Arjun was floating. There was no weight to his limbs, no air in his lungs, and no ground beneath his feet. He drifted through a void of shimmering obsidian until the darkness began to tear open, revealing a vision that made his soul recoil.
Below him, a battlefield unwound across an endless, crimson-stained desert. It was a trail of carnage—thousands of mangled corpses lay half-buried in the shifting dunes, their blood flowing like jagged rivers through the sand. The metallic scent of iron and the stench of sun-baked rot rose to meet him even in the sky.
Arjun frowned, his mind sharpening. This wasn't a dream. This was the precipice of his destiny. Then, the cold, crystalline chime of the Spell resonated through his consciousness:
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell.] [Prepare for your First Trial...]
A manic, desperate joy surged through him. 'Finally,' he thought, his heart hammering against a phantom chest. 'It took long enough. Now... let's see if I can actually survive this.'
The world blurred. The sky collapsed into a blinding white light, and for a moment, Arjun felt his soul being wrenched out of one vessel and shoved into another.
He woke up with a gasp, the heat hitting him like a physical blow. He was no longer floating; he was standing on solid, scorched earth.
He felt... different. He looked down at his hands, seeing calloused skin and scarred knuckles. This body was taller and more muscular than his original self, hardened by a life he didn't remember living. He reached up to touch his face, feeling the grit of sand against his skin. He was draped in battered, functional leather armor, and a heavy iron sword hung from a sheath at his hip.
Before the chaos of the trial could sweep him away, Arjun closed his eyes and summoned the flickering strings of light that only he could see. He needed to know his starting hand.
The runes shimmered into existence against the back of his eyelids:
Name: Arjun
True Name: —
Rank: Aspirant
Soul Core:Dormant
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: [Outsider],[Fast Learner],[Desolate Spawn]
Aspect: [Vessel]
AspectDescription: [You are a being that is yet to be filled.]
[Outsider]: You are not part of Fate, yet you accompany it.
[Fast Learner]: You excel at mastering any concept or skill with unnatural speed.
[Desolate Spawn]: You are affiliated with Shadow and Dread, benefiting from the influence of both.
Arjun stared at the runes, his brow furrowed in deep concentration. 'Vessel? That's it? No powers, no magic, just a container?' He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the desert heat. 'An aspect that is yet to be filled means I have no innate advantages. I'll have to risk everything just to find the "content" to fill myself with.'
He shifted his focus to the attributes. 'Fast Learner is a godsend. If I'm going to survive a battlefield, I need to master this body and this sword within minutes, not years. But the others...'
He lingered on [Outsider]. 'It confirms my theory. I'm a transmigrator, a glitch in the system. I'm not woven into the tapestry of fate that the Sovereigns and the Spell follow. I'm a parallel line, running alongside the story but not bound by its ending. That's why I can remember the "future"—because I'm not part of the timeline I'm observing.'
Finally, his eyes landed on [Desolate Spawn]. He searched his memory of the original lore. He knew of the Dreamspawn, the children of the nightmare, but Desolate Spawn was something entirely new.
'Affiliated with Shadow and Dread,' he muttered. 'If Shadow refers to the Shadow God and Dread refers to the Demon of Dread, Ariel... then do I have an affinity for their lineages? I hope it's as useful as it sounds, because I'm going to need every ounce of divine favor I can get.'
Suddenly, a heavy, metallic clank jarred him out of his thoughts. A massive man, towering a full head above Arjun and encased in rusted plate armor, stood before him. He held a wickedly spiked mace that looked heavy enough to crush a boulder.
"Brat!" the giant roared, his voice like grinding stones. "You're spacing out again!"
Arjun blinked, quickly dismissing his runes. "Sorry. I... I just got hit by the heat. What is it?"
The commander gave him a look of pure, unadulterated disgust. "What is it? It's death, boy. Get your head on straight and prepare for the battle. The line moves in five."
Without another word, the giant stomped away, his heavy boots kicking up clouds of red dust. Arjun wiped the sweat from his brow and checked his sword. 'Okay. I need to resolve this nightmare and deviate from the original plot as much as possible to earn a high rating. But what kind of creatures am I dealing with here?'
Arjun took his place in the formation. He was surrounded by a sea of soldiers—a boundless expanse of iron and flesh stretching across the dunes. To his left and right, men gripped their shields with white-knuckled intensity, their eyes fixed on the horizon where the heat shimmer turned the world into a watery blur.
The soldier next to him, a wiry man with a missing ear and a nervous twitch, leaned over. "Whatever happens today, lad... stay away from the far side of the valley."
Arjun frowned. "What's on the other side?"
The man gave a jagged, humorless smile. "The heavy hitters. The ones who don't care if you're a friend or a foe as long as they get to keep swinging."
"Heavy hitters? What do you mean? Are they Awakened?"
The man started to answer, but his words were drowned out by the mournful, bone-chilling blast of a war horn. It wasn't the sound of a human army; it was the sound of a world screaming.
From the opposite side of the dunes, another legion began to crest the horizon. But these weren't men. They were towering, obsidian-skinned horrors, their eyes glowing with an inner, hateful fire.
The realization hit Arjun like a thunderbolt.
'Desert... Armies... Heavy hitters...'
His eyes widened as he looked at the sheer scale of the conflict. This wasn't just any battlefield. This was a fragment of a war that had ended eons ago, a place where legends walked as common soldiers.
He cursed under his breath, his grip tightening on his iron hilt until the metal bit into his palm.
"Crap... I'm in the Nightmare Desert."