During the Legendary Stars Festival, Jhonathan and Sylviana arrived at the famed Pub of Time—a place said to exist slightly out of sync with reality itself. Adventurers, bounty hunters, and thieves filled its halls, all drawn by the promise of reward and chaos.
The moment they stepped inside, the atmosphere shifted. Eyes turned. Weapons tightened in their grips.
Without warning, a blade shot forward through the crowd, aimed directly at them.
Jhonathan barely reacted. His heavy armor absorbed the strike completely, the impact ringing like a dull bell. With a calm motion, he grabbed the attacker's weapon and snapped it in half as if it were glass.
The pub erupted into violence.
Swords swung. Spells ignited. Fireballs exploded across the room in bursts of heat and light. Jhonathan moved through it all like a storm contained within flesh and steel—striking, breaking, never slowing.
Beside him, Sylviana shifted. Her speed blurred her form as she dashed through the battlefield, disarming mages before they could cast another spell. Her movements were precise, almost graceful, like wind cutting through falling leaves.
But then the air grew cold.
A circle of magic formed beneath them.
From it emerged a Wendigo—towering, skeletal, and wrong in every sense of nature. Its presence alone silenced the battlefield. The remaining fighters hesitated, then turned on one another, as if only those strong enough to survive were meant to remain.
The Wendigo pointed at Jhonathan's head.
And in an instant—
He was "killed."
A single, impossible strike.
Sylviana reacted immediately. She vanished in a burst of speed, retreating from the pub as her elven ears caught the wind behind her. The creature did not chase her. It remained, waiting in the silence.
Because it knew.
Jhonathan was not gone.
Slowly, he stood again. Dexcalibur hummed in his hand as he rose from what should have been death. With a single motion, he shattered the Wendigo's deer-like skull, the impact echoing through the warped space of the Pub of Time.
But then—
The creature touched his chest.
And everything stopped.
Memories flooded him.
He saw it again.
The Hero's Party.
The dragon.
His comrades falling one by one as the King Dragon tore them apart.
He remembered fighting for seventeen straight days, refusing to fall… and in the end, running. Not as a hero. Not as a savior. But as a coward who survived.
The Wendigo smiled—if it could be called that—and left behind a ring made of flesh and bone. A cursed artifact meant to allow magic to flow through him more easily.
The world snapped back into place.
Jhonathan found himself elsewhere.
Sylviana's room.
She slept peacefully, unaware of everything that had happened.
Without a word, Jhonathan lowered himself to the floor beside her bed.
And for the first time in a long while…
He simply rested.