Shadow Slave/// Oldest Dream

Caucasian Mountains.

Klaus stood atop Mount Elbrus, the highest peak of the Caucasus, his gaze sweeping across the land below. Once, this region had been called the heart of Europe's crossroads — where East met West, where empires clashed, and where the earth itself seemed to remember every drop of blood spilled upon it.

Now, it was silent. A graveyard of history.

The scars were everywhere — carved into the earth by orbital strikes, seared into the soil by nuclear fire, and lingering in the poisoned winds left behind by chemical and biological warfare. Europe had always been a battlefield, but in the end, it had become something worse — a monument to extinction.

And here, caught between the Black Sea and the Caspian, lay the Caucasus — ancient land of warriors.

Klaus stood still for a moment, feeling the weight of history pressing down on him. This was the birthplace of legends. A land that birthed some of the fiercest, most indomitable fighters the world had ever known. Georgians, Ossetians, Circassians — men and women who stood against empires a hundred times their size, and still won.

"True warriors," Klaus murmured.

There was something almost sacred about this place. The old records claimed the land itself had been blessed — watched over by the Holy Mother, the Virgin Mary herself. Whether that was truth or myth hardly mattered now. There were no more prayers rising from this soil. Only silence.

More than two thousand years of history, wiped away.

The people who once lived here — those who fought for freedom with tooth and nail, with sword and fire — they were almost entirely gone. And for what? For the right to choose their own path. Klaus could understand that. In a world like this, freedom was priceless.

He closed his eyes for a breath, then stepped forward off the summit.

Gravity embraced him, and he fell — a streak of black slicing through the sky. The cold air howled past his ears, volcanic heat rising to meet him. Elbrus's twin summits, once dormant volcanic domes, had awakened during the Dark Ages, vomiting smoke and ash into the heavens.

Klaus twisted mid-air, looking up through the haze. The sky was bruised, darkened by the constant eruptions. Ash clung to the wind like ghostly fingers, reaching toward him.

He sighed.

Then he vanished — a flicker of distorted space — reappearing lower, closer to the ashen earth.

"This land deserved better," he muttered, before disappearing once more.

Klaus needed to reach the Black Sea — from there, a ship could take him to what was left of Ukraine, and from there, into the heart of Europe. Simple plan on paper. In reality? Not so much.

The skies were far from empty.

A low, guttural screech cut through the air, followed by the rustling buzz of wings — a sound no human should ever grow used to. Klaus glanced over his shoulder and saw them — a swarm of nightmare creatures breaking through the ash clouds, trailing after him like vultures scenting blood.

He narrowed his eye and vanished — folding space and reappearing right behind them, falling in reverse, face to face with the closest one.

"Limitless."

The air bent around him as gravity itself twisted at his command, his weight multiplying in an instant. His fist drove forward — a simple punch backed by impossible force — and the creature's head exploded like a rotten fruit under a hammer, flesh and blood bursting in all directions.

Chunks of exoskeleton, dark ichor, and sizzling venom splattered across the sky. Klaus grinned.

"Really? Can't a guy enjoy a peaceful skydive without you ugly fucks ruining it?"

The swarm reacted — their stingers gleaming, venom dripping like molten metal. These things were big, each one nearly three meters tall, twisted mockeries of insects, with segmented carapaces and wings that buzzed loud enough to rattle bones.

Klaus rolled his shoulders.

"Alright then... let's dance."

He vanished again, appearing above the swarm this time, both fists coated in pale white light.

"Breaker."

Gauntlets of cold steel shimmered into existence around his hands — jagged and brutal, forged for one purpose only. To break. To shatter.

The closest creature lunged, its stinger shooting forward like a spear. Klaus caught it barehanded, Breaker's enchantments flaring to life as force rippled through the gauntlets. He twisted sharply — snapping the stinger off at the base — before driving his knee into the beast's thorax. The carapace cracked like glass, and the creature tumbled, screeching all the way down.

Another came from above, mandibles wide, venom spraying in a fine mist. Klaus teleported behind it mid-attack, his fist slamming into the back of its skull with enough force to send it spinning out of control, crashing into its own kin.

One by one, they came — and one by one, he broke them.

The sky was a storm of blood and shattered wings, Klaus moving through it like a ghost, his laughter echoing between the cracks of bone and ruptured flesh.

"This is why I hate flying economy!"

The last creature tried to flee, its survival instincts kicking in too late. Klaus raised his gauntleted hand and let Breaker absorb the energy from all the blows it had taken so far — storing it like a battery. The gauntlets hummed, veins of crimson light pulsing across the metal.

"Here... catch."

He hurled the stored energy as a single blast — a shockwave of pure destruction — catching the creature mid-flight. It disintegrated before it could even scream.

[You have slain awakened monster, Ashwing.]

[Your Spirit Becomes More Chaotic]

[You have Slain Awakened Beast...

[You have slain...

Klaus hovered in the air for a moment, cracking his neck. He turned his gaze toward the distant Black Sea, around 190 miles...

"Time to catch a boat... I can't waste too much essence.

___

Klaus moved like a shadow through the ruined remnants of Europe, the landscape a haunting reflection of a past civilization consumed by war, greed, and devastation. The Caucasian Mountains were far behind him now, the jagged peaks fading into the distance as he pressed forward. His destination: the Black Sea, a route that should've taken no more than a few days. But nothing in this forsaken world came easy anymore.

The land between him and his goal was a wasteland, cursed by the nightmare creatures that now roamed freely. Without the presence of Awakeneds to keep the horrors at bay, this place had become a haven for creatures that defied reason and sanity. A land where the dead walked, where monstrous abominations ruled, and where every step could lead to death.

The air smelled of ash and decay. The once-proud forests were now twisted, burned ruins, their skeletal remains reaching toward the sky like desperate hands. The ground cracked open in places, revealing smoldering fissures that bled toxic smoke. Klaus moved with practiced ease, stepping lightly over the shattered earth, his Awakened Ability allowing him to cross vast stretches of land in seconds. But even with such power, he could never afford to be careless.

The first night after leaving the mountains, he'd stumbled across a pack of six-legged, four-eyed wolf-like creatures, their bones distorted and armored like they had been sculpted by the earth itself. Their growls vibrated the ground beneath him, but Klaus was no fool. He knew the moment they caught his scent, a battle would be inevitable. That's why he was moving while his clothes and body were full of dirt and blood.

Just keep moving, just keep moving.

The path he had chosen cut through dense fog. He could see the creatures in the mist and he could hear their grotesque movements — the way their heavy bodies scraped against rocks and the ground.

For the next few days, the only sounds were the crunch of his boots on dead leaves and the occasional distant screech of something monstrous. As he passed through a dark, hollowed-out valley, the stench of death hung in the air. A massive carcass of some creature lay half-buried, its once-formidable size now reduced to a putrid husk. Klaus glanced at it only for a moment before his attention was drawn to the shadow moving across the cliffs above him.

It was the giant centipede. The thing was massive, its body stretching easily over sixty meters long, its segmented form undulating like a grotesque wave of flesh. It made no noise as it moved, its hundreds of legs shifting through the jagged rocks with unnatural precision. Klaus didn't hesitate. He vanished in a blink, reappearing further along the path as the beast crawled past him, too intent on its own pursuit to notice him.

The days grew longer. Each new threat made it clearer how much he was pushing the limits of his ability. Even with Key Of Light, teleportation drained his cores more than he cared to admit. The land was endless, and the horrors never ceased. Venomous, three-headed serpents with eyes that glowed in the dark slithered through the underbrush, their hiss sharp enough to make the ground tremble. But again, Klaus didn't engage. Fighting was useless waste of time.

When the humanoid monstrosities came into view — those abominations with arms so long they trailed through the dirt, their faces smooth, featureless except for the grotesque mouths that opened from their stomachs — Klaus froze for a heartbeat. These creatures were far more dangerous than anything he'd encountered thus far. Their movements were slow, deliberate, but their strength was unimaginable. The sheer size of their limbs, dragging them across the earth like an unholy tide, was enough to instill fear in even the bravest of men.

I'm not stupid, Klaus thought as he observed from a safe distance. I'm not fighting damned corrupted Tyrant...

He continued to move, zigzagging through the land with the precision of a seasoned hunter, carefully avoiding the monsters when he could and using the vast space between them to his advantage. The land had become a labyrinth of predators, each more twisted than the last.

Weeks passed, and Klaus hadn't engaged a single one of the major threats. He had killed a few smaller creatures, sure — the occasional imp or lesser abomination that crossed his path but even that was dangerous because fight could attract attention of other Abominations.

By the time he reached the Black Sea, Klaus was running on fumes, his energy reserves barely holding out. He could hear the distant crashing of waves against the shore, but it felt as though the land itself was closing in on him.

Above, the sky darkened, and the howls of something monstrous echoed through the night. But Klaus didn't care. He had made it. The Black Sea was just within reach.

"One step closer," he muttered under his breath, disappearing into the night once more, leaving the horrors of the Caucasus behind.