"BAHAHAHA!" The old saint howled, clutching his stomach. "Out of all the things to say, and while it was a possibility, how bold could you be to say something like that?"
My face turned red and I looked away from the old man, however the other people in the room weren't easy to look at either.
The giant man threw both Lorelei and Dusk into the void before trashing Ford. The masked woman turned me into a slasher show before hurting Eternity as well. I was surrounded by psychopaths.
The old saint disappeared in a whirlwind, before appearing in front of me. An oppressive gale pushed against my body the instant the old saint appeared, knocking me to the ground.
The old saint stood over me and let out a hearty chuckle. "Ahhh, Orochi I can see why you will soon play around with our little Vincent, he simply makes the best faces." He said while looking over at the giant man with black flame tattoos.
The giant man, Orochi, smirked at the old saint. He shook his head, "I understand why you talk like that, but it's weird hearing you speaking in future tense like that. Does the kid do anything with Blair over there?"
Orochi jutted his chin out at the masked woman, Blair. She stood completely still, if it weren't for her head turning, I would've mistaken her for a corpse.
"...Tell us, Lucius, whose hands will take Orochi's life again?" Her movements were minimal and lifeless, yet her voice was sweeter than honey, almost seductive. It even made my heart skip a beat.
"You don't have to ask Lucius that." Orochi barked at Blair, "After all, your death won't any better!"
"..." She didn't have a reply to that, but she drew her obsidian sword. The sharp edge gleamed in the light.
Lucius laughed at their banter full of curses and threats, "Ah, children. Children, how nice it is to be so young."
The old saint Lucius kept smiling, however his next few words were cold, "There will be no future for either of you if you continue spilling secrets."
Blair withdrew her blade back into its scabbard and Orochi's smile dissolved into a thin line.
Lucius then set his heterochromic eyes on me, "Sorry, about that Vincent. It's difficult keeping people like these in check, if it weren't for me telling them their future they would never listen to me. However, it still doesn't stop these scoundrels from running their mouths."
"I…understand…?" I didn't understand, nothing made sense but I might as well act like it if it meant that they wouldn't kill me now.
Lucius nodded at me, "You'll always be a very understanding person in situations like these, you'll know that survival is everything even if it means playing an act."
I didn't say anything and only narrowed my eyes at Lucius, I don't know what to say anymore to someone like him. The old saint, noticing my discomfort and loss of words, moved on to a different topic—no less confusing than the previous ones.
"…Vincent, do you believe what we have now is sustainable? Is society sustainable?"
Orochi and Blair turned their sights to me, and I was almost sure I could feel a snake slithering across my back.
"…I think so? After all, we have a lot of awakened, a good government, three great clans and saints like you. We're not that great, but we're definitely adapting to the nightmare creature, and the spell, and…"
And?
The waking world has a good population, and we've been seeing a population boom lately. Not to mention how the dream realm and its horrors are being quelled by the great clans, not to mention the raw natural resources that can be harvested from there. Eventually, the system will be so optimized that maybe everything will go back to 'normal,' or at least the normal that the waking world was like before the dawn of the spell.
"…" I stood there on the rocky platform, staring at the ground.
"And?" Lucius asked simply.
There was no doubt that humanity was doing well, but there were still too many unknowns. For every awakened that came into existence, there were already a hundred other nightmare creatures each with the capability to kill them. For every mystical ability of the awakened, devils existed with magic that could break the natural laws of the world, not to mention creatures higher in rank.
The waking world was already crumbling anyway, most of the earth was a large gray lifeless desert--littered with the bones of humans, animals, and nightmare creatures alike. Soon the waking world would become the world of the dead, and the only ones capable of leaving were awakened. However, the problem of the nightmare creatures arose again.
If the majority of the waking world was the cold wasteland with billions of silent buried souls, then the dream realm was the pit of fiery hell with thousands of screaming awakened.
Of course, these descriptions were a massive exaggeration--humans had the four cities and there were advances in territory in the dream realm.
But was it sustainable?
10 years from now, 5 years from now, hell even a year from now considering how crazy the dream gates were--would humanity still be the same? Would it even exist?
It might, but--
"...It would be sustainable for humans, but only awakened. Mundane people in the future will likely never be able to adapt to the future, normal society would probably collapse."
That was my answer, it was quite short and boring.
"So all the awakened would be able to live?" Lucius looked down at me with his two discolored eyes, no doubt gazing deep into my soul with whatever his aspect ability was.
Would all awakened survive?
Would they?
The thoughts coming into my head were bitter. Awakened would be able to survive, but only a few from the hundred thousand in the world would actually flourish. Higher ranked awakened would make sense, and legacy clans.
The legacy clans, they were basically noble families from the medieval period. Back then, class discrimination was incomparably worse to what it was now. Awakened ranks naturally added a hierarchy to human society which was easily perceived and understood. In the current era, all awakened clans worked to help humans and fight against the nightmare creatures, but as resources in the waking world dwindled, as the fighting turned to last ditch struggling--did the legacy clans have to keep loyalty?
Even a single great clan moving selfishly for itself and not humanity would create an undeniable chain reaction with many legacy clans making selfish moves for themselves. Legacy clans lived safely in the flourishing dream realm and had a home there, so why would they care about the diminishing and failing waking world? The only thing that held them there was human kinship.
Wait, what if a war happened between two clans? The great clans?
…That, that would be the end of the waking world by itself. The nightmare creatures wouldn't even have to exist, actually their existence themselves prevented the idea of war but now society was now on relatively stable feet.
I came to a realization.
The stability of human society was the perfect seedbed for its collapse.
Lucius started to laugh with his mouth closed, unhidden glee on his face as he looked at mine. I felt my heart drop in my chest at the sight.
Lucius then let out a long breath and tapped me on the shoulder, a proud look in his eyes.
"I'm glad you've reached that conclusion, you always will know how I feel and what the true scope of everything is."
Lucius nodded to himself, "This really is the best timeline, I can't believe it myself but the things I've prepared for decades now have finally bore fruit."
At the same time as Lucius was muttering to himself, the gargantuan mass of bleeding, black hide behind him started to quiver ever so slightly.
"Yes, truly amazing. I'm glad you share my vision and insight. Indeed humans will be the cause of their own downfall--nightmare spell or not. It is in our nature to place a hierarchy and then divide each other based on the simplest of differences. Everyone here is also familiar with the idea of humanity's endless greed. Yes, Yes."
The mass of black hide squirmed and shook, an invisible haze coursed through the cavern--colder than any blizzard. As me, Orochi and Blair stared at the black hide moving--Lucius mumbled on with little care.
"We now have the lineages of War, Beast and Shadow--all we need are the vassals of Heart, Storm, and Sun. Training must begin now for you, Vincent. You've gained whatever I want and now we only need to release your full potential. Ahh, I'm already shaking imagining my six little demigods that I've raised letting me take control of humanity."
While Lucius was saying the most hysterical things I've ever heard, I couldn't take my eyes off the black hide which revealed itself to a dragon--it's maw releasing plumes of smoke like a volcano.
Its reptilian eyes spilling out wisps of flame were set on Lucius's jolly figure.
As it slowly split its jaws apart, unveiling the flame as bright as the sun in its throat, ramping up the temperature of the air by a multiple degrees. Sweat formed and slipped from my face in the wave of sheer heat emanating from the black dragon.
I imagined it, a blazing wall of incandescent flames burning me into lifeless ash, disappearing in the wind. The entire cavern would host the tyrannical flame in its natural crucible.
My life seemed to flash before my eyes, before my entire imagination was severed by Lucius's casual words.
"Sevras, get rid of it."
Blinding sparks rose in a serpentine manner, reaching the surface of the cavern and spreading wide. White talons reminiscent of quartz were sculpted out of the sparks, shooting out and wrapping itself around the black dragon's neck. The black dragon's throat imploded inside from its charged up flame, and a dreadful pillar of smoke was released from its nose, ears, mouth and eyes.
The rest of the body was formed by the stars, tracing the shape of a slender dragon covered in lean muscle. White scales thicker than a hand covered its body and radiant energy rippled off its every movement akin to a crackling fire. Two golden horns and a curtain of fur lined the back of its head and neck respectively, reminiscent of wispy clouds in the sunset's warm light.
While a quadruped dragon like the black dragon it was choking with its polished granite claws, it stood on its hindlegs, making it look much more domineering and powerful.
There was almost a human emotion in its amber eyes, staring down at the struggling black dragon flailing its claws at the quartz dragon. Of course, that was only an illusion, all emotion and life was gone when a nightmare creature became an echo.
The white dragon--Sevras as Lucius called it--bared its fangs at the dark dragon and started grinding them, producing flickering sparks and sounds like a lighter. This clicking became fiercer and stronger, a ticking bomb.
Eventually, the inside of Sevras's jaws were lit by a large bonfire and in that same moment, the white dragon reeled its head back and swallowed the flame.
One second, and Sevras shot its head forward and unleashed an incandescent blue laser, burning the black dragon's head into dust and the blue flames only spread from there. The rest of the black dragon sizzled into shrinking charred flesh. The stalactites melted into vibrant lava, forming a pool of magma underneath the white dragon.
Sevras dropped whatever remained of the black dragon into the magma, disappearing in its smoldering pool.
The stark white dragon turned around to face Lucius, dropping its head below his feet--kneeling to its master.
Lucius barely acknowledged the magnificent creature in front of him, making him look like an ant. He instead leisurely walked up its snout and to the center of his head. He looked back at the people still standing on the stone platform and nodded.
Before I could even process it, Orochi grabbed the collar of my armor and threw me to the dragon. I fell into the golden plume on the back of its head, sinking into the soft, warm hair. There was almost a divine energy emanating from every piece of the dragon.
Orochi and Bliar were quick to follow, assuming positions behind and on either side of Lucius.
Sevras raised its neck to its full height, making the drop between it and the caver floor as large as a 6 story building.
Two porcelain wings unwrapped from its back and pushed against the ceiling of the cavern, giving away easily at the white dragon's sheer power. An open white sky and sun greeted us above, bathing the dragon in refreshing light. Oddly enough the dragon seemed to enjoy the sunlight's welcome, its divine presence and warmth growing in the blazing sun's presence.
After drinking up the sunlight, it flapped its wings and rose high above the floating island. Despite being so high in the air and conversely under the pressure of the crushing, Sevras seemed unbothered.
"Now…" Lucius started, gazing at the intricate networks of chains and floating islands, "Let's go somewhere a little nicer."