Chapter 127 – Vision [2]

Grey light reached out like the closing jaw of a beast around Isolde and Cassius.

And when the light dissipated, the couple’s eyes turned all-white, their hearts thundering against their chests as their minds were transported somewhere else entirely.

The Spiritual Principality.

They fell backward on the bed, their white eyes staring listlessly overhead. And at that moment, if either of them had been conscious, they would have been able to see — clearly, vividly, albeit with eyes that would have exploded shortly after — the Gate of Fate and Secrecy of Ananke, and Ananke herself, sitting on her throne with the Wheel above her head turning, turning and turning.

Her blue eyes, divine and threaded with the fates of many, settled on Isolde and Cassius as they were transported spiritually elsewhere.

Her thoughts wandered, and she wondered, for a brief moment, just what they would witness.

If she wished, Ananke could have known by using her {Authority}. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

But she, more than anyone, understood how dangerous it was to look into someone else’s vision. No matter who.

For visions were the direct gateway to divination. And there was a reason most Seers and Prophets kept to themselves what they saw.

So she stayed silent, and watched, and waited.

...

There was nothing around him. Nothing at all.

Nothing but a night sky that could make one weep with joy at the sheer immensity of the heavens.

The night was beautiful, so achingly beautiful that Cassius Desdemona stood transfixed, his eyes fixed on a sky riddled with stars.

The stars were numerous, all of them different in colour, shape and the intensity of their light. Yet somehow, in a way he couldn’t quite explain, Cassius knew the exact number of stars in that dark, crowded sky.

"333." He muttered, feeling a strange sensation rising inside his heart. "There are 333 stars in the sky."

How could he possibly know that?

The question never fully registered before he forgot it entirely, his attention pulled to a change occurring within the map of stars above.

One star — the very last one, the 333rd — shaped like a ball of crimson with a roaring dragon coiling around it, was glowing brightly.

And in that glow, something burst open, and Cassius witnessed a sight that chilled his heart, making him stagger backward.

Or at least he thought he did. He could no longer move. He was pinned to that spot.

Yet he didn’t notice, his eyes were frozen on the vision the 333rd star was showing him.

Cassius saw a woman, extremely tall, with a lean body riddled with compact muscles, long white hair left loose, and blood-red eyes. She was smiling like a devil as she launched into a killing spree, targeting...

"...dragons?" He muttered, his face falling.

Indeed. Dragons. Red dragons, to be precise.

They were slaughtered one by one, their cores ripped from their chests by the woman without mercy or hesitation.

In no time, Cassius watched as a beautiful city — filled with unique and irreplaceable sights — was razed to the ground, dead dragon bodies everywhere, their history brought to an end.

The vision of the Crimson Star lagged suddenly and stopped abruptly.

Cassius frowned, wondering what was happening, only to fall silent when the vision resumed, this time showing an entirely different scene.

The same woman who had slaughtered dragons like insects now lay in a world burned by crimson flame, all her limbs torn from her body, leaving nothing but her torso and head.

Her eyes were gouged out, her tongue cut, her entrails and intestines left outside her body for all to see. Even her heart had been removed, leaving an empty hole where it had once been.

Yet she was not dead.

The woman cocked her head at the sky in complete defiance, smiling and cackling as if she found her current situation more amusing than tragic, before parting her lips and speaking words that reverberated through everything around her like a blast of fire.

"I am Amate Desdemona! The 333rd! And everything is ready! Everything, I say!"

Deep inside her empty sockets, crimson fire exploded outward like vicious beasts, creating pupils made of living flame.

Inside her chest, the same fire appeared, shaping a Heart of Fire that connected to every part of her remaining body.

She laughed even harder, looking at something in the sky Cassius couldn’t see.

"Do you really think you can take it from us and we will stand by doing nothing? Then you must be fools! Fools! We will not forget this affront. We will take back what belongs to us, and even more! Even more! Beware of that! For we are the Desdemona! We are the rightful Third Holders of R—!"

The crimson star flickered sporadically then cut off abruptly.

Cassius, still dazed and aghast, felt his consciousness being pulled away, clearly about to return to his body.

But he felt a sudden, urgent and painful need to know more. To understand what he had just witnessed.

The ticket’s effect had run out, however, and he could no longer stay.

Yet before he disappeared entirely, Cassius looked one last time at the sky, and his heart skipped a beat at what greeted him.

All 333 stars were shining, and had arranged themselves into a pattern. A pattern he knew all too well.

The pattern of a Snake Eating its own Tail.

But Cassius noticed that the cold, sharp, glowing fangs of the snake had not sunk into its own tail.

The Loop was not complete.

And then Cassius disappeared from the Spiritual Principality completely, the image of that incomplete Loop burning inside his mind like a wound that would never fully heal.

...

"Where... where am I?" Isolde muttered immediately under her breath, looking around her with trepidation, yet somehow, no sound escaped her own lips.

That strange phenomenon, one she was so accustomed to because of her own power, sent a chill down her spine, causing her to cast nervous, worried eyes over the strange place she had found herself in.

All around her there was nothing but water. Or at least, that was what Isolde assumed the strange liquid beneath her feet was.

It was the colour of rusty wine, heavy and oily, clinging to her feet even when she lifted her leg in a useless attempt to move.

No sounds existed in that place, which only deepened the wrongness clawing at her throat.

And that was when Isolde felt a gaze fall upon her — an odd, piercing gaze that made her instantly wish to seize control of her legs and run.

A gaze she didn’t even want to lift her head to meet. And yet, inexplicably, her body began to move of its own accord as if it were no longer hers, forcing her head upward.

There, sitting cross-legged atop the strange water, was a woman with her eyes closed.

She appeared to be around thirty, with wine-coloured hair and a face mapped by scars of every shape and type — the most prominent being one at the edge of her lips.

Even her closed eyelids had not been spared: the left bore a scar shaped like a circle, the right one shaped like a large X.

She wore full black assassin’s clothes, striking, yet adorned with sprays of blood from enemies long fallen and forgotten.

At her right side, with its head resting in the woman’s lap, lay a wolf. A purple wolf — beautiful and majestic — fixing its unwavering purple eyes on Isolde.

Eyes whose pupils mirrored the scars on the woman’s eyelids.

Isolde stood there, wondering what to do, yet unable to do anything even if she had known.

The wolf’s gaze grew in intensity — slowly turning hostile — before the strange woman raised a hand and placed it on the wolf’s head.

Instantly, it calmed and then it began to growl in happiness.

A growl that Isolde could hear.

And it was only the beginning, for the woman spoke next, her face neutral, almost placid.

"I see you have heard of it. That name. That place. You know it too. Already?" She said, her voice making Isolde feel like a pair of fangs closing around her throat. "How? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Still far too weak. For now, go back. Go back, and come to me once you are strong enough."

She grinned coldly.

"With your body, this time."

The woman lifted her index finger and flicked it toward Isolde. Instantly, her mind dissolved, returning completely to her own body.

...

"Huff... Huff... Huff."

Back inside the room at the palace, Cassius and Isolde snapped their eyes open simultaneously, breathing shallow, their minds still replaying what they had just witnessed.

Something they couldn’t fully understand no matter how hard they tried, yet somehow a part of them had grasped something, and that something had transformed into an instinct.

An instinct that screamed at them, down to the very depth of their minds and souls and existence, a single sentence:

Get stronger.

Yes.

Even with their minds puzzled by what they had just seen, they knew what they needed to do to be ready for whatever was coming their way, for whatever those visions meant.

And as if to celebrate their return from the Principality, the System flashed before them both, each with their own set of notifications.

Cassius blinked, staring at the bright panels:

[Your Wondrous Aspect {Legacy} is reacting to a significant Vision.]

[Your First Skill: Bloodflame is reacting to the origin of its birth.]

[Congratulations, Last Born. You have gained the right to receive the Evolution Conditions of your First Skill.]

The System paused, then...

[Do you wish to know them?]

Cassius lay there, his face fallen at the unexpected development.

Whereas Isolde received something entirely different, yet fundamentally the same:

[You have gained the attention of Alstar, Mother of Assassins.]

[Congratulations, Isolde Amaris. You have gained the right to receive the Evolution Conditions of your First Skill: Soundless World.]

[Do you wish to know them?]

In that tense silence, the two of them mechanically turned their heads toward each other, staring at each other’s faces — full of confusion — for a long, quiet moment.

Then a crooked smile found its way onto each of their faces at the same time.

""Well, damn.""

—End of Chapter 127—