steel.

The kind he was most familiar with.

Turning his body mid-air to point towards the direction of the light, he focused on the flow of the universe. The memories he had gotten guided him to tap into the source of his power. Suddenly, as if awakened by his attention, something both inside and outside him surged throughout every nerve of his body, filling him with complete bliss.

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It was Mana.

Energy of mysterious origins that can make the impossible into reality.

As a dragon transcendent, a being that is entirely made up of the purest form of mana, manipulating it came naturally to him as moving his limbs. The mana slowly circled him as if it was giving a heartfelt greeting, before adhering to his will and shooting his body like a bullet towards his intended destination.

***

As the flaming torch left the grasp of a grown man and hit the wooden walls, the fire blazed up towards the sky, devouring the house along with it. The orange flames that pierced through the darkness, as well as the occasional screams of the villagers being cut down, was enough to elicit a malicious mood from anyone near.

A rough looking man sat upright on his horse, looking over the burning village with what possibly could be a smug expression, if not for his horribly disfigured face.

He was a man who was only describable by a single word: Intimidating.

His chest muscles were swollen to the point where it was about to burst open the leather armor he was wearing. His powerful arms that were connected to his wide shoulders caused no one to question his strength. The giant battle axe he held at the end of those arms only served to emphasize how dangerous he was. Regardless of which part of his body one would look at, there was no better way to describe him other than as a ‘brute’.

Apart from his body, he had a face that resembled more of a toad than human, with his large cheekbones and baggy eyes. Despite how silly it looked, the contrast between his daunting body and his comical face was what made him even more frightening.

Which in fact, was perfectly suitable for a bandit leader like him.

He and his group of bandits usually lived off of ambushing unlucky stray merchants or caravans that used to pass the roads near the Evertrunk forest, but never have plundered a fully fledged village before, let alone a village like this one that was almost large enough to call itself a town.

Until now.

The bandit leader turned back to the village and gazed at the men busily looting anything that seemed valuable. They were all bandits, mostly consisted of thieves, outlaws, or farmers who had no choice but to turn to banditry. Looking at his ‘lackeys’ putting the loot into old sacks, the leader let out a coarse laugh.

The raid went much better than he has ever hoped for; these village folk had much more in their possessions than they have expected. So they took them all. After all, they would have no use for it anymore in their afterlife. All that was bound to be worth a good coin somewhere, and it was all for him. The leader rode on his horse, galloping throughout the settlement and occasionally splitting the head of a runaway villager he could get his hands on with his trusty axe.

The axe that was infused with his Aura seemed to hum in joy as it drenched itself with crimson blood of the innocents.

Bandits usually never recklessly raided a settlement in a direct confrontation like this, as both sides would suffer pointless casualties. However, after a deal with the mages in ominous black robes who have contacted them, they now held a clear advantage over the village defenses.

The mages generously supplied them gold, better weapons, horses, and drugs that temporarily juiced them up in exchange for one thing: complete massacre of nearby settlements. Strangely they put emphasis on the fact that they had to kill everyone, including the women and children. Although this raised some questions, and not being able to sell the women and children off as slaves annoyed the bandit leader a little, the compensation he received was enough to outweigh all his complaints.

Besides, it wasn’t as if questioning those mages would do any good for him. He couldn’t care less about what those mages were up to as long as he made a profit.

When he was having his gleeful moment of basking in delusions of his newfound wealth, a call from one of his bandits caused him to wipe off the stupid grin on his terrifying face.

“Boss man! There’s some traveler coming over here!”

One of his underlings shouted while clearly out of breath from running around the village trying to inform the leader as soon as possible. Not out of respect, but out of fear.

The leader raised his eyebrows in suspicion while looking down upon the grunt. Seeing his condescending gaze, the bandit flinched and curled up his body slightly out of instinct. His dagger seemed pitiful in comparison to the giant axe.

“This late at night? Are you sure?”

“Y..yes! I swear boss! Y..you can ask the others! They were watching him the last time I’ve seen.”

The towering brute snorted as he looked away from the scrawny bandit. “Bring me there.” He demanded in a harsh tone.

“Right away boss!”

The duo moved to the entrance of the village where the supposed traveler was coming to. On the way, a hundred or so bandits noticed oddity and joined them towards the destination as well. Upon arriving at the entrance, they saw an unimaginably handsome man dressed in greyish black, surrounded by four of their comrades.

There was an indescribable tension permeating through the air as ten dozen or so rough bandits faced a single man. Ogling the man from top to bottom, the bandit leader licked his lips. Whoever this traveler was, he sure smelled like profit. Given his simple but well-tailored clothes, his clean-shaven face, and his good looks that almost could be called beautiful, albeit covered partially by the darkness of the night, he was likely from a small noble family or a wealthy merchant.

Although he wondered why would such a person would come to a small remote village this late at night, that again was simply none of his concern. Whatever the circumstances, all he had to do was to rob him blind and possibly sell his pretty face off to a slave trader for extra coin.

The mages didn’t say anything about people not from the village after all.

“You picked a bad time to come here boy.” The bandit leader croaked maliciously with a grin. His lackeys snickered at that comment, as they slowly started to encircle the man.

Dracovus silently gazed upon the corpses of the villagers from the village entrance and sighed. Even at first glance, it was clear to him what went down. Hundred or so men stared at him with gazes full of greed, ready to pounce at him like wild animals. The bandit leader, mistaking his absence of reply as a sign of terror, chuckled loudly and ordered his men.

“Go get him boys, try not to kill him!” He growled in joy. Five men that were closest to Dracovus dashed towards him with their hands extended forward, trying to grapple him. Even though they were only a couple meters away from him, Dracovus waited patiently because it seemed to him that those men were running towards him in slow motion, which amused him a little.

It wasn’t as if he actually slowed down time. It was just that his perception has gotten so ridiculously high to the point that he was able to perceive every little detail around him in milliseconds.

And of course, he was sure that he could actually slow down time with magic if he ever so wished to.

But why bother when they are the ones coming straight at him?

There was a momentary spark of wildness in his golden eyes as the men got closer and closer. Once they were within arm’s reach, he snatched the arm of the first man he saw and yanked it to the opposite direction, completely breaking his arm with a satisfying snap. Before the bandit could even let out a cry of pain, the dragon in human skin struck his throat with a blur, killing him instantly.

In blinding speeds, Dracovus weaved himself towards the next man, this time sending a low kick that shattered both of his legs, and crushed his skull following up with an axe kick.

Without even turning his head to look, Dracovus then sent a spirling fist straight into the third man’s guts with such force that it twisted all of his organs inside. He did have to make sure he had to control his power though, since he definitely didn’t want a bloody mess this late at night.

Although the remaining of the five outlaws noticed their mates breathe their last, the poor souls weren’t able to stop their momentum as they ran straight into the fists of guaranteed instant death. It was almost comical, to be honest. How strange for him to find humor in the oddest places, he thought.

As the last bandit buckled onto the floor with a lifeless thud, a different kind of stillness permeated the area. The surrounding bandits just stared at him with stunned faces, unable to comprehend what just happened.

A second passed. Twice. Thrice.

Silence.

The bandit leader blinked his eyes in surprise. As an Aura Novice that was close to approaching the realm of an Aura Apprentice, it was impossible for an ordinary man to move in speeds fast enough to avoid his perception of his Aura infused body. By no means can they also kill five men that easily either.

In other words, the man who was standing in front of him was at least a realm above him, or even more. Looking back into his unshakable golden orbs that looked down upon them, he broke out in a cold sweat as his body responded to an unknown pressure that was being emitted from those eyes.

Eyes that seemed to disregard their existence entirely.

Eyes that terrorized their souls just by looking at it.

And this fear did not go unnoticed by Dracovus.

A predatory grin formed on his lips, which made a couple of the bandits flinch by instinct. Although having to deal with these despicable lowlives annoyed him a little, he also considered it an opportunity.

After all, if this wasn’t a chance to play around with proper magic since his shift of identity, then what else would it be?