Rider sat before him, Chase did not know why, but he was sitting in a tent alone with the king of Equus.
"Come on! Join me Chase, together we could conquer the entirety of the twelve kingdoms. Bring a new era to Vallmora alongside me!"
Rider boomed with happy laughter as he unrolled a map across the table.
Strange locations had been marked on the map, ones that Chase did not quite understand.
He had never heard of these places.
'Cliffs of Tempesta... The Shattered Lands... Millnora... Xerion... And several more...'
Chase tilted his head in confusion as these unknown names had been here in the lands of Vallmora this entire time.
Chase began to mutter in a craze.
"The greater gods are watching..."
Rider boomed in reply.
"THEN LET THEM BARE WITNESS! ACCEPT WHO YOU ARE KING OF CHAOS!"
He continued to try to hype the boy up, but Chase only stared in confusion.
'What did he call me?'
'Why is my internal voice so loud?'
'Who am I?'
He kept asking himself the same questions, feeling a gnawing sense of Deja vu...
Chase looked up into Rider's void eyes.
He had never gotten a good look at the man before, but it wasn't because he never got the chance, he had just never cared enough to cement the look of the man into his memory.
He had combed back black hair, and violet eyes. His face was sharp but littered with scars from who knew what.
"Hey Rider..."
Chase eventually prepared himself to ask a strange question.
Rider blinked in confusion but nodded.
"Why did you kill all of those people? Why did you kill Leander? Why did you slay a god? They cannot act against humanity, they swore a vow that they wouldn't intervene with our affairs... Why did you kill him?"
He asked the king, scratching the mark on his shoulder.
Rider only stared back in confusion, letting a slight smirk curl onto the corner of his lips.
"You see it, don't you? The mark of destiny... Yet you abandon your own pride in hope of eventual bliss... Tell me? Why do you think I killed and devoured a god?"
Chase collapsed before the king, feeling his skin begin to rip apart and his own bones crack from the presence of corruption.
"A dream..."
Chase muttered, his mind racing, and his stopping in its tracks.
He watched his own life- No, several lives play out in a matter of seconds.
"It was a dream... A simple one, but a dream nonetheless, I- I don't seem to recall ever having a long term dream..."
Chase responded with madness escaping his lips.
Rider cocked an eyebrow and smiled.
"Are you sure? We could go several more thousands of rounds, and yet this is the one that slips into your memory?"
Rider- No, whoever had possessed the body of Rider had said with cockiness yet, a strange amount of approval in his voice.
"It makes sense though, after all of the deaths and people you have encountered, only the man you hate the most could ever enrage you so much that it starts to fracture this infinite cycle..."
Rider laughed.
"I mean, it is quite funny that I of all people have begun to lost count of this long dance."
Chase lifted his dying head.
"What did you call me earlier?"
Then he died...
...
Chase woke up in a dark dungeon cell, beside him were several strangely familiar people.
He had never been to this place, but it felt like he had been here forever.
The man with violet eyes, striking a strange resemblance to King Rider looked up at Chase from his motionless and eternal gaze.
Chase had thought the man dead, but apparently he still had enough life to notice Chase's stare.
"It is time child?"
Beside him, the dead body of a scrawny and malnourished dwarf had been killed quite a while ago as gnats and mites had begun to make a home in the boy's unfamiliar corpse.
"Gemini...?"
Chase asked.
The man with violet eyes looked at him in confusion.
"What do you mean? You watched the boy die a few days ago... Or was it weeks?"
He asked himself, scratching his pale chin in the darkness.
On the far corner of the room, two naked and bloodied prisoners were devouring freshly killed corpse of a girl...
"Who...?"
Then it all made sense as Chase's rage flushed over him.
Rayan's hands were stained red with blood, as his eyes told a lifeless and sorry state of internal emotion.
"You killed them..."
Chase said, clenching his fists as the chains that held his body down began to rattle against the walls.
"They asked... And I freed them..."
Rayan chuckled, slamming his head back against the stone wall behind him.
Chase began to pull, as the chains shook the very walls of the dungeon.
Then...
They snapped, and Chase shot towards Rayan, immediately wrapping the freed chains around Rayan's throat.
"Do you wish to die as well?"
Rayan asked as if the chains ripping his throat apart did not affect him in the slightest.
Chase screamed, as guards began to run down the halls.
"I WILL NOT PLAY THESE GAMES ANY LONGER!"
Chase screamed, yanking the chains back repeatedly against the flesh of Rayan's throat.
Then Rayan began to chuckle a terrible yet pleasant laugh, gargling up blood as he did so.
Ripping his neck free and looking up at Chase, he smiled.
"You wish to fight the strongest of Rider's generals?"
Chase hesitated, and saw his life flash before his eyes as a violet energy overtook his body.
His skin cracked as the energy ran through his bones, as it diminished his blood in seconds...
Rayan had killed him before he could even respond...