He looked up, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. "Yes... I have been desalado—unwinged. Fallen from a guardian into a man ruled by preference."
He lowered his gaze toward the psyche of the man he once was.
Then, in one swift motion, he dropped to his knees, kowtowed, and struck his forehead against the ground with all the strength he could muster.
"I am sorry," he whispered. "Forgive me."
"If I forgive you..." the psyche asked quietly. "Would you be able to move on?"
Kurian remained silent for a long moment.
"I do not know," he admitted. "However..."
"However?" the psyche prompted.
"The fear... and the dissonance..." Slowly, Kurian raised his head and looked toward Ferdinand's visage. "They have vanished."
A faint smirk touched his lips. "That much... I am certain of."
The vision dissolved as though it had never existed. Just before the last traces of it disappeared, the psyche's voice reached him one final time. "Someone has tampered with your psyche, Freddie."
"—!!?"
Back at the camp, Kurian's eyes snapped open. His ears were immediately assaulted by the cries and wails of the Tacet Discord and the soldiers fending the post outside.
Without a moment's hesitation, he seized his sword. Though every movement drew a groan from his exhausted body, he rushed to assist the others while asking about the situation.
According to the reports, General Jiyan and the special guest, Rover, had already headed toward the Crownless statue, where the strange Resonance had originated.
"I see." Kurian offered a crisp salute. "Recover for now. I'll hold them off as best I can."
With those words, he sprang into action. Rather than relying on Resonance or his Forte to further degenerate his muscles and weapon, he instead shifted them between active and inactive states, phasing them into harmonic frequencies.
That frequency became the exact linchpin he needed to hold back the Tacet Discords overrunning the camp, buying enough time for the others to arrive. Together, they gradually drove the horde back.
"Tch..." Touching his forehead, Kurian fought through the splitting headache that had suddenly overtaken him.
His vision flickered, and for a fleeting instant, he saw a foreign Resonance aligning itself with his own.
He blinked again, and it was gone.
'Who would want me to suffer? The Fractsidus...?' Kurian wondered.
Suddenly, his Tacet Mark flared.
"Hiss..." A sharp hiss escaped between his teeth.
"Are you alright?" one of the soldiers asked.
"Not really," Kurian admitted. "Do you have any water?"
"I'm afraid I forgot to refill my flask," the soldier replied.
Before either of them could speak again, another soldier chimed in. "There's a river downhill."
"I see."
Pushing himself onward, Kurian turned toward the river. "I'll head there."
"Should one of us accompany you?" another offered.
Kurian immediately shook his head. "No. Report the situation first. Then regroup and search for any SOS signals from the wounded. Save them before anything else."
"I will be back."
With that, the group dispersed.
Yet despite his orders, one of the soldiers followed him.
"I believe I ordered you not to follow me," Kurian remarked as he cupped his hands and drank from the river.
"As far as I know, you're a mercenary, not my General or an officer of Jinzhou," the soldier replied, causing Kurian to pause.
"Hmm." The corners of Kurian's lips curled upward.
"Good awareness," he said with a nod. "Well played."
Without warning, Kurian felt a sword pierce straight through his heart. His breath caught as he rasped, "Tell me... was that foreign Resonance, the Fractsiduss' doing?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the soldier cackled.
Kurian glanced back over his shoulder. "Really now... Schwarzloch; Black Hole?"
"No."
The soldier's cackle died away, becoming lower and huskier. His body convulsed grotesquely before a grim figure emerged.
A blackened, lanky body. A spectral presence. A skull-like mask shrouded beneath dim starlight.
The being loomed over Kurian like an abyss given form.
"I see," Kurian muttered.
Looking down at his reflection upon the blood-stained water, he sighed. "A shame."
Splash—Blub—Blub
His body went limp and sank beneath the river's surface, the current dragging him toward an unknown destination.
"A shame..." Kurian reflected. "I had so many questions... left unanswered."
As his vision blurred, he caught sight of that strange Resonance once more. It had begun to fray, its threads trembling as though they were on the verge of snapping.
'Well... at the very least, it seems that Resonance was hostile,' Kurian thought.
He slowly closed his eyes as the sensation of death crept over him. A small snort escaped his lips, finding this particular end strangely amusing. "In my previous life, it was self-immolation... and now, drowning."
"Feuer und Wasser(Fire and Water)... Sonnenschein und Regen(Sunshine and Rain)... Die Sonne und das Meer(The Sun and the Ocean)... Das Äthermeer(The Etheric Sea)..."
In the world of Resonance, the Aetheric Sea was not merely an anomalous phenomenon born from lament. It was a planet-wide veil that blanketed the skies of Sol III, severing the world from the rest of the cosmos.
The irony was almost cruel.
The world he had once called home had suffered because its existence echoed too loudly across the stars, broadcasting its presence into the cosmos and inviting otherworldly Demon Lords to descend upon it.
Solaris III, by contrast, suffered the exact opposite fate. It was a world isolated from the cosmos itself.
Life was full of contrasts. Where one knew defeat, the other found glory. Where one life ended, another endured. Where one world was celebrated and revered, the other remained isolated.
Perhaps that was life's objective. To live in contrast, till your final breath.
"Haaah..."
Stalking the tall, lanky figure before them, Rover and General Jiyan confronted the Dreamless, an anomalous being born of the Overthrax's overwhelming reverberation.
Yet the battle soon turned against them.
With a sweeping motion, the Dreamless conjured two colossal walls of black flame that cascaded like waterfalls, sealing Rover and Jiyan within a temporary ravine. Then, without hesitation, it unleashed a roaring inferno.
"Rover!"
Without a moment's hesitation, General Jiyan stepped in front of Rover, meeting the torrent of black flames with his own Resonance.
The attack was stopped. But the price was immense.
His Resonance was nearly exhausted, leaving him severely weakened. At best, he could muster only three more attacks before reaching his limit.
"Humph."
The lanky, pale figure seemed to sneer at their desperation.
Rover's eyes narrowed. She glanced at the chips running along her sword's edge before recalling it into her Terminal. Then, without hesitation, she sprinted toward the pale figure and leapt high enough to reach it, throwing a punch straight at its face.
It was a feint.
Just before her fist connected, her fingers unfurled into a claw. Her Resonance flared as she began absorbing the Dreamless itself.
The pale abomination let out a gut-wrenching wail.
Pain rippled through it as Rover's Tacet Mark flared. Remembering the people of Jinzhou, she pushed even harder, refusing to let all their sacrifices end in vain.
Betting everything she had, she held on.
Her Tacet Mark began to mutate.
A black feather erupted from her back.
The Dreamless lashed out with its claws, forcing Rover to summon her sword back into her grasp before the impact hurled her toward the ground.
She glanced at the blade. It was already on the verge of breaking. Without hesitation, she dismissed it back into her Terminal.
"MOTHER... NEEDS... WEAPON..."
The Dreamless wailed.
Rover's Tacet Mark flared once more.
This time, instead of brilliant Spectro light, black Havoc flames erupted around her. A single dark wing unfurled from her back, while a scythe, nearly identical to the one wielded by the Dreamless, materialized in her grasp.
What followed was a clash between two winged beings.
Their scythes collided again and again until the Dreamless released a cascading wail, its voice echoing like countless fallen soldiers lamenting a lost war.
"Pay... for your insurrection... in blood."
The scythe descended like judgment itself.
Rover slipped past the strike, darting inside its reach as she separated the wielder from its weapon and drove straight toward the Dreamless's Tacet Core.
But at that very instant, the Dreamless conjured another weapon.
A curved blade.
Gripping the blade in reverse, the abomination slashed downward, its curved tip arcing toward Rover's exposed back.
ROAR!
At that very instant, Jiyan's Windrider intercepted the strike, knocking the blade from the Dreamless's grasp.
Rover seized the opening.
CRACK!
The Tacet Core fractured.
The Dreamless let out a wail of overlapping voices, clawing desperately at empty air as Rover and Jiyan had already withdrawn beyond its reach.
"WEAPONS... NEED MORE... WEAPONS..."
Its body slumped.
Believing the battle to be over, Rover and Jiyan cautiously approached.
Then the corpse began to rise.
Its Tacet Mark chimed with a distinct resonance before erupting in a dark navy glow.
The Dreamless looked at the two one last time, a mocking sneer spreading across its fractured face. Then its body rapidly shrank as its Resonance condensed inward.
BOOM.
A spherical explosion erupted.
Rover instinctively raised her hand. Her Tacet Mark glowed.
The next moment, something extraordinary happened. A small, petite figure appeared before Rover and Jiyan.
It swallowed the explosion whole.
After a brief pause... Burp.
"Food. I want food." The tiny figure declared.
Jiyan blinked, focusing his attention back at the now-empty battlefield.
"As the conceptual embodiment of war..." he muttered. "It chose to flee rather than continue fighting us."
"It is avoiding us," Rover quietly added. "Weak."
Just then, they heard "Its" voice once more.
"MOTHER... NEEDS MORE WEAPONS."
From the jagged fracture where the overlapping moon had once hung, a body fell.
Jiyan's eyes widened. "Kurian!"
He nearly rushed forward before Rover abruptly stopped him.
"Look." She pointed toward Kurian's chest.
Jiyan's expression darkened. There was a gaping hole where his heart should have been.
Then...
As though witnessing a miracle, the lingering echoes of war crystallized around Kurian, weaving themselves through flesh and bone as they knitted his wound closed.
Kurian's eyes slowly opened.
Immediately, countless maddening whispers flooded his mind.
"Weapons..."
"Mother needs..."
"More weapons..."
That was all he could hear.
Yet perhaps because he had only just brushed against death, Kurian's mind remained unnaturally lucid.
He rejected the voices.
"We... are... not weapons..."
A snarl escaped him as he fought the whispers through sheer force of will.
But willpower alone was only a temporary answer. His body suddenly lurched forward, as though invisible strings had wrapped themselves around his limbs and were pulling him into battle.
"I am not a weapon!" He screamed into the void.
Yet his body refused to obey. It lunged at Rover and Jiyan.
The two overwhelmed him almost immediately, forcing him into a corner as Kurian desperately pleaded, "Kill me."
Neither of them moved.
"Now is not the time for mercy!" Kurian screamed. "War spares no one!"
Still, neither Rover nor Jiyan raised a hand against him. They refused to believe there was no way to save him.
Kurian, however, could only watch.
Unable to feel his own limbs, he found himself reduced to nothing more than an observer as his body moved like a puppet dancing upon invisible strings.
"I am not a weapon!"
"I am not a weapon!"
"I am not a weapon!"
He kept screaming.
Yet despite his cries, his mouth twisted of its own accord while his body relentlessly continued its assault.
Then...
Kurian felt something he had not experienced in a long time.
Or perhaps, something he had only convinced himself he was feeling before. Now it burned within him like an inferno.
Anger.
"I AM..."
"NOT..."
"A WEAPON!"
With a deafening roar, Kurian wrested control of his body back through sheer force of will.
But he knew it would only be temporary. Soon enough, the Overthrax would seize control once again.
Earlier, Overthrax had reached out searching for another weapon. Yet it found none.
But just then... It sensed Kurian. Or rather...
It sensed the lingering echo of the man Kurian had once been.
To Overthrax, that dormant presence was nothing more than a weapon forged for war, a blade once wielded against horrors beyond imagination. It understood neither vows, nor duty, nor sacrifice.
Only utility.
And so it reached for him.
What it failed to realize, however, was that Kurian was never the weapon it sought.
No.
The one it had mistaken for a weapon was the lingering echo of Ferdinand Franz Schumann...
"The Field Marshal of Humanity."
In one swift motion, Kurian raised his blade and rested its edge against his own neck.
"Mother..." he whispered. "Or whoever you claim to be... You are mistaken."
"You chose the wrong child." He gave a bittersweet smile, acknowledging he was never meant for war. "Kurian was, is, and will never be a weapon."
He let out a faint, self-deprecatory laugh. "However..."
Drawing a ragged breath, he continued, "There is someone within Kurian... whom you may call one."
His resolve never wavered. As he drew the blade across his own throat, he quietly murmured, "Goodbye... child of Serena."
"Welcome back... Field Marshal."
SLASH.
To be continued...
***
A/N: Yeah, I was procrastinating hard, and it came to bite me. This final year's project is really testing my patience. I thought that summer last year was the worst, but somehow it's even worse this year. How does it get worse every year?
Like all day, clouds roam in the sky, covering the sun, but at night, it is still hot. DAMN!
Anyways, I am back, but I may need some time to go back to daily updates since I haven't fixed my schedule yet. But I promise, once I get into it, there will be no stopping me.