Traces of the Distant Future II

??? POV Kathyln Glayder ???

Fear, that was the only thing that inspired me by the man with the mask behind the translucent red barrier, not because he gave a strong impression but because he seemed to have unfathomable confidence.

All the hairs on my body stood on end when the man approached Julian, yet Julian did not stop and continued to provoke him.

I was surprised, Julian had never been impulsive, on the contrary, his actions were very reserved and calculated.

But now he completely lost the focus of his eyes, the only thing I could see in them was rage and in the air around him you could clearly feel the desire to kill the guy named Draneeve.

After almost injuring him with his surprise attack, Julian entered slowly inside the barrier, his steps were full of a huge confidence, but right now I did not know if his strength would be enough to back him up against the man who was a few steps away from him.

At the same time a swirl of frost covered Julian and the air dropped several degrees around us, when I saw his figure again he was wrapped in an ice armor covered with frost that inspired emotion and took your breath away by the pressure it gave off.

Julian's apathetic gaze only made him look more refined, a beautiful ice sculpture that represented the hope of all the people trapped here.

Draneeve seemed to take Julian seriously, which filled me with relief to know that there were chances of winning this fight and bringing justice to the culprit of all this.

Everyone around focused on the combat that was about to happen, Julian took the first step and disappeared from his position.

A second later I heard the noise of crunches and saw Julian connect a cut to Draneeve's chest.

He, being surprised and without time to react, received the cut without any protection, causing him a wound in the chest.

"Aaaarrgghh", I heard Draneeve complain of pain.

"Bastard, you don't know who", said the wounded mage before something interrupted him.

He opened his eyes wide and showed a disgusted expression, "How dare you, you are just an insect for Alacrya", Draneeve shouted with fury as he launched a wave of flames.

Julian backed away while activating an ice barrier, for some strange reason he watched with too much attention the flames that his opponent had thrown.

As if there was something that only he noticed and to which he was extremely attentive, I tried to see what Julian could have found.

But it only looked like normal fire to me, Julian saw it for a few more seconds and made his move.

He created ice punches and threw them at Draneeve as he approached at a terrifying speed.

The response of the mage with the white mask was to retreat and launch another barrage of flames that were easily dodged by Julian.

When both were a few steps away Julian activated a wind current and disappeared from his position, now he was behind Draneeve, his movements were extremely fast and no one could follow them, only after a few seconds we could understand that he had moved.

From the back of his hand two crystalline claws extended that pierced the place where the core of the enemy mage was.

"Bastard, you know you just lost one of your limbs with what you did", I heard a whisper without strength from Draneeve.

Julian pulled the claws out of Draneeve's sternum and looked at the mages with black hoods inside the barrier, who now looked at him with terror.

After that there was a massacre inside the barrier, the mages who collaborated with Draneeve were pierced by spikes or ice claws, some had broken bones from the impact that Julian's blows generated.

Despite that no one said anything, everyone watched in silence Julian's actions, not out of fear, but out of satisfaction, for them this was a form of revenge.

After a few minutes Arthur arrived, who ran towards Julian who was determined to beat Draneeve's face over and over again, to the point that he became unrecognizable.

After Arthur managed to calm Julian down, the lances arrived and the result was even worse.

The lance Byron found the body of his brother outside the academy, he was dead, he also had deep sword cuts and lightning marks all over his torso.

He became furious and looked for the culprit, Julian, who was very close to fainting, received a lightning strike at point-blank range.

The lance Varay, seeing this, reacted and restrained the lance Bairon by force, we all ran towards the direction where Julian crashed to check his condition, he had completely lost consciousness.

When the emitters arrived and began to treat everyone, they told us that Julian was very weak, he had lost too much blood and that endangered his life.

At the same time on the other side they took Arthur under an order from the council, I also understood that they would have taken Julian if he was not unconscious.

I was annoyed and tried to protest, but the reaction of the lance Varay was distant and cold, completely opposite to when I see her deal with Julian.

I could only clench my fists and go back to see where they would move Julian, but I couldn't even do that because the royal guards came to take me with my parents.

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POV Silvia Indrath

I watched with sadness, as Julian in a fit of rage, massacred dozens of Alacryan soldiers and not content with that, he beat the face of that guy named Draneeve until it became a mass of unrecognizable flesh.

After seeing the following events I felt even more sorry for my two disciples and grandchildren, Julian, on the one hand, had used a fast movement technique that severely damaged one of his legs and took three whole weeks to wake up.

Arthur was captured and almost crippled by the council due to a betrayal by the dwarves, fortunately one of my father's servants stopped this and took him to train at my home in Epheotus.

However, I knew that this was not a sign of goodwill, but a leash that they placed on the people of Dicathen to make them submissive to the Asuras.

I hoped to continue seeing the next part of this strange series of events that does not match at all with what I knew, at least it was not the story I knew, but everything stopped as when I use the static void.

I looked strangely at this situation, everything around me had turned black and purple; my concentration was broken when I heard a soft voice behind me, "do you want to know more?"

My body became stiff and cold sweat ran down my back, due to the presence that emanated from the being that had just spoken to me, slowly I turned around and saw her.

A woman with horns and white hair, her amethyst eyes looking at me indicated that I could not hide anything from her sight, as if she knew everything, she was very similar to the people of my race, but her presence was not so suffocating, in fact it was the opposite, she was like an ethereal being that gave the impression of being and not being in front of me, an ephemeral existence that seemed divine.

I could not articulate any kind of word or thought, I was just distracted watching carefully the appearance of the other person.

It was like having fallen under a charm spell, that did not allow me to look away from her.

She smiled at me and said, "Don't get distracted".

After hearing that I felt the blood flow through my body again and nervously looked at the floor with my heart racing like never before, I was terrified; this being in front of me was able to disorient me just with her appearance.

"Don't be afraid, I'm not here to hurt you, but we don't have too much time." She spoke again.

Carefully, I lifted my gaze without ceasing to be alert and keeping all my mental defenses as high as possible.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"They are calling you back, if you don't return soon you will be trapped forever in this plane," she spoke again.

Return? Did Julian manage to bring me back? My eyes lit up quickly forgetting the chill sensation that the woman in front of me caused me.

"I'm sorry, can you help me? I don't know how to get out of here," I asked.

"I can, but I need your help to break the cycle," she answered.

"Cycle?" I spoke confused.

"We don't have much time, my efforts to intervene in the boy's fate and keep you here are limited, that's why I need your help," she spoke with a tone full of urgency.

"What do I have to do?" I asked.

After saying that the world shattered in front of me like a broken mirror, hundreds of images intermingled with each other showing many different situations.

But each and every one of them were about Julian, forming a path to a large fragmented piece far away from where I was.

"You have to run to the largest fragment, there is where the chance to free him from the cycle is presented," she answered.

"Free? Who? And what do I have to do when I get there?" I spoke with a tense voice.

"You will know what to do when you get there, hurry, we don't have much time," she said as her image became translucent.

I tensed my body and began to run along the path that the fragments of what were probably scenes of Julian's life had formed.

As I passed through what were hundreds of scenes, something caught my attention, many of the fragments seemed to share the same time space, but their images were completely different.

In one Julian was taught by Varay as I remembered; however, in the one next to it he was seen training with the woman named Astera, a little further away a mage with a cone hat and wind magic was the one teaching him, I even saw an Alacryan with long hair and black onyx horns patiently teaching the boy in secret in the clearings.

What is going on? Why are there different things from what I saw before?

I stopped my steps and looked carefully at the fragments of memories, until I finally understood what was happening, it was not the first or second time that Julian lived his second life.

I grabbed my chest with my heart completely accelerated, by what I had just discovered, I saw how Julian died in different ways.

As an experiment of Agrona after being captured, as a lance of Dicathen at the hands of the specters, pierced by the lance of an Asura while defending some refugees, by the hands of Arthur after being manipulated by Agrona, I kept seeing images of battle over and over again where he fell under the weapons of people like Cecilia, Nico, Cadell, Melzri names that I did not know and that I remembered.

The only thing they had in common was that shortly after Julian's death, the hundreds of hands always took something from his being, then they pulled his soul over and over again, restarting the cycle, seeing him suffer one, another and another time; with that I understood what the woman I spoke to a few seconds ago meant.

Like a criminal who is paying for his sins a perpetual sentence, Julian was forced to repeat the same life over and over again.

Different masters, different friends, different loves, different ways of living, different ways of dying, but above all different sufferings when losing his loved ones in each of his lives.

I brought my trembling hands to my mouth as tears began to run down my eyes, who did this? Who was ruthless enough to play like this with a person's soul?

"Don't get distracted," I heard the woman's voice alerting me again, we were very far apart from each other, but I clearly felt her intention.

I couldn't stop here, I had to keep going with that determination, I started running again while trying to see as many memories as possible, I wanted as much useful information as possible for the future.

Unfortunately, everything was from Julian's point of view, so many things escaped me or were confusing and incomplete.

Still, there were some conclusions I could draw with the little time and observation available on these memories, Julian's soul was changing as he lived over and over again, his personality or rather his center changed: what drove him, his beliefs, his despair, his determination everything was transforming.

I also deduced what they were taking away from Julian every time they brought him back, it was his memories every time he returned he lost all knowledge, the only thing they left was just a thin line to torment him in his nightmares.

In each of the lives, his power, calmness, joy and affection for the people he met were strengthened more and more, making him want to protect and save them with more passion than before, making him go further.

It was as if, despite losing his memories, he was gaining something every time he died, especially in one of his deaths at the hands of the girl named Cecilia, where they killed each other, something was deeply embedded in his soul and in his next life his skills took a new leap, he even used some skills that he showed me when we were together in the cave.

I wanted to see more, but a loud thunder sounded behind me, I turned my head slightly to see what was happening and I saw how this place was falling apart.

I sped up my steps and kept running increasing my speed, I had no time for anything else but to reach, the fragment of mirror a few meters from me.

When I was a couple of meters away I could see him, a baby Julian in a purple-colored space surrounded by hundreds of hands and where they came from there was a physically disgusting being.

It was a slime of purple and black colors with hundreds of translucent flashes like the starry sky, its size was comparable to that of Mount Geolus in Epheotus, it also had thousands of eyes running all over its body, as well as thousands of hands coming out of everywhere, it was like a malformation that only made me feel disgusted and nauseous.

I returned my gaze to Julian and the hundreds of hands that were surrounding him trying to do something with his soul, I knew I had to stop the cycle somehow.

But I wasn't sure how to do it; hesitating a little when I was in front of the fragment I didn't stop and jumped into that memory, surprisingly I was able to cross to that place where Julian was.

When I arrived I felt an immeasurable hostility directed at me, this hostility was at the level of Lord Aldir, it was a very powerful pressure.

Fortunately, it was nothing I couldn't handle, but I wasn't clear what kind of being would hate me so much when we were seeing each other for the first time.

The reaction of that being was to extend branches of Ether to capture me, unfortunately I still didn't know what to do to save Julian, I could only run in his direction begging for something to occur to me before I got to him.