A dream's dark curtain, swarthy and murky like a bottomless abyss, enveloped everything in view.
It encompassed his mind in a pure, unfettered darkness.
It was indescribable, a dream produced not from human imagination, but from a fantastical power not yet revealed to this world.
A young fellow floated in this lonely dream, with cold hands and feet. This young man had long attempted to comprehend his dream with every passing night, to no avail. The only thing he could barely even understand about this unknown realm was the words that it spoke.
"At the end of Twilight's Dawn, the world will be renewed."
In every passing dream he had, it was always these few words that were said first, and these words were spoken with intensity and unfeeling viciousness far beyond anything a human could conjure.
"The rise of the new echelons of power shall initiate, and worlds shall fuse."
"With the power of the almighty, the Primordial Deities will shrive the lost ones clean of sin and sanctify the hearts of all."
"In turn, they will gain access to the powers of the Spirit Realm."
He had heard these familiar words repeatedly ever since he was five years old, and yet, despite not knowing what they meant, they always managed to make his heart tremble, and this time around, he felt a particularly terrible feeling.
As if, on this day, these words would finally come true.
However, the young man wondered how these words, which spoke of the world's shattering and renewal, could ever be true. This strange dream had frozen him in place and swamped him in some peculiar dark matter, forcing him to listen to its obscure words every single night. But, who was to say that it wasn't just the cause of some scientific experiment at an underground lab nearby?
Since the dream usually ended after this point, he expected to wake up at any second now. However, the dream spoke a few more words, which haunted him the second it was said. These words carried an ominous power that could spill fear into the most tempered of soldiers and the most fearsome of warriors.
"This is a warning, Star of Promise. You are marked and destined to climb the Branches of Destiny, but you are also destined to lose your humanity."
"For the sake of the Skies Beyond, you will be a Cocoon that holds the key to the truth. You will be the "gift" that this world needs."
The new string of words suddenly ceased, and terrifyingly so in the eyes of this young man. Those new words symbolised something different. Meaning that this was a sign of dark change. Soon enough, a new era would dawn upon them all.
The abyss that was contained within this false dream shattered, and shards containing memories scattered across this young man's mind. His corporeal self was being warped to extremity and in an instant, he found himself back in real life.
It took a while for him to readjust to reality after such a bizarre experience, and as his eyes fluttered, he got used to the sight of his room again.
He lay on his bed flat, with a flickering lightbulb dangling above him. In front of the bed, was a wooden desk and a mirror, with two books laid out on it. And then, across that desk was the door, while, next to it was a wardrobe and a small wooden stool.
"…That was weird." The young man said, with glimmers of otherworldly light in his eyes.
"…Heh. But… I feel like I'm a little bit closer to finding out whatever's going on with my strange dream!" He yelled triumphantly.
This young, fifteen-year-old was called William, William Dane. And he was just an ordinary, young man in the 21st Century, with aspirations far beyond what he could manage. You see, he wanted to become a powerful fighter. Not like the soldiers of the Royal Army or the U.S. military or anything, but he wanted strength that no human in real life could possess.
This young man, who attended a British academy like many others, often liked to pretend within his imagination that he was a character within one of the novels he read often. "Divine Descent", the book was called. William often acted as if he was the protagonist of some book that he read from time to time, a character called the "Sun Lord", Tan Xuan.
This main character was about the same age as him in appearance, yet the difference between them was that William was scrawny and nerdy, yet dumb at the same time, while someone like Tan Xuan wielded absolute power.
He had always liked stories like those, ever since he was young. He had enjoyed the main characters overpowering the world. Perhaps that was also the reason why he called himself a "chuunibyou" or an "ikiri otaku", which he didn't know was quite similar to calling himself an edge lord. Though he did indeed act like an edge lord at times, however, nowadays he wasn't as bad as he was before.
"…Blast… I have to go to school tomorrow…"
William groaned and stood up from his bed swiftly, before falling back down onto it. The single utterance of the word school sent shivers down his spine. But, he knew that today was going to be a busy day, so he rose back up again and prepared to go out into the sun.
He walked over to his wardrobe, quickly dressed in casual clothes, and then walked by his desk to inspect himself in the mirror.
His messy, jet-black hair that almost covered his eyes was currently messier than ever, and combined with his blue-fiery eyes that he said could pierce through the darkness like a phoenix, he looked perfect, magnificent, even. However, his scrawny, skinny body and his unusually wide grin downgraded his looks by a little.
And so, he walked outside his sleeping mother's home and into the daylight that brightened up the busy Hayward Street. Despite all the commotion around, the city, Vatein, was known as an extremely safe place to live in, among the top safest areas in the country.
But, due to the senseless, edge lord kind of mind that he had, William despised that kind of safety.
Nonetheless, he wasn't here to burn holes into the peaceful environment and scenery, instead, he needed to go to Shepherd's Grove, a small forest just beyond the city.
You see, the reason why he needed to go was because he was truthfully meeting with his girlfriend on this ordinary kind of day.
Someone who liked him because of his edgy behaviour, since she was the only one who knew that he was an interesting guy underneath that facade.
And, his girlfriend, Sarah, was the one who turned him into who he is today. And that was a good thing because, at the time she met him for the first time, he was nearing hellish territory with his pretend-edginess. During those years, he had even once pretended to harm himself just to prove he wasn't just an edge-lord.
However, even he knows now that was a horrible decision to make. And, day by day, he had slowly begun to get over his eighth-grader syndrome.
"Taxi… taxi…!"
He looked around for a nearby taxi to take to Shepherd's Grove and found one just a few paces away. Using some of his leftover pocket money from the week before, he paid the taxi to take him there, and following nearly a 1-hour trip, he arrived at the forest destination, with a large grin on his face and a fistful of flowers that he picked up from the ground nearby.
"Hopefully… this time I can finally make up with her! I don't know if she's still angry at me or what, but even I, who considers myself to be an extraordinary protagonist, must back down from time to time."
"So, where is—"
A single snowflake drifted down slowly from the skies above. William quickly noticed this and was confused. How could it be snowing in the middle of June, and out of nowhere, at that?
The sky seemed to glint slightly, and a frozen wall of ice covered it in a matter of seconds, sending William sprawling out of shock, from both the incredibly freezing-cold breeze and the sudden, extremely drastic change in weather.
"What the crap, heck, damn!?!" He stammered, staring at the frozen skies with shock horror, as well as awe.
Something like this was beyond anything he could ever even imagine. The only thing that could surpass this would be an icy greatsword forged from permafrost, heading for him at high speeds, right now…
A few seconds passed, and William couldn't feel anything, despite him having noticed a strange object flying towards him just a moment ago. But then, he caught wind of a few droplets of blood, dripping from his left side.
He slowly turned his head, and eventually came to realise that his entire left arm holding the flowers had been sliced off instantly, while a chunk of the left part of his body was frozen in a peculiar kind of solid ice that completely numbed the pain.
William couldn't even scream or shout, as the numbness and shock overwhelmed his senses. His eyes then caught sight of the powerful frame of a figure approaching, with hair as pale-white as snow, and eyes more cruel and cold than anyone from this world.
"Twilight's Dawn will fall upon us at any second… so, don't you think it's time you reveal your abilities to me, junior?"