This would be all, wouldn't it? There you have it, my past, what made me myself, and what led me to this path. I won't deny I'm free of blame or sin, but no man is perfect except those who actively decide to become monsters.

…No? …A climax you say? My story needs something else, eh? Alright, then, let's add one final climax to my past.

Many years had passed since our exile from Asina. By this point, Aaliyah had already murdered most of her family and become the Sultanah of Ydaz, the greatest to exist even. Most rulers of Ydaz were powerful people, but she was different. Ageless.

Of course, if one were to look at her right now and compare her to her young self, one would be able to see she has very much aged. No longer a teenager, but a woman in her early twenties. Which isn't that much aging considering half a century has gone by, but oh well.

Yes, I did question if this agelessness was Karaim's doing and asked the man about it. His response was… inconclusive. He told me what he did should have slowed her aging alright, but only by a half. Meaning that she should look in her early forties rather than twenties. But that isn't the case. Whatever she had done, it wasn't Karaim's magic any longer. I did try to convince him to make us age at that slowed rate, it was an untold blessing, but he refused. He said it was too much of a price and he was still paying it.

Back then I didn't understand what he was talking about, but once he died, everything finally clicked. Karaim was a healthy man with a healthy routine. A man like him should have lived for many years, easily into his eighties and maybe more, but he died in his mid-sixties.

For the most knowledgeable of life, he was the first of us to go.

I did end up dying a year later, but I was the only one and my body was full of drugs. Reaching the seventy-year milestone is basically a feat of strength considering how messed up everything about my being was.

But going back to our desired climax, by this time I was entering my forties and already a Grandmaster Assassin and the leader of the cell of Sadina. Aaliyah had long put the country in a chokehold, closing borders and making everyone depend on her blood to keep the country afloat. She did it in an intelligent manner, though, making most think she was a hero rather than the root of their problems.

And perhaps she was a hero. During her reign I never heard of a famine or a war in our lands, but who is to say she was right? Certainly not me, because I actively opposed her. Aaliyah was opposed to the assassins, our ideals and our magic. She became more and more radicalized with age, but also more laidback.

This was my doing.

Young people are zealous, but Aaliyah hadn't had the time to drive that zealousness toward us as she was busy running a country. She was seething with anger at those who used the farmlands grown from her blood to grow drugs, drugs which would destroy the mind and values she held dear.

Finally free of more pressing matters, she launched a crusader against the assassins, to exterminate us.

As the most powerful assassin of Ydaz – and Khaffat – by that point, I had to oppose her.

It must be said I was more powerful during that age than I am now, or rather, prior to my death. Drugs take a serious toll on one's body, and even if I wasn't a teenager anymore, I did have experience and mastery under my belt, those proved much more useful than a body at its peak. It's quite the balance, you know? Physical prowess and mental wisdom.

But enough rambling, let's give you that climax.

I met Aaliyah at the Heaven's Starway, the mountain range next to the capital city of Asina. My demands were simple: don't kill us and we won't thrash your country.

Aaliyah laughed at my face.

This was not a surprise. Whilst she was good at playing diplomacy and had a true passion for science and education, Aaliyah had been a rabid beast at her very core. She had needed an outlet for a very long time, and I needed to pay back some old grudges.

"All that has been said matters no more," Aaliyah spoke with her honeyed voice as her eyes shone like amethysts. "There has not been a battle against an Assassin Grandmaster and a Ruler of Ydaz ever before in history. Do not disappoint me, Umar."

"Fret not, you will see a master at its work, Aaliyah," I responded.

Looking from the outside, the scene was quite satirical. A man in his forties cloaked in black robes launching himself at a still teenage girl not wearing much clothing. The funniest part comes from the fact that the girl had the strength of a thousand men.

I lunged at Aaliyah with fire in my hands. I knew it was quite a futile effort; it was already hard to kill a person with fire, let alone a cultivator, but if I could singe her skin, I was more than happy with the result. The sultanah may not have valued her beauty, but her followers certainly did.

But I couldn't get close to her before she also lunged at me, except that she was magnitudes faster than me. I became one with the shadows to avoid the strike and my fire still lingered, and even if it was a vicious conflagration that no assassin had managed to perform before – swallowing her entire body – Aaliyah emerged totally unscathed once the flames dissipated.

The only thing affected by the fire were her clothes, but otherwise, she was completely impervious to the flames.

"This will be harder than I thought," I mused as I perched from the edge of a boulder.

"And this will be simpler than I thought," Aaliyah snickered back.

She launched at me with preternatural speed, but she wasn't the only one with augmented senses. Not only was tobacco giving me an emphatic connection to her, allowing me to guess her movements with increased ease, but with the myrrh in my stomach I also reacted faster than normal.

Not many assassins used the resin as it reacted poorly with the shadow powers granted by hashish – the body and the mind didn't understand being shadows – causing severe nausea, but I was at my peak here and I could afford to combine many types of drugs.

This led me to my only tactic to win against the force of nature that Aaliyah-al-Ydaz was.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I couldn't hurt her, that much was clear from the beginning, but I had another drug at my disposal. It also wouldn't hurt her, but it would affect her, and I had to gamble on that fact. But for that, I had to touch her first. Physical contact was a must for it to work.

And also, I needed time. This medicine was toxic and if I wanted to affect her, I would need to consume high enough doses that nausea and vomiting would be the least of my concerns.

But Aaliyah was vicious, each time she sensed me nearby, or rather, close enough that she could bridge the gap in a single second, she would assault me. And when someone was as fast as the Heavenly Descendant or with such outrageous leg strength, her area of action became a sphere of influence, completely unaffected by terrain advantages like height.

"Will you stop running, Umar?" She asked, her voice was but the most beautiful of songs.

I knew better than to fall into that trap. And it wasn't like she didn't know where I was. Unless I shadow stepped tens of kilometers away, she could still feel my presence. This wasn't a common cultivator, but Aaliyah-al-Ydaz. I had to constantly keep telling myself that.

This was the best opportunity that I would have, so I shadow stepped to the peak of the mountain we were currently at. Sahil, or the Second Step of the Heaven's Starway. From there I opened a small pouch containing a handful of saffron and ate it whole. The powder was dry and it made me cough, but I was able to feel its power. And also feel how poorly it was reacting with my body.

Saffron was already toxic to people, especially in such absurd doses, but I was under the influence of a handful of drugs. Which also reacted poorly with saffron. Unless I was swift with the execution of my tactic, I would die.

And the sultanah didn't give me the opportunity to execute it.

The brief seconds that had taken me to consume the power the cultivator had used to jump into the air, and now she was descending from the very heavens with the violence of a boulder thrown with a trebuchet. Hundredfold.

Fuck. Those were my honest thoughts at the time.

One misstep and I was dead.

One sluggish thought and I was dead.

Only now the gravitas of those facts struck me. I was an assassin, what I was doing here? An assassin hid in the shadows and struck with an unseen blade, yet I found myself in a duel. Cowardice was our essence, and I, above all else, was a coward. Only now that I saw her might I remembered that.

As I became shadows and moved far away, Aaliyah impacted against the peak. The mountain itself screamed against the collision as the earth began grumbling.

It was the most terrifying sight I had ever seen.

Nothing came even close.

But a part of me couldn't give up now. I had to at least try for a strike.

Under the heavy mantle of dust created by the impact – the cloud of debris reached tens of meters high – I sneaked behind her as I still was a being of shadow. Aaliyah's senses were the most acute Khaffat had seen, so my infiltration had to be perfect. Never before had I had my heart on my fist like that before.

Time was moving slowly as we both executed our movements. Aaliyah hastily extended her arm where I was, the movement was so powerful that she displaced most of the dust cloud. I didn't fully dodge as I didn't want her to retract her arm, enough that I could touch her but wouldn't fall prey to her clutches.

I just needed a moment.

And a moment I had.

The moment our skin met I unleashed the power of the saffron with my full might. It was normally a useless ability made even more useless by the fact that the substance could rapidly kill the assassin.

But this wasn't a normal case, nor I was a normal assassin.

What was the saffron's ability?

Simple.

It shared my intoxication with her.

Aaliyah-al-Ydaz, Sultanah of Ydaz, Ruler of the Qiraji, and force of nature became intoxicated for the very first time in her life.

I was well aware that the body of cultivators was strong, but even the strongest of bodies were suggestible once they tried a substance for the first time. And I was offloading a hospital worth of drugs into the woman.

I was the first and only person in the world to see Aaliyah kneel as she lost her balance and began coughing uncontrollably. And I could see it in her blazing eyes, she had lost control of her precious mind. I had stolen her of the only thing that truly mattered to her.

Others would have rejoiced, but I was horrified at the sight. That was my strongest card and she was still standing. I had irreparably damaged my body to do this, and she was still conscious. I would never be able to repeat this attack and no one else came close to me.

But she didn't know that.

"Let's call this a stalemate. Unless you want to repeat this experience, that is," I whispered to her before disappearing, letting her think I could recreate this attack.

That quick thinking was what allowed me to maintain the status quo for decades.

As I shadow stepped with all my might away from the Heaven's Starway cordillera, I was able to hear the screams of rage of the woman, but beyond that, the screams of the mountain and the earth.

Whatever happened after I left, I would never know. But everyone knew that day the Sahil Mountain disappeared, buried in debris as fine as whole houses.

For once, I was just happy to be alive.

***

"Marvelous story, count me satisfied and my favor granted," the Dreamer of the Past mused as it flopped around its long-brimmed hat. "You fought a being that had not only stored a lot of Power but was also Aligned with Life. Rejoice, Shadow's shadow, for your feat of driving her to the ground is one of a kind, let alone the feat of your survival." The cloth doll clapped its hands, but the floppy fabric didn't make for a good clapping device and failed to produce sound.

"Sapient beings aligned with the Primordial Aspects are rare, but this world of Khaffat has granted us many in a short span. Such… randomness," the silver serpent mused. Its eyes weren't looking at him, but the crown… Umar felt as if the crown was peering directly into his being. "Alas, this is not a discussion for now, nor knowledge you yourself should have. You have gained my favor and that of Past, now answer Future's question and your dream shall be granted."

Umar looked at the Dreamer of the Future, the hollow bronze mannequin that showed all its humanity through a bronze mask that wasn't even attached to its body.

"Do you know what your greed is?" The mannequin finally asked.

"Yes," Umar nodded. "I'm a coward. I've always known that. I sacrificed others without even sacrificing myself first. But truth be told, I ached for simpler days, devoid of violence. I just wanted to experiment with Enlightenment, not use it for destruction."

"We understand those are your honest thoughts, but that is not the answer." The Dreamer of the Future said.

"A preamble to my answer," the shadow chuckled with the weight of age. "I now understand why you were so hellbent on me telling the tale of my past. I have realized something with this 'climax'. It's not that I want to live again. No," he shook his head. "It's something deeper. Greedier."

Umar stopped for a moment and looked at his hands. They were eroded from his time in the world of ideas but also defined by the observation of the Dreamers. He was no longer Umar of Sadina, but a shadow. A greedy shadow with the utmost despicable of dreams.

The shadow smiled and opened his mouth to speak the words. "I want to live forever."

The triumvirate of Dreamers nodded simultaneously at his confession.

"You've told us what you remembered," the cloth doll with the long-brimmed hat said.

"You've told us what you needed," the crowned silver serpent continued.

"You've told us what you wanted," and the masked bronze mannequin finalized.

"Now we shall grant you your dream," the three Dreamers, Past, Present, and Future combined spoke at the same time. "Shadow's shadow, may you fulfill that dream with your very hands."

The shadow didn't have time to answer as everything turned turquoise. By the time the light faded away and he was able to open his eyes again, reality had completely shifted. Yes, he could easily tell that as a curious… essence enveloped the world. No longer was he an incorporeal being as air rushed into his lungs and noise assaulted his ears with the rage of tinnitus. His sight was blurry and devoid of depth perception, but he was able to see his own hands covered in blood.

The Dreamers hadn't outright granted him his dream but had allowed him a new chance. A chance to make it come true by himself. The shadow had been reborn.

He giggled in the body of an infant, his body, for he knew what he had to do now.

Fulfill his dream and deny death of its prey again. Not just for another time, but forever.

For, after all, shadows never die.