Chapter 20: Vengeance-Sworn

I didn’t know it back when I was a child, but dreams are powerful revelations.

Especially the old and familiar dream that would haunt me for the entirety of my long life.

All dreams are based upon certain truths, certain observations sprouted from seeds which one does not pay heed to most of the time.

Most dreams are useless, but some are revelations.

Like the dream that haunts me so.

Some dreams—

Subconscious truths hidden deep within your minds, impaired by the conscious world, only being able to awaken inside the subconscious world.

Some dreams—

You wish you never had them.

-Wolf Under Stars

A few days passed by routinely as the members of the Night Sky tribe settled in and they joined in on our mass-scale hunts. During these few days, and even the prior two weeks, I had not seen Hunter show his face around us for most of the days. He was always gone in the next second, the next moment.

We would be lucky if we even saw him for an hour or two each day. But for the rest of the day then, he was simply gone. Vanished, and nowhere to be found in the village.

I didn’t pay Hunter’s absence much attention though. And for that matter, neither did my three Brothers. There was just a passing curiosity at his absence. We weren’t worried. Hunter was…Hunter, after all. What would we even worry about? We were sure he had matters to attend to.  

So the days passed and the day for the New Year Hunt began. The twelve of us, four Hunters from each of the tribe, traveled deeper into the Valley of Suns. There wasn’t really much to the hunt. We simply had a small rivalry ignited between the twelve of us in which each and every one chose to find and hunt down the rarest beast. In reality, The New Year Hunt was a simple informal gathering of the young Hunters from the three Demona tribes—a get-to-know.

Instead, the main focus was the competition after the New Year Hunt. It would begin a day after the hunt.

Night fell like it always does. Even in the Valley of Suns, there were no particular changes in the way the sun sets, the way the moon shines.

But that night was different.

In my sleep, I dreamt an old familiar dream. A dream I had not experienced in almost four years.

A world of white-washed nothingness. An endless expanse of white nothingness with nothing but time and myself for company.

Endless. Nothing. Endless. Nothing. Endless. Nothing.

A repetition of patterns that could drive one insane. And I stood in the middle of it all.

It was the same dream I had back when I had been afflicted with the dream fever in the First Hunt. It was the same dream that had marked the beginning of the increasingly great changes which had been wrought in my blood.

But this time, the dream was different. It was not a difference in the sceneries of white nothingness—it was the ambiance of the world. My perception of the world felt sharper. Almost as if the world had become closer to reality.  

As expected, next came the jagged black lines that appeared out of nowhere. They were like crevices with limitless depth. It was as if the white world was shattering into millions of pieces.

Then came the sea of redness which gushed out from the dark crevices, drowning the world of white-washed nothingness into a blood-washed world.

As the seconds passed by. As the minutes passed by. As the hours passed by.

Days. Years.

Like an eternity.

My world soon became filled to the brim with the redness, and I drowned inside that scarlet sea. And though I say drowned, there were no accompanying sensations. There was only…existing.  

The dream did not end there. It continued until the sea eventually drained away. And from beneath my bare feet, a long red shadow extended outward. Thus, in the middle of that shattered white-washed world, I stood face to face with my blood-red shadow.

Everything fell apart then. Vanished like dreams eventually do.

And I woke up sweating in the middle of the night despite the cool of the room, despite the cool of the night. A strange feeling entered my mind. A sort of uneasiness, a sort of foreboding.

For a few minutes, I entertained the thoughts of going back to sleep. And I attempted to carry out that task, but none came. Sleep had become impossible. I removed myself from the bed, silently exiting my room, then the building.  

For almost an hour, I walked around aimlessly. The cool moonlit night felt as if I were in a never-ending dream. A borderless dream that would continue on without any regards.

When I returned from my brief nightly walk, I went around the building, intending to look at the fields of flowers. For some strange reason, a subtle feeling was urging me to visit there. A subtle, yet undeniable feeling.

There, I saw amidst the fields of flowers with its Caranathus, Aramanthus, and Bellarans, what I would never have expected to see.

A tall shadowy figure with a glinting reddish blade-spear stood amidst a field of Caranathus flowers and surrounding that figure were multiple other shadows. And further around them were many Vulcans. The form of the surrounded shadowy figure was at once familiar to my eyes. I would recognize it anywhere—

The figure belonged to Hunter. In that field of Caranathus, he stood there staring at the building, his dark eyes even darker and glinting with a dark something, a reminiscent sadness. No longer was there that glow of amusement in those eyes.

Then the eyes fell upon me. And the eyes of the surrounding shadowy figures with their hoods also fell upon me. I didn’t recognize any of them, especially with their hoods on. I did a quick count. There were about nine of these hooded figures, including Hunter.

The nine shadowy figures moved toward me and my surprise chose to clobber me at the same inconvenient moment. They surrounded me in an instant, Hunter in the lead. Beside him, I recognized a somewhat familiar face under the hood. It belonged to the messenger who had visited our tribe three weeks ago.

“Why are you here?” I asked, my surprise already leaving me. But with my surprise leaving, idiocy entered. It was a stupid question I had asked.    

Hunter let out a small dark chuckle, removing his hood. And though it was a grim chuckle, there was a bitterness in it. “I didn’t expect you to be still awake, Wolf Under Stars. It’s far past midnight already.”

It became, at once, strange. Hunter never simply called me Wolf Under Stars. He would usually add something before my name.

I responded truthfully, “A familiar dream woke me up and I went for a long walk.”

The hood came off from the figure beside Hunter. It only confirmed my suspicions. The face belonged to the messenger from the Sun Cherishers tribe, the one who had visited us during the All Festival.

“What are you doing?” he said, his voice a soft hiss. “We don’t have time for this. We must go soon before it is too late.”

“Relax,” Hunter said softly but firmly. He let out a long lasting sigh. “I wonder myself why I wished to see you children before I leave.”

What do you mean?

For some reason, the words became stuck in my throat. No, not even my throat. It was still stuck in my mind. I dared not even ask the question, so strong was the dark silent, oppressive mood around me.

“Enough,” the messenger said. He directed a black gloved hand toward me.

As soon as I saw that threatening movement, I became guarded, watching for any threats. But none came. Hunter had raised his hand toward him, gesturing at him to stop whatever he was about to do.

Then Hunter looked at me for a long while, our eyes meeting each other. He shook his head softly. A small bitter smile was given. He brought his palm down.

“Sleep!” the messenger commanded furiously, as much as fury could be heard in a whispered voice.

My mind suddenly became drowsy, and my vision blurry. My legs felt as if they would give in any moment, wobbly as an old creaking desk burdened by age.

Sleepy. I am sleepy. A bed would be good now.

I felt my legs give way, my knees now the only thing that kept me upright.

Lethargy. Sleep. Drowsy.

My blurred vision only witnessed the scene of the eight shadowy figures leaving. And soon even Hunter started to walk away, abandoning me to my sleep.

A fire ignited in me at that. A voice rebelled inside me.

I WILL NOT GIVE IN TO YOUR INTENTION!

My blood went into its pseudo-surging, and like a light that had been ignited in the middle of an all-encompassing darkness, I started burning away the drowsiness. It was akin to that of light burning away the darkness.  

Still on my knees but my vision now clear, I shouted, “Stop!”

The nine figures turned around. And the messenger had a surprised look to his face.

Hunter gave a small laughter, one which did not hold the previous tinge of bitterness. “Looks like his will is strong enough to overcome your Intention, Brother Lunaris.”

So Lunaris was the messenger’s name, I thought to myself.

Hearing Hunter’s words, Lunaris shot an irritated look at him. “He was simply lucky,” he said coldly, walking toward my knelt form.

I looked up at him and he looked down at me. I formed a small smile. “Next time, put a stronger will behind your Intention.” Stupidity, I knew. I shouldn’t have been putting on a mask of bravado in front of this Hunter. But sometimes, bravado is all you have left. It wasn’t as if I could do anything else against him anyway.

Still, the bravado wasn’t just stupidity itself. I was also using it to buy myself some time. I could already feel some of my strength returning, clearing away more of the drowsiness. Then I took a deep breath, instantly entering into Blodvraz, into my starblood form.

My blade-ridges unfurled outward from inside my body, and I started to activate all of my runic enhancements. Three seconds. I would need to hold on for that long before the enhancements would activate.

By that thought, I quickly stood up and my fist was already traveling forward in midair, itching to smash into something. Preferably a face. Preferably one that belonged to Lunaris.

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But even in his surprise and even with my unexpected attack, Lunaris still managed to block my punch with one easy palm. He said coldly, “You will at least need decades and decades of experience before you can even begin to imagine me as your opponent.”

A pain shot through my stomach like an ignited Essence bomb. It was extremely quick, so quick that my trained reflexes didn’t even kick in. Only after his punch had connected with my stomach did I realize I had been punched by Lunaris.

I slumped over, my hands holding onto my abdomen. I looked upward at Lunaris, my four fangs biting down my lips. He had used a Pain Intention on me. It was why a simple punch had multiplied, exploding into a dozen punches.

Hunter walked over, a small frown on his face. “You didn’t need to use a Pain Intention, Lunaris.”

The messenger shrugged his shoulders. “He is tougher than I imagined.” He narrowed his eyes. “As expected of one trained by Brother Arkiees, I suppose. He didn’t easily keel over with that one punch.”

Surprise filled me at that unexpected revelation of Hunter’s name.

Arkiees—no, Hunter—directed an annoyed look toward Lunaris. “I have long abandoned that name.”

“Then you shouldn’t have called me Lunaris,” he retorted. “I too have long abandoned that name.”

“Fair enough,” Hunter simply said, his shadowy figure now standing before me. He directed an outstretched palm at me.

I didn’t give him a chance to use any Intention on me. “Wait! At least explain to me why you are doing this. Where are you going?” I quickly asked.  

Hunter sighed, looking back at a few of the cloaked figures. They nodded at him. “Well, looks like we still have some time left, Hunter Wolf Under Stars.” He looked up at the starry sky, his face ponderous. “Where should I even begin?”

Lunaris sniffed at that from beside him.

Hunter ignored it. “It began almost twenty four years ago” he started, then paused at that, letting the silence fill the night.

Twenty four years ago. My mind spun around at that, trying to connect the thoughts. For a few seconds, there was only a frantic chaos in my mind, if that even made any sense. Then it hit me. The story of the black dragon Elder Magus Zelas had spoken off.

Hunter continued on with his story, unaware of my thoughts…of my suspicions.

“During that time, our tribe was still an all Demona tribe with the Wraithborn tribe as our closest neighbor. I wasn’t the lead Hunter back then. Instead, I was a Hunter under the direct command of the lead Hunter. And of course, I was infatuated with the lead Hunter. She was fascinating, everything beautiful. From the moment of my childhood to my long years as an adult, I had given her my heart.”

Another bitter smile, and the bitterness traced his voice. “Everything was going well for me back then. Having reached my fifty years of age, I earned the name Arkiees, graduating from my traditional animal name. Arkiees. It was a beloved name given to me by the lead Hunter, by Astera.”

A glint of a tear, still unformed. It gave a sad luster to his dark eyes, made darker by the cool silent night. “She was everything you could imagine and more. A sad and too used phrase, I know. But nothing else could describe her. She was the youngest to be lead Hunter at the age of only twenty. She excelled at everything and gave more effort than anyone else. No matter how I try catching up to her, I was always left behind. Always in second place, always chasing her back.”

Hunter smiled, a still bitter smile. It made the night only colder and even more silent. “It happened on the morning, a morning that was supposed to be joyous. You see, I was planning on asking her to marry me. I could feel it. I knew that she loved me back. Too many years spent with her told me that easily. I knew that she would say yes to me.”

His eyes became darker, glinting with fury. There was an unrestrained violence in those dark orbs I had never seen before. As if his fury could drown everything, as if wanting to lash out at the whole world. “Then the black dragon attacked our tribe,” Hunter spat out the words like dirt in his mouth.        

“We gathered many of the Hunters to retaliate and start a defense. The Wraithborn, also witnessing the black dragon, quickly gathered their Magus to help us. In the end, none of it mattered to that ancient dragon, to that dragon of decay and death. His dark flames razed everything to ashes, destroying the village and killing many of our brethren.”

A small tear traced the edge of his left eye, lingering there like a bitter regret, like a festering wound that would never be able to heal. “I was stupid in my rage. In my rage at seeing a few of my close Brothers being killed. They were treated like small infants against that ancient monster.” Hunter laughed, a dark sad laugh that seemed to echo the night softly. “Of course, fury knows no bounds for the chosen of the red hearts. But that is merely an excuse. Let me advise you as one chosen of the red heart to another. You can control your fury, temper it into a weapon.”

He sighed. “Anyway, in my unbridled fury, I took it upon myself to assault the black dragon from behind. As it was diving down to breathe down its black flames, I vaulted onto its back from a building and began my way upward. I knew that it was useless trying to aim for its body. It was impervious to every attacks, even wide-scaled magic from the Magus. After all, there were plenty of proof as everyone scrambled to battle the dragon.”

Hunter raised his head, looking at the stars as if they could vanish away the past. “As I scaled its back, and as the wind howled furiously around me, I moved toward its head with rage in my heart. It was a futile attempt to get at its eyes. You see, the dragon was merely toying with me. It already knew that I was on its back, struggling like a measly worm.”

“The dragon landed onto the ground and its tail whipped at me from behind, knocking me aside and breaking most of my ribs in the process. I smashed into the walls of a building when I finally crawled out from the rubbles, the dragon loomed above me. And its mouth was wide opened as if laughing at my futile attempt. Then its tail once more smashed onto my prone form, breaking all of my ribs and my arms.”

Hunter sighed once more, bitterly laughing. “It was undoubtedly toying with me, for it had whipped at me with its tail lightly. What was a mere caress of a tail to the black dragon was a broken ribcage and arms for me. Of course, trapped by the dragon and on the verge of death’s door, Astera showed up.”

Hunter closed his eyes for a brief moment. “The rest is history and a festering pain in my heart that I will never share. She saved me and took one of its eyes in the process.” Fury burned in his eyes, and he traced a hand over the ancestral blade-spear. “With this Cruel Moon Piercer, Astera took one of its eyes. Tonight, I will take its last remaining eye. All nine of us here are the Vengeance-Sworn. Four from the Night Sky tribe who had been terrorized by the black dragon fifty years ago, Four from the Sun Cherishers tribe who had been terrorized by the black dragon seventy years ago, and finally, me.”

With his furious dark eyes, he met my own pair of eyes. “Sleep,” Hunter Arkiees commanded.

His voice was still a soft whisper, but the Intention he directed toward me was a falling mountain that attempted to bury me with its stony arms and rubbles.

I rebelled at that Intention with all of my strength. But it was all for naught. I could do nothing against his willpower. It was willpower born from an endless hatred that had been slowly building up, an endless determination that would stop at nothing.

But none of that really mattered in the end. The reason I could not overcome that willpower was that…in the end, he was Hunter, the only parental figure I had known. He was the elder Brother, the non-blood-related father of us eight Brothers, of me.

The drowsiness slowly devoured me and I fell to the ground. And somehow, I found a small speck of strength to ask. “What about your wife? Your daughter?” I whispered, thinking of Teacher Embracing Flower.

“I don’t know,” Hunter said bitterly. “I don’t know,” he repeated. He looked around at fields of flowers sadly, and among them, the pink flowers with their six petals. “You know, the Caranathus flowers are her favorites. They symbolize a great defiance, of formidable strength, and of decisive mental changes.”

"Some past you cannot simply leave behind. They haunt your dreams every single night, and they are unforgiving at their best. The vengeance I have nursed in my heart for my Brothers and Astera can never be extinguished again. Far too many years have passed for that. I am nothing without my vengeance." Hunter turned his back toward me. “Take care of them for me, Wolf Under Stars.” He proceeded a step, stopping there. “I will be back.”

Even in my drowsiness, my blurring senses, I could hear the badly-hidden lies in those words, in that statement. Hunter would not be surviving this.

Powerless, paralyzed by the Intention, and with a blurred vision, I watched the nine shadowy figures leave, jumping atop their nine Vulcan mounts.

The messenger Lunaris slightly turned his head to look down at me. It reminded me of his curious message.

The Watchers have reported movements, and we have sent a messenger to the Night Sky tribe also.  

So Lunaris had been reporting the movements of the black dragon to Hunter?

The Vengeance-Sworn, huh? Just how long had they been planning for the vengeance, soothing and nursing their dark dreams, their dark nightmares? Just how long?  

I laughed bitterly to myself. Not out loud, but in my mind, for I was paralyzed by the lethargy.

They were more like Death-sworn. What could nine of them do to a dragon that had almost destroyed a whole tribe by itself?      

My vision turned even more blurry, and the nine Vulcans began to beat their wings, already hovering a few feet off the ground.

More and more dimmer. Creeping blackness.

Then.

All was darkness, and I finally and fully fell down against the earthen floor. I fell down in the middle of the fields of flowers, amidst the soft pink of the Caranathus, the red of the Aramanthus, and the yellow of the Bellarans.

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AN: Well guys, get ready for a timeskip and a perspective change. It will be told from a [sub-main character]. ^_^

As always, thanks for the comments. I read them all!