Chapter 188 - The...Future?

When he came to, Cecil found himself lying down on a pile of rubble. His body was aching as the pain finally kicked in.

When he took a closer look at his body, he found that he was injured with many ghastly wounds. There was a hole in his stomach where his bowels were practically spilling out of and he could see his arms and legs also having wounds where the bones on his body were eerily visible.

It would be impossible for him to survive if a powerful shaman didn't come along and heal his wounds.

Cecil began to panic. The pain was too real and even though he knew this was an illusion, the feeling of being on the brink of death scared him.

"H-help! Help!!" He shouted coarsely in a panic.

But his shouting only served to aggravate the wounds even further. He gritted his teeth and tilted his head upwards.

What came into his eyes was a sky that was dyed a deep red. It wasn't like the skies of Alterna or Earth. It was ominous and oppressive.

When he focused his eyes a little, he could finally see the multiple Elves, Merfolk, Beastmen, Beastkin, Gigantes, and even Humans, fighting alongside each other against...some sort of weird looking monsters.

It wasn't like the monsters on Alterna. These monsters had a sleek black body with sharp, sword-like arms and legs. Their faces were also twisted, but Cecil could still make out the eyes, mouth, nose, hair, and ears of the creature.

When he looked down on his wounds, he finally noticed the holes punctured in his body might have been caused by the sharp, sword-like appendages of the monsters high up in the skies.

"What the hell?"

Cecil turned his head to the side and he widened his eyes in horror. The scenery that came into his eyes was...a battlefield full of corpses.

Corpses of the monsters he saw earlier up in the sky and the corpses of all the native races of Alterna.

Finally, his sense of smell kicked in.

"Ugh..."

Cecil wanted to vomit as the strong, foul stench of blood and corpses assaulted his nose. But only pain was transmitted from his abdominal region.

'Oh yeah, I have a whole in my stomach...but...'

"What the hell is this?!"

Even though the scene around him was appalling, Cecil didn't avert his eyes. He glanced at every corpse around him, trying to find if his friends were amongst them. To his gratification, Cecil didn't find any of his friends amongst the piles of corpses.

He also noticed that the corpses of Alterna's native races were much more numerous than the twisted, black sword-limbed monsters.

Actually, the monsters didn't only have sharp sword-like limbs. There were also some that had axe, scythe, hammer, and cannon-like limbs.

What was common on every one of these corpses was that they're heads were all severed and they didn't ooze out any kind of blood, but instead some rotten pus-like substance that also had a very disgusting smell.

"Y-you over there! Are you alive?!"

A voice called out to him and Cecil struggled to make a sound.

"Y-yes—ahack, gahack!" Just raising his voice caused him to cough up blood. His injuries were worsening and he would probably soon die.

"Ohh shit...this sure is scary..."

He heard hurried footsteps approach him. A beautiful elf woman with light green hair appeared in his vision.

"G-great! Your still alive! Wait a moment—" The elf lady began to chant and quickly cast a healing spell. "—Rejuvenate!"

A light green aura began to pour into Cecil from the lady's outstretched hand. As the green aura poured into his body, Cecil could feel all the wounds on his body quickly close and heal back up.

'Woah! What kind of healing spell is this?!'

On Alterna, this kind of healing spell would most likely be ranked as Ancient or even God-tiered. Most of the shamans' healing spells would only close small wounds or stop the bleeding from large open wounds.

Then, they would have to use a supplement spell to close the large wounds and it would take a long time for them to do so. However, the spell that the Elf Woman just used on Cecil was able to quickly and easily close up all of Cecil's wounds while simultaneously heal them!

Whether they were the fatal looking ones or the small cuts on his body, when the healing spell finished, Cecil still felt a little weak and lethargic, but he already had enough strength to stand up on his own.

"Great! You're okay now...hurry we have to get back to the World Tree! Restock on supplies so we can quickly come back and help with the battle!"

Cecil remained silent and only nodded his head. Return to help? He almost died, yet this lady was telling him to hurry back into the battle after resupplying?

'What the hell...'

Cecil could only follow behind the lady. As they moved through the field of corpses, the elf lady was able to save a couple of more people. Beastkin, Elves, Humans, it didn't matter what race, as long as they were alive, the Elf Lady, who Cecil finally found out that her name was Melanie, administered her healing magic and saved them all from the brink of death.

The boy was also very surprised at the reverence and respect that the healed up people gave to the woman. It turns out that she was a 'Saint'.

And she was with this era's Hero Party. The new term was something Cecil couldn't comprehend.

'...am I...missing something here?'

Cecil could only follow along after the now large group of revived warriors and mages. While on the way towards the World Tree, Cecil feigned amnesia and he was able to acquire some information from the saved people.

By the time the group arrived at the World Tree, Cecil finally found the details and information he needed. First of all, all the races of the world were currently at war with an unknown species.

The prominent figures of every race called them the Fallen. They originated from the center of the Non Continent. The legend about a large meteor falling onto Alterna and decimating the Non Continent turned out to be true.

The impact of the meteor had only decimated the landscape of the continent, but the absence and destruction of the mana that could have been used to heal the continent was the results of the Fallen Race that fell along with the meteor.

They were an extra-terrestrial entity that invaded Alterna. They had unique characteristics of being able to corrupt the environment and literally destroying the natural mana of Alterna.

'So...this is the past?'

At least, that was what Cecil thought, but then he had to deny the thought.

'Why would the World Tree show me a realistic vision of the past when the administrator clearly said that this was a future that the World Tree had predicted...?'

He was puzzled. If this was the future... then how come the Alternian races...were losing? Cecil noticed that the Fallen were a barbaric race and they seemed to have no intellectual will. They only fought and killed based off of their instincts.

They were no different from monsters. Heck, even some monsters with high Mana Cultivation Stages had more intelligence than these...slaughter puppets.

If these things' power was only limited to this, then he would have no problems destroying the entire horde of Fallen that he saw high up in the sky.

But instead of him being in the sky and destroying them, he was helplessly sprawled on the ground nearly at the brink of death. He also noticed that his body wasn't actually his body.

It was like his spirit had come to possess another person and he was only an observer. It didn't matter if he died back there because his spirit wouldn't so he could have just moved onto another body and possess it.

He wanted to try that, but it seems that once he's possessed a body, he wouldn't be able to freely exit it. Cecil had to wait until the body perished before he could go and possess another one. The problem was that the sensations a normal body should have, he would experience it in full despite only being a spirit.

That means the pain, fear, anger, and other emotions that the body felt, he too would also feel. Just like earlier when he was mortally wounded, the pain he felt was real and the thought of him dying had also scared him immensely.

He didn't want to try and go 'kill' himself just so that he could go and possess another stronger body. He might not die, but Cecil felt as if something in his soul might die along with the possessed body.

The heroes that he had learned from asking around were actually just normal people who had gained the blessings of each continent's guardian deities.

Namely, the World Tree Urrugdrasil from the Urrugdrasil Continent, the Magi-tech Spirit Kur'kanish from the Midgard Continent, the Daemon Goddess Hella of the Helaife Continent, the Spirit Queen Freya of the fairy continent Faerholm, and finally the Artic God Azurong of the northern Aizlandia Continent.

The heroes were also accompanied by the Elven Saint, Melanie, who was also Urrugdrasil's Prophet, the Five Sacred Guardians, and lastly, the last living Ancient from the Non Continent.

As for how many heroes there were exactly, Cecil couldn't find out. He assumed that there would only be around 6-8 since the people did say the heroes' 'party'.

'Well, if this IS the future, I'm surprised I'm not in it!'

Although Cecil couldn't find the names of the heroes, he did however, acquire the descriptions of the heroes. None of them resembled him or any of his friends.

'Future me~ what the hell are you doing? There's an awesome fight happening right now and you're not here~'

The thought of him dying hadn't crossed his mind. Actually, it did, but he profusely denied such negative thinking.

'Ah! The sure-fire way to actually know if this is the future or not, would be to just ask what year it is! Gosh, how could I be so stupid?'

Cecil immediately perked up. He walked over straight to Melanie.

"Saintess! Could I ask what y—"

Just before Cecil could continue asking, his consciousness was immediately cut off and he fainted once again.