Dragon Heart. Land Of Magic. LitRPG Wuxia Saga. Book 6

They landed in front of a burning village. During his time in the Moon army, Hadjar had seen something like this many times: flames greedily consuming the wooden huts, corpses burned to ash and bone, blood sizzling on the heated stones, barns burning like huge torches, and fields turned into bonfires. The rancid smell of burnt meat that would get under your skin couldn't be washed away or masked by incense, lingering forever to remind you of the horror that you'd witnessed. Scattered all over the blood-soaked ground were corpses, so badly burned that they were no longer recognizable. Empty eye sockets stared into nothingness, their crooked mouths forever frozen in a scream. The whiteness of their teeth seemed almost unnatural when contrasted with their charred skin. The fire had been so hot that it had burned away all the plaque, but hadn't been able to destroy the bone. No matter how many times one saw such a sight, it always penetrated to the very depths of their consciousness, leaving a deep mark and manifesting in one's nightmares.

"Sister!" Eranos took off his helmet. Golden hair spilled out over his broad shoulder pads, hiding the firelight beneath it. "By the ancient Spirits, what did they do to you? My dear sister…"

Tears ran down his cheeks. Capturing the orange glow of the fire, they looked like liquid gold streaming down his rough skin.

Hadjar had seen many horrors in his life, but still couldn't stand the sight. Turning away, he cursed both the gods and the Heavens. Eyes and ears cut off, cheeks and teeth torn out, a young girl hung from the branches of a dead tree. Her scarred and scorched body was proof that she'd been subjected to tortures that only a sick and twisted mind was capable of enacting. Her swollen belly had been cut open and its contents left to spill out. Nestled among her internal organs was a small, bloody lump. The girl had been pregnant.

"F.u.c.k.i.n.g hell, I'm gonna be sick!" Hadjar swore, feeling the bile rise in his throat. Even though he knew that this was someone else's memory, he couldn't help but feel disgusted.

"Those were hard times," the raven said, turning into a cloud of darkness.

Hadjar stood on the edge of the hill and watched the old man move toward the burned out village, hiding behind the roadside trees and bushes.

"We need to leave, my Lord." The pale officer reached out to touch Eranos' shoulder. "The soldiers will worry… You're their leader. You're the only one keeping our Kingdom safe from the flames of war."

Holding the dead girl's hand, Eranos, lost in his grief, stroked and kissed her mutilated fingers.

"My sister… My nephew… Those monsters… Who could have done this…?"

He continued whispering to himself, his voice so thin that no one could hear him speak, and Hadjar saw his energy grow weaker and weaker.

"I couldn't cultivate," the cloud of darkness said. "I was just a fragment of the true soul, one that could do nothing but maintain its physical appearance as it slowly withered away."

Hadjar didn't understand why the Enemy was telling him this. What he saw made him thank the Heavens for sparing him from such horrors during the wars in Lidus.

The old man, who was still hiding behind the trees and bushes, suddenly reached into his pocket. He took out a bundle and unfolded it, revealing a single pill. It shimmered slightly in the firelight and looked more like a gem than medicine. Thin, wrinkled fingers closed around it, turning it into powder. The man held out his hand and blew on it. The powder, carried by the wind, formed a narrow ribbon and entered the woman's torn abdomen.

What followed made Hadjar step back in shock. By the High Heavens, had this been real, he would've vomited. A thin, high-pitched scream came from the gore and soon turned into a wail. The soldiers recoiled and drew their weapons. Horror gradually turned to disgust. Hadjar couldn't help but agree with them.

Eranos, clearly not himself anymore, stuck his hand into the mass of internal organs and pulled out a fetus. It was covered in blood and had thick, black hair.

"Demon…" The officers whispered. "Cursed…"

Having a dead mother give birth to a living child wasn't a good sign. Superstition wasn't just strong amongst mortals, but practitioners and cultivators as well.

"She wanted to call you Erhard — Lost Heart," Eranos whispered. He cut the umbilical cord and wrapped the baby in his snow-white cloak embroidered in gold. "Your father was the greatest warrior in the Kingdom."

The child was silent.

"We're going back to the capital!" He ordered.

"But, my Lord… Our ally is being besieged!" One of the officers protested. "We promised them our support. Without us, they won't be able to withstand the onslaught! Dayckared will destroy them!"

"We're going back to the capital." Eranos' eyes flashed with renewed vigor. "That's an order!"

Cradling the child in his arms, he leapt into the saddle and then swung his sword. Flames shot out from his blade, completing the work begun by their enemies. His sister, who would never be able to hear her child call her mom, burst into azure flames. The riders disappeared around the bend, leaving the ashes behind to be scattered by the wind.

Hadjar was surprised to see that Eranos' sword swing contained mysteries that were deeper than the Weapon's Heart level. He also realized that the strike would've easily sent both him and Master Orune to their forefathers.

"What the-"

The surroundings changed abruptly.

"-hell?" Hadjar asked, staring at the sarcophagus once more. Next to it stood the same humanoid blob of darkness from before. The runes and hieroglyphs that covered the ancient chains shone brightly. When he'd first seen them, he'd presumed that they'd been put there to fend off tomb raiders, but now he suspected that the chains served a very different purpose — to keep whatever was inside the sarcophagus from ever getting out.

"Back in those days, people didn't know much about the path of cultivation," the Enemy went around the sarcophagus and leaned over it, "but endless wars gave them the opportunity to learn more about the essence of battle and weapons. Why do you think the Weapon Kingdom level is called that?"

"I have no idea," Hadjar replied honestly.

"Because only the one who'd mastered it could be a King."

Hadjar nodded. That made sense. After all, in the entire Empire, where there were more cultivators and practitioners than there were grains of sand in the desert, only a few dozen of them had reached the Weapon Kingdom level.

"Erhard was the greatest King the world had ever known."

"And what brought this great King down?"

Hadjar lowered his gaze. The figure carved into the lid of the sarcophagus looked like the visage of a young man of about twenty-two or so.

"The same thing that'll one day kill us all." The Enemy's voice was filled with sadness again. "Remember, my glorious descendant, that the greatest of us don't die by the sword, or by the hands of mortals and immortals, but by the hand of something that was never born."

Hadjar shuddered, feeling a chill run down his spine. He remembered the Tree of Life and its prophecy. He could now remember being told that he'd die at 'the hand of one who was never born'.