Amadan followed Aria through a dense force, his legs aching, his gloved hands fending off the vines, his eyes pointed to the scenery before him. It had been quite a time since they left the town with no horses and traveled on foot. They took a hitchhike with the merchants who were heading to a different place. Aria knew the way but refuses to talk about it. They found shelter and stayed, the white lance acting as a ward for both of them. When night came Amadan dreamed again.

“Slave!” said a woman’s voice. Amadan woke up in a desert watching a young man with a sword in his hands. There was a collar made of invisible runes around his neck.

“Fight, for your master,” the woman’s cold voice, her frozen stare, and the commanding voice for the young man. The young man’s face was blurred, and he was named slave.

The young man charges towards the horde of monsters, brandishing his sword, smashing it against the enemies. His movements sluggish, his stroke of the sword, barely keeping the monsters in check. His blade was jet-cutter that tore through the hides.

The woman stood alongside heroes who brandish their elemental powers to the fullest, acting as the source of power, a conduit made to guide the powers of the Gods to her. She embraced the powers and connected the powers to the heroes.

“Fight slave,” she said again.

The young man charged, tearing through the enemy, picking up a shield, and joining the shield wall, pushing through the enemies, and fighting as if he was a puppet. The rank-and-file soldiers cheered for the heroes, ignoring the slave, and brushing past his shoulders.

“Fight them,” the slave obeyed, despite his face. The slave fought through the ranks, jumping over enemy shield walls, using the runes he learned to blast a hole, allowing the cavalry to penetrate the deeper lines.

Amadan felt the despair of the soldiers. The odds that were stacked against them as they fight a sea of enemies that were unable to stopped. The horses plunge, the giants crash through the soldiers, and the heroes slaughtering thousands after thousands, only for more to come, and in the middle of it was a slave who fought madly, ignoring his wounds, brandishing his sword while tearing through the legions, the spear that pierces through the shield wall, allowing the soldiers to force their way in.

The battle continues for hours, and when night came, the beacon of light was the woman who controlled the slave, acting as a guiding light, forcing everyone to fight, for they know that it would be foolish to give up when the war maiden was still fighting.

The slave, the young man, laid on the ground. He was missing three of his fingers, and the light in his eyes was gone, and yet the voice called to him.

“Rise and kill, slave,” said a woman’s voice.

“I can’t,” said the slave. “Why you won’t let me rest, please, I beg of you.”

“You do not have time,” said the woman. “The time you rest is time wasted. What good are you other than a loyal dog that follows me everywhere I go? Isn’t this what you wanted? You said you’d do everything for me and yet here you are, exactly what you wanted and now you complain?”

“I need rest,” the slave begged. “I can’t fight, my ribs are broken, and I think my lung is punctured, please, let me rest, just for an hour.”

“No,” the woman demanded. “You will fight and open a way for the rest. You will obey me, slave.”

“You’re not hiding it any longer,” said the young man, rising from his position, brandishing his sword, faint, unsteady, and was barely as fierce as it looked before.

Forcing his body up, the slave sprinted, fighting the horde, letting his body become a victim of swords, spears, and arrows. Amadan could feel the slave’s pain, the wounds he was sustaining, and the hazy mind of the slave baffled Amadan. He could only watch and no voice would come out of his mouth. It was a dream, a strange yet cruel dream of a young man being forced to fight.

The young man fought until dawn, his arm below the left elbow was gone, and he was fighting with a sword tied around his right arm, allowing him to continue fighting.

When the young man was about to sleep, the woman’s voice calls out. It was a horrible cycle of being unable to rest. The man forcibly had his heart restarted, and his breathing forced by the rune around his neck, allowing him to continue fighting.

But when the stronger monsters appeared. The young man was beaten like a rag and was thrown to the side where he watched the heroes shove the enemies aside and the woman, whose face was devoid of mercy, looking at him, sunless skies behind her, and eyes pointed to him.

“You failed me, slave. I thought you wanted to follow me? Why are you lying there defeated? Stand, I still have use of you, I need to save this world, again.”
“Go to hell,” the slave said. “Let me die, please, just let me die. I don’t want to deal with the devil.”

The woman kneeled near the slave with her hands on his cheeks. “You say that but you never change, don’t worry, I will always find you, and you will always follow me like the dog you are. When will you impress me, my suitor?”

The young man gritted his teeth, and spat at the devil’s face, before the rune around his neck tore through his neck, and beheading the young man, his head, being kicked aside by the woman, who looked at the young man’s head with little care for it.

“You never learn no matter what timeline is this. I don’t need a dog like you who can’t even follow my order. I wonder how can the first love a dog like you.”

The head rolled, eventually being buried inside the throngs of corpses. Amadan woke up, the rain falling from the leaves and his heart thumping loudly.