Beneath the Red Dragon

In the Mixed Cave, in the vacuum, the entire space was drained of air by the powerful True Words Decree, as the ancient, witchcraft-like Dragon Roar and human voices reverberated, even space seemed to pause for a moment.

Jessica and Paul Atreides had their minds and consciousness controlled by the Dragon Emperor’s True Words Decree, and they knelt on the ground.

But what Karon saw was Paul Atreides, this boy with a gentle exterior, like sweet tea, whose eyes emanated an indomitable spirit.

Paul Atreides and Jessica were dressed in distillation suits made by the local Fremen natives, air filter respirators on their nostrils, rings and ornaments on their hands flashed in Karon’s eyes.

In Karon’s slightly glimmering pupils, he saw the fleeting glimpses behind the material composition.

These items made of rubber, hemp, metal, and sealing ink were, in the fleeting spatiotemporal light and shadow, forged, hammered, and woven to form from their basic components and structures.

Then, after years of wear and tear, they arrived before Karon, owned by the two individuals in front of him.

Beside the two kneeling figures, it seemed as if countless thin lines, indistinguishable from dragons, dropped from the sky, grew from the earth, and spread out from the two kneelers.

Karon’s consciousness lightly touched one of them and heard a familiar voice, the traces of a conversation between Paul Atreides and his mother Jessica, a carrier of information within the dialogue.

He touched another line, containing intense emotional fluctuations, originating from Paul Atreides’s beliefs and thoughts.

These beliefs and thoughts condensed into a brief sentence, ”I think we’re trapped here!” Paul said.

Why did such an ordinary sentence carry such heavy emotions?

Karon looked at the countless lines around him, things unimaginable to mortals, electromagnetic waves, invisible light, even radiation, wavering quantum information, and the wave patterns of life itself.

Many were unrelated to humans, but through the information carriers intertwined with Jessica and Paul Atreides, Karon could sense their innermost thoughts and emotions.

Through this, he could touch the information deep in their minds and brains. Existence leaves traces that Karon could see.

Thus, Karon saw the vast amounts of information from Paul, from his dreams.

”It’s coming; I saw that bloody, stormy war coming!”

Paul stood on a massive ship as large as a city, alongside followers and warriors, overlooking the endless Fremen warriors spreading across the land.

The light emanating from deep within the ship fell like holy light in the thick fog, shining upon Paul Atreides, as if he were the destined Savior, the fated Messiah.

”This holy war spreading across the cosmos will be initiated by me, six hundred and fifty billion humans will die by my hand!”

The scene flickered, the peak’s holy light had turned into the darkness inside the castle, the only light falling through the skylight.

The head of the controlling Sisterhood, the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit, sat on a chair woven with light and dark, her expression obscured beneath a black veil.

An ancient, witch-like voice sounded,

”Come, kneel!”

”A beast trapped in a snare will bite off its own leg to save itself!”

”What will you do?”

Paul Atreides knelt before the Holy Mother, extending his hand into that unknown darkness and fear, an indescribable pain and torment from nerve sensations that nearly broke him.

Yet he passed the test and survived.

The scene shifted, Paul Atreides awoke from a nightmare, unable to suppress the resistance and tearing at that moment, shouting at Jessica: ”It’s all your fault, turning me into a monster!”

Scenes from past dreams, or past events, intertwined and transformed in Karon’s pupils, the massive flow of information swirling in his mind, he sensed the emotions and thoughts from Paul Atreides’s heart.

Karon closed his eyes and reopened them, seeing Paul Atreides no longer as an ordinary, fallen noble duke’s son, nor as a puppet woven by human destinies but driven by the world’s great current.

What he saw in Paul Atreides was a shining seed, a thought powerful enough to cross time and space, crossing past and future human ideologies.

He understood the depth of thought that single sentence could hold, Paul Atreides, along with his mother Jessica, were physically trapped on the EraCos Planet.

Their thoughts and actions were also trapped in the torrent of fate woven by the Sisterhood, secular imperial politics, and the great current of the entire world.

In the fragments of dreams Paul Atreides could foresee, only by seeking the help of the Fremen with his mother Jessica could they break the deadly predicament facing their family.

But finding the Fremen and ruling them through the Messiah identity woven by the Sisterhood was one of the Sisterhood’s plans from the past.

The long-standing oppression of EraCos Planet by the Leo Empire and the Harkonnen Clan, their massacre of the Fremen, was the spark for the future universe-spanning holy war, unchangeable, shackles of intergenerational hatred.

But the future paths predicted by Paul Atreides’s current ability only showed that walking this road was the only way to allow him to survive.