CHAPTER 95: COHORTS AT ARMS (2).

Nero had a dream.

A dream of darkness and of demons.

One of dark gods cursing the lands, spewing forth their vile madness, the blackened scourge writhing and corrupting.

Th stench of the decay so vivid, it took on a physical aspect.

The sky was folding in on itself.

Corpses rose from the ground.

Ghouls and Abominations howled into the dark river on high from which all the stars fell.

There was chaos.

There was death.

There was nothing.

This was the beginning of the end.

But then, there was something.

A set of eyes staring at him through the emptiness.

Eyes he recognized.

They were eyes he knew he had seen somewhere.

They dropped with blood, the dark ichor splattering in his face as he looked up, body frozen in place.

Was it the horror and fear that made him transfixed.

The eyes continued to stare at him.

Then the being removed its gaze.

Then it pointed behind him.

Its voice was a thousand whispers, all meaningless.

And they, they all seemed to say the same thing.

"Turn around."

Those were the words.

Nero felt his neck twist on the spot.

He had turn around.

Behind him was a scene that made his blood run cold.

Corpses were laid strewn out on the ground.

Blood seeped into the earth. Cursed, scourged flesh crumbling into bloody mucus.

Nero saw the corpses of Garrick, and of Obed, their eyes twisted in eternal horror. Their corpses had been ruthlessly gouged out, with their entrails spilled out mercilessly around them like some wild demon had feasted on them.

Then a few steps away, laying with his body mangled and mixed into the ground was Geor.

The large man was a pile of dices of flesh and crushed bones. His muscles torn into ribbons, half his face bitten in, with even his eyes gouged out.

And then, there was a final corpse.

It was his corpse.

His headless corpse.

Hos body was transformed.

And yet, whatever had attacked had reduced him into nothing but bloody fleshy bits.

His blood seeped into the ground, drenching it.

And of course, the scene would not have been complete without a perpetrator, as standing in the middle of the clearing, with his head in her arms, was a strange being that greatly resembled Aisha.

However, instead of dainty little fingers, she had elongated, black claws.

Her mouth, face and sharp fangs were covered in bright crimson. Above her, a stream of starlight poured, bathing the being in ethereal lights.

From its back, four bone claws extended, its silver hair flowing down its elongated spine like a drape.

Its eyes were a deep Crimson as it stared into his own lifeless ones. Tears of blood slowly flowed down its cheeks

And then, it planted a gentle kiss on his cold, grey lips.

The scene filled Nero with so much fear, he couldn’t even breathe.

’What is this?’

It was clear what he had just witnessed.

’A revelation...’

A vision of the future. One in which he, alongside every other member of the party meets a terrible, tragic end in the hands of Aisha who had, for some reason, turned into an Abomination.

It was absolutely dreadful. It was a nightmare.

’Oh, yeah...’

It was a dream.

Nero opened his eyes.

But of course, dreams were dreams for a reason...

***

Silence swept through the small camp.

Besides the one on watch, everyone else was asleep.

Nero pretended to be asleep until the sound of boots crunching on the dirt reached his ears. Then he felt a hand violently tap him awake. He slowly opened his eyes and looked up.

It was Obed.

Obed glared down at him and coldly muttered,

"Your turn."

Indeed, since they all needed to get as much rest as they possibly could, he had been added into the watch roster as well.

However, Nero wasn’t bothered by that. After all, he already couldn’t sleep anymore.

He rose to his feet and gave Obed a slight nod.

Seeing him walking away, Obed had a strange look on his face as he stared at his back.

A moment later, the look disappeared and was replaced with silent sympathy.

Then Obed lay on the ground and closed his eyes as well.

Walking just a bit further, Nero found a comfortable spot to sit.

Even if he tried, he wouldn’t have been able to get some sleep.

After all, the imagery was burned far too deeply and vividly.

It was not going anywhere any time soon.

’Can I trust it?’ was the first thought in his mind.

After all, considering all that had happened recently, he couldn’t put it out of the equation that maybe his mind was simply thinking things up that weren’t going to happen.

However, on the off chance that they did?

Then, he would have no idea what to do.

’In the first place, where did it come from?’

He shook his head,

’No. I know exactly where."

It had come from the Defiled Cherub. That strange being had granted him the ability to see the future clearly for a moment.

But what he had shown him was far from what he had wanted.

’Shit. This is terrible, isn’t it?’

He was completely lost.

If he was doomed to die, then what was the point of going on?

What was the point of showing him all that?

’No. I’m looking at it all wrong.’

He sucked in a deep breath to calm down. Then he asked the Oracle internally, so as not to wake those already up, up.

’What do I do now? Is it truly impossible to escape the future? Is the future truly written in finality.

The Oracle’s clear answer came swiftly.

{No. The future changes. Nothing is set in stone}.

That was all he needed to hear.

Nero sucked in a deep breath,

"I don’t think Aisha transformed on her own. There must have been something else. An external trigger or catalyst."

He was hellbent on discovering what it was that could potentially lead to his wretched demise. The more he knew, the more precautions he would be able to take, after all.