The Dawn of the New World

Hao Xuan turned around while remaining seated on the coarse rocky ground.

The person in front of him looked exactly like the Gavril he knew but there was something off about him.

"This feels strange...." Hao Xuan mumbled looking at him.

It was a strange feeling of deja vu but he knew for certain that this was the first time they had met like this.

Gavril seemed genuinely surprised by Hao Xuan's comment and unknowingly broke into a smile.

Ever since Hao Xuan severed him all those months ago, this was the first time he had seen him smile.

"W-What?" Hao Xuan asked as an uncomfortable feeling took him over.

But Gavril answered his question with one of his own.

"How does it feel strange?"

Hao Xuan squinted his eyes, contemplating, trying to put that feeling into words but a few seconds later he shook his head.

"I don't know. It just doesn't feel 'right'. I can't really explain it."

Gavril's smile became even brighter.

"Looks like the tools that were gifted to you are even better than I imagined," he remarked.

Hao Xuan's expression turned somber. It felt like he was being played around with and it was not a good feeling.

"Enough games! Tell me what's happening, right now!" he growled in anger.

Gavril didn't seem to mind Hao Xuan's harsh tone but he stopped messing about. With a wave of his hand an image was projected onto the cave wall next to him.

It showed Hao Xuan, asleep at the same spot in the entrance of the cave.

"That's you," Gavril gestured with his chin, "And this-" he looked around, "is just a dream."

"I'm....dreaming?" Hao Xuan repeated.

Gavril nodded, "It's one of my abilities."

Hao Xuan remained silent for a while, putting everything together.

"From the Old King?" he asked, getting another nod as confirmation.

Hao Xuan looked down at his hands and then at the surroundings. Everything still looked exactly the same, as real as it could get...perhaps even more so, which scared him a little.

He looked towards Gavril, conflicted. Hyde had told him a few things about the Old King but nothing in specific so he didn't even understand what kind of powers he had.

"Can you tell me...more?" Hao Xuan asked in a questioning tone.

He didn't want to force it out of him if Gavril didn't or couldn't tell him of his own volition.

Upon hearing Hao Xuan's query, Gavril hesitated for a second or two before closing his eyes. And when he opened them again, they were completely white.

His pupils were gone, leaving only the whites of the eyes which looked rather bizarre with his head full of white hair to match.

Moved by an unknown force, Hao Xuan looked right into Gavril's eyes and before he realized, the surroundings had changed.

He was sitting in a small, dark, room. There was one dim light bulb above him that flickered every now and then.

A damp musty smell of sweat and dirt filled his nostrils.

He was laying down on an old, discolored mattress with a laptop beside him.

This was his old room back on earth.

"What...the hell..."

Hao Xuan looked around in a fit of panic before seeing Gavril standing not too far from him, at which point he forced himself to calmed down.

Gavril was standing near the only entrance to the room. It was an old, rusty metal door that only locked from the outside.

Next to it was a window through which Gavril was peering outward, rather cautiously.

Hao Xuan's brow furrowed seeing the window. From what he could remember, there was no window in his room.

But before he could ask, Gavril spoke up.

"I can't tell you the specifics of the cultivation method, but I can explain a few things related to it," he said still staring outside.

Hao Xuan jumped out of the mattress and stood up.

He could still feel the numbness in his leg that he often got from staying in one position for too long. It had been a long time since he felt something like this.

Forcing himself to stay calm and collected in front of Gavril, Hao Xuan walked up behind him and looked out the window.

There was a thick fog outside. It covered everything in sight and nothing was visible through it, other than an occasional vague shape or a strange inhuman silhouette.

Hao Xuan didn't even want to imagine what it belonged to.

"What is this place?" he asked in a hushed tone for some reason.

"This room is one of your worst fears. The thing that you are scared of the most, or one of them at least," he turned around to take another look at the room before looking at Hao Xuan in the eyes, "I guess we all have a few things we want to keep a secret."

Hao Xuan remained silent and instead looked out of the window once again.

"And that," Gavril looked back outside the window at the dense fog, "Is one of the Nine Worlds, a different plane of existence than our own."