The inner city of Elsire was quite a sight, breathtaking and beautiful in every sense of the word. Lush trees spread across the city, the towns bustling with life.
'There's something odd about this place...'
Aldr was walking behind a group of knights with Stone Monkey and Hunter, his eyes blitzing across the landscape back and forth.
'...how is it that a land supposedly battered with plague is so lush and thriving?'
He had figured that one of the last bastions of humanity would be a little more bleak. Yet the place didn't seem to contain even an inch of misery, seeming too good to be true.
'Am I just on edge?'
He tried to relax, but there was simply something wrong with the place.
'Where did they get all of this from?'
The landforms in the inner city seemed unnatural, but they didn't seem to have been built by man either, the forms carried too much perfection, or even imperfection, to be a result of terraforming.
And then there was the air, it was completely clean, while the air of the inner walls had a noticeable musk, even the sky seemed brighter, and the ground lacked the mud that would be present in the rainfall received by the rest of the plains.
'Is there some kind of magic going on here? Or...'
He observed the pristine waters flowing down the river next to the street leading from the giant gate.
'...is this just another trick?'
He stared at the back of the knight's head for a moment, and then looked towards Hunter. His eyes widened slightly.
'How...'
Sitting on Hunter's belt was the black dagger. Which also happened to be on Aldr's sheath on his own strap over his armor.
'...I see.'
Aldr grimaced, and then unsheathed the black dagger, infusing it with his will.
'Sorry, I'm not keen to falling for more tricks.'
He suddenly burst forward, cutting through the three knights in the front, as well as Stone Monkey and Hunter, their heads flying clean off through the vermilion arc of his dagger.
'Too easy.'
Just as he thought, the world around him did not respond to his action. As if there were no Stone Monkey, no Hunter.
'Everything felt too abrupt. Two beasts like those, would not fall so easily to a pair of random people.'
[Smart.]
He stared at the sparks.
"Don't act innocent, you played into the illusion. Though I assume killing the two beasts for real this time won't get me any rewards?"
[Maybe it will.]
He chuckled.
"What a piece of shit..."
He swiped away the sparks and let the golden letters fade back into dust.
'I have to find a way out.'
He looked around the mesmerizing landscape of the fake Elsire, the small fort at the top of a hill to the back of the city seemed to be giving off an odd aura, violent black and purple sparks striking from it's center.
"There we go."
He grit his teeth and handled the black dagger, running down the poorly paved stone streets as the lives of the fake people went on.
The distance to the fort from him was quite a ways away, and he had a feeling it wouldn't be that easy. Just running in there and destroying the illusion.
'I never thought that thing would have such a good mind trick.'
He watched as the surrounding space started to contort slightly, as if responding to his realization.
'Hm...'
The streets of the city held several markets, along with a residential district that followed them up. He heard a loud, ugly roar from the residential district and shuddered slightly.
'Rather not figure out what that is.'
He infused his feet with his will and shot himself off the ground with a burst of vermilion sparks, his body still aching slightly as he took off down the rooftops.
His muscles strained underneath his brown pants that were stained by the muddy grass.
Vermilion sparks crackled and popped through the air as he increased his speed a bit more, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. The residential district was close in sight, signaled by the darkening of the sky above it.
'Come on...'
He strained the soft muscles beneath his pants and burst through the air towards the shift in light, but was greeted by an odd feeling when he finally crossed it. Not quite unease, a feel of strange tranquility. Harmony.
And then he found what the source was, as a vermilion blade cleaved through the building he was standing on, and he was forced to collide with the ground.
'Wha...'
He looked up to see a young man standing in a black cloak and black armor, holding a blade made of willpower, sparking with vermilion light.
'...that's...'
The boy's eyes held the green of a jade serpent, his hair resembling a dark patch of snow.
'Me.'
Aldr stood up to face the boy.
"This supposed to be some kind of punishment?"
The boy remained unresponsive, as he expected. A blank expression trailing off his soft face, as if he had no will at all.
'How cruel.'
Aldr remained wary of the boy, who just seemed to stare at him calmly, his expression resembling the tranquility of an ocean. Someone who was either at peace, or completely empty.
He scoffed and blitzed forward, infusing his black dagger with his willpower and extending its reach to that of a normal longsword. But he was not met with the soft slicing of flesh, rather another blade of vermilion sparks collided with his in almost an instant, the cold metal of the tachi beneath making a distant clanging echo through the now empty streets.
'Shit.'
He was quickly repulsed by his younger self's strength, facing an odd amount of power in the hands of a scrawny teenager.
'Was I this strong back then?'
He stared at the boy, wiping some grime from his face before smiling and attempting to strike again, but this time was met with more eager resistance, the vermilion tachi sending him into the side of a nearby house, thankfully made of wood.
He grumbled before standing up once again, extending the reach of the black dagger to that of a spear while his whole body started to ache.
"Again."
And then he died, the vermilion tachi piercing his heart.