POV - ARES MANGAL GRAH
There, she glimpsed a young man with hair ablaze in crimson, wild as a flame caught in the wind, swathed in a tattered black cloak jagged as broken obsidian. In his hands, he clutched a longsword forged of darkness itself, its edge a gleam of midnight, and he stood defiant amidst a writhing sea of monsters.
They surged toward him, a tide of horrors born from nightmare's womb—creatures with sinews like twisted vines, their flesh a patchwork of scales and festering sores, eyes glowing with a sickly yellow malice. Some bore horns that curled like ancient roots, others sprouted claws that gleamed with the wet sheen of fresh gore, their maws gaping to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth dripping venom.
They lunged at him, a cacophony of snarls and shrieks splitting the air, their bodies propelled by a frenzied hunger to rend him apart.
But they never reached him. As they closed in, a chilling force erupted—an unseen wave of obliteration that tore through their ranks with merciless precision. Their forms shuddered mid-leap, then burst apart in sprays of black ichor and splintered bone, as though an invisible hand had crushed them into nothingness. Limbs dissolved into ash, torsos collapsed inward with a sickening crunch, and their roars warped into brief, pitiful wails before silence swallowed them whole.
The ground beneath the red-haired man trembled, littered with the ruins of their annihilation, yet he stood unmoved, the black sword in his grip glinting with a cold, unyielding promise.
A fresh vision seized the Watcher's mind, unbidden and relentless, pulling her into its grasp. She saw a ragged band of people, their faces etched with despair, encircled by death itself.
Creatures of every ilk hemmed them in—hulking brutes with hides like cracked basalt, their claws raking the earth; sinewy horrors with glistening fangs that dripped venom; and skittering things with too many legs, their chittering cries a chorus of doom. The people fought, their blades flashing and voices hoarse with defiance, but they were losing, badly. Blood pooled beneath their feet, their numbers dwindling as the beasts closed in, relentless and insatiable, poised to overwhelm them in a final, crushing tide.
Then the ground shuddered, a deep, bone-rattling tremor that split the soil and sent the creatures stumbling. The sky darkened, swallowed by a shadow so vast it blotted out the sun, plunging the battlefield into an eerie twilight.
Above, a dragon loomed—its immensity unfathomable, its wings spanning the horizon like a canopy of midnight scales, each one glinting with an oily sheen. Its eyes burned with a primal, molten glow, and its presence pressed down like a storm about to break.Behind it stood the red-haired young man, his jagged black cloak billowing in the wind, his crimson locks stark against the gloom.
He muttered something, his voice low and resonant, a command lost to the Watcher's ears but not to the beast. The dragon's maw gaped wide, revealing a cavern of jagged teeth, and from its depths erupted a wave of black fire—liquid and alive, a torrent of shadow-flame that roared forth with a sound like the world tearing apart. It swept over the creatures below, consuming them in an instant; their forms melted into pools of sizzling ash, their shrieks drowned in the fire's merciless howl. The earth scorched black, the air thickened with the acrid stench of annihilation, and the people, spared at the brink, stood frozen in the wake of the dragon's wrath.
Another vision flickered into the Watcher's sightless gaze, sharp and unbidden. The young man with the crimson hair and jagged black cloak stood poised, his longsword a dark slash against the haze, facing a new adversary—a girl, a mere child in appearance. Horns, sharp and spiraled like twisted thorns, protruded from her skull, framing a face that bore an eerie innocence. Yet the energy that coiled around her belied that fragile guise, a roiling shroud of malice, dark and fathomless, pulsing with a power so potent it seemed to devour the light itself. It surged forth, clashing against the young man's own aura, a tempest of raw, unyielding force, and where their energies collided, the world bore the scars of their wrath.
The earth beneath them groaned and split, fissures spiderwebbing outward as though the ground itself wept in agony, jagged rents spewing plumes of dust and molten stone. Trees, gnarled and ancient, twisted violently, their bark peeling away in shrieking strips before they burst into fountains of splintered wood and ash, carried aloft by a wind that howled with the fury of a thousand storms.
The sky above churned, clouds boiling into a blackened maelstrom streaked with veins of crimson and violet, as if the heavens bled from the strain. Boulders shattered into gravel, flung skyward only to rain down as a hail of ruin, while the air thickened with a metallic tang, trembling with the echoes of their power's collision. Every blade of grass withered to cinders, every whisper of life snuffed out, leaving a desolate ring of devastation that pulsed outward, a testament to the cataclysmic dance between the two.
Above, the heavens roiled, a cauldron of ink-black clouds pierced by jagged bolts of scarlet and indigo, the air crackling as though the firmament itself fractured under the strain. Stone cliffs crumbled to dust, their fragments hurled upward in a whirlwind of destruction before crashing back as a rain of jagged shards. The wind shrieked with a voice of torment, carrying the scent of scorched earth and ozone, while every living thing—grass, moss, fleeting insects—blackened and dissolved into a spreading wasteland, the battlefield a scar of desolation carved by their warring powers.
The vision shifted, and abruptly the young girl pivoted, her horned head turning as if her piercing gaze cut through the veil of time to glare directly at the Watcher. Her lips curled into a sneer, venomous and sharp, and she spat, "Bugger off, you're distracting me."
Her voice was a lash of malice, echoing with a power that struck like a physical blow.
The Watcher's vision plunged into blackness, an abyss swallowing all light. A scream tore from her throat, chilling and raw, as she clutched at her blind eyes, her frail hands trembling against the searing pain that clawed through her skull.
She staggered, the world tilting beneath her, when a firm hand gripped her shoulder. Through the haze of agony, Kirin's voice broke through, laced with worry. "Are you all right?" she asked, her tone urgent.The Watcher gasped, her words strained through gritted teeth. "Lead me to lie down," she managed, her voice a threadbare whisper against the throbbing torment.
As Kirin guided her away, her strong arm steadying the old woman's faltering steps, the Watcher's mind churned. Was that the vision destined to come to pass? The question gnawed at her, a shadow cast across the fading echoes of the girl's scornful glare.