Under the female knight's leadership, Seven's squadron had slain twenty of the Spawns. Seven focused on trying to deal the final blow to have the chance to receive a memory. He dealt a final blow to twelve of them, but none offered him a memory nor an echo.
The army was currently gathering, patching up the wounded soldiers and reinforcing the formation once again so they could continue marching.
Seven was looking down at his hands.
They were shaking, almost uncontrollably.
He was not nervous, no. It was far from it. During his life in the House of Talents, his sense of self had gone blurry and his only purpose had been trying to achieve the first ranking.
Even if it was for a short while, he was finally free! After several years of hollowness, Seven finally felt the desire, the excitement!
The desire to continue living, the excitement of fighting with his life on the line!
He had always been a loner, always fighting his own battles. But now that he fought with a team, he finally knew how thrilling it was to fight alongside people who had the same amount of skill as his! He felt strange camaraderie with those people, the people who were only the creations of the spell!
Seven did not know how to word these emotions, it was as if he had tapped into a part of himself that he didn't know it existed.
'My previous self suddenly feels so bland and boring...'
"Hey rookie, move it! What are you spacing out for? March!"
His thoughts were cut short as the female knight called out to him, he immediately moved after her, marching behind.
"You really are fearless kid! Jumping into those abominations arms. Do you not fear death?" An older man from his previous squadron spoke up.
Seven did not speak immediately, only after contemplating did he reply to the man.
"I had the squads protection, hence I was able to slay those beasts fearlessly. It is all thanks to your skills." Seven said, flattering the other soldiers with just a simple sentence. Immediately many praises were shot his way, Seven accepted the kind words and replied to each one of them.
The column resumed its march, steel scraping and boots crunching against the dirt as low chatter spread through the ranks. Laughter and crude jokes mixed with quiet discussions of the recent skirmish, tension easing just enough to remind them they were still alive.
The relief did not last long. Smaller packs of nightmare creatures soon descended from the slopes, testing the formation with brief, vicious clashes.
These fights were swift and controlled, spears struck true, shields held firm and though a few soldiers fell, the army pressed onward without breaking, bloodied but steady as it continued down the narrow road.
And finally, the narrow road ended.
"Halt!"
The marching army came to an abrupt stop, the echo of the command rolling between the towering slopes. One by one, the soldiers lifted their gazes, momentarily forgetting the ache in their limbs as the land ahead revealed itself.
The sun, which had long been hidden behind the jagged walls of stone, finally rose into view, casting its pale light across a vast, open prairie. Endless stretches of tall grass swayed beneath the wind like a living sea, their tips glinting faintly as if dusted with gold. The land lay cradled between colossal mountains, their dark silhouettes looming in silent judgment, sealing the field away from the rest of the world.
And through the mountain pass on the opposite side, the enemy army poured into the prairie like a dark tide. Lines of soldiers spilled forth in disciplined chaos, banners snapping violently in the wind as the first war horns sounded. Their call was deep and thunderous, reverberating across the open field and crashing against the surrounding mountains.
"Shields up!"
The command rang out just as the rioter army's archers raised their bows in unison. A heartbeat later, the sky darkened.
Arrows screamed through the air, descending like a black storm. The war army braced itself, shields snapping into place with practiced precision. The first volley struck with a deafening clatter, iron ringing against iron, shafts splintering and skidding away as the formation held firm. Some arrows glanced off helmets or pierced the ground at their feet, while a few found gaps in the defense, drawing sharp cries as several soldiers fell.
But the line did not break.
Before the second wave could come, the war army began to advance with shields raised high. Even as arrows continued to rain down upon them, they marched forward in disciplined silence, boots striking the soil in steady unison. If they could close the distance and crash into the rioters' front lines, the archers would lose their advantage entirely.
The rioters understood this as well.
Their bowstrings sang in frantic harmony as volley after volley was loosed toward the advancing wall of steel. The fourth wave fell. Then the fifth. Then the sixth, each crashing against shields, armor, and flesh alike.
And then, there was no seventh.
Not because the war army had reached the enemy lines.
Their march had stopped.
So had everything else.
The battlefield fell into an unnatural stillness as all eyes were drawn upward.
High above the prairie, a lone figure hovered in the sky.
Elegant, skeletal wings stretched wide behind it, their bony frames cutting stark silhouettes against the sun. A flowing blue cloak wrapped around its emaciated form, fluttering softly in the wind, though glimpses of gray flesh beneath revealed a grotesque kinship with the spawns slain earlier.
The creature was tall, inhumanly so and possessed four arms.
Two of them cradled a strange, delicate instrument, its strings glinting faintly in the sunlight, resembling a guzheng. The remaining arms hovered above the strings, poised to play.
Seven that had been advancing also stopped to look at the creature.
'Is that an awakened terror?'
He felt goosebumps all over his body as he looked at the terror. Even if Seven was skilled, he could not possibly take on an awakened terror! Perhaps if the two armies combined their might, they could have a chance.
There was also the third army he saw at the beginning of his nightmare, those had yet to arrive.
The archers of the riot army immediately changed the direction of their aim, everyone aimed at the creature in the sky. But before any bow could be shot, the terror moved its fingers.
The Guzheng sang an ominous sound, and one by one, every mortals' eyes turned hollow as the sound traveled at high speeds.
Seven's eyes had turned hollow too.
***
Once Seven regained his consciousness, the first thing that assaulted him was sound.
Animalistic cheers tore through the air, raw and unrestrained, mingling with screams that cracked from pain and despair. They echoed against stone, multiplying until they became unbearable.
Alongside them came the stench of blood, thick, metallic, and suffocating. Coating his throat with every breath he took.
Seven gasped.
His lungs burned as if he had been running for miles, his chest rising and falling in ragged, uneven bursts. Something felt wrong. Deeply wrong.
His body felt… smaller.
Weaker.
Seven was panting as he struggled to stand straight.
The ground... it was the familiar polished stone.
The cheers grew clearer now, no longer distant noise but distinct voices: loud, cruel, exultant. The kind of sounds made by spectators, not soldiers. By people enjoying a spectacle.
Slowly, as he lifted his head, Seven was met with a familiar scene.
A girl knelt on the stone floor only a short distance away, her clothes soaked dark with blood that did not belong to her alone. In her arms lay a boy, limp, broken, his skin deathly pale. His chest no longer rose. His eyes stared lifelessly into nothing.
She clutched him desperately, shaking him as if sheer will might force life back into his body.
Then, she looked up. Her gaze locked onto Seven.
In that instant, her sorrow twisted into something far uglier.
"You monster!" she screamed, her voice hoarse, shattered by grief. "You killed my brother!"