Auren dreamed.
It didn't feel like sleep. It felt like falling through someone else's memory except this one wasn't his.
Darkness bled into fire.
That was how the dream began.
Auren was standing somewhere familiar yet unfamiliar, in the middle of a battlefield drenched in blood and ash, quiet, the sky stretched wide like a torn canvas smeared in smoke. There was no wind. No voices. Just the constant, choking crunch of something breaking underfoot—bones, maybe. Or something worse.
And then he saw her.
Serai.
Or… something wearing her skin.
This version wore no armor, only tattered cloth soaked in blood and smoke. Her eyes glowed red, but they were empty. Not lifeless—just hollow.
She moved across the battlefield like a phantom stitched together only for violence and purpose. Her body radiated heat, soaked in blood, muscles tense beneath cracked skin, glowing faintly with veins of pulsing red.
Emptiness.
She fought like someone with no soul left to lose.
The battlefield around her looked like a painting the gods abandoned midway through—blades embedded in corpses, severed limbs still twitching, armored men crawling before being stomped out like embers.
And she didn't speak. Didn't shout.
She killed.
Not methodically.
Not artistically.
Just Brutally.
Auren's heart pounded. He tried to move—his legs wouldn't respond. The air was thick, every breath dragging smoke and the scent of rot deep into his lungs.
He watched her grab a soldier by the neck—lifting him off his feet as if he weighed nothing. The man flailed, sword falling from numb fingers.
Her hand clenched.
Snap.
The man's neck burst open, blood smeared all over her face.
His body dropped limp. She didn't look down.
Another man rushed her with a halberd.
She ducked, twisted, slammed her elbow into his chest, and as he gasped for breath—she split him open, fingers tearing through plate and flesh like paper.
The man didn't scream.
He didn't have time to.
Her aura flared outward—red, alive, humming with that same brutal rage Auren had seen flicker in the field. Only now, it wasn't flickering.
Auren wanted to yell. To stop her. To reach through whatever hell this was and pull her back.
But the Serai in the dream—she didn't hear him.
She couldn't.
There was nothing in her gaze anymore.
No thread. No question. No will.
Just a weapon doing what it was told to do.
She paused only once—standing above a hill of corpses, blood dripping from her fists.
And in that silence, Auren felt it—
Her future wasn't a story. It was a command.
He woke up choking.
His back hit rough earth. Cold air rushed into his lungs. His shirt was damp with sweat and dried blood, clinging to skin covered in bruises.
He blinked.
Faint morning light filtered through leaves overhead.
They were in the forest.
Alive.
He turned. Serai lay beside him, unmoving but breathing. Her skin was pale. Her hands twitched slightly in sleep, as if even unconscious, she still remembered the fight.
Or maybe… she was dreaming too.
Auren dragged himself upright.
His body ached like it had been broken and stitched with mistakes.
But he was alive.
And she was here.
And that future—what he saw—
It hadn't happened yet.
But he'd pulled it into motion.
Far behind them—
Near the northern edge of House Veyr's territory, a search patrol trampled through frost-laced grass.
Seven men in lacquered gray armor, led by a silver-sashed lieutenant. They walked with silence, not from discipline, but dread.
They were tracking someone—something.
All their paths had led here.
To him.
Elven Varn.
Or what was left of him.
The body lay half-sunken in the earth.
At first glance, it didn't look human—more like a dried husk, aged and hollowed by time.
Only the crimson sash remained intact.
A silent scream curled in the way the jaw hung slack.
His skin had pulled tightly, coiled around the bones, sunken, parchment-dry and cracking. His hair had thinned into nothing. The blade beside him had rusted at the tip.
The lieutenant stepped forward—and knelt.
He reached out, hesitating—then touched the edge of the sash.
His fingers recoiled instantly.
"Gods," someone whispered behind him. "That's him."
"No way—no way that's Varn. That's a corpse from the Third Front—must be a century old—"
"It's the sash. Look at the seal. It's the Blood Oath."
A younger soldier stepped back, hand trembling.
"This isn't natural," a voice cracked. "No weapon does this. No spell. This is…"
"What the hell could do this to him?"
"Not a blade. Not poison. This is… this is wrong. This is cursed."
They didn't dare move the body.
They didn't speak again for a long time.
No one wanted to say it.
But they all thought the same thing.
Curse?
Demon?
Something ancient?
And worse—
Something that could do this to a man like Elven Varn.
in each of their hearts, the same quiet question burned like frostbite:
What kind of power leaves a man like this behind?