Chương 9: The Dream
Kai walked the streets alone. The buildings were unfamiliar to him. While they could clearly be called skyscrapers, their form was a bit different from anything he had seen before.
He was on the outskirts of a city, just within a huge wall. It was as if the people that lived here had expected Titans to come barging in. But this was clearly not the world of Attack on Titan, it was too advanced. No, this was someplace else.
And yet, it was familiar.
Looking up, it seemed like it was about to rain. The whole sky was dark, and he couldn't tell where the sun was. Everything was strange, but it felt real. It had to be a dream right?
"Strange dream," he said to the gray sky.
Without anything else to guide him, Kai decided to walk away from the towering wall. If there were people here, there should be more of them towards the center of the city, right? As he walked, he looked for any signs of what was happening here. Things were just too quiet. But just as striking as the silence was how… clean things were. The city was as if simply sleeping. There was no destruction here, just empty streets. It was as if everyone had just left. But, why?
There was a booming sound in the distance. Was that thunder? Kai raised his eyes back to the sky, trying to find lightning. The booming repeated. Yet, there were no flashes in those distant clouds.
Kai kept walking. Hopefully, there would be answers if he went further. After a while, he heard a voice in the distance. He couldn't tell what it was saying for a while- it was too far. The booming got in the way. For a while, there was no sign at all of where the sound was coming from, but it got louder as he walked, and he eventually was able to follow his ears to a statue. It was a huge thing, of a tall man with medium length hair and a beard, wearing a long coat. Kind of old fashioned, but the overall effect was striking. Of course, any positive impressions of the man was ruined by what Kai assumed was his voice, played from speakers around the square.
"Our glorious Dominion… We will not back down, not to the Zerg or the Protoss, or… This is the Age of Man… All must do their part…" The recording cut out periodically, only allowing the occasional phrase to come through. Still, there was enough to make a solid conclusion.
"This guy is a Grade A a**hole," Kai muttered. His tone was one that demanded attention, and his words were just pretentious and arrogant. Perhaps those in this world were desperate for someone strong to protect them, and someone like him was needed against these threats.
Of course, it wasn't like he knew what a "Protoss" was. Zerg, on the other hand…
"Zerg… like zerglings? It really is their world?"
It made some sense. He had had dreams about his zerg before, they just weren't like this. Not this clear.
"So, this is their world… I wonder if…"
Kai reached out with his Quirk. Suddenly, he was flooded with information. So many eyes, so many sights, so many sounds…
So much blood!
Everywhere he looked with the eyes he connected to he found the zerg in many forms carrying out the work of death. On the ground, by the hundreds of thousands, zerglings rushed at men in armor, swarming them and overwhelming them. Larger creatures that Kai hadn't had strength or courage to call upon spat acid, shot out bony spikes, and the largest wielded gigantic bony scythes that cut through tanks. In the sky, there were even more. Huge leathery wings pushed themselves to the limit in dogfights with strange aircraft. And higher, large enough to block out the sun, was a gigantic floating creature with huge tentacles expelling reinforcements from its guts. All of them killing. Many of them dying. All pressing further into the city.
And there were more, many more further beyond. For a brief moment, Kai was the whole swarm. Then the stress from all of their information overwhelmed him, and he was shut out, leaving him gasping. But as he was disconnected, he could hear a voice, a woman's voice.
"I am the Swarm."
Somehow, Kai knew where this voice came from. He started running again, heading in that direction. He didn't know how long this dream would last. The more he could learn, the better.
Luckily, even though his sense of that direction faded after a moment, it coincided with the thunder. Which, now that he thought about what he had sensed from the zerg, had to be the sound of tank fire. Or tanks being torn asunder and having their engines exploded. Somewhere in the middle of all that chaos was a woman controlling the swarm.
For a moment, Kai thought about using his Quirk to Zergling Express his way around. However, when he thought again about what happened when he just reached out with it, the idea was quickly dismissed. He'd just get overwhelmed by the swarm. He was going to have to keep on going on foot.
Eventually, the city that he ran through changed. Instead of buildings that were simply empty, he was passing through a war zone. There were corpses, many corpses. Some of humans in power armor, and a few of citizens without. There were zerglings by the dozens, and occasionally much larger corpses when tougher zerg had been taken down. The smells of gunpowder and blood filled the air. Kai didn't stop to try to figure out how long they had been here. The zerg had clearly moved on, and so did he.
After what felt like an hour of running, he rounded a corner and came to an open plaza. Well, it would have been open, if it wasn't for the signs of battle. Piles of corpses both human and zerg, craters from tank fire, puddles of acid, the tanks themselves, and bullet casings were everywhere. The survivors of the battle had moved on, and things were quiet.
In the middle of it all was huge statue of who Kai assumed was the same a**hole he had seen a statue of before. In the chaos, it had been toppled. Standing on the head of the fallen statue was a figure. She was too far for Kai to make out any details, but he could sense power radiating from her. She had to be the one in control of the swarm.
Kai redoubled his efforts to get moving. Then, as he came up to the statue, the woman stepped off, disappearing on the other side.
"No!"
He was gasping for breath trying to catch up, and then suddenly everything went black, and suddenly he was back to reality. He gasped and sat up with a start.
The dream was gone.
She was gone.
SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO 
Tvrkm
Tvrkm Happy New Years!
Wish I had gotten this out earlier, but I'm having some good time with my family. At least I got one more out before the new year.
Speaking of, I hope that this year, Webnovel goes back to how things were a year ago. This free pass things sucks. I read too much too quickly to get by on 4 chapters a day.
Hope to see you soon! I myself very much look forward to detailing Kai's first week of school.
*semi sadistic grin followed by maniacal laugh*