"All of you, step back, you fools! She has a knife to my throat; she will cut my throat," Stilgar said calmly, craning his neck to avoid being cut by Jessica's dagger.
The Fremen were formidable warriors, but Jessica, a witch rigorously trained by the Sisterhood, was proficient in body control, combat, and mental influence.
The moment conflict erupted, she countered the Fremen leader who had underestimated her.
A Fremen warrior lunged at Jessica with a dagger, but the witch simply sidestepped to evade it, then chopped the Fremen warrior on the neck with a swift, light palm strike, knocking him down.
Stilgar was also instantly subdued by this combination of witch and warrior, and his crysknife was taken from him.
However, judging by Stilgar's tone, this powerful leader was not worried about his predicament; perhaps, this was a situation he was pleased to see.
Paul Atreides, who had trained with the family's Swordmaster Duncan since childhood and mastered combat techniques, dodged left and right under the attacks of the Fremen warriors, easily breaking through the encirclement of several Fremen.
He then leaped onto the rocks in the canyon, stepping over the other Fremen who were still nonchalantly lounging on the rocks as if watching a show, quickly reaching the highest point, taking out his firearm, and aiming at the Fremen below, controlling the entire scene.
The firearm in Paul's hand was not a primitive projectile weapon but a laser weapon; after interstellar civilization, humans had long abandoned primitive firearms.
The Holtzman Shield, invented by humans, was a protective shield device that formed an energy shield enveloping the entire battle suit with a special vibrational frequency, making it the bane of kinetic weapons.
The Holtzman Shield could only be penetrated by slow-moving objects below six to nine centimeters per second, such as air or slow knives and swords, but it could completely block high-speed objects like bullets that used kinetic energy to cause damage.
Laser firearms and spaceship laser cannons could penetrate these Holtzman Shields, but they would trigger a small nuclear explosion.
Therefore, due to a certain tacit convention, the noble battle groups in the current interstellar age primarily used specially made cold weapons in many internal conflicts.
Warriors who mastered fast and slow blades, capable of freely switching between extreme speed and slow attack modes, were the elite warriors of the major legions.
Only when conquering alien planets would large-scale strike weapons powerful enough to destroy cities, such as the main cannons of spaceships, be used, or during genocidal conquest wars, like the Harkonnen Family and the Emperor's annihilation of the Atreides Family.
However, these native Fremen did not possess such high-tech Holtzman Shields, nor could they block the firearm in Paul's hand.
Thus, all the Fremen immediately halted, no longer launching a rash attack.
Jessica's face was calm, a complete contrast to when she had faced the Ancestral Red Dragon.
Her smooth hands gripped the dagger without a tremor, pressing it tightly against Stilgar's neck.
Her eyes, like a mother wolf, scanned the surrounding Fremen, and she slowly brought her mouth close to Stilgar's ear, calmly saying, "No time to explain!"
"Calm down, don't move, woman, calm down," Stilgar said, taking a breath and raising both hands to show he had no other intentions, then calmly added, "I was too hasty just now."
Jessica looked at Stilgar, then leaned her cheek against Stilgar's head-robe, kissing the man's robe lightly, and thus released this powerful warrior.
"Uh," Stilgar straightened up from his crouched position, tilting his head slightly to look at the witch, and extended his hand toward Jessica, but his words were directed at all the warriors.
"It's almost dawn; we must reach Tabr Cave before sunrise.
The fate of these two outsiders will be decided there."
Jessica stared into Stilgar's eyes, then returned the dagger, made from a sand worm's tooth, which she had taken from him, back into his hand.
Only then did Stilgar turn to face the Fremen, declaring loudly, "Before that, they are under my protection!"
At this, the man peeled back his glove and lightly drew the crysknife across the back of his wrist, performing the Fremen act of swearing an oath, "I promise them!"
One by one, the Fremen who acknowledged Stilgar's leadership also performed this action, signifying their respect for the tribal leader's decision and their commitment to protecting the young man and woman until they reached Tabr Cave, where these Fremen resided.
Paul Atreides, who was controlling the situation from above, saw this and prepared to lower his firearm.
But a young woman's voice echoed behind Paul, "I won't let you harm my friends!"
Paul Atreides quickly turned around, aiming his firearm at the source of the voice.
It was the highest corner, where a Fremen female warrior he hadn't noticed before was hidden in the shadows, crouching with a dagger, in a stance ready to attack at any moment, staring at Paul.
Although this female warrior wore a stillsuit, her entire body and face were covered by the robe, revealing only her eyes and a nose-clip filter.
But Paul could still recognize those blue eyes; although many Fremen had blue eyes, he had seen this girl's beautiful face and figure many times in fragments of his dreams, as well as those wild, confident, yet gentle eyes.
Paul slowed his hurried breathing, slowly lowering the firearm in his hand.
The girl's sharp gaze softened, her hand gripping the dagger relaxed, and her tensed body posture eased.
The Fremen girl tilted her head slightly, her gaze lifted to Paul, then she pulled down her face mask, scrutinizing the young man.
"They say you are Mahdi (also known as Mehdi, meaning 'the guided one of God'), but you just look like a pretty little boy!"
The Fremen girl, like all warriors, dusted the sand from her backside, then stood up and walked toward Paul.
"You chose the hardest path to climb up; I admire your courage.
Come with me, we should go."
The man and woman jumped down the canyon cliff, joined the Fremen, and prepared to head to Tabr Cave.
Paul knew that millions of Fremen lived in these Fremen caves.
However, the Lion Throne Empire and the Harkonnen Family were unaware of the number of these Fremen.
Due to the unique nature of the planet Dune, satellite surveillance was not allowed in this place under unwritten conventions.
And these Fremen rarely appeared in the daytime desert, so the nobles still believed that after long periods of slaughter and hunting, only about ten thousand Fremen remained.
The Fremen leader Stilgar took the firearm from Paul's hand and said to the girl beside Paul, "Protect the safety of the outsiders, Chani, take care of the newcomers, let's go!"
"I don't accept them," a dissenting voice came.
Jamie, who had previously pulled down the cloth covering his face, stepped forward, staring at Paul and Jessica.
Stilgar blocked them, facing the warrior from a different faction and saying, "Jamie, I have spoken; don't cause trouble."
Jamie's blue eyes looked at Stilgar fearlessly; he neither mocked nor ridiculed, but simply said with the calm tone tempered by the desert that every Fremen possessed: "Stilgar, your tone sounds like a leader,"
"But only the strongest has the right to lead; she defeated you," Jamie's blue eyes calmly swept over Jessica, then he said, "I will use the Amtal Rule (a destructive test, commonly used on primitive planets to test the flaws and limitations of the tested)."
Jessica turned around without hesitation, putting down her bundle, her calm eyes like a mother wolf staring at her prey; she did not fear this Fremen's challenge.
"You cannot challenge a Sayyadina"—the Fremen term for a priestess who has not yet become a Reverend Mother in the tribe.
"Then who will duel me in her name?"
Stilgar turned his head, his gaze stern. "Jamie, stop it, enough, the night is almost over!"
"Then let the sun bear witness to this death!" Jamie's dark face was calm, indifferent, and stubborn; even the former leader couldn't change his mind.
His voice grew rough, "Where is her defender?"
Paul Atreides looked at the stubborn warrior, his eyes filled with complex emotions: resistance, pity, calmness, and depth.
He had to fight on behalf of his mother, Jessica, as her defender, to defeat Jamie; otherwise, without the recognition of the Fremen, he would not receive their protection.
But in Paul's dreams, he had already foreseen blood and death—this was a predetermined fate, yet he had no choice but to do it.
Paul lowered his gaze, then raised his head again, stepping out from among the Fremen and standing before Jamie.
"I accept her defender." The Fremen warrior Jamie acknowledged the young Paul's courage, then slowly turned and waited quietly for the moment the sun would rise.
As Paul looked back at the stubborn warrior's retreating figure, it was as if he saw a profound web of destiny sweeping towards him, intending to entangle and envelop him bit by bit, pulling him deep into its grasp.
He leaned his hand against the wall, facing the Atreides Family's ancestral ring on his finger, and entered a state of profound tranquility.
Under this eerie calm, images and fragments of the future flowed through his mind.
Under the sun, he dueled with the Fremen Jamie, their bodies and daggers touching, their combat techniques clashing.
The outcome was completely opposite to what he had previously predicted.
In the battle, Paul, who had never killed anyone, died by the Fremen warrior's dagger due to a moment of kindness.
The flickering images, from the voices of ancient female ancestors, echoed in his mind like a chant, "Paul Atreides must die!"
"Kwisatz Haderach can only rise!"
"Do not be afraid," the voice of a male ancestor spoke simultaneously, like an eerie whisper, reverberating in Paul's mind.
"Do not resist; the moment you take another's life is the moment of your own death."
It wasn't until the sun gradually rose in the sky that Paul awoke from his deep contemplation.
The Fremen girl Chani approached, looking at the young boy who was deep in thought, and she softly said, "I don't believe you are Lisan al Gaib, but I hope you die gloriously."
Chani drew a dagger from her waist and handed it to the clean young boy.
Paul looked at the girl's beautiful eyes with some confusion.
"This crysknife was left to me by my family; it's made from the tooth of a Shai-Hulud, the holy sand-worm."
Chani's beautiful blue eyes looked at the boy, her gaze full of certainty.
"To die holding it will be a great honor, and Jamie is a powerful warrior; he won't let you suffer."
In the eyes of Chani, the warrior, a young boy like Paul would undoubtedly fail the test of a formidable warrior like Jamie and would die at Jamie's hands.
But young Paul dared to stand up for his mother and face Jamie's challenge, proving the boy's courage.
"Chani,"
Paul looked into the girl's eyes, hesitating, wanting to tell her that he had seen her in his dreams, but in the end, his moving lips swallowed all the words.
He held the dagger Chani gave him and followed the girl to the open ground.
All around were the Fremen warriors, their gazes cold and scrutinizing, and his opponent, Jamie, was already waiting for his arrival.
Paul saw his mother Jessica's worry, but in Stilgar's eyes, there was also concern for him, or rather, the concern of a believer for Paul's other identity.
"May your blade shatter!" Jamie rose from his crouched waiting position.
Paul held the dagger horizontally before his forehead, his expression becoming serious; when the future intertwined with the present, and illusion became reality, did he have any other choice?
Jamie stepped forward, initiating an attack on Paul, the movements and traces of his dagger swing were remarkably familiar to Paul.
In his visions, Paul had fought Jamie, and with this ability to foresee the future, Paul dodged Jamie's attacks, his dagger weaving in his hand, and in an instant, they exchanged more than ten rounds.
Jamie's experienced attacks were always intercepted by Paul midway, and the clash of arms replaced the clash of daggers.
When the scene seen in the first prophecy flashed, Paul instinctively twisted away from Jamie's suddenly urgent and full-force thrusting dagger, his left hand gripping Jamie's right hand that held the dagger, and his own right hand with the dagger placed against Jamie's neck.
"Do you surrender?"
Paul shouted loudly; he didn't want to die, but he also didn't want to kill anyone; he detested the pronouncements of fate.
"Ho,"
The voices of the Fremen sounded all around.
"This young man doesn't understand our Fremen rules,"
Stilgar said loudly, "There is no surrender in the Law of the Amtal; it's either you die or I die."
The Fremen warrior Jamie, as if insulted, roared loudly, pushed away Paul who was waiting for his surrender, and began attacking like a mad dog.
Paul blocked Jamie's attacks again and again, placing his dagger against Jamie's neck each time, trying to force him to surrender.
The surrounding Fremen began to jeer, and even Stilgar couldn't help but ask Jessica, "Is he toying with him?"
"No, Paul has never killed anyone," Jessica said, her voice trembling; as a mother, she completely understood her son's actions.
Stilgar's expression immediately became serious, and he stood up from his sitting position.
The fight in the arena, with Paul's continuous conservative approach, made the frenzied Jamieincreasingly difficult to handle, and Paul's stamina was rapidly depleting; he began to realize that if this continued, he would die.
Just like the other endings he had seen, if he didn't conform to fate, he would only face a more tragic outcome.
A fierce aura rolled out of Paul's eyes; in a trance, he heard an ancestral cry, "Kwisatz Haderach, rise, ascend!"
A swift movement, the blade fell.
It was Jamie who fell, and Paul was the one standing.
Paul walked out of the fighting ground in disappointment; the Fremen warriors beside him patted his shoulder, a warrior's acknowledgment, recognizing his courage and strength, recognizing that he had killed his own courage.
"You are one of us now,"
Stilgar said, "A life for a life; come with us to Tabr Cave."
"No, Paul must leave this planet," Jessica stepped forward to stop this action, she said, "You must have a way, among you there are spice smugglers, you have spaceships, you…"
"No," Paul said, this was the first time in the young boy's life that he so strongly opposed his mother's opinion.
Paul's face returned to calm, but his eyes were more resolute than ever, he said in a deep voice, "The Emperor sent us here, my father came,"
"But not for money, not for spice, but for your Fremen strength."
"Destiny guides me into the desert," Paul paused for a microsecond, "I can see!"
He looked at Stilgar with firm eyes, "If you accept me, we will go together."
The sun rose high in the sky, and Paul and Jessica joined the Fremen.
They walked towards the light, wrapping Jamie's body in cloth, and began their journey home. But as they left the canyon, Paul felt a gaze, as if by telepathy.
So Paul Atreides turned around and looked up at the cliff.
He seemed to be able to see the phantom presence there.
It was the creature that appeared in his future memories, standing with that holy angel on the cliff top, as if watching him.
There were no dragons in this universe, but the moment he saw that creature, he understood that it was a dragon from myth, perhaps even a god in the mortal world.
But there should be no gods in this world.