The wheel of time in Aetheleon ground forward with the heavy, indifferent resonance of a mountain shifting in its sleep. Within the subterranean heart of the Dwarf Kingdom, the air was no longer thick with the sulfurous smoke of war, but with the cloying scent of medicinal herbs and the cold, sharp pressure of Alaric Chenwongo's unspoken fury.
One month passed after the war happened—the sun had only set a few times since the fall of the Flesh Gate—but to those inside the palace, every hour felt like an eternity carved in stone. Alaric, the Golden Lion of the Chenwongo lineage, stood in the royal infirmary, his presence so overbearing that the stone floor seemed to groan beneath his boots. His eyes, usually burning with the fire of a Sovereign, were now dark, shimmering with a cold, simmering rage that made the healers tremble. He looked at Jai, his nephew and the last hope of their line, who lay upon a bed of white silk as motionless as a statue of pale jade.
Beside Jai's chamber, another tragedy unfolded. Queen Morlin, the sovereign of the stone, lay in a state of terminal decline. To save her people, she had attempted to anchor a black hole with her own spiritual essence, a feat of such magnitude that it had eroded her soul-core. Her breathing was a shallow, ragged sound, like wind through a dry cave.
Despite the gloom of the royal quarters, the kingdom outside was a hive of frantic, beautiful activity. Under the command of King Borin, the Dwarf survivors and the 3,000 Human healers and warriors had begun to forge a bond that transcended race. They were mending the shattered bones of the capital together, their sweat mixing with the dust of the ruins.
In the Dwarf Kingdom, the laws of the heart were as direct as a smith's hammer. When a Dwarf man felt the spark of love for a woman, he did not hide behind the flowery poems of human scholars. He would walk straight to her, regardless of her status, and declare his proposal. Whether she accepted or rejected him, he would bow with the stoic respect of the earth itself and move on.
The Human Chief Physician, a man whose hair had turned silver from the weight of his duties, watched from a balcony as a burly Dwarf smith proposed to a young Human nurse. He let out a weary, philosophical chuckle.
"Look at them," the Chief whispered to his assistant. "We humans spend decades in hesitation. We hide our hearts, we wait for the 'perfect moment' that never comes, and we lose the ones we love to the silence of our own tongues. These Dwarves... they understand that life is but a spark in the forge. They strike while the iron is hot."
His smile faded as his gaze drifted to the corner of the room. Little Morisa sat by the Queen's bed, her tiny hand clutching the cold, limp fingers of her mother. Her eyes were wide and filled with a terrifyingly mature innocence. The Chief knew what she was thinking: "Mom, when will you wake up? When will you hold me again?"
Tears pricked the Chief's eyes. He remembered his own childhood—the smoke of the Human Kingdom wars, the day he lost his mother while he was too small to even hold a sword. He knew the hollow ache that was about to settle into Morisa's soul. He turned his gaze toward Jai's room, his heart heavy with a question.
"What war are you fighting in that darkness, little Prince?" he murmured. "What hell have you found that keeps you from the light?"
Inside the Soul Hallucination, Jai was no longer in the grey fog of his initial coma. The world had shifted, manifesting a nightmare born of a world he had never seen, yet one that his spirit recognized with a primal fear.
He was standing in a place of glass and steel. There were trees, no earth, only gargantuan towers that pierced a leaden, sunless sky. The ground was covered in a black, hard substance called asphalt, and rows of metallic "beasts"—cars—sat motionless in a dead-lock. This was Shibuya, a ghost of a city, silent as a graveyard.
Suddenly, a sound tore through the air. It was a high-pitched, echoing screech, so sharp it felt like a needle being driven into Jai's brain. He immediately went into a defensive crouch. He saw the glass windows of the towering buildings begin to shatter, falling like sand.
Desperate for cover, Jai wrenched open the door of a black car. He didn't know what it was, but it felt solid. He dove inside, clutching his head as the screeching intensified. Through the glass door, he saw a shadow grow over the entire district.
High above, a Black Bird of impossible proportions was circling. Its wingspan was so massive it blotted out the light of the sun. Its body was not covered in soft feathers, but in a polished, oily black hide that shimmered with a predatory sheen.
As the sun's rays hit the bird's back, the creature tilted its wings. It was not merely reflecting the light; it was focusing it. The bird's wings acted like a gargantuan magnifying glass, channeling the solar radiation into a concentrated beam of white-hot energy. The beam struck the very car Jai was hiding in.
The interior of the car transformed into a furnace. The metal began to moan and melt, and the scent of burning rubber filled Jai's lungs.
"ARGH!" Jai screamed, the pain of the rising heat forcing him to kick the door open. He rolled out onto the asphalt just as the car exploded in a gout of orange fire. The force of the blast tossed him twenty feet, his body slamming against the hard ground with a sickening thud.
Jai lay on the ground, his skin scorched, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The Black Bird heard his scream of pain. It tilted its massive head, its single, glowing eye locking onto the small figure crawling on the ground. It tucked its wings and began a vertical dive, a mountain of shadow falling toward the earth.
Jai forced himself up, his ribs screaming in protest. He ran. He didn't know where he was going, but he knew the bird could spot him easily from the air.
Suddenly, a hand shot out from the shadows of a nearby building. It grabbed Jai's arm with the strength of a vice and pulled him into a dark, cramped room. Jai spun around, his hand glowing with the golden intent to kill, but he stopped.
Standing before him was Zeron.
But it was a Zeron that defied the laws of life. Half of his face was the handsome, arrogant Dwarf Jai remembered; the other half was a bleached, grinning skull.
"Do not think I am helping you, boy," Zeron hissed, his voice echoing in the small room. He held Jai's hand firmly, his grip cold as death. "I do not want you to die by some shitty bird. I want to be the one to kill you. I want to feel your life leave your body by my own hand!"
Zeron took out a jagged, spectral sword, the blade humming with a vengeful Qi. Jai closed his eyes, his heart hammering against his broken ribs. He thought of his last day in Aetheleon, thinking this was finally the end.
But after a minute of silence, Jai opened his eyes. The room was empty. There was no Zeron, no sword, and no hand holding his. He was alone in the darkness, the echo of Zeron's laughter fading into the wind.
Jai stepped back out into the light, trying to stay hidden in the shadows of the massive buildings. But the bird was a solar predator. It smelled the scent of his fresh blood. It landed on a nearby skyscraper, its weight causing the top five floors to collapse into dust.
Jai looked up, and his soul nearly left his body. The bird opened its massive beak, and out fell a man.
"James?" Jai whispered, his voice cracking.
It was James, but not the James he knew. This James was pale, his eyes wide with a terror that would haunt Jai forever. Before Jai could move, the bird's beak snapped shut. With a sickening, wet crunch, the bird bit through James's torso, ripping his head and upper chest away from the rest of his body.
Jai watched in paralyzed horror as the bird began to feast. It drank the blood that flowed like a river down the side of the building, and it crushed James's skull between its mandibles to get to the brains. The blood of his best friend floated on the black roads of Shibuya, mixing with the soot and the glass.
Jai's legs finally moved. He ran forward as the bird dropped the lower half of the body. He ignored the predator and skidded across the blood-slicked road, reaching out to catch James's severed head before it could be crushed.
He cradled the head to his chest, his hands stained with the warm, metallic-smelling blood. "No... James... no..."
The Black Bird noticed him. It let out a shriek that shattered the remaining windows for three blocks. It didn't take flight this time; it chased Jai on its massive, scaly legs.
As Jai ran, clutching the head of his friend, the nightmare intensified. Out of the alleys and the broken buildings, more people began to emerge. These were the humans Jai had known in Aetheleon—the healers, the warriors, the children he had saved.
They looked at Jai with pleading eyes, but the bird did not care. As it chased Jai, its massive talons crushed the people beneath its weight. Jai heard the sound of their bones snapping like dry twigs. The bird didn't stop to eat them all; it simply trampled them, turning the entire road of Shibuya into a sea of red. It would occasionally reach down, plucking a screaming woman or a crying child from the ground and swallowing them whole as it pursued Jai.
The bird finally caught up. It raised a massive leg and slammed it down onto Jai's chest.
Jai felt his ribs collapse. He felt his lungs burst. Blood erupted from his mouth, splattering the face of James's head. The weight was unbearable, the pain so intense that it transcended the physical.
I am going to die, Jai thought. I am dying in a city of stone, surrounded by the blood of my people.
Suddenly, the weight of the bird's leg vanished. The searing pain in his chest evaporated. The smell of blood, the sound of the bird's screech, and the sight of the crushed humans disappeared in a flash of white light.
Jai opened his eyes.
He was no longer in Shibuya. He was standing on a plain of white, crystalline sand that stretched to the horizon. James's head was gone. The blood was gone. His body felt light, and his chest was whole again.
He looked up at the sky. It was no longer leaden or black. It was a deep, infinite obsidian, but it was filled with multicolored stars. They weren't just white; they were vibrant purple, burning crimson, soft pink, and brilliant, blinding white. They swirled in the heavens like a cosmic river, pulsing with a life-force that Jai could feel vibrating in his own spirit-core.
He stood in the center of the white desert, staring at the beautiful, impossible sky.
"Is this real?" Jai whispered, his voice echoing in the vast silence. "Or is this just another layer of my imagination?"