The Dawn of the New World

His body was the same but his mind, that was a different story altogether.

Hao Xuan opened his eyes to the same scene for the 16th time in the span of a little over 10 minutes.

Although he looked normal on the outside, the light within his eyes had diminished by quite a large margin. His pupils that were a shade of bright green under normal circumstances now had a tinge of dark blue mixed in.

*Beep*

'Irregularities Observed within the EEG Scans.'

'Abnormal Brainwave Patterns Detected.'

Baracus's notifications fell on deaf ears. Hao Xuan was already in a world of his own.

"Nothing works. I try to leave, death. I try to run, death. I try to find the others, death. I try to hide, death. No matter what I do, it's always the same result, death, death, and more death."

No matter how stubborn, how rational, or sensible a person was, coming face to face with death always changed them even if it was in a small, indistinguishable way. But actually EXPERIENCING it, the process of seeing the end of one's life not once but a great number of times over and over again, how could it not change a person?

Even if you knew you could come back, would you still choose to go through the pain of death repeatedly?

Hao Xuan experienced fifteen different ends in a matter of minutes and it had obviously taken a huge toll on his psyche. He kept mumbling to himself with vacant eyes while ducking left and right in strange poses to avoid the attacks of the Nightmare Hounds without even looking.

After so many attempts he had basically memorized their attack patterns which were obviously the same each time.

"Two, maybe three more minutes if I'm lucky. After that the temporal field will fade away and there won't be another," he muttered absentmindedly.

Hao Xuan could feel the temporal energy waning with every passing second and from what he could tell, it was obviously not going to last much longer.

The four-leafed clover pattern on the side of his brain that was responsible for this ability in the first place was an automated response that was not under his control. It was more like a reflex than anything else at this point and once the energy field was fully depleted, it would need time to recharge.

Hao Xuan had no idea how long it would exactly take but as long as one of the leaves was withered, it would not happen.

Perhaps if he had more control over his body he would be able to collect more information about this ability from his blood and DNA but as the saying goes, if "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, wouldn't it be such a merry little Christmas?

Wishing for something that was not in the books was useless.

The handful of seconds Hao Xuan had to actually make an effort passed while he was lost in thought and like the dozen or so times before, he looked to the right out of habit and saw Tasgall running towards him waving his hand.

The same anxious expression that was now basically burned into Hao Xuan's retinas appeared on Tasgall's face.

"Just stop....okay? Go, go back," Hao Xuan waved his hand, shooing him away.

Every time Tasgall saw him, no matter how bad of a situation Hao Xuan was in Tasgall always came to his aid. And every single time he either died with him or soon after.

"I'm a little tired, okay? Just...let me sleep for a while...next time, I'll try next time," he whispered to himself as he was turning around when a new sound that he hadn't heard before reached his ears.

He looked back and saw Tasgall's impaled body being lifted up into the air. Tasgall had no idea what was happening even as he looked into Hao Xuan's eyes for the last time before the cold grasp of death took hold.

The Bird Ether beast's talon retracted back towards its body, bringing Tasgall with it.

Hao Xuan followed the trail of blood through the air, watching speechlessly as Tasgall's body was brought to the beast's beak before being swallowed whole. And it was only then that he noticed for the very first time, the oh-so-human leering expression on its 'face'. (Reference Image in authors notes and discord)

Out of the four pairs of eyes, three pairs were focused on Hao Xuan as it slowly munched on Tasgall's body, looking right into Hao Xuan's eyes.

This was the first time something like this had happened. Hao Xuan always died first or was at least mortally wounded.

"Why..." he asked but got the answer as soon as he met its eyes.

It looked...happy? It was taking pleasure not from devouring Tasgall but from the reaction Hao Xuan was giving.

"Hahahaha!"

***

Authors Notes:

All images are posted in the Official Discord.

Link: https://discord.gg/AHdSBFQ

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Reference Image Link: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a8/b2/f9/a8b2f99efe9869f916c39a857ae66892.jpg

Shortened Image Link (case sensitive) : https://urlzs.com/bF4wq