Julius opened his eyes as he heard an explosion ringing. He frowned as he was no longer in the ship; instead, he was on solid ground with no chains holding his arms anymore.
He looked around to find himself on a jagged cliff. There were a few people around him, including Skull, who looked bigger now that they stood side by side.
They all seemed to be looking far into the distance, and Julius looked down to see hundreds of small shapes moving, all of them trying to scale the cliff.
He flinched as he noticed that the creatures were not humans, they were scaleless fishes which had only two limbs trying to climb up to him. They resembled miniature demons and Julius would not like to meet them.
'Did the scenario skip?' he wondered as he swallowed.
"Don't get lost in thought," Skull said to him, and then jumped down. The members of the party jumped down one by one until only he remained.
'What?'
Julius suddenly felt a tug at his heart as he stared at the waters beyond the horde of creatures. There seemed to be countless human skulls moving on the shore as water pushed them.
"Tsk... What kind of situation is this?!" he couldn't help but let out, and all of a sudden, a small creature lunged at him, and he almost fell off the cliff as he staggered.
The small creature resembled a shark with arms and legs, and its body seemed torn on one part, revealing its insides.
A frown met his face as he stabilized himself...
The creature—it was slow. Slow enough that he could see its movements clearly.
He kicked the creature away, causing it to fly far into the distance and crash into a tree, breaking it instantly.
"Great, get yourself together, Julius. Your situation can't be worse than this." He slapped himself across the face, and just then, he felt a harrowing presence behind him.
He looked back to see a tall mountain crowned with blackened trees and skulls around its slopes. An ominous pressure seemed to be coming from it.
Julius kept staring at it for a while, and then it finally moved. His entire body shook as he began to breathe harder when he saw a... Giant.
Julius couldn't see its face as the light from the sun above blocked it, but it saw them—all of them.
It didn't roar; it didn't let out a single sound. It simply took a step forward, and a foot which was even bigger than the small land they stood on appeared over them.
Julius' body was shaking as his eyes stared up in horror, as a heavy surface pressed him to the ground.
...
Julius gasped as he rose up from the wooden floor of his cage, and he looked around to see that all prisoners were intact.
Skull seemed to be asleep, but a feminine voice reached his ears after he looked around.
"You were breathing pretty hard. Was it a nightmare?" the girl asked, and he looked at the cage beyond Skull's own to see a young woman with short, curly black hair.
Her brown eyes were staring at him directly, and her sharp features and red lips made her look alluring. Also, he saw her in his vision....
Julius coughed as he remembered that he was asked a question.
"Yes, something like that," he answered and rested his back on the bars behind him.
"It didn't seem like a dream, though. I saw myself, an island, and people here as well were together with me. It seemed like..." He trailed off as he didn't want to think about the possibility of his thought.
"The future?" the girl asked with a raised brow, and Julius nodded with a frown.
"Yes, it did seem like the future." He sighed, looking at the shackles on him once more.
"Well, it's not every day you find a seer." The girl chuckled, and Julius threw a glance at her.
"Hold on, when you say seer, you mean people that can read pasts, futures, and even things about the present?" he asked with furrowed brows.
"Yes. Although only one is born every ten years in Viking villages, it might be that you were going to be the next. How were you captured exactly?" she asked him, with much curiosity in her voice.
"I don't know. I woke up and I was suddenly here." He sighed, looking around the basement to see that there was another missing barrel.
"Anyways, I'm Lyra. It seems we'll be here for quite a while, huh?" She laid down on the ground to relax, and Julius didn't answer her.
"I'm Julius, and about what you said, don't think negative. We will get out of here..." Julius said with a frown, and then Lyra shook her head with a smile and closed her eyes.
She probably thinks he was mad.
Who wouldn't? He was in an impossible situation with no weapons, no instructions except some shitty goal from the Evernight, and his abilities were also useless.
'Wait. Now that I think about it. The ability to see the true nature of events?' he frowned as he thought about his skill.
Is that why he was seeing the future? Does that mean that he was truly going to escape this place?
'But then again it could just be part of the scenario.' He let out a sigh and then looked at the pendant on his neck, which changed image to that of a mountain.
He raised a brow as he observed the object with.
[Artifact: Echo of Memories
Grade: Magic grade
Rank: I
Description: Created by a witch who served the monarch of chaos and gifted to her son to remember where he came from.
Spells: ~ Memory Recall
You can picture a particular memory onto the pendant and it'll be recorded. You can play this memory anytime.]
'The hell.' Julius didn't even want to be surprised this time.
He had been in possession of an artifact all this time.
Artifacts in the world were items that wardens possess—gotten from a mystical realm which all wardens were connected to, and also their own scenarios.
And Julius ended up with a pretty useless one...
Just when he thought the pendant might help him clear the scenario somehow, it wasn't useful at all.
The basement doors suddenly flew open, and the familiar giant strode in toward his cage directly.
And he remembered that he was going to be an entertainer today for these worshippers of the Goddess of Destruction.
'I'm screwed... aren't I?'