"What is this place...?"
Flames crackled and burned, sparks danced through the air, and the twisted waves of heat blurred the scene before him. It looked like a street—not a wide one—paved with flagstones and marked by two grooves for carriage wheels. On either side stood blazing brick-and-stone buildings two or three stories high, though most had been reduced to skeletons.
The sounds of buildings collapsing came now and then, along with the sounds of slaughter, the desperate screams of people, their pleas and curses. Flames that reached the sky dyed the horizon fiery red, while smoke and dust rose into the air, forming thick black clouds.
"Is this Winomar...? Brags...?"
"Why is this happening?"
His mind was hazy, as though countless voices were lingering within it. They sounded like loud conversations and quarrels, yet also like soft confessions that prattled on without end. Sometimes they belonged to men, sometimes to women, and sometimes to old people or children.
"Shut up! Shut up!"
Tester shook his head and shouted.
Sure enough, all the voices fell silent.
Then he saw another scene: a pitch-black, empty world. There seemed to be solid ground beneath his feet, and a group of people in white robes, glowing with a faint light, were walking forward. They had neither faces nor hair, and he seemed to be following them against his will.
"Tester, Tester!"
A ghostly voice called his name through the void.
That voice brought back memories of his childhood. In the countryside of Winomar, he had hidden in a stable while his wet nurse called his name through a thin wooden wall.
Then the door was violently shoved open, and he saw the face that often appeared in his dreams—the face he least wanted to remember. His nominal father, Duke Golan-Elson. Just as in