Wrath Domain, Beyond the Wall, September 10, 2025.
The camp buzzed with movement: boots stomping, orders barked, tents being hammered into the mud.
But off to the side, two soldiers sat slouched on a half-rotted log, their armor loosened and their weapons resting against their shoulders.
One gnawed on a strip of salted jerky so tough it looked like he was trying to chew a boot. "Gods, this stuff could double as a shield plate," he muttered around clenched teeth.
The other soldier ripped off a smaller piece, jaw working sluggishly. "Be glad it's meat at all. Yesterday, all we had was hardtack. Felt like I was biting into a brick. Nearly broke a tooth."
"Jerky, hardtack... what's next, rocks? Maybe they'll serve us gravel stew." He spat a small shred into the dirt, shaking his head. "What frontline heroes, we're being fed like dogs."
A line of troops trudged past them. The two soldiers watched them in silence for a moment, the noise of the camp swelling and fading around them.
Finally, the first one, Paul, sighed and tore off another bite. "Still beats starving, I guess."
The second, Ashen, smirked faintly. "Yeah. War makes a man grateful for shoe-leather meat."
They chewed in silence after that, the rhythm of marching boots and the clang of distant hammers filling the space where conversation died.
But the silence didn't last long.
The two froze when a scream cut through the usual clamor of the camp.
"What the hell?" Paul muttered, jerky halfway to his mouth.
Another shout followed, sharp and furious, closer now, layered with cursing.
"Sounds like a fight... a bad one." Paul dropped his jerky, standing. "We should—"
Before he could finish, both of them were already running toward the noise, mud squelching under their boots.
As they drew closer, they saw it: one man mounted atop another, hammering his fists into the other soldier's body with horrifying rhythm. Every blow was punctuated by a scream that rattled the eardrums.
"THIS. IS. ALL. YOUR. FAULT. YOU. COWARD!"
The murmuring soldiers around them hinted at the reason: his woman had died in the last skirmish, and this man held his comrade responsible.
Attempts at intervention failed. Men grabbed at him, but he shoved and threw them aside with a strength no one expected. His screaming grew wilder, more unhinged, echoing off the tents and making even hardened soldiers flinch.
Beneath him, the man had stopped moving long ago. Yet the attacker didn't pause.
His voice shifted, warping into something monstrous.
His face began to twist, features elongating grotesquely, eyes glowing a burning red.
His mouth stretched unnaturally, spitting fumes that smelled of sulfur and ash. Shadows crept over his body, swirling and thickening, painting his visage black.
"KILL. BURN. DESTROYYYY!!!"
His screams reduced to a mantra, a low, grinding chant of destruction and vengeance that vibrated through the very ground. Everyone stepped back, some clutching their heads, unable to approach.
"He lost control!"
"Subdue him, fast!"
Finally, officers arrived, faces gloomy.
They tried taking it down, but it kept moving and shoving everyone with astonishing strength that far surpassed its previous 7th step power.
Alone, they couldn't stop it, and only after a dozen men combined their strength, stabbing, hammering, and pulling, did the monstrosity finally collapse.
When they pried it from the body beneath, the fire-fumed mouth closed, the red eyes dimmed, and the shadows recoiled into nothing.
What was left was only a half-burned corpse.
The camp fell silent, the only sound the ragged breathing of the soldiers left standing.
The morale got even lower after the accident, but Ashen was mentally hit more than he'd like to admit.
Even as he got back to his tent to catch some rest, his brain kept conjuring scenarios, from bad to worse.
'So that's how it really looks like when someone loses control...' His face gained a grim look. 'Is it really that easy to lose it...?'
Maybe it was easier for people to get angry in this kind of situation, maybe the Wrath pathway was more susceptible to losing control, but seeing that transformation… the way a mere human contorted into something close to wrath incarnate, pulled back the seduction of power and laid bare the forgotten truth: every step they took was akin to walking on a tightrope.
"Haaah." Ashen let out a long sigh as he settled on the cot. "Couldn't things be easy for once...?"
{They won't, so you'd better quit daydreaming.}
"..."
Push!
Grab!
"WHO?!" Ashen pushed himself up hurriedly and grabbed the spear by his side, warily eying the tent's interior, partially looking at the shadows it cast.
Many peculiar beasts tended to spy, stalk, and even mimic a person's voice to hunt and mess with their prey.
They were really nasty creatures.
{Focus on your innate skill.}
He froze for a moment at the mention of the word 'innate', but soon connected the dots and called hesitantly, "Big brother...?"
There was a moment of silence before the voice came back, with a sharper edge this time.
{What big brother...?}
Ashen, now more relaxed after realizing that it was his twin soul that was finally awake and talking to him through the innate skill's link.
"Well, I always wanted to have a big brother, and I can't just keep calling you 'hey' and 'you', right?" Ashen explained. "Besides, calling you Ashen is weird, since that's also my name..."
{...You know that since I'm basically you, I also have all your past memories and thoughts, right?}
"So...?" Ashen, of course, knew that, since they lived the exact same life before Seravelle.
{In that case, you should also know that your wish to have an 'older brother' was just to avoid the eldest's responsibilities and laze around as the forgotten middle son, right?}
"Ah..." Ashen broke into a sheepish smile. "T-that... that was just some passing thoughts! Yeah! I was totally just messing around in my brain! I wasn't serious..."
{...Right.}
"Argh, whatever, let's meet face to face. If somebody hears me talking to myself right now, I'd be branded as a lunatic." Ashen gave up on explaining himself and changed the subject.
"Besides, hearing another voice in my head is super weird..." He grumbled.
{Activated Path Skill: Lucid Dreamweaving.}
.
.
When he opened his eyes again, he was met with his older version still lounging on that throne, but now, his eyes were finally open.
"So, what do you think of Recall's evolution? I had to sacrifice my genius for it, I'll have you know." Ashen wagged his index finger, a smirk playing on his lips.
His counterpart, however, was as languid as ever. "It doesn't change much, I guess. At least now you are temporarily safe from being branded as a time traveler."
"What? That's all?" Ashen raised an eyebrow.
"What else do you want...?" The figure resting on the throne put an elbow on the throne's armrest and rested his cheek on the formed fist.
Ashen, on the other hand, was getting kind of frustrated. The skill that he paid the heaviest price for—his Brilliant trait—was getting dismissed as an afterthought.
It stung more than he'd like to admit.
"...Well, I know you're really overpowered, all-knowing, and all that jazz, but can you not be this dismissive...?" He looked at his 'older brother' helplessly. "I mean, this would allow us to fight together..."
"..."
The older Ashen tilted his head and fixed his eyes on his younger self, his thoughts unknown.
Finally, he uttered, "Here's some advice: don't get too hung up on skills. If they're helpful, great. If not, your spear is sufficient for basically anything regarding killing."
Ashen rolled his eyes. "Well, sorry, but I'm not some spear god yet, so I have to rely on skills. And how can you compare an innate skill that can summon someone like you to fight in the real world with some spear...?"
A ghost of a smirk hung on the older man's face as he looked at Ashen, almost amusedly. "...It seems that you still think I'd come to your rescue if you were ever in danger. How amusing."
"...You wouldn't?" Ashen asked back, voice taken aback.
"Guess." The smirk got wider.
"Then how about that time with Lucia? You told me to go back, doesn't that count as help?" He argued.
The old Ashen merely shook his head. "That involved the safety of the family and Alice. So it wasn't for your sake."
"...What?!" Ashen stepped forward hurriedly. "Tell me more!"
The thought of his family or Alice being in danger made any plans about coaxing his twin soul for help fly out of the window in favor of hearing more details.
"Going with that man... Roland." Old Ashen didn't keep him waiting for long. "I spent a couple of years as a slave, practically. I didn't get the chance to reunite with my family for that time, and by the time I got back, everything changed..."
His voice held neither sadness nor bitterness, as if all the sorrow had already bled out of his soul.
Ashen froze for an instant, trying to imagine the faces of his family if he ever returned to them after a decade.
'Thank fucking god I went with Lucia...' Cold sweat trickled down his back as he dared to imagine it.
'Wait...' He lifted his head.
"What about Alice...?"
"Alice..." Old Ashen closed his eyes briefly. "She's actually in Ashbastion now."
"WHAT?" The bomb dropped out of nowhere, making Ashen freak out.
"Wait... how? Why? where? and when exactly?" He kept firing rapid questions as he tried to swallow the fact that the woman he wanted to keep the most away from all this carnage was actually already here, on the frontlines no less.
"Well, that's enough for now. You handle the rest by yourself."
"...Are you fucking with me right now?" Ashen's voice grew lower, but fury began to burn in his eyes.
"I've lost the trait that made me extraordinary... I had to work harder than anyone else, sacrificing my sleep, my comfort, my SANITY!"
"... I'm living a life worse than death, barely hanging on, not knowing if I'd even see the light of tomorrow..."
"...now you tell me that Alice is in danger..."
"...AND YOU DON'T EVEN WANT TO LEND A SINGLE HAND?"
"FOR WHAT?"
"DO YOU HAVE SOME KIND OF MISCONCEPTION? I'M NOT YOU. STOP EXPECTING ME TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE! "
"IT WILL NEVER EVER HAPPEN, NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK."
"..."
"Haah... Haah... Haaaaah."
"..."
"...You're right, you're not me." The voice that answered was as serene as ever. "But if I do as you say, help you at every turn, save your loved ones, and take control whenever you get hurt..."
Then, in the same tone, he added, "...Then who will you even be?"
"A nobody."
He slowly rose from the throne, taking a step forward.
"I have already lived my life." His eyes sharpened as he locked them with Ashen's raging ones. "I have already suffered and rejoiced, killed, and protected... I've done everything that could be done."
He took another step forward. "Isn't it your turn now? Why are you so desperate to hand your life to someone else?"
He stepped ahead once more.
"What's stopping you from doing it yourself?"
He kept moving forward.
"Are you too tired?"
Step.
"Didn't get enough sleep?"
Step. Step.
"Don't have enough energy? Don't have enough time?"
Finally, they were mere inches apart. But while the sharpness in the older man's eyes persisted, the fire in the younger man's eyes had all but died.
"Is that really what's stopping you right now?"
Ashen could only hang his head low.
"Is that really the thing? Or is the thing that's really stopping you... You?"
"..."
Old Ashen's voice got softer, almost as if he was really gently advising a younger sibling. "Excuses sound really good, right? But they always sound best to the person making them up."
Then his voice sharpened like steel. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Get off the pity potty. Telling me you're sad and your sob stories... are you trying to make me feel sorry for you?"
He put a hand on Ashen's shoulder. "It's time to wake up. If you've got a hard life, do something about it."
"If you want something, then go get it."
Push.
Ashen could feel himself getting kicked out of the dream, but that wasn't the case because when he reopened his eyes, he found himself still dreaming.
It was just the couple of meters around that man's throne that had become hidden, like an invisible miniature floating island.
He stood there, silent for a moment before a single word finally left his mouth.
"Fuck."
❖⛧❖