He remembered the dream from last night. Amidst occasional blips of consciousness, between short bursts of familiar voices, he found himself falling back and back into it right where he left off.

Darkness surrounded him. His senses were still active, he could feel something cold behind his back and a sea of emptiness ahead of him.

Then he saw it, though not with any instrument of his body, but the third eye of his soul.

A great white desert under an empty black sky. Wherever he looked, nothingness stretched wide.

“Hello?” he called out, but his words remained silent blows of air. The world was mute and deaf. To sound, to taste, to touch. Only his eyes were as sharp as ever and his legs, those tiresome legs that marched forward in some aimless wander.

After what felt like days, he saw something in the distance. A lone grey tree, bald and dry. Touching it, he felt neither warmth nor cold. It felt like he had never touched it at all, nor had he touched anything, as this world made him forget such sensations.

He sat below a thick branch and gazed ahead. The desert remained empty. He thought about making home under the tree, perhaps some company might arrive, and he would not be so lonely in this dark hell. Maybe. Though he saw nothing when he gazed ahead, he felt as though something was in there, lurking below the brightness of the dark, something titanic in size, a creature as old if not older than the birth of destruction. It watched him with blind eyes, inviting him with its gaze to come closer, to embark on that endless march as if that would somehow sustain its eternal hunger.

When he stared too long into the dark, it almost revealed itself.

“Edgar?” the voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

Once again, he felt the rake in his hand, the other hanging without purpose. There was that headache too, and the burning sensation of the stitches closing that wound running from his forehead behind the ear.

Looking down, he saw Tanuki.

“Yes?”

“You got all that?” Tanuki asked with some worry in his eyes.

Edgar did not answer immediately as he noticed Tanuki’s left arm. It was kept raised by an arm sling made from torn clothes they found around the house.

“What happened to your arm?” he asked, to which Tanuki sighed.

“I think I broke it, but Woodrow says it’s not that bad––Wait, were you not listening?” he took another deep breath and readied to start again, “Remember the explosion from last night?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, now what is the last memory you can recall?”

“Hmmm.”

Edgar thought back but could not answer.

“You hit your head,” Tanuki answered for him, “It was pretty ugly. We got you home and Woodrow patched you up. He said you’ll be alright, but I’m still a little worried. I know you’re a strong man but, if not for yourself then for me, could you take the day off? You deserve some rest.”

“What a horrible thing,” Edgar thought. Even as Tanuki spoke, it was hard to concentrate and not gaze away into the endless blue, searching for it.

He felt so strange. To look up at the sun and feel no light or warmth. The breeze running at his face and parting both ways felt so little. Even the rake in his hand disappeared from time to time as he forgot its feel.

“Yes, I could use some rest,” he nodded.

Counting that afternoon, he had two days until the next wave. Thankfully, it also came at sunset like those before, leaving some extra time for preparations.

The tourney’s winner was Soup, Daughter of the Blue Minotaur. Tanuki wondered why being the daughter of some niche bovine ethnicity was worth godhood, but then again, he never really questioned why he was chosen to be one, and he could not recall being the son of anyone special.

Soup’s invasion was a set of three waves, with her partaking in the last. For the first attack, his Gaia Core already showed some information in the [Waves] interface.

[ Enemies ]

[ 2x Goblin Scouts ]

[ 3x Goblins ]

Also for the first time, there was a special modifier for the wave. Modifiers either meant some change to his world during the wave, be that time or weather, or something else, caused by some type of unit partaking in the attack. In this case, the source of the modifier was the goblin scouts.

[ Modifiers: ]

[ Scouting ]

Focusing on the interface, a different window appeared, explaining to Tanuki the effect of this modifier. It left him confused.

‘Scouting’ was available for special types of units with the same attribute to attack earlier than others by about an hour. Basically, they were a prelude to the main attack, consisting of cheap, low-level units. Killing all scout units would immediately begin the next attack, bringing it all forward in time by a little.

It felt like something that could be abused with the right type of units and some strategic planning, but Tanuki did not believe the savage daughter of the minotaur would know how to do that. More than that, he questioned how she could plan out anything that needs at least a bit of brain, after all, clearly, from her stupid attitude, stupid voice, and stupid clothes or lack thereof, he was certain that her attempt at an invasion would consist of nothing more than some flailing of arms, hinted with the occasional barking of threats. He would not really care for them, or so he thought, as all evidence pointed towards this being the easiest set of waves he would ever encounter.

“They will be nothing more than small, feral goblins whose united brainpower barely scratches the level of intelligence displayed by a soulless husk. Insects, I would call them, but that might be an insult to bugs.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Speaking of, he ordered some plantfolks to bring him the materials required to summon a soulless husk. He too drew a ritual circle with his healthy arm in the dirt near the Gaia Core, then sat with the healing potion in one hand, waiting.

“You should drink that,” came a creaky voice from behind. He turned to meet Woodrow’s mask and crescent eyes, and the large basket on his back, filled to the brim with all kinds of stuff found around the island.

The plantfolk felt familiar enough to offer himself a seat even without his liege’s invitation. He sat down on some patch of grass so as not to get his dirty clothes any dirtier, then joined the boy in staring ahead into the great blue.

They sat in silence for a while. Tanuki raised the potion to his eye and moved the glass a little to cause some waves in the red. It remained transparent despite the strong colour. No small bits of spice swam within, leaving him guessing about the ingredients used during the brewing procedure. Perhaps the game just created these potions out of thin air, and he was looking too much into it. Maybe, or maybe the universe was smarter about wasting its power and copied some other potion from another realm.

“I won’t do it,” Tanuki replied, lowering the potion back to his side.

“Why not? You can’t draw an arrow with a hurting arm.”

“A broken arm. It’s broken.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Then what’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.”

The wind picked up around them, blowing fresh air into their hair and leaves.

“Could you make me one of those healing things you’ve made for… you know who?”

“This world does not have the materials for it, I’m afraid,” Woodrow turned to him, “Please drink that potion.”

“I cannot.”

“Why?”

“I need a soulless husk. We must have someone expendable in the frontline should there be an emergency.”

“Six will be there.”

“I’m afraid that’s true.”

“He is adept with the sword and he has a shield. Make no mistake, my Liege! Despite what you might think about his wounds and irregular speech, those are proof of many winters of experience. He can handle himself well.”

“I’m not doubting his fighting prowess, simply I would not want him to be caught off guard. Six is a good soldier, but he will be outnumbered. With a soulless husk by his side, especially one with my full attention, he won’t bump into any problems. He won’t get hurt.”

Woodrow’s irritation grew to such levels he could not control his anger any longer. He stood in front of the boy, who could only scratch his head at the sudden movement.

“What’s wrong?” he asked the plantfolk sheepishly, who answered with an accusatory finger in his face.

“I don’t understand! Why are you refusing to drink that potion? You already used one to save the farmer’s life, now you want to waste one on a minion, and you refuse to take the last for… for what reason? Why is Six’s safety so important to you to gift him a bodyguard, when you could just drink that thing and defend him yourself? You can’t bear a bow with only one arm!”

“Actually, I thought of a solution for that,” Tanuki tried to calm him down, but Woodrow would not listen.

“Why are you wasting your resources on your followers while utterly ignoring your health? Do you see more value in their life than yours?”

“Yes.”

Woodrow was taken aback. He put forward that question thinking that the answer would be obvious and the other way around. Had he asked this from the King of the Yoshimura Village, it would have helped him realise the irrationality of his thinking, quickly reminding him of the hierarchy among the living.

Gods stand above, men below, those expendable under the soil.

Tanuki was not like that at all, and though old habits die hard, Woodrow was beginning to see that fact. It was not just that he viewed others as his equals, but Tanuki actively viewed himself as a lesser individual.

Tanuki realised by the silence of the plantfolk that his quick answer might not have shown him in the best light, so he quickly followed up by adding, “Oh, that’s not to say I’m just going to use the last health potion for whatever. In a sense, I’m planning to use it myself, should the situation call for it. It’s meant to be an emergency potion in case anyone is on the verge of death.”

Woodrow liked that explanation a lot more. Just like that, he got his attention again, and a shadow was cast upon his previous thoughts.

“Perhaps I was wrong to think he views himself as less,” Woodrow cast the idea aside.

Tanuki talked to him a bit more about his experience with healing potions during the past waves, telling him about how they saved him many times before, especially after fights where he would have bled out. Seeing that Woodrow was eager to listen, he decided it was the best time to return to the touchy subject of bows.

He could not hold a bow and pull the string with only one arm. He needed two for that, but his other one was out of commission.

However, that did not mean others could not do it for him. He gave the bow to Woodrow so he could make copies for the other plantfolks. He was hesitant to agree to Tanuki’s plan, objecting that his kind would make for inefficient soldiers, but Tanuki argued a bad archer is better than none, which he could not deny.

Furthermore, he never said he would not partake in the next wave besides shouting orders. Though he had only one hand to use a bow, he needed no more.

Something he remembered about his past was that the high school he attended was not a regular one. It was sort of like a melting pot for every talentless teenager on that side of the city. In a more practical sense, despite being a big city institution, it had little fame. Other high schools in that area performed far better with student numbers and achievements. They were pretty popular for winning continent-wide competitions in robotics and sports, while the one Tanuki attended never even made it to a county level. For those reasons, it never got the same funding as the others, which left it to stagnate.

Tanuki never met a biology or physics teacher, because the school could simply not afford to pay any. Instead, the principal opted to hire unemployed artists (a good few with matching family names to hers) and rebranded the institution as one for young and aspiring artists and poets. It worked, and a never-before-seen number of new students appeared the next September, one of them being Tanuki himself.

He remembered the last history lesson he had before the teacher was fired and replaced by a much cheaper art history graduate. It consisted of about thirty minutes of a grown man screaming about the fall of society to a bunch of ninth-graders, occasionally returning to the topic at hand before gathering enough air in his lungs to continue about women’s rights and why they should not have any.

He was far too young to care for any of what his teacher had to say, but he remembered that day’s topic vividly. Medieval warfare. There was a weapon displayed on the projector, one the teacher forgot to scroll away from after seeing a rainbow pin on somebody’s backpack and throwing a tantrum.

Tanuki never got the name of it. Best he could relate it to was a mounted machine gun but with a crossbow. It stood on three legs connected to a thick beam holding the weapon. There it was, sitting on top of a stone wall, overlooking an army of poorly painted ottomans, raining death upon their horde.

He remembered the cursing of that old man, how he grabbed one of the chalks and threw it against the wall, hitting one of the glass shelves and breaking it while the students cried in fear. Another teacher stormed into the room, yelling insults that soon turned into grunts as they fought.

There it was, the weapon, their dancing shadows casting darkness onto it and blood, so much blood as one stabbed the other with a divider, hitting an artery, and cursing two young minds with a fascination he would not remember.

Edgar watched the orange beam of sunlight cast through the window. He sat in bed, resting his back on a pillow, watching the light creep up his chest. The sun moved slowly, but eventually, it arrived by his chin. He did not move but waited patiently for it to creep closer until it finally met his eyes.

He did not hide behind his eyelids. He let the sun shine directly at him, right into his pupils. It blinded him to all else in the room. Golden white danced violently around him, yet it never hurt, he never felt the need to look away.

At one point he did, and his vision was perfectly normal. His mouth trembled with fear. He looked down into his palms and could see every wrinkle of his hand without an issue, but when he closed his fists, he could barely sense his fingers.

“Scary, isn’t it?” he heard a voice, “Come back into the warmth.”

Cold sweat washed over his forehead, flowing into his eyes though he did not notice.

“Return to me.”

He looked back at the sun. Rainbows grew in his eyes as the light blinded him again. He saw shapes, people and creatures dancing. Chimes played in the distance and horns grew louder from the distance.

In that sea of gold, he saw a stairwell and a titanic figure descending it.

“Come to me.”

She extended her arm and Edgar’s breathing grew disorganized. He tried to hold onto the nightstand for support, but instead, he knocked over some glass and clenched the shards. Despite them digging deep, he never felt any pain.

All there was existed in the light. The shrieking of instruments, the thrashing of people, and that woman with the flowing hair, towering over the void and the house itself, raising its roof, she looked down on him with judging eyes, engulfing all of him, and as he burnt under her blinding eyes, all he could speak was…

“Mother?”