Illume, the Eternal, was taken by surprise.

I’m still alive?

He closed hus eyes, leaving behind the clear splashing of the riverbank to inspect the deepest recesses of his being.

The raging fire of his soul roared against the assault of countless wailing multitudes; a blazing inferno pitched against a manifestation of untold anguish.

At first, Illume thought the struggle looked as futile as before; the faceless specters relentlessly plunged into the blaze and reformed from their ashes a little faster than the fire flared back.

Yet…

Illume could tell that there was something wrong with their assault – perhaps the reason for his prolonged survival.

Could it be?

He recklessly made his fire expand outwards, engulfing the suffocating sea of pain into a burst of immeasurable energy.

His advance made the vast expanse of specters disperse, bringing an interim of surreal stillness. And then they immediately reformed, as fierce as before.

The expenditure left him struggling to repel the new waves of assault.

But he had found what he had been suspecting and hoping for; something that wasn’t there before.

There was a small opening in their midst, a gap where the ashes hadn’t reformed into the deformed shadows raging against their own existence.

How?

No, this did not matter yet. Although previously resigned, Illume grasped at this chance for life like a drowning man that found a piece of drifting wood.

His will merged with the flames and drew on their essence to push a flare towards the gap’s general direction.

Ghh

The energy needs left some of his core exposed to touches of unrelenting agony – an inescapable pain whose every instance reverberated with violence and threatened his sanity.

Letting his fire get extinguished didn’t sound that bad anymore – at least he wouldn’t be there to experience this agony.

But he didn’t pull back.

This is not true loss; just a signal born of instinct. He instructed himself.

Caaackle

Illume was the fire and the fire was him. It burned hotter under his determination and he pushed forward.

Indeed, this was a weak point and he could gain ground.

Illume steadily capitalized on his newfound advantage, until he reached a stalemate, where neither side could move forward in their endless struggle.

That’s enough.

Despite the agony, he realigned his soul’s flame so it could take advantage of opening to match the onslaught.

Satisfied, Illume began adjusting his flow of heat into a stable pattern, so that maintaining the stalemate would not require his attention.

He progressed one step at a time, meticulously assessing the results as he created increasingly complex pathways of energy.

When he opened his eyes again, the sun lay low over the horizon.

Illume’s thin lips curved upwards.

Though using energy would now come with huge risk, his physical shell remained intact. In fact, his direct combat prowess had not been reduced by too much.

Nevertheless, his sapphire eyes grew cold when he remembered the reason for this predicament.

You old tyrant, now I know of your goal! There's no way I'm letting you scheme against the whole world, he vowed.

As he set off, Illume paused at the edge of the valley to admire the sun setting between the twin peaks, basking in a warmly-lit horizon.

“Father, the time we become one is still off. May you keep resting well!” He acknowledged.

He bowed, long crimson hair falling in front of his face.

Then, he straightened his posture and went on his way.

Johan’s sleep was restless.

His dreams were full of fire, destruction rushing towards everything he held dear, pain and an overwhelming desire for vengeance.

Blood. Smoke. Destruction. Shouts. A fight. A road carved through self-sacrifice. Everyone dead. Everyone except...

“Quack!”

Johan was startled awake from his tormenting nightmares.

He lay face down on hard baren soil. Bright morning light assaulted his eyes and crystal sounds of a nearby river could be heard.

The desert! What happened to the desert? he sluggishly thought.

“Quack!”

A large … something poked his sides and Johan tried to clear his head.

The desert should be fine, I guess. What happened to m...? “OUCH!”

Johan protested as the something bit his nose! Smarting from the pain, he tried to rub it, but discovered that his hands were bound behind his back!

Eyes watering, he followed the ... beak’s?! shape until he met a pair of brown eyes.

They belonged to a large white goose. If he had been standing, perhaps its long neck could stretch up to his shoulders.

“Finally awake!” exclaimed the goose. “Bring me something to eat! Immediately! I, Gustav, detest being hungry the most.”

As his vision cleared, Johan, alarmingly, now saw he was inside a small cage. The animal’s beak must have barely reached him between the bars.

Noticing that the goose’s white feathers contrasted starkly against the black soil. Johan felt like he was missing something, but his body ached too much to care.

Lesson learned again: always keep aura in reserve he thought, his gaze unfocused. At worst, he could use martial aura to augment his fleeing capabilities.

“What are you looking at, you fishbrain? Can someone hungry not ask for a meal?” the goose looked embarrassed. It fidgeted, shuffling its wings and body.

Johan finally registered the situation.

“You can talk!” he exclaimed.

“And I can also eat” verified Gustav. “Currently, I would prefer to do so, if you don’t mind?”

Johan tried a few breaths. They were rather unsteady, but at least he figured that, except for a talking goose, the situation was under control.

Then he remembered that his hands were bound behind his back and noticed he was missing his katana. Not to mention he was trapped in a cage pulsing with runes, within an unfamiliar encampment.

Not much control to boast about...

At least, Johan could feel martial aura running through his bloodstream; it had recovered while he had been out of it. His body was still a fine specimen of a mess, but the aura would help him recover faster.

When tackled with various problems, Johan preferred to begin with the most pressing one.

“As you can see, I am currently unable to get you food” he told the goose. “But aren’t there provisions over there? You could try your luck.”

The goose sneaked its head through the cage’s bars, ignoring the blue pulsing runes on them, and angrily poked at Johan again.

“You want me, Gustav, to steal from people that showed such good faith and left their things unguarded near my nest? Dammit, you fishbrain! You lack ethics and honor! I want some of your food, as it’s rightfully yours to give.”

The negative mood of Johan’s dreams still lingered.

“Fine!” he snapped. “See the leftmost one? That’s my backpack. Try to get it if you can! And you can stop talking about ethics and honor when you are clearly ignoring the fact that I am imprisoned here agains... HEY, ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?”

Johan positively shouted as, at the mention of his own backpack, the goose rushed towards it. He was left speechless at such behavior and so decided to ignore the goose and focus more on his own situation.

He did not manage to get his thoughts far. For a semi-transparent barrier sprang around the backpacks that lay around the remains of a small fire.

Gustav ignored the phenomenon and walked straight through.

Johan was further flabbergasted watching the goose voraciously gulping down supplies comparable in volume to its own body.

After devouring several months worth of food, Gustav finally returned near Johan’s cage.

“Thanks a blunch for the meal. Quack!” he unabashedly tried a pun.

By now, Johan had regained his mental composure.

“Look here goose, wasn’t there a ward or something?” he asked. Surely, it should have prevented anyone from approaching, right? He remembered seeing wards in action before and they had been rather impressive.

“A ward? Where? Those residual pieces of magic?” asked Gustav.

Johan shrugged. It could have been a failed attempt for all he knew - it was not that uncommon.

“Or is this encampment a city? Quack!” Gustav acted like this was funny pun, but Johan didn’t get it.

However, Johan gleaned that Gustav had experience with magic.

“Then, as compensation for the food, can you check if my handcuffs have some type of offensive magic attached?” he pressed.

This would be an important piece of information.

It was easy for Johan, even without a weapon, to break both the handcuffs and any restrictive magic they were imbued with. The cage too would- Hmm? He eyed the cage suspiciously. Well, maybe not the cage, but I won’t be kept in here forever, right?

At any rate, if breaking his handcuffs triggered an attack-type spell, it could be difficult to emerge unscathed. Some time ago, he had literally burnt the fingers of his sword-hand when extracting himself from a similar predicament.

Gustav turned his large neck to look at the handcuffs.

“Don’t worry, fishbrain, they will never insult anyone. Quack!” he laughed.

However, before he could further annoy Johan, he grew tentative, as if listening to a conversation far-away.

“Sorry fishbrain. I’m too full to meet people more fools. Quack! Come find me whenever you have food, and this Gustav will help you with whatever you need.”

He turned on his snow-white tail and clumsily but quickly run away. Johan thought he heard a splash disturb the river sounds after a short while.

Berthar was annoyed; for there was nagging and he couldn’t deal with it in his preferred way - by blasting the source into silence with magic.

“Are you confident in those protective measures one-eyed?” repeated the woman for who knows what time. “I’d hate to have my leaves stolen.”

Berthar readjusted the eyepatch over his unseeing eye and decided that -adventurer’s guild member or not- he would hurl some blunt magic on her if she repeated the question one more time.

“Of course” he grunted.

Even that idiot Skullsong could not break my wards.

Magicians that could deal with his wards were considerably rare.

Even in the Black Lands, the neutral ground between all kinds of underworld organizations, there were few disciple mages. And those had better things to do than stroll around like beginner bandits.

Berthar hated that he had to do so himself.

At least, the cage they had left the captive was used to display beasts in Underhaven's bazaar; easy to disassemble into small parts, but nigh impenetrable without the key dangling from his neck underneath his gray robes.

In any case, Berthar needed the other three for extra security; he had long gone from old territories and a meatshield, a ranger and a hotheaded fodder were always good material if a fight broke out.

Though they hadn't encountered any trouble and had left after asserting that most past adversaries had been dealt with by that idiot.

This had been a rare stroke of luck.

He would likely be dealing with novice dealers. Then, a little bit of bargaining and intimidation would help sell a martial warrior strong enough to deal with that many desert worms for a lot.

“See? Everything’s untouched. How’s he?”

No-one paid attention to how thinner Johan’s backpack was. Instead, he heard footsteps approaching the cage.

Wanting neither some rude waking up call or suspicion, Johan kept his eyes shut and waited until the footsteps halted nearby.

He then pretended to wake up in disorientation – similarly to how he had actually woken earlier minus the beak poking. His theatrics included wildly looking around and struggling against his bonds.

He did not attempt to escape though, for he needed to find his katana.

No way I’m losing grandmaster Kenji’s legacy.

Besides, he needed information on his current location. Being lost in the wild was a terrifying prospect for anyone but the strongest of existences.

The lost mighty dragon is but food! He recalled a piece of advice.

Johan thought these to be the Black Lands - the dark-tinted soil was a dead giveaway. But, since he had only heard vague descriptions of the place, he had to make sure.

If that was the case, he had no complains. This had been his destination in the first place! In the end, getting captured had helped save the time and effort of nursing himself back to health in the desert.

Johan was eager to finally meet the descendant of grandmaster Kenji he had been looking for. That is, if they still resided somewhere in this part of the continent – his intel wasn’t the most reliable.

“Awake ya dea' sack?” a rough-looking man was extremely displeased as he approached. “If not fer the lo’er price, I’d gladly chop an ‘and off to wake ya.”

“What do you mean ‘price’?” Johan had expected the usual ransom demands and threats, but was quick to catch up.

At the same time, he discovered that some of his discomfort came from various bruises the giant worms couldn’t have caused; they were probably formed by that brute's …kind?... attempts at waking him.

“We are going to sell you, see, sir Johan” intervened the youngster in the group. “We saved your life, so making a bit of money with it is not unfair” he proudly puffed his chest for his reasoning. “This is the Black Lands, you see, and sir one-eyed said we can do so” he concluded somewhat awkwardly.

“And what happened to my blade?” Johan persisted.

“Slaves shoul' sharrup!” barked the rough-looking man.

“Actually, what kind of weapon is that?” the man with the eye-patch interrupted, silencing the rough-looking one with a raised hand.

Johan was relieved. Asking meant they had not sold it.

Of course, if someone managed to appraise it, no ordinary merchant could afford it. But his biggest concern was that it would have been sold for scraps.

Johan was ready to bid farewell to this group of scoundrels.

Hold on…

He realized this was the perfect opportunity to create some havoc for these lowlives and their associates- he loathed slave traders.

Furthermore, a battle in a new territory could perhaps help move forward his stagnated martial progress.

The space-severing techniques he currently employed were an extreme concentration of power in an infinitesimal breadth.

True, he could hack through anything -even magic. But this required a large amount of concentration and martial aura; luxuries hard to secure in a real fight without leaving huge openings.

The next set of techniques he was supposed to learn -called space-offsetting from what he had heard- were meant to be easier to use. But he had no clue towards their nature.

And grandmaster Kenji isn’t here anymore…

Still, Johan had seen the techniques in action before.

Given that he had also figured out the space-severing techniques from combining his childhood memories with vengeful thoughts about that one, maybe some intense situation would help gain some inspiration. It was not an unreasonable line of thought, especially given that sending disciples to experience dangerous situations was a preferred method to consolidate teachigs.

All this deliberation made Johan slow to reply and the man with the eye-path probably took his prolonged silence as defiance.

“Tchk. Let’s see how long you’ll keep that attitude” he turned his back and angrily gulped down the mug of cold tea the woman offered.

The party rested until noon, idlying around the charchoal remains of a fire with little talk between them.

When the sun started drifting low on the horizon the party let Johan out of his cage, which dismantled itself into a small lump of metal, packed up their encampment, connected his handcuffs to a rope and made him follow.

The brutish man occasionally kicked at Johan to move faster, which he did, despite his body aching all over.