I floated above the world like an outside observer. The mountainous region that stretched out before me was similar but not the same as the area of the Carpathians we’d landed in. I was definitely still in Romania, but it was a different time.

Suddenly the sky erupted with an enormous explosion. It burned as a huge meteorite broke through our atmosphere and fell towards the Earth. The gargantuan rock broke apart, with most of the rocks burning up upon entry. The central core slammed into the ground right beneath me, somewhere in the valley below.

My perspective shifted, and I was no longer in the sky. I was floating inside the crater as the smouldering, crumbling remains of the meteorite broke apart. There was an organism inside that looked like a green bundle of living veins. It moved slowly, reaching out at the world around it, pulling itself in strange random directions.

Then it found a place nearby and sinks away. It leeches into the ground like water being absorbed by soil. Time speeds up and the forest that springs up around the site of impact is thick, verdant and healthy. More so than the other forest around it. But as the influence of the thing from the meteorite spreads, so too does the magnificence of the forest that follows.

In a flashing montage of images that all come into my mind at once I see those green tendrils reaching out and learning from the creatures it encounters. I am surprised at the appearance of huge scaled beasts that could not be anything else but dinosaurs.

Balaur has not just been here for a millennia, he has been here for millions of years.

That didn’t make sense, though. Mosul had said that Balaur came here because it was a wartorn place, filled with death and suffering. Did he mean the natural order of things, where supersized dinosaur predators killed and ate herbivores that had natural weapons and armour that would make a medieval knight blush?

Or did Balaur see what would happen here in the future, then come back to a time that would allow him to prepare?

Crossing the boundaries between realities was one thing, but time travel? That was one step too far to consider.

“You are correct,” a deep, rumbling voice said from everywhere and nowhere.

“Balaur? Is that you?” I asked. My own voice was ethereal and echoed throughout this vision. It was omnidirectional, just like the other voice.

“Yes, that is my name. I saw what would happen to your world, and knew that I needed to intervene. The one-directional flow of time does not apply to me in the dimension of reality I exist in, but to help you and your people stop what is coming, I had no choice but to leave that behind and grow over millions of years. Yet I did not see the coming of the dragonslayer, which means that someone else is meddling in the affairs of humans.”

“Does the name Altrighus or Mnemnhion mean anything to you?” I asked.

Altrighus had said that her arch-enemy Mnemnhion was instrumental in her being chained and exploited by the cult. I needed to know if that was connected to Balaur at all.

“I do not recognise those names,” he rumbled.

Well that was both comforting and disconcerting in equal measure. Mnemnhion wasn’t involved, as far as we knew, but that meant there was another player involved in this.

I decided to take a step back and address this time travelling bullshit. “So you saw what was coming, and you just picked a point in our timeline to arrive at, right?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“So where you came from, you could just look at any time in our history or our future and see what nasty shit is coming, and it’s so bad that you decided to come here and intervene?”

“That is correct.”

I sighed. I don’t know how I sighed what with having no body and all, but I managed it.

“Could you see what would happen in our future if you arrived?”

“No. The very moment I entered your timeline, I lost the ability to see. I could only see what would happen if I did not intervene.”

“I’m going to need some spoilers, buddy. What is it that you saw that was so terrifying that you had to come and crash the party?”

“A distortion, a corruption in reality. It begins one year from now, give or take a few months.”

“Can you show me what you saw, like you’re showing me when you arrived?”

“Yes.”

“Then take me there,” I said.

I was suddenly very high in the air, looking down over planet Earth. No, that wasn’t right, I realised. I was in the empty space between my planet and the stars, orbiting it like a satellite. This time I had a body, and so did Balaur.

He didn’t look like any kind of dragon I’d ever seen. He just looked like a guy, albeit one covered in scales. He glanced over at me with eyes that had slitted pupils, like a cat’s eye. When he opened his mouth I saw the draconic similarity. Balaur had sharp fangs that were clearly meant for tearing flesh from bone.

“Hello,” he said, then held out a clawed hand in my direction. “This is a customary greeting of people from your time period, yes?”

I took his hand and shook. “It is. It’s called a handshake.”

“Hm, quite strange, but oddly pleasant. This next bit will not be. Watch as the world you have known is destroyed in moments.”

I turned my attention back to Earth. The continent of Australia spun slowly on the southern hemisphere. I immediately looked for my place in South-East Queensland – not that I thought that I’d be able to see it – but I wanted to know what fate would befall it.

Then it happened.

A flash of light appeared in Japan, then expanded outward in a circle of white or light blue energy. It completely took my attention away from Australia, and in the second it took me to look down another circle of energy was rocketing away from an epicentre somewhere right in the middle of the continent.

The boundary of the Japanese circled slammed into another one that started in South Korea. Tiny flashes of light erupted all across the face of the planet, rushing across countries, ignoring borders, moving so fast that nobody would be able to escape them.

“What’s happening?” I asked. “Is it like a wall of death energy or something? Is it killing everyone?”

Images of Seth, Lorelei, and even my ex-wife Emily flashed in my mind. One second they were happy, smiling, the next they were lifeless and gray.

“No, it is much worse. Keep watching,” Balaur said, and I did just that.

The boundaries of continents shifted. Mountains erupted from flat ground. New landmasses arose from the bottom of the ocean. Countries split and sunk beneath the waves.

Suddenly we moved down, closer and closer to the ground with every passing second. It felt a little bit like sky-diving, but I was up here without a parachute. We came to rest on a beach somewhere on an island I didn’t recognise. I think it was somewhere in Indonesia.

Balaur rewound time within his vision until the moment that the giant moving wall of energy passed through everybody who was just out at the beach relaxing and living their best lives. The wall of energy hit me but passed through without incident. I was a ghost here, just like Balaur, but the other people within the vision were not so lucky.

A pair of sunbathers in bikinis suddenly grew scales and turned into monstrous fish people. Another man who was walking by them had a metal detector and he was combing the beach for treasure when the wave of energy hit him.

The beach comber exploded with light. It floated up from his skin, and from his eyes and mouth. Motes than looked suspiciously like anima. His metal detector suddenly changed into a weapon with a spinning blade on the end.

The two fish monsters ran at him, but he made quick work of them. The chunks of flesh that flew all over the beach as he chopped them to pieces were full of white flesh. Flesh like you’d find when you sliced open a fish!

Then the beach comber levelled up. I saw the damn window that appeared in front of him, prompting him to make some kind of choice.

The styling was different, but it was almost exactly like the EDGE Force interface that appeared in front of me.

All of this was connected somehow.

“What exactly is happening here? How does it happen? Do you see the trigger?” I asked.

Balaur shook his head. “No, and that is the part that vexed me so much that I had to come here for myself.”

“The people who did this to me – EDGE Force – they’re terrified of something called the reality crash. They’re trying to stop it at all costs. Is that what this is?”

“It is possible,” Balaur admitted. “How they would come to know of it, I do not know. But if they are aware, then they must understand the extent of the threat. Ninety percent of human lives will be harvested for their esenta – their essence – and some will be used to turn them into creatures from nightmare. Others will have their essence used to reshape the world, but in whose image and for what purpose, I do not know. Shortly after the energy finishes its work, the timeline of your universe stops.”

I laughed out loud, then immediately felt bad about it.

“What do you mean our timeline stops?”

“Time itself either stops, or changes in such a way that my sight can no longer follow it where it goes,” Balaur said.

The reality crash was supposed to be some kind of end-of-the-world scenario, so this event might just be it.

“So what do we do from here?” I asked.

“Accept my blessing and use it to purge the corruption from my system. If it is allowed to fester in the sunken city then the dragonslayer will be able to draw on my power. He will become unstoppable.”

“Sunken city?” I asked. “How the hell am I going to find that?”

“I am waking from my slumber. My blessing will guide you. My influence stretches all throughout this land, touching every tree, river and mountain. I will be with you wherever you go.”

“Fine. I will accept your blessing.”

Balaur’s smile reminded me of the way my grandmother smiled at me. It was comforting, reassuring, and understanding.

With a snap of his fingers we were back in our current time, but floating above the Transylvanian plateau, right over the valley beneath the resort. A network of branching anima pathways pulsed all throughout the valley. Ghostly images of thick green anima tributaries flowed where the nature flourished, then branched off into thinner anima veins. They all spread out in a pattern from one central location to the north.

Balaur moved towards that shining centre and I was pulled along with him, like a weak swimmer caught in a riptide. We travelled through tree, earth and stone before finally landing in a gargantuan chamber that held Balaur’s true essence.

His core reminded me of a glowing green meatball, covered in mould that grew off in every direction. Where mould usually signified rot and putrescene, Balaur’s core did the opposite. It exuded purity and fecundity the like of which I’d never felt. At the sight of him I felt infinite possibility and unlimited potential for growth.

His power in the hands of the dragonslayer would be devastating if fuelled by anger and hatred.

“This is my heart, though my body stretches all throughout these lands. My seven heads are scattered, mostly hidden, but not inaccessible. The one head that the dragonslayer has found and corrupted is in the sunken city, deep under the roots of the mountain to the east. This is where you must go, but I fear you will not survive alone, even with my blessing.”

“I couldn’t let my team face this threat alone,” I said.

“No. So reach out and take my blessing. Use it to save this land, and may it help in the battles to come.”

I reached out towards Balaur’s heart with my left hand. A sudden burst of energy rushed towards me and sunk into my skin. His energy crawled through me in a strange sensation that felt equally painful and pleasurable.

As the rippling energy reached my head my awareness of my own internal anima system became something that I could sense. A blooming, blossoming sensation fluttered in the centre of my chest as I felt something open into a void.

“Okay that doesn’t feel right,” I said.

Was this process going to give me a heart attack or something?

“A human body is not meant to hold pure esenta, so I am giving you a – what’s the word in your language – a petrol tank? Something to hold the esenta in until you need it. It will not displace any of your internal organs.”

Well I hadn’t been concerned about that possibility until Balaur mentioned it.

Even as Balaur explained, I could feel it. That void was waiting to be filled with anima.

New Blessing Received: Anima Tank

Rank 1

Capacity: 100

Allows the user to filter and store pure anima. This anima can then be used the strengthen the body or to power anima attacks. Anima invested into the body cannot be returned to the anima tank to be used to power anima attacks.

Rank improvement requirements: Filling your anima tank will eventually expand its capacity.

“Anima attacks? What are those?” I asked.

Balaur smiled. “The blessing is not yet complete.”

My left hand suddenly burned with pain, which dissipated as quickly as it began. Green light wrapped each of my fingers as it sunk into them with a tingling sensation. A strange sensation of opening blossomed at the end of my fingers and thumb as sharp claw-like anima constructs formed around the end of each finger. Veins of green light erupted along my forearm.

New Blessing Received: Claws of the Dragon

Rank 1

Allows the user to absorb anima from weakened opponents to fill their anima tank. Only works on weakened enemies. The user can also infuse objects and creatures with healing anima using the claws. The user can also sense the anima network of Balaur when touching an item connected to the network.

Rank improvement requirements: Draining anima from infused creatures and objects will increase this blessing’s efficiency and effects, as will infusing objects and creatures with anima.

That last bit was delightfully vague. Use this blessing and more stuff will happen!

I stretched my fingers then balled my hand into a close approximation of a fist. The claws got in the way, but the anima touching my skin didn’t harm me in any way.

“You were saying about anima attacks?” I asked, looping back to the last unresolved question.

“Yes. The servants of the dragonslayer all have their own abilities, as I’m sure you would have seen. The prykolic was fast and savage, the baubaus had their anima explosives to deter you from getting too close-”

“Wait, baubaus? I was calling them boneclaws.”

“They sprung from a legend – the baubau – which told of an evil man who would wait in the shadows and snatch children as they wandered alone.”

“I’ll have to educate Rho on that score,” I said. “Sorry, I interrupted, please continue.”

“The capcaun was mighty of body, but dim of wit.”

“And neglected beard care something awful. If you’re going to grow a chin curtain like that, you need beard oil, a good detangling brush… the works!”

Balaur smiled. “You have a sense of humour, even through all of this.”

“Yeah, humour’s my mental bulletproof vest I guess.”

“These abilities can be yours once you drain enough esenta from these different types of enemies.”

That was unexpected. “So if I drain anima from a baubau I can make anima explosives, or from a capcaun I’ll be able to hulk out, stuff like that?”

“An extreme transformation like that of the capcaun would be inadvisable, but yes.”

Well that just changed the game entirely.

“On top of that, the claws will allow me to use anima in my tank to heal my team?”

Balaur nodded. “Anyone with an integrated anima system where healing is stimulated with anima input, yes. Plus, you will be able to encourage growth and health in the world around you in anything connected to my network.”

My eyes widened at the possibility.

EDGE Command’s system was one thing, but this blessing from Balaur was like having a completely different system on top of it. I had not idea if Miranda’s anima battery boost would work with this ability though. The boost increased any anima I generated through EDGE Command’s system, but this Claws of the Dragon blessing drained anima directly from an external source.

It was pretty likely that the 25% boost wouldn’t apply.

At least until this mission was over and I was able to talk to Miranda again. Would there be anything she could do to make both of these systems work together in future? She had said that her connection to Altrighus had gotten weaker as time wore on.

Those were problems for another time. The clear and present danger was making sure Kaiser and the rest of the team were safe.

“I think I’m just about ready to go back,” I said.

“One last thing. You don’t need to deploy your claws at all times. You can retract them, so they don’t get in the way of your other weapons.”

I held my left hand in front of me and willed them to retract. The anima claws slipped back into my fingertips as though they’d never been there. The change was not accompanied by a pleasant snikt sound like Wolverine’s claws, which was a little disappointing. I practiced sheathing and unsheathing the claws until it was second nature.

“Now you are ready,” Balaur said.

I felt a sudden pressure, followed by a dizzying, spinning motion, then I found myself back in the chamber before the obelisk.