I never would have expected that the future, that one timeline where I survive, could be too dark.
When I opened my eyes, I saw myself in the middle of the Dragon Sage Library Garden, three months from now. The beautiful garden that was always taken care of by the beautiful young maids is now nothing but dry land, shattered debris, and withered flowers.
There are traces of dried blood everywhere, and there are even skeletons lying in the corner. Some dried garden plants caught some fire.
It's just the tip of the iceberg. When I looked at the Dragon Sage Library, I saw ruins. The upper right part of the castle-like facility was blasted open, and bricks are falling from the roof now and then. The entrance is also wide open, and a trail of blood goes inside.
I walked towards the entrance and so nobody was alive. Aside from the stench that seemed to come from corpses, the books and grimoires are all scattered on the floor. Most of them are burning. I tried to pick up one of the books and realized that my hand had just passed through. This is just a simulation of a future timeline after all, so I have no way of interrupting this event.
The entrance to the library proper was blocked by some fallen pillars. I can still peek at the inside through the holes, and all I can see there are burning bookshelves and abandoned tables. The magical platform we used as an elevator has been destroyed.
I looked back and noticed the blood trail on my foot. I tried to follow it until it lead me to the corridors I have never gone into until I reached stairs leading downwards.
I can hear a faint cry.
I decided to move downwards, following the blood trail. The basement part of the Dragon Sage Library, which is off-limits to everyone, is now being discovered by me. The area is well-lit for an abandoned building so I figured out that there must be people hiding in here.
It was a long spiral stair. It took a while until I reached the end of it.
The room is just covered with darkness. All of a sudden, torches from the sides of the wall lit up, making it a little bit clearer.
What I saw is what surprised me the most. This room is like a huge torture chamber, with chains and skeletons hung on the sides. Some bookshelves divide the giant room, with books just accumulating dust. There are also some magical apparatuses of some sort. This is not a torture chamber. It's more like a hidden place made for illegal experiments of Dragon Sages.
"Mmmph! Mmmph!" I heard a nearby noise.
When I turned around, I saw a man hung upside down, and fully naked. There is a poisonous barbed wire constricting his whole body. His long silver hair brushed on my face. I noticed his crimson eyes. Even though his face is full of bruises and cuts, I immediately recognized the person.
"Ross?" I muttered.
"Mmmmph!" Ross answered. His mouth is gagged with the same quality of rusty toxic barbed wires, and his mouth is gushing with blood.
"This is so terrible! Who did this to you!?" I cried out loud. I tried to touch him, but my hand just passes through. "I swear, I will kill everyone who did this!"
"Mph!" Ross' eyes opened wide as he gasped. He seems like he just saw someone behind me. A chill went down my spine.
"You're still alive, eh?"
It was a familiar feminine voice. When I looked back, I was taken aback and froze in fear. Her crimson eyes with golden pupils scared the shit out of me. She has long black horns, long silver-blue hair, and her bodysuit and fairy dress decals are all tattered up. Nevertheless, she is the woman I know.
"Deva?" I muttered.
No, it's not Deva. Something doesn't feel right, and I'm not in denial either. Her eyes are lifeless, and I can't sense even a faint aura of Yehanna left in her. There's also this weird glowing mark on her forehead that is shaped like the symbol omega.
Is she brainwashed?
Deva walked toward me. I was prepared to fight for my life, but I realized that Deva had just passed through me like a ghost. I'm not used to being treated like a specter that nobody can interact with, so I kept forgetting that this is just a simulation for a future timeline. Nobody can see me here. And there's nothing I can do but observe.
"You should have known that this is your future the moment you became enemies with my Ulysses, Sir Ross Bedivere. The moment you stood against His Majesty, you knew that you will get the same fate as the princess over there."
Deva pointed toward the end of the torture room where there is a teenage girl, with silver hair and snow-white skin. She's laying dead, bathing in her dried-up blood. It was Princess Amaryllis Viridescia, and she looked like she has been dead for a couple of days now. Some flies are feasting on her remains.
"Mmmph! Mmmmph!" Ross cried once again. I heard clanks due to his wiggling, so he caught my attention.
"Oh! He's here!" Deva celebrated. She immediately bowed down and made a curtsy when she noticed the presence of somebody going down the spiral stairs.
All my skin hairs stood up when I saw the person. What I looked at is more shocking than seeing tortured Ross, true evil Deva, and the dead Princess Amaryllis.
It was me. The future me.
It pains me to admit, but he's a lot more handsome than I am today. His skin is so pale like a vampire, and his eyes are not mine. His crimson irises with dark sclera gave me goosebumps, the very same sensation I felt when I faced off with Rex Nullius.
He just smiled creepily, and his eyes are fixated in my direction.
No, I think he's looking right at me!
I have to get out! I have to exit this simulation now! This is impossible!
"Terminate Timeline Prediction Simulations now!" I cried out loud. "Hurry!"
[Simulation Terminating in five… four… three…]
"We have a handsome visitor." Future me grinned.
"Handsome visitor?" Deva tilted her head, unsure what the future Ulysses Corasell is talking about. She can't sense me after all. "I don't see any handsome people other than you, milord."
Those three seconds from the countdown are the longest seconds I took in my life. The future me smiled wide as if his cheeks are getting ripped open. The crimson glare was marked on my brain. I remember Rex Nullius stealing Yifus Lancelot's eyes to get those kinds of fucked-up optics. Whose Dragonoid eyes were those?
[Two… one…]
A swift light flashed me out of my future simulations. I was heavily gasping for air. My brain hurt due to the overloading of information. My heart is pounding non-stop. I looked at my trembling hands, which could no longer move their fingers due to the big chill I just got.
"What the hell was that?" I asked. "There's no way I'm going to choose that timeline to live!"
I took some heavy breaths to calm myself. I inhaled for twenty seconds, held it in twenty, and exhaled for another twenty seconds. It slowed my heartbeats. I'm getting stressed out, but I'm not finished yet.
"What's the status of my friends in that simulated timeline?" I asked my supercomputer brain.
[Odette Fellglaze: Deceased]
[Marina Koenji-Jogudra: Deceased]
[Amaryllis Viridescia: Deceased]
[Ross Bedivere: Alive in the next three months, expected to be deceased in the fourth month]
[Yehanna Lancelot: Alive]
[All your friends have no future]
"Why? What will happen in the next three months?"
[According to the computations of cause and effect, a war will break out. Novum Metropolis will fall in all the timelines, and this is the only one where Ulysses Corasell survives]
"What about the other timelines? What if I divert my survival and chose to be dead?"
[The future remains to be intact]
[Everyone will have no future, including Ulysses Corasell, in all the timelines scanned]
[However, Yehanna Lancelot's predicted destiny is unstable]
"Unstable?" I scratched my head. "Timeline Prediction, begin simulating Yehanna Lancelot's future in all other possible timelines."
[Simulating Timeline in three… two… one…]
My vision blacked out.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
I counted the seconds of silence and black nothingness. I've started to wonder if my Timeline Prediction simulation for the future is glitching out, until…
Light started to peek at the horizon.
I saw a woman impaled in a cross, with silver swords pinning her wrists and feet. There's no blood on her wounds, and other than the way she's impaled, her body is perfectly fine. She's not conscious, but she's not dead either. She looks like she's in a deep eternal sleep.
"Hanna," I muttered her name. I tried to touch her cheeks, but I remembered that this is just a perfect simulation inside my mind.
All of a sudden, tears flowed down from her eyelids. She started sobbing even in a deep slumber.
"I'm sorry, Uly. I'm sorry, I couldn't save you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please forgive me, Uly. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You died because of me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
I gritted and clenched my fists.
I can't believe that I'm so selfish and foolish for a long time now. All I've been thinking of is my survival, and my own only. I never considered the well-being of my friends. I didn't even care about the impending war that is bound to happen in three months. I just searched for any way to live longer than what I predicted.
There is no future waiting for us all.
[Dragon Sage Thesis Book 1 End]
[Author's Note]
Hey guys, thank you for reading up to this point. Dragon Sage Thesis is my first book after my more than one-year hiatus as a light novel author, and I used this novel to test the waters if I still can write good light novels or not. Dragon Sage Thesis was planned to have four books, but I'm planning to pause writing this novel for now. Do not worry as I am writing another novel with superior quality and consistency.
If you like this novel, please give it a five-star review! If this novel gets a lot of five-star reviews, I might continue writing for Book 2. Otherwise, you can rate it however you like but please leave some criticism. I don't mind toxic ones as long as it's reasonable.
Anyway, you can read my other novels such as Gate Guardian: Tale of the Blazing Heart or Gate Guardian: Song of the Frozen Soul. These are available on Wattpad and Webnovel. You can also read Vesryn Pulse and Vesryn Pulse: Wrath of Xenon which has the very same theme as Dragon Sage Thesis.
Thank you and see you again!