A chaotic void, a vacuum; the entire space was as if the air had been sucked dry by a powerful True Word Law Order. When the ancient, mystical Dragon Roar and human voices echoed, even space itself seemed to stand still for a moment.
Jessica and Paul Atreides, their minds and consciousness controlled by the Dragon Emperor's True Word Law Order, knelt on the ground.
But what Kalon saw was Paul Atreides, this gentle-looking boy, like sweet tea, with an untamed gaze emanating from his very soul.
Paul Atreides and Jessica were wearing stillsuits made by the local Freman, air filter respirators over their nostrils, and the rings and ornaments on their hands flashed in Kalon's eyes.
In Kalon's slightly flickering pupils, he saw the fleeting glimpses behind the composition of these materials.
These items, made of rubber, canvas, metal, and ink, in the fleeting light and shadow of time and space, were smelted, forged, woven, and then formed from basic parts and structures.
Then, over long years, they were consumed and worn down until they came before Kalon, owned by the two people in front of him.
Beside the two kneeling figures, there seemed to be countless fine lines of light, too numerous for even a Dragon to distinguish, falling from the sky, growing from the earth, and spreading out from the two kneeling individuals.
Kalon's consciousness gently touched one of them and heard a familiar voice; it was the preserved trace of Paul Atreides's previous conversation with his mother, Jessica, a carrier of the information in their dialogue.
He touched another line of light, which contained strong emotional fluctuations, beliefs and thoughts from Paul Atreides.
These beliefs and thoughts condensed into a short sentence: "I think we're trapped here!" Paul said.
Why would such an ordinary sentence contain such heavy emotions?
Kalon looked at the surrounding myriad lines of light, things mortals could hardly foresee: electromagnetic waves, invisible light, even radiation, fluctuating quantum information, and the fluctuating curves of life itself.
Many were unrelated to humans, but from the information carriers entwined around Jessica and Paul Atreides, Kalon could sense their innermost thoughts and emotions through these connections.
Through this, he could touch the information, the existence hidden deep within their hearts and minds; if it exists, there is a trace, and it can be seen by Kalon.
And so Kalon saw a vast amount of information, coming from Paul, from his dreams.
"It's coming, I see that bloody war is coming!"
Paul stood on a colossal, city-like spaceship, looking down with his retinue and warriors at the boundless Freman warriors spreading across the land.
The light emanating from deep within the spaceship, like a holy light descending through the thick fog, shone upon Paul Atreides, as if he were the destined savior, the chosen Messiah.
"This holy war, spanning the universe, will be initiated by me; sixty-five billion humans will die by my hand!"
The scene flickered; the overhead holy light had transformed into the only ray of light cast from a castle skylight within a dark space.
The Sisterhood's leader, the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, who controlled everything, sat on a chair interwoven with light and shadow, her expression obscured by a black veil.
An ancient, eerie voice, like that of a witch, rang out,
"Come, kneel!"
"A beast caught in a trap will bite off its own leg to save its life!"
"What will you do?"
Paul Atreides knelt before the Reverend Mother, extending his hand into that unknown darkness and terror. It was an unspeakable pain and torment, a sensory agony that nearly broke him.
But he passed the test and survived.
The scene shifted; Paul Atreides awoke from his nightmare. He could not suppress the resistance and tearing at that moment, and he roared at Jessica: "It's all of you who turned me into a monster!"
Fragmented dream sequences, or scenes that had actually occurred, transformed and intertwined in Kalon's pupils. A vast stream of information flowed through his mind, and the emotions and thoughts from Paul Atreides's heart were also perceived by him.
Kalon closed his eyes and reopened them. Paul Atreides he now saw was no longer just the son of a noble Duke who had fallen into misfortune, no longer a puppet driven by a fate woven by human design, yet propelled by the great tide of the world.
Paul Atreides he saw was a shining seed, a seed capable of giving birth to a thought, a thought powerful enough to transcend time and space, a thought of a person who transcends past and future.
He understood the thoughts contained within that short sentence: Paul Atreides and his mother Jessica were physically trapped on Arrakis.
Their thoughts and actions were also trapped within the torrent of destiny woven by the Sisterhood, secular imperial politics, and the prevailing trends of the entire world.
In the dream fragments Paul Atreides could foresee, only by seeking help from the Freman with his mother Jessica could they break free from the current predicament of their family's destruction.
But finding the Freman and ruling them as a savior woven by the Sisterhood was precisely one of the Sisterhood's past plans.
The Lion Throne Empire and the Harkonnen Family's long-standing exploitation of Arrakis and their massacre of the Freman were the fuse for the future holy war that would spread across the universe, an unchangeable chain of hatred spanning generations.
However, the future branches Paul Atreides could currently foresee only led him down this path to have a chance of survival.
Therefore, Paul Atreides, while conforming to the future fragments he predicted and seeking help from the Freman, also resisted that terrifying future, the future of ruling the Freman through religion and becoming their savior.
Because the path of the Messiah, in his eyes, could not lead humanity to the future. When those fanatical Freman brought war across the entire universe in the name of God, he, Paul Atreides, was powerless to stop it.
Now, he, as if destined by dreams and legends, stepped into the vast desert, yet carried a responsibility as heavy as shackles. Fear lingered, and he had to kill that fear.
"This is also someone who wants to escape the hand of fate,"
Kalon smiled slightly. The Red Dragon, having received a vast amount of information, fed individual pieces of information and variables into his brain, probing his own trajectory.
In an instant, countless outcome branches appeared before Kalon. But even after contacting Paul Atreides and obtaining a large amount of converging information, integrating the world situation and changes based on this knowledge, and inferring various futures based on Paul Atreides's personality and thoughts,
And adding the predetermined variables of the Freman, with whom he had not directly interacted, Kalon still could not perceive the ultimate destination of himself and the Golden Empire's legions in this world.
The extension of each line stretched continuously to a future at least several millennia later, too far for even an Ancestral Red Dragon to clearly see.
They intertwined densely, and even with Kalon's current abilities, he could not make sense of them.
So Kalon turned his head and scanned the Freman hidden in the dark desert canyons in the distance. Their faces and life fluctuations were perfectly clear in his eyes, unobscured.
When he saw a familiar face, a flash of insight went through Kalon's mind: it was the FremanPaul had dreamed of many times in his dreams, a Freman warrior, a Freman girl.
And the information conveyed by each of these Freman was touched one by one by the Ancestral Red Dragon, then consolidated into one.
Seizing this flash of insight, the calculations of his brain and the precognition of his heart power operated simultaneously. The infinitely extending future lines rapidly converged, and the messages conveyed by countless branch lines all indicated that the Golden Empire's path would reach its end three thousand five hundred years in the future.
And this was the result without the direct intervention of the Ancestral Red Dragon and the Golden Empire.
If Kalon were to lead the Golden Empire's legions to directly interfere with the outcome of the entire event, then their path would come to an end in twelve years.
Either they would retreat back to their base in Ekania World, or they would disperse within this interstellar world, with only the Ancestral Red Dragon able to persist here.
"So, the Plane God in that world of ice and fire wants to trap the Golden Empire in this world for three thousand five hundred years, with this result, to make us retreat in the face of difficulty and abandon our original plans?"
Kalon looked up at the two moons in the sky, his pupils showing excitement.
Within his body, abundant energy supported the rapid operation of his brain. Lines of possibility were discarded, selected, and finally locked down by Kalon.
"Then, let's see who can break free from their predetermined trajectory and escape their original fate!"
The turning of his thoughts happened in an instant. In this brief moment, Kalon revealed the few locked future lines one by one.
Paul Atreides and Lady Jessica had just recovered from the Emperor's True Word Law Order and were getting up from the ground.
Jessica was both terrified and shocked. The Sisterhood witch's True Word could only either be effective or ineffective.
Never before had a situation like the one unfolding before him occurred; the power of the True Word, which clearly took effect on the target, was unable to affect others.
Most importantly, that person, or non-person, who seemed to have stepped out of a legend, instantly learned the True Word's magic, but this was Witch True Word, which only females could learn, with the exception of Paul Atreides, the male witch unexpectedly created by the Sisterhood.
Paul Atreides was much calmer than his mother; he merely looked at Kalon with a puzzled expression. Although Kalon used the True Word to make him kneel, he felt no malice or conspiracy from Kalon.
"Who exactly are you?"
Paul Atreides asked calmly, but his hand, hidden behind his back, quietly gripped his weapon.
"It seems you still don't understand,"
Kalon looked at Paul Atreides, a gentle smile on his face.
Although using the True Word was on a whim, it was also a form of probing behavior towards Paul.
Kalon now knew that although the other party possessed the ability to think across time and space, he did not possess the power to traverse time and space.
This also meant that Paul, who had not grown to the expected extent, remained at his original stage, and therefore could not understand Kalon's actions.
"Understand what?"
Paul Atreides looked at this man, whose perfection even moonlight could not rival, with a puzzled gaze. Although his ability to foresee the future was not yet mature, he had a strong sense of warning concerning himself; every danger could be foreseen by him.
And in front of this man, his precognition was not triggered, so he was not particularly nervous.
"Although dreams are wonderful, important things happen outside of dreams, because only when we are awake can we do what needs to be done,"
Kalon's tall body looked down at Paul Atreides, but his gaze carried a gentleness like that of a god pitying the world.
The Ancestral Red Dragon's true form unfurled its wings and claws from behind Kalon at this moment, hovering in the air. The ancient Dragon Language from its mouth carried a majestic tone like a decree, and the surging Dragon Might enveloped Paul and Jessica, but it was not oppressive, but rather, a display.
And at the same time, in his human form, he said faintly: "I hope that the next time I ask you, you will answer, 'I understand!'"
Fafna, like a holy nun and an angel, smiled and followed behind Kalon, gradually moving away until they could no longer be seen.
...
A severe ringing in his ears made Paul Atreides frown. He stopped climbing the Dune, accustomed to fragmented dreams and occasional sudden glimpses of the future, allowing him to quickly awaken from that nightmare-like feeling of weakness and panic.
The bright moon hung in the sky. Jessica, his mother, was still by his side, but the traces of the sandstorm and the signs of a Sandworm's passage seemed to have been erased by the desert's natural power, completely nonexistent.
And those two beings, Paul Atreides had a premonition of, but did not want, nor dared to admit.
"Phew, what does this illusory future fragment portend? Perhaps I will meet them very soon," Paul Atreides thought, his eyes instinctively scanning his mother's face.
It was a mixture of fear, shock, confusion, and terror, an almost distorted expression, which made Paul Atreides pause in surprise.
His body, wrapped in a stillsuit, shielded from all wind and sand, now felt a chill shoot straight up his spine from his tailbone to the back of his head, making Paul Atreides's entire head suddenly jolt.
His mother, Lady Jessica, did not possess the same ability as him to receive predictive information from future fragments in dreams and reality, which meant that it was not a premonition of the future.
However, this future premonition information existed entirely in his mind in the form of information, although it felt real.
There were no traces of a raging sandstorm left on the sand surface, nor had the Sandworm's tunnels been formed. So, what was that scene just now? An illusory future, or a past reality?
But a dangerous intuition interrupted Paul Atreides's thoughts; his shoes touched a dangerous switch in the desert.
He instinctively stomped twice, and the solidified sand mounds, which could transmit a rhythmically vibrating frequency to the Sandworms beneath the sand, attracting them, immediately thumped.
"No good, run! It's Drum Sand!" Paul shouted, pulling his mother and running quickly towards the canyon outside the sand surface.
At this point, the two of them no longer cared about walking with the Freman's special desert gait used for traversing the desert, no longer caring about the rhythm that sounded like the desert's natural sound, and frantically ran towards the crevice passage in the low rock mountain.
Rumbling, a massive Sandworm surged beneath the sand, rushing towards the two, intending to devour the two tiny humans into its huge, hideous maw.
But the Fremen hidden in the canyon activated their Sand Thumpers, vibrating with special frequency echoes, attracting the Sandworm and luring it far away, allowing the two to enter the canyon unharmed.
Here, they met the Fremen, who were completely wrapped in coarse linen robes to slow the evaporation of water from their bodies.
"Don't run, that will only deplete the water in your bodies," a voice said. A middle-aged Fremanwarrior with a short beard and wrapped in burlap sat lazily on a low rock outcrop.
"Hey, Stilgar, you've seen me. We met when my father summoned you." Paul, surrounded by a dozen or so Fremen, quickly called out.
"Oh, this is the Duke Leto Atreides's son,"
Stilgar, the leader of the Fremen here, said, "I know you."
But the Freman warriors beside them approached Paul and Jessica, their daggers made from Sandworm teeth glinting coldly, and one said, "What are we waiting for? The water on them is what we need!"
"No, no, no," Stilgar interjected, "This is the boy I told you about. We cannot touch him."
"How could he be Lisan al Gaib? (In Freman, it means 'Voice from the Outer World,' similar to 'Savior'!)"
An aged voice of a Freman female warrior sounded. These Fremen, regardless of gender, were strong warriors, with a custom of equality for all. Even their leader could not forcibly suppress the tribe with his own authoritarian will.
"He has not yet proven himself!"
"They are weak!"
One after another, the Freman warriors spoke out.
In the eyes of these Fremen, only the strong were fit to live on this land. The weak would only become food, either for Sandworms, or for the desert, or become a source of water for the Fremen.
"Jamie,"
Stilgar stopped the fiercest warrior, and said with a serious expression, "They crossed the Path of Shai-Hulud. They are brave, and his words and actions are not like those of the weak. His father was the same."
Paul's father, Duke Leto Atreides, was a nobleman with profound foresight. Although he was killed by the Harkonnen Family and the Emperor's legions, his proactive approach to peaceful coexistence with these Fremen was greatly admired by this Freman leader.
"My Sand Thumper saved them. Wake up, Stilgar, he is not the Chosen One!"
Jamie retorted. This formidable warrior showed no fear before the tribal leader, because the Fremen only served their sole Sand Master—Shai-Hulud, and the leader could only guide them through proper methods.
Moreover, Jamie was a northern Freman, unlike the fundamentalist Fremen in the south who believed in the Messiah Savior, and he was not particularly impressed by the rhetoric spread by the Sisterhood's spies—the Freman Reverend Mothers.
The situation began to grow tense. In the words of the tribal warriors, Stilgar also wanted to abandon Jessica, the woman, and only protect Paul, the man who could be trained as a warrior.
Meanwhile, Kalon and Fafna stood at the top of the canyon, overlooking all of this unfolding.
Mortals found it difficult to observe traces of their existence, making them naturally overlooked, like the wind in the sky, the sand beside them, and the stones beneath their feet.
"Fafna," Kalon said suddenly, looking down.
"Yes, Master!"
"Do you think there are others like us, like gods, watching everything Paul faces, observing our actions and trajectory!"
"Perhaps, Master, even you don't know, so I certainly don't know!"
"But no matter what happens, I will always be by your side!"
"Haha, good!"