Way of the Knights

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Luna abruptly woke up from her sleep. 

Her beautiful face was filled with sweat and her chest was heaving as she gasped for air. She was a bit pale as she remembered what just happened. 

She just dreamt about something really terrible. 

At first she saw a deranged and deformed man, screaming in pain. He doesn\'t seem to be suffering from physical pain but rather something else entirely. She could hear him constantly grunting and cursing at someone. 

The deformed man was surrounded by people wearing black robes, which struck some form of familiarity to her for some reason. They were trying their best to ease the deformed man\'s pain but what ever they do, the pain wasn\'t stopping. Some of them left and came back with silver trays on their hand. As soon as the platter was revealed, Luna felt her heart grow cold. 

The platter was filled with carcasses of humans. 

Luna retched by the dream didn\'t end there. The deformed man devoured the human flesh, and based from what she saw, he was gaining a little bit of strength every time he consumed human flesh, which is something that Luna couldn\'t understand. 

The pain didn\'t stop for the deformed creature but due to his meal, he was able to numb his senses and ignore the pain he was suffering. 

He then gave out strings of orders to his followers and the whole territory boiled in activity. The nightmare fast forwarded and to Luna\'s horror, it showed a battalion of Demonic Beasts and Black Robed humans marching towards somewhere. 

Their numbers exceeded millions, and the auras combined made for a very threatening force. 

All the way at the back of this enormous horde, the deformed human sat on the throne being carried by several men. His gaze was burning with anger and desire, while his aura alone was way beyond anything that Luna felt before. 

The nightmare ended with the deformed human making eye contact with her. She never felt so alarmed and threatened that it forced her to wake up from that nightmare. 

Luna shook her head and tried to tell herself that it was just a dream. She drank a glass of water and looked at the moonlit sky filled with stars. She sighed and accepted her fate that she might not going to be able to sleep after experiencing that. 

She changed her clothes and decided to go out for a brief walk. But as soon as she walked out of her room, she was surprised to see that almost every single one of the guards on duty were incredibly alert and somewhat jittery. 

"What\'s the matter? Did something happen?"

"Ah! Oh!" The guard almost jumped in surprise seeing her in front of him. It was clear that there was something weighing out his mind. He cleared his throat and said: "Pardon my inattentiveness, Princess. I just thought about something strange."

Luna frowned and found this behavior suspicious. She has a close relationship with these guards since they had been working for the Royal Family ever since she was a child. This is also why the guards here could freely speak their minds, of course without being impolite towards their benefactors. 

"Mind telling me what is this strange thought of yours?" Luna asked. 

"It\'s just something silly Princess. Don\'t pay attention to it." The guard replied, but looking at Luna\'s gaze, he felt that he couldn\'t escape this, so he explained: "Well, I just had a terrible daydream. It\'s like this…"

The more this guard told her about this daydream of his, the more somber Luna\'s expression became. The guard\'s daydream was extremely similar to her nightmare just now except for a few details. On his vision, he saw himself being eaten by a monstrosity. 

Luna was about to ask him more but the guards near them also heard this conversation and decided to chime in.

"Holy crap dude! I experienced that too just now! But unlike you, I was stabbed by some sort of poisonous spike!"

"I saw myself being beheaded."

"I became a puppet for the enemy."

Luna was astounded, heart turned cold and a grimace found its way to her beautiful face. The guard in front of her saw this and somehow understood…

"Heavens! Did you experienced it too Princess?" His outburst was heard by the other guards and they too were shocked. 

Luna sighed and nodded: "Yes, I did. But I didn\'t die. I just saw a very, very frightening existence leading those troops."

All the guards had an unnatural reaction upon hearing her say that. This specific event is just too coincidental. Granted that someone could be saying similar things to join the bandwagon, this is very unlikely due to the nature of their work. 

They didn\'t doubt Luna at all, since there literally no reason for her to lie to them. 

*Beep!*

Luna was startled upon hearing the beeping sound of her badge, she sighed and excused herself to receive the message sent to her. Upon opening the message, she saw that it came from Paul, it reads:

\'Holy crap, guys. I just got a really scary nightmare.\'

Luna\'s eyes widened at this point. Paul\'s message was sent to everyone in the team minus Raven, which means that if her guesses were right, then…

\'You had a nightmare too? That\'s weird.\' - Ellen.

\'I also got one.\' - Mark

\'Me too.\' - Anne

Luna\'s guess was on point. She then sent a message to them as well. 

\'It\'s not just us. Even the Royal Guards received the same. I think this is a sign. Let\'s inform Big Brother, though if my hunch is correct, then there will be no need for that as well. Just come here ASAP.\'

***

"So…" Balmung frowned as he drummed his fingers in the desk. "Aside from a few minor details, we all had experienced the same nightmare. Can everyone confirm this?"

The crowd around him nodded. Not only Raven\'s team was here, the rest of the Golden Knights were here as well as some of the influential people. 

Even the weakened King Alexander and Queen Elizabeth was here too. 

Every single one of them confirmed that they experienced the same dream just like the rest except for some minor details, pertaining towards their deaths. 

The atmosphere inside the King\'s office was solemn. They weren\'t expecting this kind of thing to happen at all. It was a strange phenomena but no one dared to slight it anymore. 

If it was only two people who dream about this, then it might still be considered as a coincidence, but when 10 or more people dream about the same thing at the same time? That could no longer be a \'mere coincidence\' anymore. 

"Could it be a sign?" Luna said after thinking to herself, catching the attention of the rest. "I mean, I have some speculations, but I can\'t be certain."

"Speak." Balmung urged. 

Luna cleared her throat and said:

"I think what we saw was glimpse of the future." She stated, drawing mixed reactions from the crowd. Thankfully no one interrupted her so she continued:

"I don\'t know when but I think someone\'s giving us a warning here. There\'s no doubt that we all saw a demonic beasts gathering and marching. So that means that we will face another Beast Horde, but at the scale that we\'ve never experienced before. I\'m talking about millions here, and their numbers are growing."

Most people inside the room started sweating nervously, some swallowed hard upon hearing her deductions but none said a word. 

"We also saw men in black robes. That to me, would be the forces of the Black Curtain Guild. We all know that some of the beast hordes that we experienced in the past were their doing. So it\'s not far-fetched to say that they might be gearing up for the final clash."

Many people sucked in cold air as she revealed this. Her words were now starting to make sense to them, but it brought them no joy.

"Whatever the result of this battle - no, this war, will be catastrophic." Luna paused and took in a deep breath. She then revealed her final piece.

"What worries me, is that deformed human we all saw." Her voice was a bit shaken at this point. "If the vision and my guessed were all on point, then that creature was something that will bring us the biggest headache."

"I\'ll admit it. Even with all of us here, I don\'t see any chances of us winning against that thing." Luna said, "Whatever that thing is, its repulsive aura and its strength is something that cannot be measured."

"That thing reminds me of the creature that Avi told us a while ago." She stated, "He called it Pale Bastard. And judging from what we saw, I\'d say it fits the name accurately."

The room descended in a very tense atmosphere as she finished talking, all of them had conflicting emotions about her deductions but none of them could say that she\'s wrong since everything she said made sense.

"How I wish I am wrong.." Luna sighed, "But no matter what happens, I think we should start preparing ourselves for the worst."