"Mommy, help me!'
Yi Jong woke up not remembering anything from his dream. Help who? Help them from what? It was a child, again. A child screaming for help.
He clutched his head trying to remember, but nothing made sense. The dreams always come to him in fragments, and he could not put them all together to understand.
His hair had become more unruly, the length a hazard to his training forcing him to braid a side, and put the rest in a ponytail.
He washed his face with cold water. Once done he sat on the floor, a deep breath as he tapped in his inner qi.
He had been cultivating for almost a year at this point. Daily meditation and physical training alongside the other disciplines.
The more he unwrapped his memories, coming to term with what had happened in his previous life, the more the visual thread grew. The more it grew, the stronger he became.
The only thing bothering him were his dreams.
Once the white qi had devoured all the shards inside him, he started to dream things.
It always was from the point of view of a child, the offspring of an important man who made everyone in his dreams grow pale, demanding respect with his very presence.
It was everyday things, mixing with his own childhood memories to the point he did not know which was his.
A scream stopped his musings, then another. Screams of terror resonated all around him growing louder outside as he jumped out.
Ji Yong rushed out, his eyes taking the scene before him. The guards that stood at different high points were bloodied, men fighting to survive against the creatures from outside the dome, while others were already dead, their bodies chewed and trashed.
From up closer he could see the creatures resemblance to humans- rotten bones visible close their feet and what once was a human skull.
The eyes held a fire, a swirl of red that blazed from the inferno within. The rest of the body was covered in a dark energy, a shadow dressing the dead soul. It was a hardened mass of darkness, like tree roots interwined keeping them from falling apart.
Their mouth was human-like too, with sharp teeth protruding, some longer then the others. They jumped on whoever was on their way sinking their claws and teeth draining them of life.
He dodged around, chi wrapping around his hands. Ji Yong tried to remember his master's training but as another gnarled his way, its corrupted energy overwhelming him he stumbled, back hitting a wall before he jumped again, begging his limbs to move.
The smell of iron and churned flesh hit him, he wanted to puke. From the corner of his eye he spotted a few children terrified hidding under the stone stairs of an half destroyed building.
A creature leaped towards them and Ji Yong found his body moving.
His body surged forward like a drawn bowstring released, qi flaring from his palms in twin arcs of silver-blue light. It was the only fighting form that he had managed to shape his qi so far.
The creature shrieked as the energy sliced across its chest, peeling back the writhing shadow-flesh like rotten bark. Black ichor sprayed, sizzling where it hit the stone. The thing staggered, its red eyes flickering with something almost like surprise, then rage.
Ji Yong didn't wait. He spun, foot snapping out in a crescent kick that shattered its jaw. Bone cracked. Teeth flew. The creature howled, but before it could recover, Ji Yong planted a palm against its sternum and pushed, not with muscle, but with qi.
The force erupted outward.
The creature exploded backward, crashing into a crumbling pillar. Stone cracked. Dust billowed. It twitched once, then stilled, its red eyes dimming like dying embers.
Silence settled around the children.
Then another scream.
Ji Yong turned.
More were coming.
Dozens.
He gritted his teeth.
Where was back up?
He dropped into stance, qi swirling around him like a living storm. His braid whipped behind him as wind stirred from his own energy. The children whimpered behind him, clutching each other.
The first wave lunged.
He met them halfway.
Fists like falling stars. Kicks like snapping whips. Every movement was memory—his master's voice echoing in his skull: "Qi follows intent. Intent follows heart. Your heart must be iron. Your soul, unbreakable."
He didn't feel the claw that grazed his shoulder. Didn't register the spray of his own blood. He moved like water, like wind, like the blade his father once told him he was born to become.
If his father saw him now, he would have been overjoyed. The useless prince had found a backbone.
But the creatures… they didn't tire. They didn't fear.
And for every one he felled, two more took its place.
His breath came ragged. His vision blurred at the edges. The dreams, those cursed child-visions, flashed behind his eyes. A golden hall. A man with eyes like glaciers. A child's hand reaching… reaching for him.
"Mommy, help me!"
The voice again. No, it wasn't from his dreams, it came from the children behind him. He had to focus.
Just as it slashed at his foot, making him face plant onto the floor, a bulky man in an armor-like suit jumped before him. He danced around the creature, slashing left and right before thrusting his sword down the back of its head from below. The fire died from it's eyes.
"We have a wounded here!" He yelled at an group of people from which a younger girl rushed to his side. A healing mist formed around her hands and as she put it over his wound it started to close.
"The children, there were some children...-" He paused as he saw the bulkier baldie of the group grab them like sacks of potatoes in both sides of his arms, and make an escape with them.
"It'll be alright, we have prepared shelters. Yase take everyone to the underground shelter, the elders have already started patching the crack, we need to help as many as we can"
Orders were barked and the group divided, some fighting back the creatures, others helping them eacape.
Ji Yong followed the baldie underground. The bunker wasn't the biggest or the cleanest, but it held enough people who were buddled up together.
Mothers and fathers hugged their crying children, while others attended to wounded. Any with the ability to heal lined up patching whoever they could.
"They had no wings!"
"Yes, yes they seemed different not like the usual Obscurities that dwell outside, maybe another type of them.
People murmured. He closed his eyes listening in, the creatures outside the Dome were called Obscurities mainly because little was known about them.
They had formed a gigantic body pressuring the barrier until it cracked wide enough for a few to slip in. The elders and Shinichi, had started repairing it with their qi while all those who could fight them were told to aim for the back of their heads and rescue the living.
If the barrier ever fell, broke entierly everyone would die. Even if one survived the attacks and managed to dodge around, the world outside was a wasteland, ruins and all kinds of creatures that had adapted to this new enviroment, co-lived with the Obscurities.
Soon, the battle stopped and the outside quietted. Surviving cultivators told them it was safe to go out, yet, while physically they were secure for a little bit longer, the bloodied streets and buildings did little to calm the people. A lot had become homeless, a lot had lost loved ones, without even remains to bury. Just torn clothes left behind.
"Ji Yong!" a familiar voice called for him.
"Mother...-"