30th of Season of Fire, 160th year of the 32nd cycle

  The path forward proved easier than expected. Even fifteen thousand miles into the jungle, the dragon exalt had kept her word. The Explorer’s Gate had encountered no saurians worth mentioning, even as they came across their first fifth realm manabeast.

  While Newt’s group and several of their neighbors fared well, the news of larger confrontations further apart had reached their ears. Either other saurian exalts controlled those areas, or Magmin’s daughter had a plan of her own.

  It was early dawn, and the group was preparing to leave. Newt and his fellow champions kept watch in the canopy, when a red flare shot into the air from the west. It was a red pinprick in the morning sky, invisible to most knights, but the tiny red dot glowed ominously in the champions’ eyes.

  “Get ready for battle!” Lord Darksong shouted, but the enemy was already upon them.

  Sparked by his shout, the quiet jungle instantly exploded. Leaves flew in clouds as dozens of cultists came flying at the Explorer’s Gate’s champions, trying to seize what little surprise and initiative they could.

  Newt shot towards them, racing behind the seventh realm exemplars. A quick scan told him they were outnumbered two to one.

  Eight at the seventh realm, eighteen at the sixth, sixty at the fifth. Exactly two to one, if they had counted me as a seventh realm combatant.

  The cultists had been watching them somehow, and they had come prepared.

  Lord Darksong and his two peers clashed with their opponents. The two remaining seventh realm madmen flew straight at Newt, summoning spears of blood and unleashing them in his direction.

  Newt dodged both attacks, and just as he was ready for the clash, a black blur shot out from the jungle. A metal staff slammed into the cultist’s head just as she mobilized all her mana to smash a crimson-glowing saber against Newt’s glaive.

  The woman couldn’t shift from offense to defense fast enough, and a single strike of the metal staff blasted her head to pieces.

  Her partner faltered. The man’s final mistake, as Newt’s glaive found his throat while the other cultist’s body still spasmed, struggling to stay alive despite the gruesome decapitation.

  Down below, Newt heard the lower realm cultists howl as they approached the Explorer’s Gate’s students, but they were still a mile away, and Newt had more pressing questions to ask.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked Dandelion.

  “More killing, less talking.” He shot towards Lord Darksong, and the battle snowballed in Explorer’s Gate’s favor.

  The seventh realm cultists died in half a minute, their sixth realm valiants followed, all dead less than a minute after the battle had started. In five minutes, the battle had ended, Dandelion’s surprise attack turning it into a counter ambush with minimal losses for the Explorer’s Gate, assuming one could call four dead fifth realm mages minimal losses.

  “What are you doing here? What of the Swordpeaks?” Lord Darksong asked.

  “I warned them and scribed some defensive spell seals on their behalf. They were prepared, and they should still be alive. Otherwise, they are dead, sacrificed so that the cultists can summon their dark god.” Dandelion showed no emotion as he broke the news, but Darksong and the rest frowned.

  “They what?”

  “They are summoning an outer god, a being from beyond this reality, by using people as sacrifices. Turns out that’s what they have been doing all these years, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. At least that’s what the cultist I tortured told me while screaming how the victory was theirs and how they would reclaim their rightful place. Crazy fuckers.”

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  Everyone stared at him in stunned silence, but Dandelion just kept talking.

  “I would retreat if I were you. You have completed your mission as bait, and the rest of the imperial forces will soon attack the cultists. Unfortunately, they will be too late to stop them from performing their rituals.” He then turned to Newt and addressed him specifically. “Newstar, we need to talk about something. You remember that time when my brother got you drunk and talked you into stabbing me dead? Yeah, we need to talk about that.”

  A dozen confused gazes landed on Newt, who frowned.

  When did—?

  It was a dream. The scary, realistic dream Newt had dreamt right before meeting Dandelion for the first time.

  Did I tell him about it?

  He couldn’t remember. He probably did, but he still nodded and followed Dandelion away from the group.

  “Start packing!” Lord Darksong shouted behind them. “We’ll carry our wounded, I’ll collect the dead…”

  With a few well-practiced strokes of his staff against the damp soil, Dandelion’s privacy screen sprang into being.

  “What does it have—?”

  “It wasn’t a dream, Newstar. You killed me, ran me through with that silly sword of yours, hurt like a bitch, but you don’t know what a bitch is, now do you?”

  Newt felt his hands tingle as if blood had drawn back from them. He could feel his face going pale as Dandelion kept talking.

  “I don’t mind. I’m close to immortal, closer than exalts, really, but in a different way. You see, when I die, I explode, and I go back in time two weeks, with all the knowledge of what will happen. That’s how I found you back when your order suffered the cultist attack. Searched half the border before we found you. But there’s a problem. The outer gods I mentioned just now know that time was turned back. Worse, they see a whole lot more than two weeks—”

  “Wait. Stop. What are you talking about?”

  Dandelion was silent for a moment, then chuckled. “Yeah, it must seem like nonsense to you. I’m not crazy, well, I’m not lying at least, and I ask that you trust me. I have everything written down for your benefit, but what you have to know is that the next two days we spend together won’t happen. Not really. You will benefit from them, you will remember everything that has happened, but in two days’ time you and me, we’re going back in time two weeks, and you have to do everything the same as you did this time round. You can’t warn anyone, because that would change what the cultists do, and that might make things worse.”

  Dandelion spoke slowly and softly, but each word landed like a boulder. Newt stopped listening and started recalling all his previous conversations with Dandelion, the impossible foresight, the speed and expertise with which he finished whatever he was doing.

  “Focus,” Dandelion raised his voice. “You can reminisce once the two weeks start over. Now, in two hours or so, the sun will dim, and something will come through the void and into this world. You’ll believe me then. Now, we have much to talk about, and only two days to go through it all…”

  Despite his brain experiencing six evolutions and enhancements, Newt struggled to follow what Dandelion was talking about. The words themselves weren’t difficult to follow.

  He wasn’t a man of Newt’s world. The original Dandelion Blackfist had died, and Dandelion had slipped into his body, like one would into used clothes. He studied, experimented, and grew in power as he did.

  He was just talking about how he had rebuilt his realm, explaining exactly how the realm worked, when he looked up and dismissed the barrier.

  “Come, everyone, you want to see this!” Dandelion shot up into the canopy, and the remainder of Explorer’s Gate’s champions followed him up.

  With a creeping feeling of dread, a golden crack appeared in the sky, far north, towards the empire.

  “She will need two days to reach us,” Dandelion said, but everyone was focused on the tear. Its metallic glow grew brighter, so bright, the sky seemed to go dark. Newt’s heart quivered when a giant eye looked through, as if peeping through a keyhole.

  The eye focused on them, then melted. Newt could find no better way to describe it; it melted and poured in through the crack, which shuddered and shook. Newt thought it would open up further following the violent black torrent, but instead it shrunk and kept shrinking as the foul blackness gushed into the world.

  Then, as suddenly as it came into being, the crack vanished and the world returned to normal.

  “That’s the second time I’m seeing that,” Dandelion said.

  “When was the first?” Lord Darksong asked, but Dandelion ignored the question.

  “It opened somewhere inside the empire, close to the border. She knows her prey is with the force the cultists have failed to sacrifice.” Dandelion looked at Lord Darksong. “I suggest you split up and scatter. They will probably hunt you down if you stay together, but if you disperse, some of you should survive long enough to meet up with the reinforcements.

  “Newstar, whichever group you join, they are dead meat, so you’re staying with me.”

  “What are you—” Lord Darksong started, but Dandelion shut him up with a glare before looking at Newt with warmth. “Please trust me. There’s a lot at stake, and we don’t have much time. She’s already hounding me.”

  Newt looked at his friend, then at Lord Darksong.

  “Please do as he says, Lord Darksong. I’m certain Dandelion means us no harm.”