Screams echoed in every direction, the fractured and red night sky forming faces out of scarlet stars, gaping voids for mouths, open wide and laughing down at the world. Blood dripped and flowed out of and over buildings, doors and windows like open wounds. The occasional body flowed with the blood, and I could not stand to check to see if they were children.

I wandered the dying city, under the cackling and cracked sky, wading through the hip-deep river of partially coagulated crimson. Dark, almost black strings of the stuff clung to me, stinking and wretched.

I had been chasing a man in grey, his face cast in shadows as he stepped around unconnected corners, mocking me as he tossed yet more corpses into my path as insane, cold laughter joined with the sicking screams.

I did not know who he was, or even who I was, only that I was lost and tired, and the world was broken.

After a time, I found myself stopped, the streaming blood now a lake of thick fluid, holding me in place like an amorphous fist. As I stood still in the centre of an open square, bodies rose out of the mire, familiar to me though I could not place them, save one. Among the myriad of the deceased, V floated foremost, his dead and blackened gaze staring at me, his final mad grin still frozen in place by the rictus of death. He stared at me with accusation and more disturbingly, pride.

A fierce denial rose up inside me, and though I had not been able to move, I took a single step, finding myself stood on a glass-like floor with a planet far beneath me. Glancing around, I saw Xiournal sat upon a golden globe that mirrored the world below in exacting detail.

“Why?”

The question surprised me, as I had not known I could speak until that moment, but I knew without doubt that the voice was mine, even if it was wholly alien to me.

The dragon did not answer, but instead began to laugh as a sparkling silver wave rose up from the world below, passing without effort through the transparent walls or floor. The silver light pooled about her round throne, and still laughing the dragon began to shovel the effervescent energy in to her mouth, swallowing it in great, gulping mouthfuls.

Horror rose up in me this time; I knew what it was the dragon devoured, and further I knew its source. These were the souls of all those I had killed, and all that would be killed in the coming days. Horror turned to rage, and I tried to step forward again, as I had done before, but my body did not respond. Looking down at myself, I saw myself for the first time, a hollow thing with barely a sliver of power at the heart of me, surrounded by a shimmer of rainbow light.

I should be saving the souls, I knew; preventing their final destruction, to allow them to flow freely in to the River of Souls to be reborn. But I was empty. I could not fight, or even move to defend myself should the dragon turn her hungry gaze upon me.

“Let me go!”

I shouted, though this time the voice – my voice – was weak, a mere susurrus whisper, lost amidst the laughter.

The world blurred around me, and I saw a vast tower of black stone surrounded by a desert of black sand; the tower lay upon its length, shattered and broken, perfectly white bodies scatted about it like fallen snow.

I saw a city of spires within a vast forest that lay burnt and smoking, the city a lifeless husk choked with endless smoke.

Images flickered around me; utilitarian towns of white stone overgrown with clinging weeds that snapped at and ate any man or animal that approached. Giant apes fleeing before a tide of burning acid that swept aside the trees and crumbled mountains.

And above it all, the faces laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

*

***

*

I sat upright hard enough that I flung myself from the bed, spinning head over heels to impact the wall with a dull thud, before slipping to the carpeted floor.

“Ow.”

It had not hurt, but it was the sort of thing I still thought should hurt. Picking myself up, I wiped at the sweat dripping from my body, knowing that I had experienced some kind of nightmare, but unable to recall more than bits and pieces. I remembered somebody laughing, but I could not remember who.

With a shrug, I slapped both myself and the bed with a cleansing pill and lay down; the wet sheets were still a little uncomfortable, but since I no-longer felt the cold, it was not too bad.

Reflexively, I check my Praxis, which was sitting at around twenty percent again after spending the remainder of the day and a good chunk of the night in meditation. I had a great deal to process, which had helped but I could not help wishing for more.

I was also aching to inject myself with the Phoenix immortality serum and go to town on the rest of my energy system, even with the vague uncertainty of applying the pattern from arm – arms – to the rest of me. But I did not have the energy; just doing my arm had taken fifteen percent of what I had, so I knew I would probably need nearly my entire reserve to complete the job, as impossible as that seemed in the circumstances in which I found myself.

I had no way of checking the time from inside of my room; normally, I would have checked the sky, but unlatching the heavy, heavy shutters on my tiny window seemed like a bad idea when the city was in the process of destroying itself.

Knowing I was not going to be able to sleep, I decided to venture down to the common room, see if I could relieve whoever was on watch. The ones we knew were dangerous had been fed sleeping pills, but that still left a number of potentially dangerous individuals.

Toria had made it back from the market earlier, though it had taken her far longer than we had expected, to the point that Darina, Riffa and even I had considered going after her, but thankfully she had returned with no more than a few scrapes and bruises. The additional time taken had mostly been spent searching the market, or so the religious apprentice had said. The fur-clad man who we had originally purchased the medicine from had been nowhere to be found, but within the splinters of his stall she had found enough pills to keep who we had sleeping for at least a week. Provided we did not collect more, of course.

Dressing, I left my room and made my way downstairs, wishing I had some coffee even if I was fairly certain it would have no impact on my energy-laden and enhanced body. I decided to ask an alchemist the next time I found one. If I found one...

The common room was packed with sleeping and unconscious people; none of those we had rescued had woken up yet, which in theory made the use of the sleeping pills something of a waste, but there was no telling when it might happen. Darina had stabilized them and healed the most egregious injuries, but their slumber had persisted. Among them, sat in a huge chair and reading from a book scaled to the same proportions, Reff was apparently still on watch, or had relieved the last.

“Hey Reff. Are you still up or replacing somebody?”

Looking up, the giant placed a piece of paper into the book and snapped it gently shut.

“With warm greetings, hello, Hunter. I was not tired, having done little actual fighting so I advised the others that I would take the watch until morning. What brings you down, I had thought you would be spending the next day in meditation.”

“I couldn’t sleep. Or, I mean I woke up. Bad dreams.” I offered a shrug, dismissing the dreams and moved on. “I figured, since I couldn’t sleep anymore, I’d come down and relieve whoever was on duty. I guess that’s you.”

“With mild confusion, I just informed you that I was on watch, Hunter. There is no need to guess.”

“... Right. Anyway, since I’m already up, you might as well get some sleep; I can cultivate down here as easily as in my room, so I might as well not waste the time.”

“In logical agreement, if you are sure you are capable - and willing - I will take my leave. We should each endeavour to be as strong as possible for the coming days.”

“Yeah. I wonder what’s happening elsewhere; that Risen Throne asshole said they were doing this everywhere.”

“In temporary dismissal, we cannot intervene everywhere, we are but mortals; we must deal with what we are able.”

I knew my friend was right; worrying over things I could not change would only make things worse. I was slipping back into old patterns of behaviour, things I thought I had left behind when I had been reborn. It was not so much a habit I was falling into, but instead merely something I was familiar with enough that I could see it coming. With a firm nod and a steadying breath, I replied to the risi.

“You’re right. I can’t save the world; I can only help those in front of me. If I can get my reserves above fifty percent, I’m going to go try to scout the Blood Guard headquarters; this place is great, but we’ll need more room – more defensible room – eventually.”

“With firm understanding, you are perhaps the best suited for such an endeavour, though I would feel better if somebody were to accompany you.”

“It’s a trade-off, I guess. Everyone scouting isn’t saving people and... knocking others out. Or helping you guard, or trying to heal this lot so that they wake up. There’s only five of us.”

Reff merely nodded; this was all stuff the much older man had probably considered already, but it can be tough to let friends face things alone, even with responsibility knocking at your door. Without another word, he left me there then, in the dim light of the alchemical lamps, surrounded by the sleeping and unconscious.

Knowing I needed to meditate – and that the sect members had probably been looted already – I sat down in a smaller chair than the one my friend had vacated, thinking about my dream.

The fragments were disturbing, echoes of the worries that had been niggling away at me manifesting out of my subconscious. I remembered Xiournal eating souls, but that at least I thought unlikely, given what I knew about cultivation and ascension. Still, I knew there was more to the dragon-lady than met the eye, and had ever since I had arrived on my new home; there was no way a being of supreme power was actually that ditzy, and the colour scheme was like something from a cartoon. While it was certainly possible, as most things apparently were, I had the feeling she had been manipulating me. I did not know the reason, really, but it was one more thing I knew I wanted to ask her, if we ever met face to face again.

With a sigh, I let my eyes half close and began the process of trying to recall the dream in more detail, adding it to the huge pile of events that had happened over the last day or so. My progression through the stages was pretty astonishing, when compared to most people in the world. I did not know if that was just because of how new everything was, whether it was necessity that drove me, or whether I just encountered an unreasonable number of spectacular events. It occurred to me briefly that I might be a prodigy, like Darina, but I quickly dismissed that, recalling the early days after my arrival and being bullied by children. Whatever the reason, I was glad of it. I was under no illusion that I had been anything more than an irritation to the Risen Throne so far, given the scope of the world and their apparent plans, but just maybe, if I could keep progressing, get my newer, better channels burned in, I could step up my game and become a real, genuine pain in the ass. Because if anybody deserved it, the Risen Throne were – was – first among them.