Even though his eyes were shut tightly in deep sleep, Arthur's consciousness seemed to be pulled into an incredibly vivid dreamscape. He found himself standing in the middle of a seemingly endless expanse of meadow. However, this was no ordinary meadow. As far as the eye could see, the earth was covered by a sea of clear blue flora radiating an incredibly pure glow of life.
The blue grasses swayed gently, swaying in a harmonious dance with an invisible breeze, as if rejoicing to welcome his arrival.
"So beautiful..." Arthur muttered, mesmerized.
Compelled by the sense of peace emanating from the place, Arthur slowly knelt down. He reached out a hand, intending to touch the blue expanse.
Magically, the grasses seemed to possess a consciousness of their own. Sensing the Knight's good intentions, the blades of blue grass began to elongate upwards, reaching out to meet his extended hand.
"Hmm... Are you alive?" he asked softly, tilting his head with a look full of gentleness.
As a silent answer, the blades of blue grass crept up and slowly wrapped around his palm and fingers. There was not the slightest trace of ill intent, threat, or pain in their grip; instead, the touch felt extraordinarily warm, as if channeling a deeply protective affection.
"Haha... that tickles," a crisp laugh escaped Arthur's lips. The sensation of the grass blades rubbing gently against his skin felt a bit ticklish.
Arthur began to move his free fingers, returning the greeting by carefully stroking and caressing the blue grass around him. A faint but sincere smile bloomed on the King's face. In his eyes, these magical tendrils were no different from a bunch of affectionate and adorable kittens.
For a moment, Arthur let himself get lost in it. He enjoyed that moment of peace.
However, that peace was suddenly disturbed. All the blue grasses that had been silently enjoying the caress of Arthur's hand began to tremble.
Arthur was startled, confusion coloring his face. "What is it?" he asked.
The blades of blue grass wrapped around his hand did not answer, but instead slowly tightened their grip. The tug did not hurt, but it clearly intended to lead him in a certain direction.
"Whoa, hold on. Where are you taking me?" Arthur exclaimed in surprise. Despite his confusion, he decided not to resist. The knight allowed himself to be gently pulled, following wherever the living tendrils led him.
After taking a few steps, Arthur realized the pulling had stopped. He looked up to see what was in front of him.
Before his eyes, the sea of blue grass parted, leaving behind a straight path. At the end of the path stood the silhouette of a woman facing away from him. The woman had long, shimmering blue hair, the same color as the grass in this place. Arthur frowned in confusion, trying to guess who the unfamiliar figure was. However, the silence around him was broken by the sound of muffled sobbing coming from the woman.
"Sob... sob..."
Hearing that crying, Arthur's instincts immediately reacted. He stepped closer with polite and careful footsteps.
"Forgive me, My Lady," Arthur called softly, his tone full of the respect and dignity typical of a true knight.
"Are you alright?" he asked with a tone of genuine concern. "Is there anything I can do to ease your sorrow?"
The mysterious woman jolted in surprise at Arthur's sudden greeting. She hurriedly turned around to see who had come. The movement made her long blue hair flutter in the dream wind, and several teardrops resembling small pearls seemed to be tossed into the air before vanishing.
Arthur stood frozen in his tracks. Not merely because of her beauty, but because there was a strange wave of familiar and warm feeling radiating from the woman's figure. He immediately cast that thought aside and focused on the sadness of the woman in front of him.
"What happened to you, My Lady? Why are you crying so sadly in such a beautiful place?" Arthur asked, looking at the traces of tears still wet on the woman's cheeks.
Arthur tried to take another step closer to try and comfort her. However, before he had the chance to speak further, the woman's voice was heard. Her voice was so gentle, laden with deep care, like a mother speaking to her son.
"Why..." The woman looked at Arthur with a highly complex gaze—a blend of pure affection, gratitude, and profound sorrow.
"Why must a child as small as you bear such a heavy burden of fate...?"
As the woman uttered that final sentence, Arthur felt a gentle spiritual touch pierce the deepest depths of his heart. The boundless affection in the mysterious woman's gaze mingled together, leaving Arthur utterly confused.
Arthur's consciousness then collapsed. His vision darkened, and he sank back into a deep sleep, losing contact with that warm dreamscape.
(Transition)
The night sky enveloped a lush forest brimming with the pulse of life. Amidst the silence of nature, an old man could be seen hobbling along a footpath. His frail body was slightly hunched, relying heavily on a wooden cane that faithfully supported his every slow step.
The old man was Jack, the Village Chief of Holy Spirit Village. Despite walking alone in the middle of the forest at night, there was not the slightest trace of fear on his wrinkled face. He had traversed this path far too often on his way back from his trips to the city. He knew full well that this outer region was extremely safe and far from the threat of ferocious Spirit Beasts.
However, Grandpa Jack's calm steps came to a sudden halt.
"W-what in the world is this...?" he muttered in disbelief. His eyes widened as he stared at the side of the footpath.
An expanse of blue grass glowed softly under the moonlight. Blue Silver Grass. The plant was the most common and trivial thing on the entire Continent, but the amount he was looking at right now made absolutely no sense.
"Blue Silver Grass...? But, how could it grow this abundantly and densely? I just passed this area this afternoon, and I don't recall seeing anything like this," Grandpa Jack muttered in confusion.
Driven by curiosity, the old man stepped off the safe footpath. The tip of his shoes and his wooden cane began to part the expanse of blue grass. The deeper he walked following the path of the grass, the denser the Blue Silver Grass became. Its growth was incredibly wild, yet for some reason, it felt highly organized.
"This situation is clearly not normal," he whispered, slightly tense.
Grandpa Jack's steps halted once again as he reached the center of the anomaly. In the midst of the lush sea of blue grass, there was a circular area that had been deliberately cleared. The grasses grew densely around the area, forming a natural protective barricade that seemed to intentionally guard whatever lay in the center.
Grandpa Jack's wrinkled eyes narrowed. In the middle of that empty area lay an object. A small basket emitting a clear blue glow. Upon closer inspection, the basket was not made of wood or bamboo, but was woven and knitted directly from the blades of those living grasses.
"What is that...?" Grandpa Jack gulped.
With slightly trembling hands, he forced his frail legs to step closer, parting the barricade of grass that magically opened up to make way for him. As he stood right over the basket, his eyes caught a movement. The woven grass basket trembled slightly. There was something breathing and squirming inside it.
Grandpa Jack stood looking down at the edge of the woven basket. As his eyes peeked inside, his breath instantly caught in his throat.
"A-a baby?" he whispered in disbelief.
Beneath a natural blanket made of warm blades of blue grass, lay a tiny baby fast asleep. His face was so peaceful, contrasting with the cold of the night forest.
"Oh, dear me, child... How could you be all alone in the middle of the forest this late?" muttered the old man with a tone full of pity. His wrinkled hands immediately reached out, lifting the small basket very carefully. "Did your parents have the heart to abandon you in a place like this?"
However, as he lifted the basket, a bundle accidentally fell to the ground.
"Hmm? What is that?" Grandpa Jack narrowed his eyes. The cloth bundle, no bigger than an adult's fist, lay on the grass. With great effort, he bent down to pick it up. When he untied the knot of the cloth, his eyes widened.
"T-this... Spirit Soul Coins and all of them are Gold?!" he shrieked in a stifled voice.
The small bundle turned out to contain gold coins in a highly fantastic amount for an ordinary villager. Tucked among the coins was a neatly folded piece of parchment paper. Grandpa Jack set his cane down for a moment and opened the letter under the moonlight.
The handwriting looked elegant yet seemed to be written with trembling hands and in a hurry:
"To the forgiving soul who finds my little son. I beg of you, give him the love and affection that I can no longer provide. In this bundle, I have left provisions that I hope will be enough to raise him until he is a teenager.
Truly, my heart is shattered into pieces having to leave him in this place. However, cruel fate and unavoidable circumstances force me to let him go for the sake of his own life. I cannot raise him by my side. Please... become a family to him. His name is Arthur Pendragon."
"Arthur Pendragon? Quite a long name," muttered Grandpa Jack while scratching his white beard. He reread the letter, then looked at the baby in the basket. "So, your family name must be 'Arthur', and 'Pendragon' is your given name. A rather long and troublesome name for a village child, huh? Could it be that you are the son of a noble?"
Hearing Grandpa Jack's hoarse voice, the baby in the basket moved slowly, as if responding to the old man's words.
A trace of pity once again softened Grandpa Jack's wrinkled face. He smiled warmly, looking at the baby with affection. "You seem to have just had a terrible day and lost your mother, child," he whispered. "You might not like living a simple life with an old man like me in a small village later on. But rest assured... I swear I will care for and love you just like my own grandson."
The old man then reached for his cane again. He carried the basket containing the baby away from the dense forest, heading toward Holy Spirit Village.
Without Grandpa Jack realizing it, beneath that blanket of blue grass, the baby's eyelids fluttered open for a split second. A pair of emerald-green eyes radiating warmth and maturity stared at the old man's back in silence, before finally closing once more.
(Transition)
Confusion. That was the first thing that struck Arthur's consciousness when he awoke from his sleep.
He tried to get up, but his body felt incredibly heavy, weak, and beyond his control. With great effort, he forced one of his arms to move toward his face to rub his still-blurred vision.
However, instead of feeling a calloused, hard, and muscular palm—the tangible proof of sword training and the harshness of the battlefield he had always known—Arthur saw something that made him nearly stop breathing.
Before his eyes hovered a small, round, and chubby lump. It was a baby's hand.
'T-this... this is impossible!' Arthur screamed inwardly, panic beginning to creep in.
He tried to open his mouth to make a sound.
"Guh... gaah..."
It was not the masculine, gentle, and authoritative baritone voice typical of the King of Knights that echoed in the air, but rather the meaningless babble from undeveloped vocal cords.
'Impossible...' Arthur thought, deeply shaken. His mind spun rapidly. He tried to struggle again, forcing his muscles to sit up, but his efforts were in vain. His body refused his commands.
Amidst his panic, his still-sharp sense of hearing caught a sound.
Tap... tap... tap...
The sound of heavy footsteps was heard drawing closer to him. To a body lying on the ground, each step produced vibrations that felt quite massive.
Arthur's fighting instincts instantly took over. Since he could not yet see clearly in the darkness, his brain immediately drew a conclusion from his past experiences in Pan-Human History. 'Vibrations this large... Is it a giant?!' he thought cautiously, remembering the giant monsters he often hunted and struck down in the past.
Realizing he had absolutely no ability to fight or flee in this form, Arthur immediately shut his eyes tightly. He pretended to be asleep, lowered his breathing rhythm, and prepared to face the worst-case scenario.
A few moments later, the vibrations of the footsteps stopped. Arthur could feel the presence of the figure now towering right near him, its shadow blocking the moonlight falling on his tiny body. From his current perspective, the figure truly felt as big as a giant.
Then, amidst the gripping silence of the night, a muttering sound was heard from the giant figure.
"A-a baby?" muttered the hoarse voice of the 'giant' figure.
Thump.
As if struck by lightning in broad daylight, Arthur's entire body stiffened rigidly. Even though logically he had already gathered evidence about his current condition, hearing the direct confirmation from someone else's mouth felt like the blow of an invisible sledgehammer.
'N-no... this is impossible...' Arthur thought, deeply shaken. An unfamiliar tone of despair began to color the Holy Knight's mind. Denial took over his common sense.
'This definitely isn't real! Merlin! If this is just one of your prank illusions, wake me up immediately! This is not funny at all!' he snapped in his heart, hoping that troll magus would suddenly laugh at him and end this nightmare.
However, only silence answered his call. There was no playful laughter, no glow of flower magic.
'MERLIN!!! I know you are there watching all this! Stop this joke right now!' Arthur screamed in his mind. Once again, only a suffocating silence.
Not long after his panic peaked, Arthur felt the place he was lying on being slowly lifted into the air. Through the slits of his slightly opened eyelids, he could see the wrinkled face of an old man looking at him with full pity.
The old man then muttered something about a letter and parents who abandoned him. Arthur listened carefully to every word the man spoke.
A burden far heavier than a mountain suddenly fell upon Arthur's chest. Realizing that the old man truly thought he was an abandoned baby, a bitter reality struck his consciousness mercilessly.
'What... what have I done...' Arthur whispered softly in his mind, his voice laden with a profound sense of guilt.
Now he understood. He wasn't merely thrown into the wrong world. His soul had snatched away a body. He had stolen a life that should have belonged to an innocent baby, replacing it, and erasing that poor baby's right to breathe the air of this world. His knightly oath to protect the weak seemed to collapse instantly, stained by a sin he had never even desired.
As Grandpa Jack turned around and carried him along the footpath under the moonlit world, the baby's emerald eyes stared despondently at the old man's back, hiding the sorrow of a King trapped in guilt.
(Additional Note: For your information, the storyline of this fanfic will mostly refer to the Donghua version of Douluo Dalu, rather than the Novel or Manhua version. I have already designed the scenario for how Tang San's enmity and hatred toward Arthur will develop. However, for those of you who read the novel or manhua and know specific details that could further ignite the conflict between them, please feel free to share your ideas in the comments section!)