Teaser Chapter

To find a way back home

Jaune Arc knelt on the ashen ground of the battlefield he had so fiercely fought on. His legs throbbed with the dull but quite present pain of overuse. His golden greaves that guarded his legs were cracked and covered in blood and soot. The golden Pauldrons and Cuirass that used to shine so bright were stained with soot and cracked as they weighed him down. His right vambrace was split and half hung limply off of his bruised arms that hung at his side in his exhaustion.

His sword was shattered on the ground next to him. It's silver blade split in four on the ashen ground.

The sun was little more than a white orb faintly glowing through the clouds of ash that covered the lands. Massive gaping fissures carved through the land all around him. Countless dead bodies of men, women, demons, and monsters littered the ground for miles around.

This was the final battle. The war to define the future of the world, and The Light had lost.

Jaune's long golden hair fell around his face as he looked down at the ground in pain. He had grown strong ever since he had been transported to this new world to save it from the Demon Queen, yet he was not strong enough.

He was forty nine now, having spent over thirty years fighting for his partners in arms. Those thirty years had turned him from a Naive young idealist to a stern but fair Warrior. Yet what was it all worth? In the end, the world had still fallen to the Demonic forces and their monster hordes.

Thoom

Thoom

Thoom

The sound of the footsteps of a massive creature were heard in front of him as the ground shook and a massive shadow fell over him and the land. The loud sounds of a giant beast's breath drowned out everything else as hot breath washed over him.

Looking up from the ground, Jaune's sadness turned to an insane laughter.

He was face to face with a black dragon larger than a city that looked down at him from high up in the sky. It's burning red eyes like hot embers as they observed him. Against a foe like this, humanity could not survive. This was the Volcanic dragon Karthraxis. A dragon out of a nightmare. With one breath it could reduce a nation to cinders.

How was he to fight a beast like that?

It raised it's massive head as it gathered in it's power to wipe out everything on the battlefield with it's searing flames.

Then when all hope seemed lost the world became silent. Jaune didn't notice this at first until he looked up and saw everything was unmoving. Even the dragon was frozen still. It was like someone had hit pause on the world.

Then he heard the sound of soft footsteps walking up to him from behind.

Walking around to his front was a woman who stood a good three heads taller than his own impressive bulky six foot five frame, with black hair, chalk white skin, and a long flowing black dress that seemed to exude black smoke like energy as she moved. Her face was fair and beautiful and her yellow eyes filled with curiosity as she knelt next to him.

"It would be a shame to let you die like this. I can save you from this hell" She said to Jaune as she looked into his eyes. Her voice sweet and disarming. However, Jaune knew who this was. She was a being that rarely interfered with Humanity and only did so when there was much to gain. A being that made deals with the hopeless for a price that they would always regret.

The Witch of Time.

Aurora.

A woman who was once human but had ascended to godhood countless millennia ago, and now she had come to him with an offer.

He coughed out some blood as he tried to speak.

"What would you take from me If I were to" Jaune began to ask before he spit out another glob of blood in a fit of coughs.

However, he never got the chance to continue his question when she finished it for him.

"I would take your happiness and replace it with loneliness. You would get your second chance, yet you would walk the land for your life never to feel joy or comfort again. Tell me, world traveler, do you accept my offer?" She smiled warmly at him while saying such things. It was a smile of evil. However, he had no choice. If he wanted to save those partners and comrades in arms he had lived with and maybe one day far off in the future return home to Remnant, he would sacrifice it all.

"I accept your offer" Jaune said as he closed his eyes, savoring the last moment in his life he could feel happiness.

"Very well" She said before Jaune's world went black.