Chapter 147: Dream
Jaden's day passed without the usual hassle of answering to multiple gatebreaks, and he comfortably lay asleep in his bunk bed.
However, his sleep didn't go as usual because for the first time, he had a dream.
***
Ominous spider web-like cracks filled the smoke-filled dark sky, and the ground was full of white flames and blood rivers that poured out from the viciously mutilated bodies of gigantic nightmares that had ends, but they couldn't be seen.
The desert had turned red due to the overwhelming amount of vile blood, and it was filled with limbs of various shapes and sizes, each belonging to some vexing nightmare.
At the centre of it all, a muscular man with ghastly wounds all over his body pushed himself through a red desert.
Glistening blood seeped out from his wounds with each tired step, but he continued to move forward, and his golden eyes continued to look at something that couldn't be seen.
There was no life within the red desert except him, and he, too, was barely holding to the last strings of his already foregone life.
A trail of glistening blood that contrasted with the vile blood of the nightmares or whatever creatures that filled the dreadful place mortified his steps.
After countless weak and unsteady steps, a tall and dark pyramid came into his vision.
His golden eyes, which were unfocused till now, gained focus and turned black.
"Hah..." A shuddering breath left him, and he began to tumble towards the pyramid.
The pyramid was tall, so tall in fact that it nearly reached the sky itself, yet it was still hidden from the unworthy eyes. Its walls were as dark as the oldest of the shadows, with layers of gold brighter than the sun covering its walls and edges in a graceful design.
It was a place that could only belong in Dream and to Dream.
The wounded man reached the entrance steps of the pyramid and began climbing them. His blood dripped down, but before it could touch the floor, it passed through it as if it had been declined from falling onto the glistening dark floor.
He soon finished climbing the steps, and a tall door greeted him.
"Ugh!!" Groans escaped him as he pushed the door with all of his strength, and more blood began to seep out of his seemingly unhealing wounds.
Thud!
The gate opened with a thud, and dust fell from the ceiling of the pyramid.
However, the man didn't step inside and just stared at what was before him.
Inside the grand pyramid, there was no floor, no room and no space because it was full of threads.
Threads that had colours and threads that didn't. Threads that were threads and threads that couldn't. Threads that were physically and threads that weren't. Threads that had ends and threads that didn't.
A smile creased the scarred face of his, and he mumbled, "The Web... of Fate..."
He slowly lifted his hands and moved them towards the threads. A sudden zap ran across his body as he felt like he had crossed some kind of barrier... a membrane of some sort.
Suddenly, a soft voice fell into his ears, "Are you sure you want to do this? Scion."
He ignored the voice and stepped inside the pyramid. A thin layer of something yet nothing formed under his feet as he pushed his body towards the single thread that he needed.
The voice asked once again, "Are you really going to do this?"
His smile widened, and he replied in a hoarse voice, "The flame can't be complete until the Eternals have perished from the Fate of the seven realms."
The voice didn't react to his words and said, "I commend you for your bravery and love to the flame, but... how are you going to complete it after the Eternals are no more? Have you forgotten that you, too, are an Eternal... You are the Scion of the seven Eternals... the sole hier."
A dawning chuckle escaped his lips, and he moved his hand to hold a thread as he replied, "Do not worry, Possibility. I will be dead... and just like you wanted for us to be together, I will carve our graves next to each other in eternal love. Oh, Witch of the Seven Eternals."
His hand touched a red thread, and suddenly, his body trembled furiously, and his wounds began to vanish.
A few minutes later, all of his wounds vanished without a single trace.
The Witch of Broken Possibility spoke once again, "What about Him? How are you going to use fate against the person who is the chosen of the dreams?"
He brushed his hand through his hair and muttered, "He may be a chosen of the dreams, but he is not the Dream God. He may see the fate, but he cannot run away from it; his end will come, and it will come the same."
Just as he finished those words, his eyes turned bright golden, and he finally found the thread that he was looking for.
His eyes pierced through the countless threads and landed on the one he needed — an ethereal silver and gold thread that was neither physical nor spiritual; it just was.
He walked towards it and gripped it. Just as he touched the thread, golden cracks appeared all around his hand, and they began to spread all over his body.
His body began to crumble under the weight of the destiny of the thread, but before it completely turned him into golden dust, dark flames shot out of his hand and began to wither the thread.
A surprised voice reached him, "Oh? How did you manage to create a flame out of corruption?"
He didn't answer and focused all of his willpower onto the thread, but... just as he was about to succeed, a voice different from before reached him.
"You truly think too little of me..."
The Scion's expression turned dark, and he pushed himself to the limits and above to break the thread, but... a slender hand pulled him back.
The thread phased out of his hand, and he fell a few steps away from the perpetrator.
"Eye!!" The Scion screamed in fury, and dark flame began to dance around his crumbling body, but before he could attack, a thread moved and wrapped itself around him.
The flames died down, and so did his spirit. He looked at the Eye of the Seven Eternals with a grave look and muttered, "How... how are you here?"
The Eye was a lean man of beauty that could put even the most beautiful woman to shame, but his silver eyes that held a strange galaxy within themselves were his truest charm.
His bright lips parted and he said softly, "We've been together for countless eras, my friend... we die and be reborn, yet each time you underestimate me... It's as if you can't see the gravity of the threat that I am. Well, I can't deny it's not because I've always been the one closest to you... If we forgot about that Witch with whom you have a scandalous relationship, even though you were the one to kill five of her siblings."
The Scion's body continued to crumble, and his expression darkened with each passing moment, but he didn't respond to his words; instead, he asked, "What did you do to the Crown?"
"Ha ha! You still care about him even though you manipulated him to attack me... well, he is alive but not the way you'd like," The Eye replied solemnly.
"So he is alive, huh... that's great..." The Scion mumbled and looked at him with a grin.
"What?" The Eye asked with a puzzled look, and suddenly the Scion's body crumbled completely.
The insides of the pyramid fell into silence until a cough echoed within it.
"Guhk?!" The Eye coughed up blood and swiftly turned its head towards the threads.
The space around the threads ripped, and the Scion turned visible beside them with his hand gripping the gold and silver thread.
The Eye's eyes widened in disbelief, and before he could do anything to stop the Scion, Jaden woke up from the dream.
"Huff... huff..." Jaden breathed heavily as a horrified look covered his face.
Sweat covered his body, and his clothes that had been dry before had turned wet from how much he had sweated.
"W-what was that?" He mumbled in disbelief, but as if to hit him even harder, a strange sound blasted his ears.
Grrooommmm—!
He covered both of his ears and stepped out of his tent to look at what was going on, but his expression darkened even further as he saw everyone staring to the north.
He also turned towards the north and his eyes widened in utter disbelief as a gate as tall as the wall itself came into his vision, but... as if to mock him even further.
Grrooommmm—!
Grrooommmm—!
Two more gates of similar size appeared in the west and the south.
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