“Aren’t you going to help him?” Yuri asked Orwell.

“No way,” Orwell said, looking forward to measuring Dream’s limit. “Do you know how rare is it to see that guy go all out? Get some popcorn, kid. You’re in for a treat.”

It was the climax. A damsel tainted by corruption levitated in the skies, filling the air with arrows after arrows of black, ominous winds. On the earth, the hero, unbending in the face of horror, looked at the abyss and dared it to look back in a staring contest.

The abyss blinked

The corrupted Serenade dropped the arrows of swirling smog in bombardments which blotted the sky. Attacks fell like a tumultuous monsoon, peppering the ground like barrages after barrages of rain drops.

Dream faced them in his rush toward Asmodella. No swirling arrows landed on him despite its subsonic velocity. In a surreal, impossible dance, the man of miracles made his way through the raining arrows, which came like bullets from a brigade of machine guns. Each time his trigger hit his magnum’s trigger, a psychokinetic bullet would ricochet through several raining arrows, altering its course. Through excellent coordination, rapid firing of interceptive ricocheting shots and sheer motivation, Dream fought through the barrage and closed the gap.

Shyme and Sonovia stared at one man’s impossible charge. Not even they could claim to run through a magic equivalent of a No-man's-land, but Dream just did it.

…

“This is unreal,” Yuri watched Dream jump-kick Serenade out of the sky. “How did he do it?”

“[Clairvoyance],” answered Orwell as the two Mana collided for supremacy. “That guy’s scariest ability is his uncanny perception of past, present, and future. With the understanding of Mana greater than anyone on the planet, the moment he locks you, considers your hand revealed.”

Sonovia voiced her disbelief, “That is bullshit. Normal, [Clairvoyance] can only glimpse the future, not read existence like a book.”

“Because you guys never understand Mana as living threads that connect the fabric of reality,” Orwell said. “That is the meaning of the MAS on your Stat-Spread. It’s a fixed parameter for your mastery of Mana. Even high-ranking gods have around 1/5 or 2/5 if they are good.” Orwell pointed at Dream, who beat back Serenade in their clashes. “That guy is at least 5/5 in MAS. In that area, he surpassed the King of the Divine-races. He can read the past, manipulate the present and shape the future. That is why his name is Dream.”

…

The corrupted Elf tumbled back from the force of Dream's kick. Granted, Dream wasn’t the all-star strength specialist, but he more than made up for it with his Skill and stacks of modifiers.

She vanished from sight.

…

“Isn’t that the Reverse Beast’s ability?” Shyme recalled the Bugbear’s power to shunt dimensions.

“It’s useless,” Orwell said.

…

“Central,” the hero commanded, “activates Annihilator. Start calibrating.”

“Roger,” the magnum, Central, chimed, turning into a concentric band of metal and rapidly reforming into a long-barrel sniper rifle for long-range Anti-Material sniping — the Annihilator.

Dream grabbed the Annihilator, took aim in a random direction, waited for half a second, and fired twice.

Serenade reappeared right into the path of the bullets. She blunted the first round, but the second caught her right below the chest and blew a hole in her torso.

…

“You can’t be serious,” Sonovia gaped at the marksmanship. “It’s like—”

“It’s like he knew Serenade will appear there,” Orwell agreed about the bullshit power. “Dream’s future-sight is so stupid it turned dexterity difference into a non-factor.”

It was then they saw something — a shadow — split from Serenade. This phenomenon repeated several times and was followed by an ominous wind, pressing down on everything.

“What’s happening?” Yuri said.

“Unbelievable,” Sonovia said. “She could still use a Wind Suppression Field even at this stage.”

…

Dream fired twice. A vision played from his [Clairvoyance] came true when his bullet collided with two ominous arrows. He grimaced, feeling Serenade’s oppressive wind dragging down his movement.

His passive Skill — [Clairvoyance (Enlightened)] — did more than grant him future-vision, it allowed him to find the condition to work toward futures he wanted. Outside his [Clairvoyance], his Active Skill — [Wisdom Eyes] — granted him an ability to read an opponent's Information Card.

…

Serenade Asmodella (Corrupted)

Rank: S

Abilities: Ominous Wind Core [S], Physique — Bugbear

Active Skill: Ominous Swarm [S], Wind Attribute [A], Contract (Lestrade), Curse Arrow [A], Black Sorrow [A]

Passive Skill: Child of the Wind [SS], Eagle Eye [B],

Stat Spread: STR 1/5, END 2/5, MAG 4/5, DEX 5/5, MAS 2/5

…

Serenade’s Stat-Spread was that of a Spirit Archer, but the corruption on her body cost her the ability to summon her spirit. From her Skills and Ability, Dream already knew her game-plan— a precision Curse Arrow snipping.

[Black Sorrow] was the bow the fairies grafted onto her body. The biotech weapon amplified the potency of curses. Another skill being used is [Ominous Swarm] that created a high-speed, combat-capable clone of herself as a familiar. A maximum of ten familiars could be produced, but unlike Serenade, these clones were simple A-ranks.

Dream knew he was about to be surrounded. The Elf already gave up on landing a grand critical snipe. Instead, she planned to spread miasma and had her clone minions bombards the area with enough stray shots to keep him down.

As eleven Serenades encircled him in a flying dance of death, Dream finally decided to end the battle. He peeked at his enemy's hands, penetrated her tactic, and determined she was out of tricks. It was the time to invest in his offense.

The hero summoned the poppies.

[Solemn Garden]

…

Something was wrong in the air and what happened next stunned the spectators.

“Well, consider this a surprise,” said Orwell, thankful he quit the battle when he did. “That guy is stronger than he was in Venistalis.”

“What is this?” Yuri asked.

“Yeah, I want to ask this too,” Charon turned toward her mistress, the best Spellcaster around.

“Don’t ask me,” Shyme too was full of question. “I’ve no idea what this is.”

Sonovia turned toward Orwell, “Mehest?”

“This is the first time I saw him do that,” Orwell said. "I only have a guess.”

What knocked the four into a state of dumb confusion was the texture of reality being painted over the barren area. The kilometer-wide field of devastation was transformed into a spectral garden of chalk-white soil and a field of red poppies marking the ground. Streams of flower petals danced, climbing high in the sky like a school of fishes in the ocean. It was the scene of inspiring awe and a sense of solemn — a strange fantasy that slowly encroached on the boundary of reality.

“You know how I invented Adamakles to replace Mystic core?” said Orwell. “Well, that guy and his comrades have something similar, but different. This mysterious power — they called it Origin — granted them a unique Ability that defied the very law of nature. Chronicler, as an example, wields an Origin that allows him to use every attribute.”

Everyone stared at Orwell.

“Every. Element. Is that what you said?” Sonovia’s brain committed logic suicide. “So he can use fire…”

“Yes,” Orwell said. “And water, ice, earth, light, wind, holy, and, if rumors are correct, you could add dark and lightning to that. Oh, he can also use healing, barrier, and some space-related tricks.”

Silence.

“You pick a fight with such a man?” Charon couldn’t think of the worst way to get beaten to death.“You walked to the most insane Spellcaster ever to exist and fought him.”

“To be fair, I actually expected to fight Ace,” Orwell admitted. “Chronicler was sent because Dream believed he is the best fit, but I still believe Ace might kick my ass faster. Her Origin might sound a lot less absurd, but the way she used it is anything but.”

Yuri summed this quickly, “So out of these common-sense breaking Abilities, Dream has a garden? That—”

“That isn’t his origin,” Orwell interrupted. “That’s an application of his Origin. Even among his comrades, Dream’s Origin is bonkers. I had seen it used only once, and this isn’t it. We’re probably seeing a reflection of his power — a realm which housed his Origin — encroached into the world and granted him a home-field advantage.”

…

[Solemn Garden]

It was the garden in which creations, and concepts were born, like poppies emerging from the earth.

The endless field of possibilities where his true powers manifest through the medium of petals.

Orwell couldn’t guess every single function of this Ability. No one could. An omniscient checklist was needed for that task.

The first benefit was the simplest to guess. The territory of [Solemn Garden] increased Dream’s parameters — Strength, Dexterity, Endurance and Magic Output.

The second was the extension of the first, the expansion of Dream’s personal domain also docked his enemies Stat-Spread, stifling them. This invisible pressure dropped on Serenade and her clones like a curtain of doom and jammed her suppression field. Powerful as this effect might be, a decent application of Aura might resist the level-down effect.

However, there was no mitigating the third bonus — those poppy petals.

These petals weren’t just for show. They were extensions which amplified Dream’s [Tenshou]. Serenade and her clones did their best. They used every trick from high-agility dances of shadow, raining down cursed projectiles, and launching a ballistic aerial-strike that would carve away fifteen kilometers of trenches. Several clones even closed the distance to attack Dream in his blind-spot.

Those petals beat them all.

The flowing flowers immobilized Serenade and her minions, disrupting their maneuvering and allowing Dream to snipe them piecemeal. The petals created a bulwark that nullified the forces of coming cursed arrows, dissipating the projectiles. It hammered down on those attacking clones at supreme timing, manifesting such a powerful telekinetic hammer it cracked the very earth.

Serenade ate the poppy-powered telekinetic strike in the cranium, slammed to the ground with force to create a crater. Even possession of the fundamental evil of the universe, endless Mana, and every tactic in the book didn’t close the gap between them.

Then Serenade heard the rumbling in the darkened skies.

“Solemn Replication: Earthshaker,” Dream commanded.

…

“Well, at least I can block the rank-down with Aura,” Orwell tried to find good news, until he heard the rumbling. “Okay, forget it. There’s no blocking that.”

Charon gaped, “Is that—”

…

The thunderbolt fell from the sky, striking the corrupted elf like a giant anvil, blasting layers of rocks and petals in its wake. The air quaked. Earth burned. Thirty-meters of circular ground warped and shattered from the lightning.

Serenade’s body shook as pain took over, and she screeched in raw agony.

…

“Those aren’t ordinary lighting-spells,” Shyme observed with a headache. “It isn’t a product caused by utilizing power from Mana, but a mystical phenomenon that toys with the law of nature.”

Charon’s mouth hung open. “How?” She asked her mistress. “Isn’t that stuff can only be accomplished by a mythical creature or Reverse Beast?”

Orwell knew how Dream did it, “Damn, his MAS must be insane.” He watched the development in dread. “That must be the lightning from the guardian of Centuria. The bastard….”

Yuri turned to Orwell, “You know something.”

“Just a guess,” Orwell murmured. “I believe that maniac deciphered fundamental mechanisms behind each enemy he fought, then copied them using his observations related to Skill and this garden domain. Of all likelihood, the lightning is the least of his tricks.”

…

Orwell was corrected.

Aside from reading IC at the accuracy it induced heart-attack upon Spiral-Eye’s creators, [Wisdom Eye] could also decipher the secret behind a technique or phenomenon. Beneath the gaze of Dream, reality and fantasy would be revealed. Combined this with [Solemn Garden]’s final power — territorial control over Mana — Dream could replicate phenomena by mimicking the mechanism which caused it.

Serenade didn’t know all of this. She only knew that Dream finally entered a close-quarter. Part of what Serenade became knew raw, monstrous physical ability might be the only advantage in her corner, so she swung like her life depended on it.

She was wrong.

Serenade’s wide attack missed, and a telekinetic force pulled her into a fist that blew her face into the floor. She tried a back-kick, but Dream foresaw the attack. He used her momentum to smash her knee-cap. Then the hero quickly retaliated with another lightning.

Serenade got up to meet a kick in the face, a sucker-punch and an overhead throw. Another lightning struck to close the combo.

…

“He’s chewing Serenade like a noob in a fighting game,” Yuri watched Serenade receiving another uppercut.

…

It was a kick in the abdomen that shattered her fighting spirit.

You will do great things. Everyone is counting on you.

And as payment for that, the girl never had much of a life. She still remembered a day when everything used to be much better, where she used to hang out with friends.

Magnolia. Luxinna. Eva

As Serenade received a winding punch, the image from the past flickered into mind.

Luxinna was the first to leave them — banished for the fault not of her own.

It was a critical loss. Serenade knew Luxinna was the bravest; the best among them. She might prevent them from slipping too much. After Luxinna was gone, erased from the history of Northland.

After Luxinna’s banishment, Eva’s father sent his daughter away from the dirty politics of Lightwell Forest.

And this left Serenade Asmodella and Magnolia Drakokia — the two 33 Stars of the Elves. They were once friends, but now separated by delusion.

Magnolia deluded herself into thinking she could undo her sister’s exile by being the perfect daughter for the man who made it happen — Lucian Drakokia. The girl ignored her reality to pursue Lucian’s fantasy of Elves superiority, believing once everyone bowed down to them, Luxinna would return with a smile.

Serenade wasn’t so dumb. She knew Lucian was afraid of his eldest daughter. The light of that heroic girl would never return. Serenade Asmodella was the instrument of the Elves—their perfect specimen. She couldn’t betray those expectations, not even when said expectation destroyed her best friend and used her like a tool. She knew the ideology she represented as its poster-girl was wrong. How could they be superior to anyone when they drove off their brightest away like a monster? Serenade didn’t become a monster. She was already a monster from the moment she got conscripted into that sickening course. She deserved every punishment.

But she couldn’t let herself die. Tears flowed down her face. She still needed to see her friend. She wanted to apologize for everything she let happen.

“I’m sorry,” the corrupted elf regained a brief sense of sanity. “Luxinna…”

“Lux?” Dream paused for a second at the mere mention of the name. His [Clairvoyance] activated, and he cursed. “This just got complicated.”

It was the moment the monster took over.

An arrow of concentrated cursed wind struck at point-blank, taking Dream along for several kilometers. The attack overturned rocks and shattered the air, as the cursed missile dug a trench in the ground and exploded with Dream at the tip.

The Elf watched in horror. Her eyes were no longer pitch black, one had returned to its original color as tears filled it.

…

“Why did he stop?” Sonovia watched as the trench ended with an explosion. “He’s winning the entire fight. This is stupid!”

“Yeah,” Orwell said. “The fight ended because Serenade cried, but not for a reason you think…”

The crater Dream supposed to be under exploded as Orwell finished his declaration.

“Those guys always find endless strength when lives are on the line!” Orwell yelled at the eruption of ungodly willpower which blended into reality itself. “Make someone cry in front of them, and they would put a fear of a cape into you! These monsters don’t know how to quit!”

…

The hero rose from the stage of broken rock and sand.

“Central,” Dream commanded his sentient weapon. “Dawn Blade Mode! And start overclocking all mental limiters.”

“Yes sir,” replied the magnum, turning into a broad psionic saber.

Dream grabbed the sword and reached within himself. He no longer aimed to defeat his opponent. Those brief words told him the girl could still be saved, and he would do it. His [Clairvoyance] charted the road to the future and if the cosmic evil needed to be removed to reach it, then the hero would give the Malice a piece of his mind.

“Activate Origin,” Dream released his true power. “Unleashed [All-Creation: Divinity].” The poppies rumbled like waves of a turbulent ocean. “Enchanted [Reality Breaker],” the Dawn Blade glowed with multicolored light. “Unleash the Cleansing Desert Dawn Blade”

Upon his command, the world erupted into a sandstorm.

…

The moment Serenade saw the tower of swirling sand, snaking toward heaven like someone whipped the entire Sahara Desert into a tropical storm, her heart died a little.

The entity behind Serenade screeched in fear at the raw power amassing against it. The Elf felt her arm forcefully moved like the limbs of a marionette, aiming toward the wall of sand originating from fantasy.

She sourced every ounce of power into this single shot and fired, unleashing what had to be the most powerful arrow of her life.

…

Orwell and his fellow witnesses saw the final exchange of this battle.

They witnessed the humongous sandstorm compressed into a one-man-charge — a human spearhead. The hero charged into the humongous missile of ominous winds. The desert wind collided against the cursed Mana. Abrasive forces warped, and the air quivered. The sandy wind whipped into the sky and divided the clouds as it carved the opposition in half.

The corrupted Elf’s greatest arrow continued for hundreds more kilometers as it split in two, upending the earth in a twin trail of destruction. However, that last grasp of victory had failed.

The armament of the desert triumphed, parting the storm of murky wind, and brought the savior to his destination. With his blade in position, Dream slashed into the Elf, dragging his sword across Serenade’s chest. The psionic blade left no wound behind as it sliced her heart and disconnected the girl from the darkness beyond worlds.

Serenade shook in shock as she was psychical salvage from the darkness. The calcified armor dropped from her body as the blade’s purifying power bent the law of reality itself to do the job.

It was a power akin to a miracle.

Serenade fell into a waiting arm of the hero and heard the whisper of the miracle worker.

“Cheer up. Everything will be okay,” said the voice of Dream. “And you should smile more, for my sake. Lux will kill me if she thinks I did something weird to you.”

It was awkward, but Serenade didn’t care.

His hand…

She felt the hand on her naked body and blushed like a tomato as her mind finally gave out beneath the weight of today. Only one final thought was on her mind.

It is a very strong hand.

Dream sighed, whipped out a signal flared and pointed it skyward.

He fired.