Chapter 41: Fragmented Visions
Paul woke to fever dreams that bled into reality like watercolors in rain—fragments of impossible knowledge seeping through mental barriers damaged by mana overdraft and temporal manipulation. His skull felt like someone had filled it with broken glass and shaken hard, every thought accompanied by spikes of pain that reminded him why systems came with warnings about safe operational limits.
"How long was I unconscious?"
Lagertha's face swam into focus above him, her expression carrying concern that spoke to bonds deeper than tactical alliance. Around their makeshift medical tent, wounded Vikings nursed injuries that spoke to the mathematics of attacking stone walls with wooden courage.
"Six hours. Your fever broke an hour ago." Her hand found his forehead with practiced precision. "You were speaking in tongues again."
"The device. Sophia. Marcus. All of it bleeding through while my barriers were down."
Paul forced himself upright despite protests from muscles that felt like they'd been beaten with hammers. The assault had failed completely—three hundred casualties for exactly zero progress. But Ragnar was alive, sitting by the tent's entrance with expression that mixed gratitude with something approaching religious awe.
"You saved me," Ragnar said, his voice carrying weight that made the tent feel smaller. "Again. At great cost to yourself."
"It's expensive." Paul's voice emerged as barely more than whisper. "How expensive this time?"
"The healers say you should have died from exhaustion. Whatever power flows through you, it nearly burned you hollow." Ragnar's eyes held questions he was too tactful to ask directly. "What did you see in the fever? You spoke of others like yourself."
The visions started three days later.
Not the controlled precognition of Odin's Whisper or the structured foresight of Daily Vision, but chaotic fragments bleeding through mental barriers damaged by supernatural overdraft. Paul would be eating breakfast and suddenly see Rollo in Frankish colors raising a banner that turned brother into enemy. He'd be checking equipment and catch glimpses of Sophia's warning echoing across impossible distances.
[WARNING: COGNITIVE BARRIERS COMPROMISED]
[UNPROMPTED VISIONS INCREASING]
[SYSTEM INTEGRITY: 67%]
"My head's broken. Three years of pushing abilities beyond safe limits, and now the containment's failing."
The fragmented images came without pattern or control—Gisla's crown catching sunlight, blood on Christian crosses, Sophia's technological integration spreading like infection across Mediterranean trade routes. Each vision carried the particular intensity of memory rather than foresight, as if Paul was remembering events that hadn't happened yet.
Through the chaos, one thread remained constant: Rollo's betrayal approaching with gravitational inevitability.
Paul used Success Rate Analysis despite his damaged condition, mana flowing sluggishly through mental channels still raw from overdraft.
[QUERY: WILL ROLLO BETRAY RAGNAR?]
[RESULT: 81% PROBABILITY]
[FACTORS: PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESSURE (EXTREME), OPPORTUNITY (PRESENT), ALTERNATIVE PATH (PRINCESS GISLA)]
The percentage had risen from sixty-seven percent before Paul's Mediterranean revelations. His timeline changes were creating stress patterns that pushed other events toward critical thresholds, as if preventing one catastrophe triggered compensatory disasters elsewhere.
Three nights after the failed assault, Paul found Rollo by the river staring across dark water toward Paris lights with expression that belonged on a man contemplating suicide or treason—sometimes the same thing.
"I know what you're considering."
Rollo turned with the slow deliberation of someone who'd been expecting this conversation for days. "Do you, seer? Can your visions see into the hearts of men?"
"Living in his shadow until you die." Paul kept his voice neutral, stating fact without judgment. "The problem with being the brother of a legend is that legends cast shadows large enough to bury whole kingdoms."
"And what else do your gods show you about this choice I haven't made?"
Paul looked at this man who would become Duke of Normandy, founder of dynasties, architect of conquest that would reshape Europe for centuries. But right now he was just a bitter warrior tired of being second to someone who made the impossible look easy.
"I see you making a choice that echoes through history. Becoming more than Ragnar's brother—becoming yourself, finally. But the price—"
"Tell me."
"Everything you are. Everyone who knows you. The cost of becoming legend is forgetting how to be human."
Rollo stared across water toward walls that had broken their dreams and promises he couldn't yet imagine. "Can you see if it's right?"
[QUERY: IS ROLLO'S BETRAYAL HISTORICALLY NECESSARY?]
[RESULT: 87% - LOAD-BEARING EVENT]
[WARNING: PREVENTING THIS CHOICE CAUSES TIMELINE FRACTURE]
"Yes," Paul said quietly. "And what it costs. You'll do it anyway."
Rollo walked away without confirming, but Paul knew it was done. Some betrayals were written in destiny's ink, and interference only made the bleeding worse.
The device in his system inventory pulsed with updates that painted a picture of accelerating instability. His dramatic saves during the tower assault had prevented immediate casualties but triggered ripple effects across multiple regions—timeline stress approaching dangerous thresholds.
[SOPHIA'S ACTIVITY: ACCELERATING IN MEDITERRANEAN]
[MARCUS'S CONQUEST PATTERNS: SPREADING TO WESTERN TERRITORIES]
[CONVERGENCE ESTIMATE: 43 DAYS]
[WARNING: EXTERNAL MANIPULATION DETECTED]
A new message flickered on the device's screen—communication from Sophia that carried urgency Paul had never heard from her before.
"Timeline instability cascading. Your Paris interventions triggered responses from other forces. Marcus changed course—heading west instead of consolidating eastern gains. They're pushing all of us toward something. Convergence isn't random—it's orchestrated. Prepare for contact."
Paul closed the device with hands that trembled from exhaustion and growing dread. The betrayal at Paris was just an opening move in a game whose scope encompassed more than kingdoms or the fate of individual lives. Forces beyond system users were moving pieces across centuries, herding supernatural players toward positions that served purposes none of them understood.
That night, Paul told Lagertha everything.
About the device hidden in his system inventory. About Sophia and Marcus and games played by entities that used people like chess pieces. About convergence events and timeline stability and the growing certainty that they were all being herded toward something larger than wars or the survival of kings.
"You believe there are others like you?"
"I've met one. The system tried to make me forget, but overdraft damage exposed the suppression." Paul's voice carried exhaustion that went deeper than physical fatigue. "Two confirmed. Maybe more we don't know about."
Lagertha was quiet for long moments, processing revelations that should have shattered her understanding of reality itself. When she spoke, her voice held the same calm acceptance she brought to battle plans that seemed impossible.
"Rollo betrays us soon."
"Yes. Can't stop it without worse consequences. Some threads hold up the entire tapestry—cut them and everything unravels."
"Then we position ourselves to survive the betrayal. Protect what we can. And prepare for this convergence—whatever it means."
Paul activated Success Rate Analysis one final time before sleep, burning through his restored mana to calculate survival probabilities in scenarios that included fraternal betrayal, timeline convergence, and confrontation with system users whose motives remained unknown.
[QUERY: SURVIVAL PROBABILITY THROUGH NEXT 43 DAYS]
[RESULT: 54% - FACTORS UNKNOWN, VARIABLES INSUFFICIENT]
[RECOMMENDATION: PREPARE FOR CONTACT, SEEK ALLIES, OPTIMIZE EQUIPMENT]
Fifty-four percent. Better than a coin flip, but not by much. Paul closed his eyes and tried to find peace in the sound of river water and distant laughter from warriors who still believed tomorrow belonged to them.
Outside the tent, Paris gleamed across dark water like a promise that would never be kept. But Paul's attention had turned toward deeper battles—the kind fought between forces that moved across centuries rather than battlefields, where victory meant survival and defeat meant watching reality itself fracture under the weight of too many impossible choices.
Forty-three days until three system users would meet face to face. And somewhere beyond the immediate concerns of siege warfare and personal vendettas, countdown timers measured the approach of confrontations that would make the fall of towers look like minor footnotes in wars fought over the fundamental nature of time itself.
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