Chapter 168: A Dream?
"No, no, let him cook!" Draven was practically bouncing with excitement, his lightning building to match whatever Sarin was preparing. "I want to see what our dear brother can do!"
"This is a terrible idea!" She shrieked. "Sarin, please just run! We can all run! Running is good!"
But Jack couldn’t run. His body wouldn’t let him. Something inside him, some instinct that belonged to whoever he was inhabiting, refused to keep fleeing.
The power in his chest built to a crescendo. Fire and lightning, two forces that shouldn’t coexist, swirling together inside him. They mixed, combined, and became something new. Something deadly.
Draven’s eyes widened with delight. "Oh, that’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. You’ve been practicing!"
"Focus!" She commanded, but even she sounded impressed.
Jack opened his mouth, but the words that came out weren’t his. They were in a language he didn’t know.
"Now that’s more like it!" Draven cheered. "Show me what you’ve got, Sarin!"
Then Jack released it.
The bolt that erupted from his hands was beautiful and terrible.
White-gold fire wrapped around white lightning, spiraling together in a lance of pure destructive force.
It crossed the distance to the titan in a heartbeat, moving faster than thought.
The bolt struck the titan’s left shoulder.
The impact was devastating. Fire exploded outward, scorching gray stone-skin black. Lightning carved deep into flesh, branching through the titan’s body like roots seeking water.
The combined force blew a crater into the titan’s shoulder, sending chunks of crystals and divine flesh spraying across the landscape.
The titan stumbled. Its roar became a scream of pain that shattered nearby rocks. It clutched its wounded shoulder with its other hand, dark blood pouring from the injury.
For a moment, there was absolute silence.
Then Draven exploded with laughter. "YES! Did you see that?! Sarin, that was incredible! The fire! The lightning! Together! Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?"
"Because he’s not an insufferable show-off like you," He said, but relief was evident in his voice. "Good shot, brother."
"Good shot?!" Draven was still laughing. "That was the most amazing thing I’ve seen all week! We need to do that again sometime!"
"Please never do that again," she said weakly, though she was smiling now. "My heart can’t take this."
She simply nodded, her light dimming slightly. "Effective. Now we run."
"Now we run!" Draven agreed cheerfully. "While our dear brother’s masterpiece keeps that thing distracted!"
They ran. All six of them, moving as one, leaving the wounded titan behind. Jack’s body turned and sprinted with them, the power that had filled him moments before now completely drained.
As they fled, Jack caught one last glimpse of the titan. It had fallen to one knee, still clutching its shoulder. The wound he’d created blazed with residual fire and electricity, a mark that wouldn’t heal quickly even for something that powerful.
"Sarin!" Draven called out, still running but looking back at Jack with that irrepressible grin. "Next time, warn me before you do something that awesome! I want to enjoy it properly!"
"There won’t be a next time," she said firmly.
"There’s always a next time!" Draven laughed.
Then the world dissolved.
---
Jack woke with a gasp.
His back hit stone, pain lancing through his spine. Sweat soaked his clothes, his hair plastered to his forehead. His heart hammered against his ribs so hard he thought it might break through.
’What the fuck was that?’ Jack thought, his hands trembling as he pushed himself upright. ’What the actual fuck?’
It had felt so real. Not like a dream. Like a memory. Like he’d actually been there, running from that titan, wielding power he didn’t possess.
"My lord." Kyren’s hollow voice cut through Jack’s panic. "You are awake."
Jack’s head snapped toward the sound. Kyren sat near the tunnel entrance, his light blade dismissed, his hollow eyes watching Jack with that unreadable expression all undead seemed to share.
"How long?" Jack asked, his voice hoarse.
"Three hours, my lord. You collapsed after collecting that orb. I moved you away from the edge."
Three hours. Jack had been unconscious for three hours, living through that... whatever it was. Dream? Vision? Something else?
Jack stood on shaky legs, his body protesting the movement.
His muscles ached as if he’d actually been running, actually been fighting. Which was impossible. It had been a dream.
Hadn’t it?
He walked toward the edge of the cavern, drawn by a compulsion he didn’t understand.
Kyren didn’t try to stop him, just watched as Jack moved to where he could see down into the vast chamber below.
The titan was still there. Still lying on its back, still covered in those blue Aethrium crystals that grew from its flesh like a parasite.
Jack’s eyes scanned the massive form, looking for... what? Proof? Evidence that his dream had been just his mind playing tricks?
Then he saw it.
The titan’s left shoulder.
There, visible even from fifty meters away, was a mark. A scar. Dark and jagged, carved deep into the gray stone-skin. The pattern was unmistakable, branches spreading outward from a central point, like lightning frozen in flesh.
And around it, barely visible but definitely there, were scorch marks. Black burns from fire hot enough to damage divine flesh.
The exact wound Jack had created in his dream.
"No," Jack whispered, his voice barely audible. "That’s not possible."
But the evidence was right there, staring back at him. The titan lying in the cavern below bore the exact injury Jack had inflicted in a dream that wasn’t a dream.
His hands gripped the edge of the stone ledge hard enough that his knuckles went white. His breathing came faster, panic threatening to overwhelm rational thought.
’I was there,’ Jack realized, the truth hitting him like a physical blow. ’That wasn’t a dream. That was a memory. But not mine. Someone else’s.’
Jack had lived through his memory. Had inhabited his body. Had used his power to wound a titan that was now dying in a cavern beneath a demon-controlled mine.
"My lord?" Kyren’s voice held a note of concern. "Are you well?"
Jack didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His mind was racing too fast, trying to process what this meant.
The memory orb. Draven’s memory orb. Was this how he saw that dream? Or was the titan showing him the past?
Whatever it was, it made him live it, made him experience it as if he’d been there.
And if that memory was real, if the wound on the titan proved it...
Then what else from that vision was real?
Who were those people?
Jack clearly understood they were Draven’s brothers and sisters.
And why the hell did Jack’s attack from a dream leave a real scar on a titan in the present?
Jack stared at the wounded titan below, at the mark that shouldn’t exist, and felt reality itself begin to crack around him.
"What the fuck is happening to me?" Jack whispered.
The titan didn’t answer. But the scar on its shoulder gleamed in the blue Aethrium light, a testament to something impossible.
Jack turned away trying to wrap his mind around everything, and in that moment the titan’s finger twitched