“Here we stand, my dearest,” my pa spoke. His dark eyes penetrated and swept through our ranks. It was as if he was looking and talking to each and every single one of us rather than talking to all of us. His voice, as usual, was terrifically loud and crisp as if his voice has been enhanced by a miracle.

Standing in the rank of Warren, I listened to pa’s speech. But there was a part of my mind was running loose on its own will, reminiscing of the past. I was here and there. Here listening to pa’s speech and there living inside that magical house on the cliff. I suddenly recalled my childhood with much fondness. It was a time when I was still mentally a child, undeveloped and unacquainted with the complexity of the world. I remembered wanting to become a grownup. I could not understand the reason of such longing at the time. Now, when I look back and am able to rationalize things, that strange longing must have connected to pa and admiration for him. I lived my childhood wanting to become a grownup in a hurry, not wanting to be a chain to tie my pa down. As a child, I could always sense that my pa was a man of unlimited potential. He could do everything that he set out to do. And yet, he was always by my side, taking care of me, worrying about me. I hated to be the chain that ties him down. I hated to be his downfall. I longed to become a grownup, freeing pa of his many worries and accompanying pa in whatever he wanted to do.

And yet, when I finally become a grownup, there is always a part inside me longs for that long gone past.

It was like my pa has always said, “You only know how important something or someone is when you lost them.” For a man who deliberately conditioned himself to be stupid, pa’s words were often oozing with wisdom. As a result, I could not help myself but discourage him to walk an alternate path from time to time like many others. Neither insanity nor stupidity suits him. Things like that, they are beneath his stature.

Back then, the world of my childhood was small and uncomplicated. It was just me and pa, and our magical house built on top of a windy mountain peak. To an infant minded draconian that I was at the time, that was the world. That was my world. Just me, pa and our home, nothing big or complicated. Our magical house was built on top of an isolated, high mountainous peak facing the sea on one side and valleys of colorful, wildflowers and green reeds on the other. Looking back, that world was small. It was indeed small and isolated, but it had never felt small, or dull for a moment. I had never, for a moment, regretted living inside that small and isolated world, not knowing of the larger and more complex world outside. I had never felt like I was living the life of a caged bird for a moment because pa was always there, at the center of the world. To me, an infant minded child at the time, he was the magic, everything that makes that world enchanting and hopeful. He was the reason why I did not feel like I was being isolated from the world. Pa was the world. Pa was the reason why that house was magical.

I learned from the storybooks that I read and the tales that pa told me. The world was much larger than I could have ever imagined. But I had never pondered about the undiscovered sceneries that lie beyond the distant horizons. I had never once looked at the valleys and questioned the unknown world beyond the valleys. I knew that, by Nature’s ordinance, even if my pa rutted with a female draconian, I would not come out. But not once I questioned my mother. I had never questioned why a soft-skinned human pa would raise a hulking three meters of scratched scales and toughened hide draconian cub. That made no sense, but not once I raised a question about it. I had never become hungry once while living inside our magical house, as though I was incapable of being hungry. Yet, pa would still cook and feed me three times a day. Not once I had questioned.

I was far from being the most inquisitive child. I had never asked enough about everything, including my name.

Leph, Al-Lepherasus is an exceedingly strange name for a draconian to have. First, it is nearly impossible for a draconian to pronounce the ‘Al’ and “phe” sounds from the word Al-Lepherasus. Second, there is no hissing or gnashing sound in between the pronunciation of the word like a word of the draconian tongues. But it is my full name.

“Al-Lepherasus, your name is Al-Lepherasus.” It was the most difficult to read and pronounce name for a draconian.

“In Naharis’ titan tongue, it could mean either “be freed” or ‘to be free.’ Child, you are nobody’s slave. You are nobody’s pet. Leph, to be you, yourself, Al-Lepherasus means to be free. So, be free.”

Every day, pa would sit next to me for at least four hours of dreamland hour teaching me the correct pronunciation.

“Arrrr-Le-faaarass”

“Leph. Watch my mouth. Al-le-phe-ra-sus.”

It was a most draining, repetitive task and routine. There was a time I hated pa for giving me such a difficult to pronounce name. I repeatedly asked pa why he could not give me a single syllable name. But I reckoned that pa must be more fed up with that routine than I have ever been. Though he had never shown it.

I made friend with my boredom and mental exhaustion while learning the pronunciation of my own name. It took me seven toiling years to learn the correct pronunciation of my name and developed an adequate understanding of the Titan’s tongue. And yet, I had never thought much about the meaning of my name or pa’s intention when he gave me that name.

I was not an imaginative, or adventurous, inventive or particularly bright by any stretch of the imagination. I had no grand ambition or dream. I was a slow learner, and beastly dull even by a draconian standard.

But even I had questions. I remembered asking, “How did he do that?” Again, again and again, and again. Over and over again.

I spent the majority of my childhood asking this question. I remembered asking pa and myself this same question and the various interpretations of it many times. “How did you do that? How can you do that? How can he do that? What is the secret? How can he do that but I cannot?” Regardless of the different wordings, it is, in the end, just one question. “How did he do that?”

“How did you do that?” It was a normal, unsurprising question that a growing son would ask his father at some point. In the eyes of a growing son, his father is always like the smartest, greatest and most mystical person in the world. The son admired his father. He wanted to learn about his father and grow up like him, even when his father told him to grow up like someone else.

“How did he do that?” This question was my entire childhood. When the clouded obscurity of my mind became clear, when I became me, I have already asked this question. “How did you do that? How did he do that?”

To this ever repetitive question that I posed, pa rarely gave me an easy answer. Rarely. Instead, he often gave me the mildly difficult answer, making me work my mind and effort for the answer.

“Most of the time, you are given the answers and the hints to most problems. But you often neglect and miss them. There is a great difference between looking and observing. Between listening and hearing is a great wall. Don’t look. Observe. Don’t hear. Listen.”

Pa raised me to perceive the world through observation and listening. Then, I noticed them, their invisible presence.

Pa is my greatest teacher even though he often looks down on himself. But he is not the only teacher that I had inside our house. “Patience, practice, instinct,” said pa, introducing me to the three invisible men. Invisible as they might be, but every single one of them is just as great a teacher as pa is. They are just as much as my teachers as they are pa’s teachers.

Practice is the most surefire, but he is a boring teacher. His lessons are ever-repetitive and ever-dull, but surefire. Only thanks to practice and pa, I could speak my own name. Patience is a demanding, infuriating and tough teacher. Demanding to please, tough to learn from, and infuriating to be around with, but patience is a great teacher. Without patience, I can only hear and see instead of observing and listening. Without patience, a slow learner like me could never reach any finish line. Instinct is the most difficult to perceive teacher. His commands are often too quiet and indiscernible. And even his presence is thin, more invisible than the other two. And thus, he always needs practice and patience to be his translator and mouthpiece. As a result, his lessons are the most boring, tough, demanding and yet indiscernible.

“Patience, practice, instinct,” pa told me to trust them as I trusted pa. So I did as a child, without raising a question.

If I had learned something from these three invisible men, “Most of the things that pa could do, I can, too. By learning from practice, patience, and instinct.” Like that, I was raised. If pa can cook, I can. If pa can play the piano, I, too, can. I might not be able to do things better or faster than he could. But I could do everything that pa can, no matter how impossible they appear. Pa raised me like that, a student and believer of the three invisible great teachers.

“How did you do that?” I grew up asking this question a lot. Pa always beats me in old elven chess. I was always playing on unlimited time but he always played with a three minute time handicap. And he was not just playing against me. He was playing against himself on a different board. His left hand was used to play against me, moving the pieces and tapping the clock on our board. His right was to move the two colored pieces and tap the twin clocks on the other board. Pa was trying to win against himself and not losing against himself at the same time on that board, all while playing against me. That board has always been more exciting to watch.

At first, I played the game fast, moving the pieces as fast as I could. I figured out early that pa used the time that I planed for my move to think ahead. The longer the time I used to plan my move, the more the time he had to plan out his. Thus, I moved my piece as quickly as I could, preventing pa from using my own time to plan his game. I wanted to win against him by draining his three-minute clock.

I figured that method was the only chance I had to win against pa. It was the strategy. I dug up the chess books lying around inside our study room, learning various openings by the memory. I played our games just by books, fast, without much thinking. Just like that, I got beaten every time. The other board, where pa was playing against himself, has not even reached its first climax but my board has already ended. It was a familiar reoccurrence. Pa taught me to not concern about the speed of others. Pa taught me to take my mind off the more exciting board, the board where he played against himself, to focus on my own board alone. Pa taught me to move my pieces at my own pace. It took a lot of patience and practice that I could push my board with pa beyond the 40 moves. I saw that as my victory.

I could not play the piano with my clumsy webbed hands and clawed fingers. Pa showed me how he could play various four-hands piano pieces with only two. Pa showed me that he could even play the pieces even when his eyes are blindfolded and his ears plugged. “Other people call this a prodigious union of gifts and talents, a work of pure genius. However, I call it, practice, patience, instinct,” pa repeated himself very often whenever I was getting sick of the piano lessons. He always sat next to me and the piano, patiently teaching me to play it on my webbed hands.

Pa could swim an absurd number of lapses inside our swimming pool without resting. I was the faster swimmer and the more physically able person between the two of us. My scaly body was streamlined for swimming. My hands and feet were webbed. My muscular tail was like a rudder. But when my entire body was struggling to stay afloat from the endless hours of swimming, pa was swimming still, effortlessly. He stayed afloat in the pool so much longer and swam so much farther. Pa made it pointless to count the length in the unit of lapses or kilometers. He made it pointless for me, a webbed-feet draconian, to compete with him in a swimming contest.

“How did you do that?”

“I have spent a human’s worth of lifetime doing nothing but swimming. Of course, I can,” Pa shrugged his shoulder and replied. It was an easy answer. Rarely would pa give me an easy answer, because I would learn little to nothing from an easy answer. Only when pa has succeeded training me to hate the easy answers, he would give me the easy answer at will. The more I grew up, the more I learned that pa was as difficult, infuriating and tough a teacher as my three invisible teachers.

I observed and listened to pa’s swimming, learning from the three invisible men. It took me an absurd length to figure out that pa’s endurance is not infinite. It took me an absurd length to realize that he could swim so much faster but chose to swim at his own pace instead. He compensated for his lack of stamina with a mechanical swimming technique and breathing. He knew how to make himself float without stroking the water. He swam with his arms when his legs were tired. He swam with his legs when his arms required rest. He swam and rested at the same time. His breathing was trained and deliberated. Pa swam with absolute efficiency, without wasting his stamina or rest. His technique was solid, repeated without deviation. He was like a machine designed to swim. When I learned that, I highly doubted if the best swimmers among my draconian forebears could give pa a fair and square competition. They would probably be unable to finish an ocean length whereas pa would keep swimming forever until somebody stops him.

Pa could tell things and recite things without looking at the books. Pa could make tasty meals without tasting the food he cooks once. Pa could do many different things and solve multiple problems at the same time. Pa always seems to know me better than I know myself. Pa seems able to do everything right and with style. Pa is a man who gives off that vibe. He is a person who can literally go beyond and above his limits, a person who makes the most Herculean and impossible tasks appear laughably mundane and stupidly feasible.

I grew up admiring pa in the same manner pa admires his king, his goddess and his brothers. Very often with a much-cherished tone, pa told me their tales among other heroic tales from various myths and legends. I learned of a king despite being so wise, chose to save a brother and put his entire kingdom at risk. I learned of a man, who was cursed to unable to recognize words, yet become a respectable scholar. I learned of a fighter who was barred from the fighting ring that he loved and found his true calling. I learned of a person whose purpose is to spread joy and laughter to the world around him. I learned of a nigh-omnipotent goddess whose truest potential shall never be realized. Their tales I loved to listen to, but I wanted to listen to the tales where pa appeared more.

The landscapes that lie beyond the distant horizons, the vast world beyond the valleys, the blue sky beyond this sky, the working of the universe, the truth, none of them captured my thought as much as my own pa. The heroes in the tales that pa told me and the storybooks that I have read, none of them had ever commanded my attention as the man who raised and fed me.

Magic did not hide at the distant horizon. Magic has always been right in front of me, a man. Myths, fairy tales, and legends were not shrouded in tales and books. They were right next to me, a person, my pa. And, God, the only one that I considered my God, did not live in stories, imagination or some heavenly planes of above and beyond, as my three invisible teachers have taught me.

Only now, that I have mentally become a grownup, I recalled. The hints and the answer were right there, all along. We were supposed to have a picnic on that day. Pa was going to show me the outside world, the world lying beyond the white walls, the large wooden doors and the oaken framed, glassy windows for the first time. We had the picnic planned, from the beginning to the end. Pa baked his special cheese potatoes and the honey chicken drumsticks in tinfoil wrapping to perfection. I made sandwiches, pasta, and salads. He packed the napkins, jams, and milkteak inside the picnic basket. I had the picnic blanket roll inside my rugged reptilian arms. We had our food and items ready. We had the whole thing ready. But the rain was falling, on and on. We waited, having all the patience to wait out that rain. But that long rain became a storm, and it dragged on, forever.

As a child, I did not realize that I had caught my pa sneakily waving the rain away with his smooth, scaleless hands. Three times he waved his hand. The first time, the leaden thunderclouds were fanned away. The second time, the rain stopped falling. The third time, the sky was blue and bright.

The hints were there all along. But as a child, I had never realized. The world I lived in throughout my childhood was strange. Our house is strange, full of magic items and miracles that lie beyond my understanding. Our large fridge would refill itself with fresh cooking ingredients over the night. My personal corner of the study room would always have new storybooks whenever I finished reading the old ones. Pa’s corner was an inexhaustible supply of exercises for me to do.

“Is there anything that you cannot do?” I remembered asking pa this question a lot. Every time, he smiled a wry smile. No word was spoken as if the answer was already given.

It was my periodic spasms. The answer has always been before me, but as a child, I could not perceive them and their hints. If dad could do away my periodic spasm, he would immediately do.

The ruddy color spasms, they had a fiendish will of their own, cruel and beastly. They came at their convenience, without caring where I was or what I was studying. They would come and strike me down without fail. The spasms are inevitable. The spasm would come and strick without warning or remorse or mercy. They would come again, always. There would definitely be a next time. They promised, always.

When they hit, the spasms hit with the force of the sky falling down and reshaped the world with a red malevolence. The crippling excruciation from having something jagged… burning like fire, yet slimy and alive squirmed clicked, prodded and pushed… things inside my head … brain matters and nerves… with a vicious will of its own, was like nothing else, incomparable. The buzzing agony when the small snails inside my ears popped like water balloons, or when those hot rods of pain poked into my eyeballs from the dark side of the sockets and pushed them out rolling, or when there is something clicking and scratching my brain from the inside, indescribable, no word could describe such agony.

When the spasms struck, I was completely at its mercy, a doll stringed by its will squirming on the cold ground in an alien reshaped world. My eyeballs were often hanging on my cheek, either that or rolling somewhere on the floor. Yet, malevolent things seared into my sight in vivid but chaotic, disconnected details. People, who look like my dad, human. And more. Those, who I had only recognized from the picture books, kobolds, dwarves, orcs, nagas, and even people of my own race, draconians. Saber-toothed cats, flightless earth dragons, chained flame wyverns, large dogs, giant serpents, unintelligent beasts. They did not look the same. They were chained up, unchained, with or without weapons or armors. But they were doing the same thing, killing. The one with long protrude fangs tearing. The one with claws raking. The ones with swords swinging. The ones with spears piercing. The one with a fiery breath incinerating. Heads rolling, bodies separating, limbs flying. They killed each other. I killed them first before they could attack me. They came to me. I killed them first before they could kill me. They ran. I chased and killed them before my masters punished me. The small snails inside my ear canals busted. Yet, voices and sounds blared into my mind. Cheers, clapping hands, roars, wails, curses, beggings, metal-tipped whip cracking. The foulness of someone’s life seeping into my jaws and down my throat, the waffling musky smell, and the metallic taste that overwhelmed my senses. I was here and there. Here, lying on the cold ground, a frightful, wretched slave of the reddened spasm and there, a bloodied, feral-minded slave of the fighting pits. My masters were here and there. There, cracking the cursed metal-tipped whip, and here, jagged tip tentacles prodding, chitinous legs clicking, deranged vision searing, evil voice whispering.

“Pa,” I cried, whimpering for him, pa, the only who would come and stay with me. “Pa,” I cried, a desperate child calling his dad. But, I could not hear my own cries. I could hear the many and multitude voices of beastly madness, but not my whimpering. I could not see my pa, the person I wanted to see the most. I could see everything that madness wanted me to see, but not my pa. When the spasm came, I trapped here and there, “Pa,” I cried a frightful, hurt child, always, repeatedly, countlessly, helplessly, mindlessly.

“Pa’s here. I’m here. I’m here.” I could not hear his voice. I could not even see him. I could not even feel his hands holding mine. But I knew what he has said, what he would say. I knew that he was right beside me even when madness denied that.

When the spasms left, when madness left on high note singing victory and promising the next time, I always found myself sprawling on a different ground, bathed in the bitter tears and bloody pains of my own defeats. I had but a vague collection of what I have seen and heard during the spasm. I cried a hurt and confused child from the throbbing phantom pains. I cried a fearful child from hearing the promise of the next inevitable, the next spasm, the next worse defeat. But, pa was always there, smothering the cold and crying me inside his strong, enveloping comfort, crying with me, crying for me.

“Pa’s here. I’m here. I’m here. It’s okay now.” He would repeat himself in a teary voice. He would stroke my scaly head with his smooth palms. Pa is strong, as strong and victorious as any great hero of old would have been. Pa could beat madness as effortlessly as snapping his fingers. My instincts always told me, so I knew. But pa has cried as much as I did at the end of every spasm. He cried for me. Pa is brave, braver than any champion of old could have been. My patience told me. But pa feared of not knowing the next spasm would come and strike as much as I was. Pa can do everything. My practice told me. But pa was as helpless as I have ever been. He cried because of me.

“It’s fine. It’s okay. I’m here,” said pa, the hero of my world, in a teary, shaken voice whenever my spasms left me defeated, fearful and hurt. A child crying inside his strong comfort, my instinct could feel everything, everything that pa would never admit. His hurt, his fear, his helplessness. The usual trio among the quartet, whose existence that pa would always outrightly deny.

I cried. I cried a lot. I spent my childhood crying more than smiling and laughing. I only knew how to cry. Every time I cried, pa was next to me, wrapping me inside his arms. Pa had never condemned my tears. “It’s fine,” he said. He told me to cry my hurt and fear out.

Pa armed me with every wisdom, every trick and exploit. Pa spent his patience and practice on arming me to win the next fight. Inside our magical house, pa spent every breathing moment teaching me how to conquer my own madness.

But the ruddy spasm would come. Madness would come, spelling my defeat yet again and the inevitable. My next spasm would come. Madness would defeat me yet again, promising that next time it would do worse. I knew and predicted my defeats before I fought the battles.

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere,” pa promised. Teary and helpless was his promise, pa’s promise. Not a heroic promise as the tales of legend and myth would tell. But to an infant minded child like me, that promise has always been more than just promise. It was everything.

Madness always promised the inevitable. Madness is inevitable. But, pa promised of an immovable truth. Pa’s promise was immovable and unshakable. To move an immovable and unshakable object, an unstoppable force is required. That force is not madness. Madness lacks everything that is required to step to the ring with pa. Whether it is weight, or skill, or rank, or recognition, or strength, Madness lacks every right and qualification to step into the ring with pa. A bottom dweller, who has never climbed a mountain, has no right to challenge a Champion, the one who had climbed and conquered the peak. That, I knew.

My pa is with me. That was my only courage, my only torch, my only weapon and armor in the face of my unbeatable and inevitable madness and its ruddy instrument.

I cried with every defeat, every time the spasm best me. Then, I cried for pa. My own defeats were as much as his defeats. My pain was as much as his pain. My torment and slavery to madness, too, was his. I loathed the underhanded nature of madness.

Only through me, they could get pa. It was a reminder. I hated my defeats. But I hated watching the magic of my world being undone even more. And I could feel that my madness took much delight on that. I feared my hurt but I loathed watching pa hurt so much more. I had never told pa that I hated myself crying. I hated how my tears tasted like fear and defeats. But I hated watching pa crying for my fear and hurt even more. His tears tasted like unspoken agony and repressed rage. I hated being the reason for pa’s defeat. But I loathed how my madness was delighted at the sight of my pa being brought down through me so much more.

Madness would come. Madness promised the next, the inevitable with every victory. Pa promised the immovable, always. I lived my childhood, promised a change would come with every defeat. I counted and marked my defeats. Every defeat of mine was a direct insult to pa.

“Wrong contest,” pa said, repeatedly chopping my scaly head with his hands on one day. His wording, as usual, without an explanation is tough to discern.

“Have you learned nothing? This is not a contest of speed. This is neither a contest of record. How many times can you lose against madness until you win? This is not that kind of contest. I don’t care how many more times this madness shall defeat you. I don’t care how much more time you need to defeat this madness. Don’t care about me or my defeat. This is about you,” said pa, loudly, solemnly and sternly.

“In the end, you will defeat madness and conquer it. That’s the most important thing. Time is not a factor. The past record, how many times you have been bested, is not a factor. In this place, neither time nor reality matters. So what matters? Your patience matters. Do you have the will to win against father time? Do you have the patience to keep losing for the goal? That’s what matters. Practice matters. It is your goal. Think of your losses and defeats as practice. You are practicing so that you can eventually win. Can you learn from your failures and defeats? That’s what matters. Every time you learn something about defeat and failure, that’s a step toward victory. That is your final goal. Don’t move it. Don’t change it. What else matter. Instinct matters. He is your greatest ally, your weapon. Madness changed and adapted to your thought and personality. Is your instinct trained? Is your instinct learned? What has your instinct told you about the losses and the nature of madness? This madness keeps changing form, nature, and strategies to keep you its slave. This is not an opponent you could defeat through wisdom or feigned bravery. It is using your wisdom and power against yourself. It is you. Do you have the killer instinct to conquer and dismantle this ever-adapting madness? That’s what matters the most. Do you have the killer instinct to win against yourself?” Pa spoke, wearing a strange, hitherto unseen look on his face.

I had an epiphany from listening to that wisdom. I have always thought that pa seemed to know me better than I know myself. But I was wrong. It is without uncertainty that pa knew me. He knew me just as much as he knew my madness.

Madness evolved and adapted from person to person. Just by spelling the words out to me, pa has granted strength to my madness as much as he has granted me strength. We were both getting stronger and wiser from this piece of knowledge. My madness is a beastly monster. I forget my beastly self, becoming pa’s child. It doesn’t. My madness doesn’t. It knows me, hides things from me and summons them to my recall through the tormented spasms with a cunning will of its own and its true fiendish master. Outsmarting a creature like that is impossible. No weapon of logic or wisdom can beat it, only a sword forged out of instinct and illogical feat.

Only then, I suddenly realized how dull I was. With that, an epiphany about my true enemy. Anyone else would have realized that much earlier.

It, my madness, proclaimed to be the inevitable. But pa is the immovable. His belief is immovable. It can defeat pa through me. But pa saw my defeats as the result of practices, a tutoring fee that we must pay to my “Practice”.

My repeated failures are not a factor. Against my madness, time is not a factor worthy of consideration.

Patience is. Practice is. Instinct is. It was for the same reason, pa has raised me following them.

Pa has always considered my defeats as an expense, the cost of victory. Whether my defeats reached thousands, millions, billions, or trillions, pa only saw that as a cost that we have to pay for the ultimate victory. His eyes were not on my repeated defeats. His eyes have always been on the end, the truest end, the day I would defeat my madness.

Today, I realized, this is the final battle. Suddenly, I knew.

I just knew things. My instinct told me that my own madness would come at me with a greater, hitherto unseen, force and cruelty, lashing out its fear. My instinct told me that madness would be relentless, trapping me in its jaws without letting me go this time. There shall be neither peace nor comfort in between this time. Only an endless madness, pain and torment.

Pa is both the immovable and the inevitable in the truest essence. I thought and admired him even more while mentally preparing myself for the relentless pain and torment to come, for my madness to do its worst bidding.

Sanguineous howls blared my mind with seeping hatred for pa. The ruddy spasm hit me with its worst force and cruelty, dissecting me from the inside with its jagged head tentacles. In that raging storm of hurt, with every subsequent blow, its fear became more vivid to me. It feared pa’s prediction. But it feared pa so much more. It feared pa as much as I admired him. That day, I vividly felt it, for the first time in my entire childhood. My madness’s worst fear. Its uncertainty about itself and its belief. It is not the true inevitable. It is but a caricature of the real thing, the real inevitable.

Pa is.

My madness was trying everything it could do to break pa through me, suspecting that its method would definitely fail. But it had no better alternative. It could not fight against pa directly. That’s why it feared him. That’s why it lashed out its fear on me, indirectly fight pa. It hit me because it had always known that I was its weaker. But this time, pa has promised its inevitable. Its end. My victory. Pa ushered me into this final battle knowing that I would win. He made this final battle happened. I was raised and taught by pa and the three invisible men for this moment. I was a student of patience, practice, instinct, my pa.

My madness pressed its attack relentlessly. The metal-tipped rods of my phantom past whipped me. Swords bit me. Spearheads dug into my toughened scaly hide. But my hazy thought was on pa’s final expression before sending me off to my final battle and before madness took me with its fiendish claws and jaws. It was a strange look. It was as if harrowing pain was twisted into cold acceptance.

I recognized the rare appearance of the final member of the denied quartet on pa’s face. It was the same look when I told pa that he was the kindest man in the world. His belief in his kindness. Pa had no doubt in his coldness or cruelty, or the length that he would go in the name of evil and injustice. But he denied his kindness, always. He denied his fear, his hurt, his helplessness, and his kindness, always.

I then realized that pa has come clean to me with that piece of knowledge, truly preparing for the end goal, truly preparing to pay every cost and expense for that end goal. Pa doesn’t believe in his kindness. Thus, he doesn’t believe that he should be loved or be treated kindly. He is a man who is prepared to be loathed for the rest of his life by me and my doomed to be vanquished madness.

My madness changed its attack pattern base on this new realization. It negotiated. It granted me rest. It soothed my mind. It killed the pain and the torment. It told me to hate him, blame my hurt and torment on pa. It directed the malice of its jagged head tentacles at pa. It taught me that if it was not for him, it would never hurt me. I knew that my madness was spew nothing but lies. It whispered lies after lies. It blamed pa for every wrong it has committed.

I was dulled. I laughed at how dull I was. Had I possessed the keen foresight of pa, or just 1/10 of it, I could pronounce a prophecy to my madness as my pa had. I hated how dull I was. But I loathed how my pa has predicted all of this and yet having no trust that I could still love him at the end of this battle. My instinct told me that my pa had turned himself into my madness’ worst enemy, predicting all of these developments. If I needed rest in this endlessly long final battle, I only needed to direct my hatred and fury at him. He was prepared to be hated and forever feared by the beast he saved. Just the mere thought of that, I hated.

Do better, I mocked both my madness and my pa. I needed no rest, not the kind of rest that my pa has designed. Not the kind of rest where I would curse my hero, my pa.

“Patience, practice, instinct,” I uttered the familiar words.

The day I conquered my madness and fully regained my past before I was pa’s child, celebrating my victory inside his arms. That day, my childhood abruptly came to an end, for I was already a grownup before I became a child.

Pa thought that it was about time for me to discover a whole new world, to expand my world to the beyond of our house. I agreed because pa said so. He snapped his fingers.

It was a whole new world.

The world outside of our magical house is confusing as confusing is. Pa multiplies. He is the toddlers, the youngs, the olds, the men, the women. He is the stupid people of dreamland and their god. My relationship with pa became cold and confusing, but it was more on pa’s part than on me. He acted as if millions of years have passed since he last saw me after a single snap of his fingers.

All of a sudden, pa had thousands of lovers. He also gained over a hundred thousands of haters who hated him as much as they hated their madness. I gained a population worth of self-proclaimed mas. Not even the past that I had seized back from my madness was as confusing as that. And yet, these sources of confusion arrived at the same time.

Pa became like a stranger. Of the four teachers I trusted the most, I lost the one that mattered the most. For a dull person, it was hard to find my bearing in such a strange new world. The world moved too fast for a slow learner. And I was a boy in a man’s appearance. The world became strange, complex and confusing.

“Patience, practice, instinct,” I summoned the invisible men to my side, helping me to cope with the situation.

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Not everyone was born a hare, fast at running, fast at adapting. I was an unspectacular being, a slow learner. I was a turtle of a learner. Thus, I took my time to observe and listen. I expensed my patience and practice to learn new things. Pa has become like a stranger to me. Yet, I still trusted his words like a guiding compass to navigate the new world. Instincts are things that could not be explained through logic.

I learned to move at my own pace. I could not sprint like a hare. So I moved like a turtle. I remembered the old swimming lessons. I remembered playing the board games with pa. I remembered learning the piano from pa. Pa had raised me in a way that I would never bother to compete with him, my madness or anyone else in a contest of speed or record.

It is not about how fast I could reach the end line, the goal. It is never about how long I had stayed oblivious and defeat. It is always a matter of patience and practice, whether I could reach the finish line despite my repeated failures or not.

There is no need to rush. I told myself, kept walking toward. Once in a million failures, I learned something new. I used the roughness of my failures like a whetstone to grind the edges of my instinct. Eventually, I would learn everything. Keep moving, I told myself.

Wise people like old man Faugus formed their support groups. They employed the nagas, kobolds and arachnees, those who had the ability to speak multiple languages as translators. I realized the advantage that I had over many others. I could already speak Titan, the agreed universal tongue between various groups. Everyone sat down and shared. People recounted what they had learned, what they had been through and how pa had played his role. I, too, learned to share my story and listened to other’s stories.

Fast learners patched invisible dots together faster. Slow learners like me picked up the scraps of their wisdom. I learned more about what happened. I learned about the strangeness of the time flow inside this world. I learned of the absurdity feat that pa had done during that snap. He remained inside that house, aiding other unfortunate chosen “Champions” of Madness, one by one, just like how he had aided me to conquer my own madness. Smart people learned fast from similar stories. But I caught up eventually by picking up their scraps.

Madness evolved and adapted from person to person. So pa had decided to aid everyone individually and differently. Pa had decided to live with everyone, saved them and restarted the process with a new person. He kept repeatedly do that with every person.

Not everyone was thanking him. More people were cursing him and hating him than they were thanking him. But that was what madness is, and how different people conquered their own madness, and how pa has been calloused about being hated.

Amidst that confusion, many people were trying to figure out how long had pa stayed inside that house. I could not help but wonder if there was meaning in such an act. It was like asking how many lapses pa could swim inside that swimming pool. Many were trying to compete over how long pa has stayed with them and the length pa has gone for them in the name of love, refusing to believe that pa has treated and loved everyone all equally. They refused to believe that pa would treat other women in the same manner. They were yelling and growling at each other over the same thing. They refused to believe that they had no special place inside his heart. A small portion tried to figure out who was the last person stayed with pa inside that house. There was no benefit to learn that knowledge. But jealousy and false hope could drive people to do incomprehensible things. Because of pa, even the long-living races like high elves, dark elves, elves, draconians and fauns had their confusing arguments about time and their perception of time. Heated arguments quickly exploded into combat situations between a bunch of angry and jealous lovers of pa. Disillusioned fingers were pointing at each other, telling their reflections were being delusional and jealous.

I watched, realizing how everyone was acting in the same manner that my madness acted out its fear. They were merely lashing out their confusion, disbelief, and anger at pa, but toward someone else. It was a mess until pa coldly sent his law enforcers down to settle things.

Pa is insane. Pa is insane. I clutched my head inside my webbed hands, thinking. One of pa’s enforcers suddenly burst out that 30 meters blade of extreme heat. That blade was bright and radiating as a small sun, fire, and miracle shaped into a blade. Nobody would even think about quarreling with the person who held that blade.

I was quiet. I had no idea what to feel or what to think. I listened. I observed. I was confused about everything I have learned. So I worked out the details at my own pace. Then, slowly, at a turtle’s speed, I started to comprehend. I regretted not telling pa that I did not hate him. I regretted not thanking him immediately before he made that snap. I regretted many things. Only then, I recalled that look on pa’s face before he sent me to my final battle with my own madness. I truly understood why he wore that look. He had already thought of this moment. It was a cost he was willing to pay to beat madness. Somebody had to pay a price, so pa decided that he must be that person simply because he can.

This is madness. For the first time in my entire life, I thought that my pa was not a sane man as he appeared throughout my childhood. But then, I realized that I was given a lot of hints about the nature of things. I just did not notice. No sane man would spend his human worth of a lifetime swimming. Only madness could drive a man into doing things that pa did. I thought that it was perhaps for this same reason, my own madness was so fearful of him. Pa was like a bizarre manifestation of madness, a madness that conquers madness, a madness beyond madness’ comprehension. I had no idea what to feel or what to think about that. Things are just confusing and happening all at the same time.

I could help but wonder how pa’s brothers, goddess, and king could have kept up with pa’s antic and insanity. They must have a really hard time. I realized that despite living with pa for my entire childhood, I understood so little about him.

Amidst the chaos of the confusing new world, wise people moved around wisely. Fast learners moved fast. Confused people moved around with confusion. Adapting people fit right in with the confusing new world. Everyone was doing their own things at their own pace. I walked and learned at my own pace.

“Patience, practice, instinct.” It was utterly strange how even when I was disillusioned about him, my pa, my greatest hero, I still followed his teaching.

I hung around various support groups, listening to the wisdom of the wiser people and tales of how various people coping with the confusing new world and their disbelief at pa’s sudden betrayal. Knowing that pa was no longer with me, my ruddy madness often came out of the looming shadow inside my heart, taking its chance every now and then. However this time, I was no longer afraid of the spasm or my madness. I knew that if I could beat it once, I could conquer it again.

Through the support groups, I have learned that conquering our madness once or twice was not the end, for it remained inseparable from us, “Champions” of Madness, evolved and adapted with us. Our relationship with our madness is one that could never be severed.

“We must firmly establish a relationship with it. We must either make peace with it by reaching an agreement. Or we must constantly make peace with it through war and conquest, making it fear and submit to us by force in every moment.”

For some reason, that piece of wisdom from old man Faugus stuck inside my mind the most. I have always thought that it was strange that a pacifist like old Faugus would repeat such forceful belief from one meeting to the next in our support group. That was like something my pa would say.

I practiced my patience and instinct to conquer my still evolving madness without pa by my side. My instinct noticed just how smooth and easy for me to hate pa and direct my malice at pa in this strange new world. Pa has given me and everyone else the reasons to do so. Only then, I slowly learned why so many people hated pa. Only when they hated pa, their own interest and their madness’ interest coincided and at peace. Hate pa forever and forevermore, through that agreement and concession, their madness tortured them no longer.

It was as if pa had calculated and manipulated everything, from the beginning to the end. It was as if pa has manipulated us “Champions” of Madness and our madness into a peaceful relationship. It was the easiest and least painful path to walk, hating my pa. After all, pa has deceived and manipulated all of us. Pa has turned his back on us in this confusing new world. He has given us every reason to be at peace with our madness. His law enforcers, the fairest and haughtiest of high elves and titans, all of them with the way they walked around flaunting their authority and their relationship with pa, only made it easier for us to hate pa.

I did not immediately voice out my sneaking suspicion at the time. I let the wiser people voiced their wisdom and inspired the mass to overcome their madness. I simply listened and observed. Through patience and practice, I slowly realized that not every wise person knew what they were talking about. Some were ignorant, believing that because things worked for them through a method, things would work the same for everyone else. Many lied to cover their wounds, shames, and scars. Many others just struggled to find their true calling, believing in whatever they could and talking about their experience. Not every wise man is a wise man. Some wise men become ‘wise men’ because others consider them to be. Some are wise men because they believe that they are wise. Others act like they are, and thus they are. Things were not as clear cut and uncomplex as they were in my childhood. Then I remembered those chess books. Just like these wise men, the books spoke and argued about different openings in a confusing mess. Blindly relying on their wisdom would not work for me. So I slowed down my pace even further to learn things.

I observed and listened, separating the “true wise men” from the rest. I spotted the small negligible similarities between all of them and picked up the invisible connection between their wisdom.

When I have clearly defined the balance of power between my beastly madness and me, my instinct became twice as sharp. I was sure that pa was manipulating things in a place where we could not see him. My madness acted like a radar whenever pa’s works and machinations were nearby. It whimpered whenever words, that felt like they belonged to pa, were uttered. It reacted to an invisible area around pa’s law enforcers and the leaders of those support groups.

“Did pa… no Prince Fearless order you to form this support group?” I confronted old man Faugus. The person denied verbally with a twitch of shock on his face. The thought that a dull person like me could come up with a conclusion like that must have never crossed him.

A lie, my instinct whispered. I was expecting the old kobold to deny. My madness’ reaction, its whimpers, only highlighted my suspicion. My pa must have instructed old man Faugus to deny questions like the one I have just asked. It was clear.

“Thank you. That’s enough of a confirmation. You don’t have to talk more.” I boldly spoke to old man Faugus, pushing my long mapped-out plan headlong. One way or another, regardless of how things would go, by concession or by force, I would meet my pa today. The time for me to listen and observe was over. I have listened enough. I have observed long enough. My madness retreated into the tiny crevice of my heart, docile and quiet like a domesticated rat, fearing my resemblance to pa.

Pa’s modus operandi was to stay quiet and feign ignorance when he was planning, bold and arrogance when he had a plan. And when he truly struck, he made sure that it was a lethal blow.

I thought of reconnecting with pa. I thought of another start. I thought of restarting our father and son relationship all over again. I thought that if pa could keep restarting things from the beginning every time he aided someone, I could rebuild my relationship with him. That thought has haunted me for a very long time. I had been haunted by that thought from the moment I realized that pa had stayed back and repeated his work.

I refused to let anything or anyone standing in front of that goal.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Not every “Champion” of Sanguine and his instruments of madness achieved big, become famous or infamous in history. Not every person was a one-person-army like mama Meireen, the leader of the Baku and the Sword Demon of the Chaasenods, who can make an army withdraws at the brief mention of her name. Not every person could conjure a thirty meters length sword of pure radiating heat or other absurd miracles like mama Lortenite. Not everyone was a genius who can use 50 ships to sink 1000 warships like mama Sasengun. Not everyone could become a leader of a religion because he wanted to. Not everyone could make a continent tremble with a sneeze. Not everyone possessed the kind of wisdom and perceptiveness to outsmart his maddened patrons for over two decades. Not every unfortunate soul, who caught the attention of Sanguine, Yasubotay, and Rasahlu, had the competency or ability to leave his mark in the history of the world.

Not everyone can be like pa, a person who can orchestrate a scheme to gather all of his problems and enemies in one place and solve all of them within one single move. It was so sickeningly brilliant of a move that it must have been illegal. Not everyone can be like that. But even pa started slow. Pa reached an unreachable goal while swimming through the endless ocean like that. He kept swimming.

Just like my pa, I kept moving forward at my own pace. It was how pa raised me. It was how pa has taught me. I have learned that I was inside a Divine Dream. In the Creators’ words, in URLOX’s words, “The Divine Dream is a dream, a lucid dream, but it’s more than just that. It is a shrine, a sacred space where a mortal could interact with an Immortal. It is a space where Champions are appointed. It is a space where neither reality nor time matters.”

If neither time nor reality matters inside a Divine Dream, this world, this space, this dreamland does many great favors to the fast or the born-able people. But slow learners and dull people like me would catch up with them eventually as long as we kept practicing our crafts, instinct, and patience. Other people moved fast. The world moved fast. My pa moved so much faster. He is the time of this world and dreamland.

But I would catch up eventually. I told myself and I did. When pa would not be the person to encourage me to keep walking, I must be the one to do that. When pa was no longer the number one supporter and believer of mine, I must be that person. Through patience and practice, I learned to adapt to every new problem and training eventually.

An eventuality I must spend walking, so I shall. If it takes forever, forever it is, I had repeated my goal to myself every day.

The moment when pa was sending me and my colleagues off to set up and map out his attacks, many of my mamas, friends, and colleagues expressed their surprise and congratulation that I could have moved so far. But I, myself, had no doubt or surprise about the fact that I could reach the goal that I have set out for myself. Neither time nor failure was a factor throughout my training. If I failed my exams, I would simply restudy and retake them again. If I failed my training, I simply restarted from the beginning.

Therefore, I kept motivating myself that if it cost an eventuality for me to reach my goal, an eventuality I would gladly pay to reach my goal. If it took forever for me to pass an exam, “Forever, so be it,” I would say before entering the time chamber.

It was the only way I could slowly figure out how other people become good at their own things and replicate their feats one way or another. Through lots of patience and practices. Defeats and failures are my companions and teachers. So I learned not to be discouraged by their nagging presence. Things that other people could do after a single practice, I learned to do after the thousandth practices. Things that they could master after a thousandth practice, I learned after the millionth or the billionth time. I would get there eventually if I keep walking. Just like that, I kept on moving toward a goal that pa kept hidden for so long.

I envied my surroundings and my colleagues, the fast learners, prodigies among prodigies, geniuses among genius. But not once I let my envy clouded my goal. To a slow learner like me, a clearly defined goal is a matter of utmost importance. So when pa kept the goal hidden, I learned to set goals for myself throughout the length of my training.

It took me an eventuality to crawled all the way to the finish line with my turtle’s speed. Pa was sending me and my colleagues off to set up his attacks. Many of my mamas, friends, and colleagues expressed their surprise that I could have moved so far. But I, myself, had no doubt about the fact that I could reach the goal.

There were days that I recalled how much I resented pa for casually hitting the reset button in our relationship as he has done with everyone else. I thought more about the meaning of my own name. Leph, Al-Lepharasus, be freed, be free. I could not help but ask myself if pa believed that his influence is bad for me and I should be liberated from him and his influence.

I let pa knew how much he meant to me, back then during my childhood and now. Without him, my life would not even start.

No matter how strange or how mad this world is, dreamland is, I had a much easier time living inside it than on Escana. Even after I had truly conquered my madness, I had only but a vague and seemingly disconnected collection of the time I lived on Escana. On Escana, I did not live. I merely endured and lasted for as long as I could. I often reflected on the life that I had on Escana and the life I had inside dreamland.

‘Kaydgez,’ the name when I was a slave on Escana. “Carnage.” And what a bloody carnage I was. My serrated, strong jaws were a bloodbath making machine. My entire existence was linked to the bloody festivities of the fighting pits. For that purpose, I was bred and raised. If I possessed anything resemblance to freedom on Escana, resemblance to the word Lepharaus, my life was free of questions and intelligence. I did not question, because questions would not take away my endless starvation for fleshes and the need to release my rage. Nobody taught me. I did not know how to speak. I did not know how young or how old I was, how long or how short I had lived on Escana. And then Madness took me into the demented despair of its bowel, claiming me its trophy.

I did not remember much of my time on Escana because my madness was just as confused about my memory as I was. But I vividly remembered how small everything has always been. The world was small, but such was the world of a caged beast. I was bred, fed, and raised for the gory festivity of the masters. If there was peace in my life, it would be those short sunbaths before every fight. A draconian is strong, tough and immune to many deadly diseases, but coldblooded. My masters would make sure to give me a good sunbath to fill my body with raw energy, turning me into a beast of destruction, a carnage. My life, if that could be called “a life”, was a cycle of being chained inside different metal cages, fed and whipped, transported to different places and participated in roaring carnage of the fighting pits. Hunger was an enemy and a friend. Hunger weakened my body but made me a deadlier beast. Pain was an inseparable soul mate. There was no day where the pain would not accompany me. Other than the bloodied fights, the pain of dugout scales and torn flesh, the cracking metal-tipped whips, the clinking black chains, the tasteless greasy meals and the face of his master, I knew nothing else. I remembered nothing else.

Throughout my childhood, I enjoyed eating pa’s cooking three times a day without questioning. Only when I went through my training to be a member of the Warren, I realized that pa has tamed me through patience, practice and his cooking. He has won me over through my stomach.

On Escana, I knew nothing. Not even my own name or what I looked like. Then one day, in the exhausting darkness after a long flight, a glimmer of radiance enlightened my world, showing me something I had never known or thought of. I felt like I could do anything and everything. I suddenly knew how to remove that smelly basket strapping my strong draconian snout after every meal and fight. I just knew how to bite off my thumbs to remove the tight manacles from my wrists. I licked a drop of that red, sticky liquid offering to me. Pain seemed dull and strength seemed to fill my body. I did not know that my body has merely forgotten the sense of pain. I woke up from a long fight and suddenly grew stronger and wiser. And so I did, exacting as my newfound wisdom told me.

I stalked the guards in the shadow and killed them without mercy, taking the keys. I set loose the other slaves, dozen upon dozen, hundred upon hundred, and then thousands. I knew how to wait for the other slaves to cause chaos and carnage to make my escape. But things did not work out as I have known. Something bit me through my back. I suddenly could not feel my legs and tail. I could only squirm and crawl. “How disappointing!” A dark malevolent voice rang. I had no idea what madness was thinking, back then and now. And before I knew it, I was already inside that pit of despair, a bodiless head strapped to a muddy pulsating wall, a trophy on the wall of madness.

And then, things just stopped. The hot rod that constantly poked and made a mess of the inside of my head, it stopped. The phantom torment of having my non-existed body, flesh, and bones crushed at every sadistic whim of madness, it stopped. The loud echoing discord of wails, cries, roars, howls and all manners of sound that a tormented soul of madness could make stopped. Things just stopped and reality warped. Dead and stranded inside a dream of a madman, that feral draconian gained an identity, sanity and a name. I died first before I got to live, and I lived inside pa’s dream. I was an adult first before I became pa’s child. I realized how weird everything was.

What is Madness? I was not the only one among the “Champions” of Madness who has mulled about this question. Madness evolved and adapted from person to person. Therefore everyone would have his or her own answers.

Mine were more simple than most. Madness is Sanguine, Rasahlu and Yasubotay. Madness is the spasm with a beastly fiendish will. Madness is the world before I became pa’s child.

Madness is the fact that pa believes that I should be liberated from him.

…

Somehow, pa’s speech ended sooner than my recollection. I waited for my turn, bending my back to his height and giving him a strong hug.

“If things become desperate, open that memory orb,” pa said. As usual, he’s a worrywart. He gave me two memory orbs. One contained a written list of assignments. The other contained his secret wisdom. It was to be remained unopened until I became truly desperate.

“Take care, pa,” I said and left my home with my succubus partners.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Warren 023, Leph was finally able to see the ethereal side of the world through the help of his dream demons. Throughout his training time, Leph has been educated about the characteristics of this side of the world through the memory records of Lust. But that experience was like watching a clip comparing to experiencing the real thing through his eyes. Escana, where every single physical aspect was stripped, was like a benighted sea rolling with thick, leaden mist. The sun, the Throne room of Naharis, illuminated the world in its dim silver luster even when it was on the dark side of the world. The nine colored spirit realms, with the exception of the dark moon, spread across the sky and acted like giant mirrors to reflect the shimmering radiance of the Throne room to Escana. When Leph trained his eyes, a vague phantasmic reflection of the Great Throne could be seen projecting on the moons. Amidst such majestic grandeur, the souls of the livings floated on the misty sea and glowed in a modest swirl of wispy blue and white spectrum.

But before Leph could marvel this unfamiliar side of the world, his dream demons informed him that he has reached his destination. And indeed, Leph was hovering before his objective, the bandit One-eye.

“I let him live for two reasons. First, he will live to provide the testimony against White Winter’s war crimes to the people of the Golden Triangle. He was there when Bloodbeard was asked to lead a force to despoil the Triangle. He knew how Bloodbeard coordinated and carried out his raids. He handled most of Bloodbeard’s transactions, selling the captives to those slavers. Second, he is an important source of intelligence since he is Bloodbeard’s most trusted man. He’s with Bloodbeard when Bloodbeard crossed that secret path inside the Kharijard Corridor. So, Warren 023, draw out all the intelligence from him and pass that intelligent across the network.”

Remembering the debriefing of his first mission, Leph could only admire his pa’s ability to solve multiple problems at the same time.

Kill Bloodbeard and his bandit. Send messages. Trap the Demon Lords and the four deities. Create an army through a Divine Dream. Declare War and Destroy Kharigan. Kill Xaara. Clean up after his mess.

How many people could claim that they could address that many problems in four days? Leph admired. Even though his pa has always deterred Leph from looking at him with admiration, it’s harder for Leph to not to.

The bandit One-eye had already been locked and blindfolded inside the dungeon, completely wasted from the mix of fire wine and paralyzing alchemical poison. Ainis, the leader of the five succubi accompanying Leph, invoked the name of her queen in a smooth musical voice, weaving a castle of dreams inside the head of the wasted bandit. The dream demon created a Divine Dream through her connection with her queen. She altered time flowing inside her castle of dreams from the time flowing outside. With a nod of confirmation from Leph, the five succubi gently stroke the bandit’s soft mind and worked their charms on him. Most people let their guard down while they are asleep and rested. As a result, their consciousness is loose and disconnected, instead of being tight and alert, thus making it easier for the succubi to work their charms. It certainly did not take long for the succubi to succeed.

Leph walked the lane of One-eye’s memory from the latest, making a detailed note on every significant intelligence he gathered. He would coordinate with the succubi through talking, letting the succubi handle the bandit through their charm and dream manipulation power. Leph’s only focus was drawing the intelligent from the bandit’s memory.

Through the eyes of One-eye, Leph vividly saw how the bandit had admired his pa, and how that admiration was rewarded. It was as if his pa has intended to repeat his usual warning, “Don’t admire me and follow my path. If you want to admire someone, admire people like Faugus or Searek,” to Leph one more time.

As usual, Leph ignored his pa’s warnings. He made a detailed note base on his given objectives.

”As soon as I am done with Xaara, I will book a trip to White Winter. What do I mean by a trip? Well, I promised Hyrios that I would help him defending Zard if he helps me dealing the killing blow to Xaara. I intend to do just that.

So what are the problems that hinder me from defending Zard? Firstly, there are still a host of bandits, one Judgment army, and the experimental Wind Trope remained in the Golden Triangle. Secondly, down in the South and the West, the Imperial Army of White Winter has already won its objectives at the moment. Thirdly, the newly crowned king of Zard will give White Winter the legitimacy to mobilize their army to ‘liberate’ Zard from Hyrios and his ‘false king’. The Duke’s armies are already marching. Lastly, I also am having my hands full dealing with those Demon Lords and their demons that have already been sent to Escana. So, collateral damages will occur wherever I am. Zard would be destroyed if I stay.

Therefore, I am going to Whiter Winter to turn it into a war zone while Hyrios will stay back to defend his kingdom. The best defense is a good offense. I am taking my war with the Demon Lords to White Winter. I am going to stall the armies of the Dukes from marching to Zard. I am going to make them defend their kingdom. If Lanxer, the Golden Son of Craxus was a smart person that I believe he is, he will withdraw his force to return and defend White Winter. But if he is stupid, whelp… there will be no longer a White Winter for him to return to by the time I reach Kingscrown. So, Warren 023, Morpheus 017, your job is to map out the most convenient paths for me to arrive at the King’s city of White Winter. I’m probably taking two or three dozens of Hyrios’ men with me on this trip. I don’t believe they have known the coldness of White Winter or been outside of Zard. So, keep that in mind when you do the logistics and conversion.”

Leph felt bad for every unfortunate soul who got on the bad side of his pa. His old man was a walking disaster when pissed.

Leph knew that his pa has intended to use the same secret path to pay a surprise visit to White Winter. The webbed hands draconian carefully mapped out the secret path that Bloodbeard has used to usher his war band into the Golden Triangle without anyone’s notice. Leph drew a map of the various towns that the bandit One-eye had been to, and the paths that he had used to travel across White Winter with Bloodbeard.

After that, Leph profiled the face and personality of various slavers that had made transactions with Bloodbeard’s war band, members of the Wind Trope and agents of White Winter base on the bandit One-eye’s vague memory. During the briefing, Leph learned that his pa intended to bring back all the slaves and prisoners of war that Bloodbeard’s war band has sold. That assignment was given to a different pair, Warren 006 and Morpheus 019. But One-eye had the information related to that assignment. Finally, Leph made a detail note of the location where the Wind Trope used to hide their troops and mapped out their routine and movement.

From the knowledge that Leph has learned, the Wind Trope was the latest addition to the Men of No Banner. Just like the other units of the Men of No Banner, the Wind Trope is a unit composed of soldiers without uniform or banner, and no evidence that could trace their connection to White Winter. What made the Wind Trope stood out from the other units of Men of No Banner was their unit’s composition, training, and equipment.

In the game, the Wind Trope was White Winter’s early-game version of the elite warlock units. As players invested their resources into Magic Research and Alchemy Research, they could recruit warlock units or directly upgrade the Wind Trope into an army of warlocks. Two magic casters would merge into one warlock unit, one acting as the pilot to control their flying device, the other as gunman and wingman. The warlocks can fly across the terrains. They can perform incendiary attack like the witches and fight aerial battles like the dragoons, but lack the siege power that the witches possess and the anti-air prowess that the dragoons have.

In the lore, the Wind Trope is fully composed of doubled and tripled blessing magic casters. Each member could conjure the miracles of at least two deities or more. The Wind Trope is expected to be able to conjure all miracles from the four patron deities. The Wind Trope employs magic as a tool to solve problems rather than a gift from their patron deities. They do not move or act upon the command of a religious order. They don’t fight shouting honors and justice. They don’t show mercy. They don’t fight with the arrogance of the followers of the Great Gods. They fight wars the way Prince Lanxer has instructed and trained them. The Wind Trope could engineer structures and tools and perform an incendiary attack with Sinintee’s miracles. They could heal wounded troops and solve various logistic problems with Niwdar’s miracles. They could buff combatants, defend points and execute siege attacks with Wonten’s miracles. They can relay intelligence, disrupt the flow of information, or create mirages through Eogaill’s miracles. As a result, their utility is unmatched. Prince Lanxer first employed the Wind Trope as an experimental unit to test the usage of the Philosopher Stone and the newly discovered Military Magic during the invasion of Zard. While Bloodbeard’s war band and the Judgment Army to take the spotlight, the Wind Trope mobilizes in shadow, focusing on testing the Military Magic and using their miracles to solve logistical problems. However, when the war escalated further and the witches decided to strike back, this elite unit was employed as a quick reaction task force on various theatres.

The bandit One-eye apparently believed that he knew little about the movement of the Wind Trope. But in reality, he learned more than that without realizing it. Leph drew up a line that connected all the invisible details and concluded that the Wind Trope has engineered large camouflaged mounds half a kilometer to the South West of Madukat to hide their troops. If Leph has a specialty to distinguish himself among his peers, it would be the quality of his work. His work was always slow like the grind of time, slow but detailed and sure. He left no important and valuable information out. And like other members of the Warren, he was trained to be excellent at drawing a line connecting the invisible dots between various details and intelligence.

The grassy mound was artificially erected with the combined usage of various miracles belonged to Wonten and Sinintee, then camouflaged with greenery to blend in with the environment through the blessings of Niwdar. Leph took note of the location. While the task to cripple the Wind Trope was not given to Leph, the intelligence that he could draw out about the Wind Trope would make it easier for the person executing that assignment.

When the soft-minded bandit has run out of his use to Leph, he signaled the succubi to wrap up. Ainis turned all of the intelligence that Leph recorded into a nail size rainbow-colored pearl. The other four succubi evoked the name of their queen, infused their mana into their magic and multiplied the spectral pearl into two copies. Ainis unraveled her castle of dreams, but not before signing her own name on the dream mist. Leph could not help himself but stare, wondering what drove the succubus to do that.

Leph soon arrived at the dream castle conjured by Baí Zé 001. It was a white hall filled with various members of the DDWD from Warren and Morpheus divisions and their supporting succubi. Everyone sent their orbs to Baí Zé 001 for copying into her database, waiting to update their intelligence and collect new assignments.

“Can you even believe it? They are cursing him. And he asked us to teach them to be mothers. He asked us to teach them to lie to their children.” Leph recognized two of his mas, a human and a naga, working in Morpheus complained to each other as they waited for the update of their memory obs and handout for their next assignment. He did not catch their entire conversation. However, Leph drew the conclusion that they were dissatisfied with their previous assignment. Leph quietly darted his eyes around. Warren 001 and Warren 002, the two leaders of the Warren did not present. They have already gone south. Warren 002 was tasked to screen Hyrios’ arriving retinue and his trailing army. Warren 001, on the other hand, was assigned to go straight to King’s city of Zard to gather intelligence. Leph then noticed Morpheus 017, his pairing partner, to quickly exchange and discuss the detail of their assignment. His partner made some small talk about how his succubi partners have just charmed a sleepwalking woman into completing the message intended to Xaara.

First to arrive,

First to die

Xaara the Quick,

Fall in a click.

It was a message written to taunt the Demon Lords. But it is more than just a taunt. It is a battle forecast written in stone. It is a final merciful warning given to the Quick Demon Lord, telling him to turn around and run. It is the most self-fulfilling prophecy in the case Xaara would stick to his arrogance. His fall has already been predicted. And yet, Xaara, the person of concerned was still oblivious, using all of his jail time to curse his jailer instead of thinking.

Leph gave only but some casual comments about the work of his partner before quickly finalized the details of the assignment with him. After that, Leph studied the updated intelligence and allowed his succubi partners to send him to his next destination. His next destination would be in White Winter.

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Life is weird. Just like my madness and its faithful instrument, life strikes without warning. It is unapologetic for its wrongness. It is cold and indifferent to the tragedies it creates. It beat people up for no reason. Life is weird.

So do I. I am weird.

I died first before I got to live. I saw what Madness is first before I got to understand what sanity is like. A feral beast, a mindless fighter, a remorseless killer I was first before I am a child. A slave first before I am a free man. I am just as weird as life could be.

But my pa, he is a different beast, for life can never be as weird as he is.

His existence, his story, his thought, his action, his life is weirder than life could ever be.

“The unicorn of madmen,” my mamas called him. I don’t know which one, the first person among the dozens of thousands of them to give him that epithet. But I have always thought that epithet summed up his character very well.

The proverb “a unicorn among unicorns” means “a weirdo among the weirdoes.”

‘The unicorn of madmen’ is the madman of madmen. The weirdest and strangest specimen of the madman of the world, my pa is.

But, as weird as he is, as mad as he is, my pa, there is nothing that I would not do for him.

Thousands of my mamas and the combining mass of their love for him could not match my sum.

He is my life, my sanity, my childhood, my freedom, my home, my dream, my dad, the one and only that I had ever had. There is nothing that I would not do for him. To the cold, unapologetic world with its Gods and Demon Lords and its Game of Chaos, everything that is trying to take him away from me, ‘Beware, Beware, Beware.’

I am my pa’s son. He warns first and strikes later. So do I, naturally.

“Beware of me.”

Al-Lepherasus,