Sleep has always been a state of transition with no sense of time left in its passing. It was what felt right, normal. It was the only time when chaos overtook the senses, or perhaps the only time our minds grew quiet enough to no longer perceive their own noise.

  Yet I did not face that same peaceful state this time, as my consciousness grew thinner. No… Far from it. I couldn’t tell when or from where I came… I was just there, walking, walking in a field of blood and boiling nature.

  Stones, bloody mud, broken swords, spears, halberds, shields, and worse of all, bodies. All were mangled thrown scattered and mixed. Arrows stood up from some rotting carcasses. Small crow like beasts were swooping down at the pieces of flesh, pecking and consuming them.

  ‘A cycle…’ I looked around. The scene was not disturbing to me. If anything, just like when I faced the bandits, the stink of the bodily fluids and rot was more repulsive. ‘Perhaps I should’ve worked as a criminologist…’ I thought quietly.

  Aether was stirring and thinning, while qi was boiling. The atmosphere was charged with wasted jing, with the power of the fallen, all of it carrying the despair, rage, hate, fear mingled, darkening the air and pulling in cold.

  My limbs were heavy, as I lead was coursing through my veins. Chills were slowly creeping in. I shook my head. A torrent of my own jing escaped my lower dan tian, washing my body and returning back, only to repeat the cycle.

  Warmth and strength returned, a bit at a time, and my march grew faster. I didn’t even know where I was headed. Mountains, bloodied as well, were surrounding the space. My heart grew heavier the more I walked and saw. ‘Just how many lives must be forfeited for such a scene?’

  I wanted to stop, to look around. My legs did not listen, nor did my arms react. Everything started to look bigger. The chill was returning, not from my body, but from my soul. I was a captive, a spectator to the fate of my body again…

  I scanned the surroundings as much as I could with my lack of control. Catching glimpses of symbols on some pieces of armor I came to a conclusion. ‘The Aethelgardian army and its must have lost badly, there is no body that seems to belong to other troops. What sort of enemy could they face?’

  Being locked in your body is one of those sensations you can’t get used to. It just stays with you. An experience, a fear. You see your body move, without you meaning it to. It made my spiritual bowels knot. Step by step, with growing awareness of my inability to change anything. ‘Why do I keep getting in this sort of situation?’

  I saw the bloodied puddles tremble. Stones were jumping lightly. Trembling noiselessly. It was as if the world was shaking, fearful of what it was to come. Another bunch of rocks, another hill climbed between these bloodied mountains, on a wide trail of carnage seemingly leading nowhere. ‘It seems I’m getting close…’

  What came into view was not some monster, but a magnificent, glowing army, surrounded by glittering purplish clouds marching forward through a deeper mountain pass. Aether and the world were moving with this army, quite impressive. ‘How could they move the aether like that?’

  They all had aether, of course, so did any army in this world, but this sort of coordination and phenomenon could not be achieved. An army, but it felt like a single person. Not the trained coordination kind…

  Another army came into view too. It was being pushed back and cornered. ‘The Aethelgardian army…’ My body jumped forward, quickly moving down and towards the white army, each fall broken seamlessly on rocks jutting out from the wall, only to crumble and fall right after the next jump.

  I heard an indistinct shout. A cohort of the white army turned towards me. Fire burst upwards above it, Wind twisted, gathered and compressed it. Then the concentrated breath of fire moved towards me. My hands rose for the first time.

  As they came in my view, I was shocked. Multiple burns and scars were covering my forearms. The cloak I was clothed in fell, and a tingling feeling reached me. The world blurred as I moved forward at insane speeds. My rush carried me just beneath the attack.

  The trace of heat that escaped made my scalp go numb and hurt my neck. I landed closer to them, too close for another breath. Slowly I walked forward. A numb ache took over my body. The air seemed to slap me as I walked.

  Two more steps. Wind bursts rushed forward, a few sidesteps, and I was through the first barrage. Fire gushed forth and it parted before me harmless as the tingling intensified slightly. I felt a smile grow on my lips as I took one more step forward.

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  A caster grimaced in pain, his eyes bulging as he started to tremble. Then a plop. White matter scattered, red of blood and flesh burst open sprayed out as the bones broke and exploded. The smile on my lips grew contrasting the heavy knot that formed in my belly at the sight.

  A few more steps and more of the mages trembled and exploded. The ones behind witnessing the futility of their attacks trembled, their eyes wide with horror. The one that seemed to be the leader launched blades of wind at the few that turned to run, killing them.

  An army of manifestation stage powerhouses. ‘Manifestation stage is only worth this much… fodder.’ My body and movements were not affected by my musings. It moved forward as the range of explosions grew. The commander attacked fiercely smaller versions of the fire beam from earlier shooting at me in succession.

  What followed… I could only call it a dance. Dodging the beams, ignoring the heat and moving forward… A dance of massacre unfolded; each move of my body accompanied by a new flower of blood. Soon the commander burst too.

  The commotion did not go unnoticed, all the nearby cohorts moving to strike me. Rocks fell from the cliffs as a result of the shots. Spears of rock jutted from the ground to pierce me, wind condensed to slow me, and fire burned with greater ferocity to swallow me.

  My dance continued as I moved, cutting through the lines of the army. Using the spears as footholds and ignoring the pressure of the air as aether coursed through me. The tingling grew more and more, the sensation of the air slapping me vanished.

  The flowers of blood bloomed, marking my advance, cutting the retreat of those before me with the death zone that my surroundings were. I stopped away from the other army as the world stopped changing to attack me. A forest of reddened rock spears burned and shattered lay below my feet as I stood balanced on the tip of a rock.

  After taking a last good look at the celebrating army I turned ready to give chase to the part of the army that fell in retreat from where I cut in. Jumping over the rocks with as much nimbleness as before, each jump powered by aether.

  I turned my attention towards the inside of the body. I was shocked to find an aether core gleaming purplish and shining with multiple colors of affinities. It was a huge ball, lighting up a new aether pool that extended up to my chest, to just below the middle dan tian.

  The core spun slowly, acting like a black hole, accelerating the flow of aether. As the flow left the core, it rushed in all directions, following the spin of the core and pushing against the sides of the aether pool, slowly enlarging it.

  I brought my attention back out. By now I was far from the other army and caught up with the white clad soldiers. They weren’t running, nor were they preparing to attack me. All of them were kneeling. Their hands with interlocked fingers before their chests and their gaze cast upwards.

  I ignored it and stepped forward. With each step more of them exploded, their faces turning into pain and horror twisted expressions, with their eyes popping out. Yet their last screams were still in prayer, as if unbroken by the pain, forced upon their minds and lips.

  The sky darkened, aether pressing onto me, dark grey purplish clouds blocking the sun, spinning as if a portal was forming. A hand, lifelike, smooth, with delicate features despite the bulging muscled on it formed out of the swirling clouds, growing in size as it fell.

  Lightning crackled around the hand in its slow descent, as it slapped at me and the ground. The white clad people behind me shouted with happiness, their prayers growing fanatical. I looked up at the hand, my vision shaking and blurring as it drew near.

  Then darkness fell. The cacophony of prayer, hymns and praises sung disappeared as I jumped off the bed with cold sweat trickling down my forehead. Air was pulled and pushed out of my lungs in quick, shallow breaths.

  ‘A dream…’

  I plopped back down on my bed. Darkness still lorded over the surroundings. The rise and fall of my chest lessened as my breath quieted, going back to its usual deep and long rhythm. I stared at the ceiling lost in thought.

  ‘This can’t have been a nightmare. A premonition?’ I wanted to go back to sleep, but my mind wouldn’t find rest. The danger I felt and the way it seems I had become was gnawing at me. ‘What could have happened to make me like that?’

  I looked back to my fight with the bandits. Hunting made me used to the sensation of ending a life, accustomed me with the sensation of blood and the sight of it. I was in a way numb to death. It didn’t weigh on me. But I never thought that killing was good.

  As I was now, I would never resort to anything like the massacre I witnessed. Nothing that I could think of could explain what led me to acting that way. Nothing could excuse such a dismissal of life. Not even war.

  Time passed slowly as I kept questioning what I had seen. If it was a premonition, then it had one simple conclusion. Something would happen to me that would make me turn that cold blooded. ‘If it’s not a premonition then I don’t know what to make of it.’

  The first ray of dawn pierced inside the tower. I got up from my bed and walked to the window, looking through the small wooden pane that I did not have time to replace yet. ‘I can’t do anything about it anyway.’

  Countless stories told me that acting to stop a prophecy or a known future often pushed things further towards a worse outcome. ‘I can only train harder and be more careful. Since I know what sort of war is coming… I should prepare some weapons.’

  I looked down at my clean hand, hand that in my vision was riddled with scars. Hand that was smaller and looked childish than the one I witnessed. ‘These hands will forge the path to those…’ I drew another big breath.

  ‘I will make sure nothing can take those I care about from me. Natural death and separation are things I can allow, but an early end to my story with them… is inexcusable.’ I started my morning routine with this resolution.

  I was ready to face the new combat class.

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  ?? Author's Question:

  That was a hell of a shift in tone. Do you think Cato just saw a genuine glimpse of his future, or was that a warning of what happens when his 'efficiency' is taken to its darkest extreme? Also... any theories on what (or who) that giant hand in the clouds was?

  ?? Author's Note:

  Please leave a rating if you've reached this far, help Cato's journey reach the Raising Star list. It's the best support you can offer.