"How much longer must I wait to encounter the original destiny that was once mine?" an old man mused aloud in the heart of the forest. He brought an instrument to his lips, resembling a bamboo flute, yet as long as a pipe, within which silver, spider-web-like threads were interwoven. When he exhaled into the five channels, the sound that emerged was strangely akin to a violin. This old man, or rather, this venerable Elder, knew precisely who stood listening to him… He continued to play the melodious tune, chipping away at the final vestiges of his being's hope…
The chilling silence blanketed the remnants of a burnt village, where corpses rotted, yet souls remained perpetually bound, unable to depart. Each note the old man drew from his instrument transformed pure spiritual energy into Mana, which then returned to Nature as an ethereal blue light. And each time, he would pause his playing, setting the lantern by his side precisely upon the spot teeming with the blue soul-fire… He hummed a slow, drawn-out melody before lifting his gaze to the figure observing him… The man who had always shared a past with the warriors…
"When, precisely, was the last time we met, General… Chennelich…" the old man spoke. He opened the eyes that had been perpetually closed, his brows, now threaded with white, slightly obscuring them due to their length. The Elder… peered within the pitch-black cloak. The General approached… the faint clink of iron… and the palpable ancientness that yet breathed beneath his half-iron mask…
"You likely cannot recall. I comprehend. My own self understands well… When, oh when, will the memories of all of us… everyone… finally resurface… Perhaps the home to which I returned is not even truly mine." The old man spoke with a note of sorrow, yet the General did not cease his approach. And when the shadow of the man in the dark cloak fell upon the stone where the Elder had settled back down, a silence descended, heavier than any burden could bear…
"I remember you." Upon hearing these words, tears immediately streamed down the old man's wrinkled cheeks. He was utterly speechless. The hand holding the soul-trapping lantern trembled violently throughout his body, overwhelmed by a feeling of profound comprehension. "I… I never thought I would reach a point where I ceased fighting… General, I apologize—that I remain alive and did not perish upon the battlefield… In that ancient conflict, I miss it so dearly, my General… I miss it… so deeply." The old man's voice was hoarse after his weeping. Tiny wings fluttered around his frail, decaying frame. His thousand-year-like senescence caused him such agonizing suffering that every utterance was a near-death experience.
"War is about to return… but you shall never leave again." The General spoke calmly to the clingy old man. He gently stroked the elder's head, perhaps with affection, or perhaps with pity for his fate. Everything was dense with stories… the same stories shared by all warriors.
"If only I could become one with all Mana, or one with the mass of energy for the battlefield, just as in the past, perhaps the sheer worthlessness of my own knowledge might finally vanish…" The old man remarked, deeply troubled. Yet, he yearned to be like these ethereal blue lights. He picked up the flute, playing it once more in a three-count rhythm, counting on indefinitely, devoid of notes, containing only thoughts and memories that flowed and passed. He stopped, laying it down, and mused upon many things…
"You cannot conjure it, can you, my friend?" the General questioned. He withdrew an object from within his cloak… a fractured tip of a sword, eaten away by rust like a malignant cancer. The old man burst into uncontrollable tears. "This is your last remnant… Your essence… has wandered for a long time. I have found you after thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, or perhaps only a hundred cycles. Therefore, awaken, my battle-comrade, awaken from the dream… awaken from your world, and you shall cycle back to stand beneath the hand of the King."
The two eyes, which served as lanterns in place of the old man's life, grew dark, flickering back and forth. The pain was evident, yet he neither uttered a sound nor cried out. He did not weep, nor did he flinch, feeling only profound emotion. He placed both hands upon his lap. His fingers began to recede into his body, continuing up to his arms. His body was tightly compressed until, ultimately, his form became a mere lump of malign flesh. The General squeezed it until a red liquid oozed from his hand, moments before the surrounding whispers began to intensify far more violently than before, accompanied by a Mana-field as distinct as a rainbow after rain… or perhaps like an ice-wave crashing onto an archipelago…
"Thank you… for never forgetting me, General… Chennel… And I… shall give my existence to the King. I shall serve the King, until the very end." Everything fell silent for a long, protracted while. He gazed at his charred hand through the iron-gauntleted, thorn-covered palm. He continued onward… The sound of the waves remained distinct, unchanging. Strange-looking mangrove trees swayed in the fierce wind, as if they had weathered countless storms… yet had never once broken. The water beneath his feet passed through crevices and stalactites, past skeletal remains, the scattered wings of a small lost fairy, or even the spirits of people adrift… returning only upon waking…
"This village… still has inhabitants. But how pitiful, that the very word 'human' can no longer return." The voices of life, the souls, and the old, persistent memories filled this miserable, heartbreaking place, which was too sorrowful to even question, making it all the more terrifying, repulsive, and yet, ripe for the harvest… for those who must exercise their judgment in replenishing the lanterns.
The General picked up the lantern of the old man, who had vanished, becoming a recipient or Mana-returning to the air. The destiny of those who act for what they believe will end no differently, because of what they believe.
"Should the day ever come when I forget them… following the path of the King might lead me to discover something." Chennel looked at the old man's soul-trapping lantern. He crushed it in his hand, letting the fragments float away on the torrent of water surrounding him.
The Dark General stepped over a massive root that had forced its way up from the earth. His senses told him that this root belonged to a tree from a place too far away… yet it was enough to seek out the familiar in this land beneath the black stones, an area that, if a vulture with plane-sized wings were to look down upon, would be a chaotic, tangled maze of crevices and fissures. Within each gap between the tall, thick, and long black rocks were those same mangrove trees, some of which had grown so large they had caused parts of the black rock to tumble down, blocking certain pathways.
From the cliff edge of this area, one could look down to see the utterly destroyed castles, lining up beneath his feet, beneath the waterfall, and beneath the abyss he had climbed a great distance from. "What is it that I must do… but that question, I have no need to contemplate… for it is meaningless should I deny the King."
He passed through several burnt village ruins, past walls breached by hordes of demons in many places, leaving souls to cycle, transforming into Mana. The whispering, the voices of those who returned to the dream, somewhat confused him. But not long after, as the hand in the thorn-gauntlet was stroking the wooden barrier leading to the inner village, which stood directly before him, he heard the sound of footsteps running up behind him.
"Traveler, guide me—" Crack. The neck of the one who ran after him snapped. No, it was not even a person, for within the body of the little girl, that stiff utterance was her final emotion, transforming into the remnant known as a Shattered Sprite. The sound was the General breaking her neck, until her body went limp…
"You are not the girl. You are merely what remains." Chennel stated impassively. His dry voice echoed the death within him. He looked at the girl's head, where bone was increasingly exposed. He dragged her body, following the wooden wall, along the edge of a river where small fish leaped and swam against the fierce current. The girl struggled, not from pain or fear of death, but from the death that was about to return. And at the very end of the path, the girl ceased struggling…
Chennel looked out over the edge of the chasm, gazing down. His eyes were utterly still, containing nothing but thought and the relentless, flowing stream of memory. He extended her body forward, before releasing his grip and turning his back on the pathetic waterfall abyss…
"Even when we, or they, or anyone dies, they are never truly free…"
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