ARTHUR

The aethereal blade in my hand – no bigger than a simple dagger and hazy at the tips – struck a winged creature made of stone before partially shattering, still unable to withstand the impact.

My hand went around the creature’s throat. It looked like a bat with a crushed stone face and a huge mouth. Its wide jaws bit madly just inches from my face as its jagged claws dug into my arms in a desperate effort to get closer.

Holding the gargoyle back with one hand, I conjured the blade again in my other hand and plunged it into the beast’s head, which split with a resounding crack.

The blade broke and disappeared, leaving me with empty arms to defend myself as two more gargoyles descended towards me.

Twin bolts of dark fire hit the descending gargoyles and the charged beasts exploded. Its debris fell to the ground like hail and scattered small splashes where it landed in the creek that divided the area.

I looked back to see Caera reaching out, revealing the silver armband she had taken from the Spearbeaks treasure room. It looked slender compared to her wrist, little more than a decorative sleeve covered with intricate engravings.

Two narrow shards of silver swirled defensively around her, glowing with black light. On the next breath, they began to darken as they returned to the armband and reconnected to it, fitting the pattern of engravings.

Regis ran towards us, spitting a chunk of rock out of his mouth.

Behind him, the area stretched out into the distance, covered by the wreckage of our passage.

We were in a canyon with steep, rocky cliffs on both sides. They were so tall that only a patch of sky could be seen above us, like a reflection of the thin, clear stream that ran along the bottom of the canyon. Loose stones and debris – the remains of the gargoyles – covered the canyon floor.

“That was too much,” said Regis impassively.

“I admit, it wasn’t bad after things started happening,” Caera replied, carefully keeping her expression serious, except for the slight quiver of her lips. “Actually, it was quite… marbled.”

“I think fun, like beauty, is in the eye of the rock…” Regis replied in a shaky voice as he tried desperately not to laugh.

I faced the exit portal with a deep sigh. “I’m so glad I brought you two.”

Caera approached me. “Oh, don’t be so serious, Grey.”

“Yes Princess. You shouldn’t take us because of granite.” Regis exploded, barking with laughter.

Ignoring my companions, I focused on the portal, my mind working on a question I’d carried with me since I acquired the compass.

It had to be more than just a portal generator that got us in and out of the Relictombs at will. My mind kept going back to the djinn. As hard as it was to believe, they designed and built this place. They must have had a way to travel through it, and I already knew the Compass could interact with a Relictomb portal.

An image flashed through my mind, the false memory Sylvia implanted with her latest message to me. The clarity of memory had faded over time, but I knew it was one of the zones that led to the djinn’s next downfall.

Until now, I had blindly stumbled across the Relictombs, knowing this place was guiding me toward my goals…or so it seemed, at least. But blindly relying on the machinations of a long-dead race of aether holders did not meet my needs. Not if I was going to dominate Fate.

Sitting up, I concentrated on the faded memory Sylvia had left me while I activated the hemispherical relic. It vibrated with aether as a hazy gray light engulfed the portal, replacing the slippery glow of oil that hung like a curtain within the stone frame with a clear view of my room at the Central Academy.

“Damn,” I cursed, cutting off the flow of aether on the relic, causing the portal to revert to its original appearance.

“Protein paste for your thoughts?”

I looked up to see Caera holding stuffed nutrient-filled rations in an insulated tube container.

“I’m just thinking about how to use the compass properly,” I replied, dodging the strong smell the food gave off. “How do you eat these things? The smell is horrible.”

She shrugged her shoulders before squeezing the contents of the tube into her mouth. “Unlike you, I really have to eat to survive. This material is easy to transport in large quantities for long climbs.”

“I think I’m glad I don’t need to eat,” I said, wrinkling my nose.

Caera swung the tube, blowing the scent of cold flesh into my face. I flinched and pulled her hand away, my knuckles grinding against the silver cuff around her wrist. “How is your new artifact?” I asked, eager to distract her from torturing me further.

“Ridiculously frustrating,” Caera pouted. “It’s like I’ve grown a new member that I have to learn to use from scratch.”

“Hey, he does that all the time,” said Regis, shrugging his wolf shoulders.

I tightened my hand around Regis’ muzzle before answering. “Looks like you got the hang of what I saw back there.”

A slight smile tugged at the corner of Caera’s lips before disappearing just as quickly. She lifted her silver armband as she turned toward the portal. “Do you think the compass works as my artifact?”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I released Regis.

“When I first channeled mana into the artifact, I actually thought it was just an item of defense because of the way the fragments barely hovered in place around the armband. It took me days of constant experimentation to realize that the fragments were capable of being independently controlled,” she explained, tracing the grooves etched into the silver bracelet. “What if the compass feedback function is the default and for you to do more, does it need more guidance?”

Caera’s expression softened. “It seems unlikely that ancient mages would let their people traverse these zones aimlessly. Otherwise, what would have kept them from being arrested, wandering aimlessly toward death?”

I watched as she unconsciously played with the silver armband around her wrist. Her gaze was blank, focused on a distant memory. She wasn’t thinking about the djinn, or me, or even herself. Because it wasn’t about her.

“You’re scared of the possibility that the Relictombs sent your brother somewhere he couldn’t escape,” I said softly, earning a startled look from the blue-haired Alacryan noble.

“Is reading minds another one of your supernatural powers?” She asked in horror. “Please tell me you didn’t hide the fact that you can-”

I let a small smile slide across my face. “I’m good at reading people, but it’s not magic.”

“Yes,” she confirmed with a sigh of relief. “I’ve been wondering for a while now… the area where you found his dagger and cape somewhere…”

“Somewhere only I could escape?”

She nodded hesitantly. “Like the mirror room or the frozen mountains? Even the bridge of faces would not have been escaped without your…”

“We have called it God’s Step,” I replied.

“Without your ‘Step of God’ ability.” She gave me an appraising look. “Regis called it that, didn’t he?”

I let out a loud laugh that echoed off the canyon walls. “How did you know?”

She smiled wryly. “Something tells me you wouldn’t be so…great naming your abilities.”

“Um, it’s a great name,” replied Regis defensively after pulling the muzzle out of my hand. ‘And two, you used to use a spell called ‘Absolute Zero,’ so…’

“No,” I said in response to his original question. “The area where I found your brother’s dagger was not like this. It was deadly enough to take the lives of many ascendants before I found it, but it didn’t require the use of ether to escape.”

“It’s something, at least. I’m glad he had a chance to fight, even if he didn’t.” Caera forced a smile before turning and walking away.

Regis remained by my side as I returned my focus to the hemispherical relic in my hand. Like what Caera had said, maybe the Compass needed more guidance. Closing my eyes, I visualized the area that had the greatest impact on me, the one I remembered most clearly.

“It’s really changing,” said Regis with disbelief before letting out a groan. “You just had to pick that one.”

I opened one eye to see the smooth marble floor, the high arched ceiling and the rune-covered doors covering both ends…along with the armed statues lined up on either side of the hallway.

“It really worked,” I huffed, feeling my core drain as the Compass continued to suck the aether out of me to keep the new fate open.

Deactivating the relic, I started replaying the details of our fate in my head. As soon as the image was clear in my mind, I patted Regis on the back. “Get Caera. We are leaving.”

When the portal stabilized in the next zone we’d be heading to, Caera arrived with Regis, eyes wide with wonder.

“I can’t believe you actually figured this out so quickly,” she muttered.

“Your advice helped,” I said, holding out my hand as Regis disappeared inside me. “Come on.”

Taking a deep breath, we both entered, immediately greeted by a gust of damp wind. All around us were dense trees growing from both the floor and the ceiling, speckled with the occasional colors of aether fruits, while webs of tangled roots spread endlessly beneath our feet.

“Well, this is definitely not your room,” Caera observed. “So, is this one of the areas you need to visit on this mysterious quest of yours?”

“No,” I said softly, turning to her. “It’s where your brother died.”

The Alacryan noblewoman’s head swiveled toward me, her intelligent red eyes wide and fluttering before she turned away, letting her hair fall to shield her face. “Thank you, Grey.”

Ignoring the tingling sensation of Regis’ teasing smile, I tucked the Compass back into my rune before moving forward. “No need to thank me yet.”

The last time we were here, Regis and I killed the giant centipede and all but one of its eggs so as not to destroy the delicate ecosystem contained in the area. But time worked strangely on Relictombs, so we didn’t know what we’d find here.

Exploring the nearby trees, I found one with strong branches and began to hoist myself upward, avoiding the hanging fruit and the invisible creatures that used them as bait. Once I was twenty meters high, I scanned the surroundings, looking for the millipede’s lair.

Though the crudely dug hole that opened into the millipede pit was undefined, the aethereal glow emanating from it was not, and it did not take long to be found. It was less than a mile away. Before I could descend to the others, however, movement caught my eye in the distant canopy. The treetops rustled as something moved below them.

The two-tailed monkeys weren’t big enough to make the trees tremble…

Falling from branch to branch, I was on the ground in seconds. I brought a finger to my lips before speaking to Caera in a whisper. “The creature is out of its lair. It’s a few miles away, but we need to move in silence.”

Nodding in the direction we needed to go, I started to lead the way, taking each step carefully to avoid making unnecessary noise.

‘Why are you so tense? We are so much stronger than we were when we got here,’ observed Regis with derision.

I know, but it’s hard to let go of the kind of fear that grows in you when you’re weak. It grows with you.

The jungle was quiet. Even the centipede’s heavy footsteps were too far away to hear. The lack of birds chirping or insect buzzing seemed unnatural. But apart from the voracious millipede, the zone was home only to the two-tailed apes, and they had adapted to be completely silent. Even as I tried to hear them, I couldn’t hear any.

I paused, examining the dense trees. Aether-rich fruits dangled like plump pears around us, but there wasn’t a single two-tailed monkey in sight. Imbuing ether in my eyes, I focused on the ceiling, where the trees grew like vines. Though I scanned the distant shadows for a minute or so, I didn’t see any movement.

“What is the problem?” Caera whispered, her head swiveling from side to side. “What do you see?”

“Nothing,” I admitted. “Nothing.”

I wasn’t sure why the absence of half the local fauna made me nervous, but it did. I reinforced the layer of aether that coated my body and moved on.

We arrived at the entrance to the burrow without seeing any sign of life. Caera knelt down and stared into the dark tunnel. She sniffled and wrinkled her nose. “What is this disgusting stench?”

I copied it and almost choked on the smell of rotting meat. I felt Regis shudder inside. ‘It’s disgusting enough just reading your thoughts. I’ll just wait for this one to come out.’

“Maybe it’s the millipede’s corpse,” I whispered, taking a few tentative steps down the steeply descending tunnel.

The tunnel radiated a faint purple light, as before, but it looked bigger than before, and the dirt on the floor had a red tint below the purple glow.

We crept along the tunnel until it widened and opened to our left. Aether crystals littered the tunnel floor, some turned to gravel and no longer glowing. It eventually opened up in the huge cave where we fought the first millipede.

Caera covered her mouth and nose with her hand. We had found the source of the smell, and it wasn’t the centipede we killed.

Ether crystals carpeted the floor, no longer in piles but scattered and broken. They were stained red by rotting and half-eaten ape corpses mixed together like grotesque straw. It was like something out of a nightmare.

“Grey…” Caera looked like she was going to be sick, but I didn’t think it was just the sight before us.

“It wasn’t like this before,” I said gently. “Nothing so horrible.”

I started walking around the cave, trying to avoid the worst of the mess. Cracked and broken aether crystals crunched under my feet, making an uncomfortable noise. I was looking for the bowl-shaped nest where I originally found the millipede eggs and the crystals containing armor and weapons – all that was left of the beast’s devoured ascendants – but it’s gone.

Where once the nest had been, the ground was excavated and trampled, the only place devoid of crystals and corpses. As I approached the barren pit, my foot hit something under the crystals and I yanked on the hilt of a broken sword. It was what I had imbued with aether and crushed, before finding Sevren’s dagger and cloak. I threw it back into the mess.

“Sorry,” I said when Caera came to stand beside me. “I thought this would be more…sentimental.”

Caera’s hand landed momentarily on my shoulder. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to.

Walking cautiously to the center of the barren pit where the nest once stood, she knelt. Her fingers scoured the freshly plowed soil. I stayed quiet, letting her work through whatever thoughts she was having. I figured she wanted to say goodbye, something her adoptive parents never gave her the opportunity to do.

My mood turned melancholy when I thought about my father. I wish I had done more to honor him. Reynolds Leywin was a great man – a hero – and he deserved more than a sudden death fighting mindless beasts. Then again, Caera probably felt the same way about Sevren.

“Grey?” I looked down at the well at Caera. She frowned. “Did you hear that?”

I let myself be distracted, so I didn’t immediately notice the growing noise. It felt like an entire army was closing in, like a thousand armored soldiers running through the jungle above.

“Shit, it’s here,” I said, giving her my hand to help her out of the hole. “Regis!”

“Need I?” He grunted, but the wolf appeared beside me anyway, its flames flickering in agitation.

We quickly prepared for battle. I stayed near the center of the cave, prepared to get his attention. Regis turned to the left, staying close to the far wall. Caera stayed far back, her sword unsheathed and the two silver spines orbiting her defensively.

The sound of his hard exoskeleton scraping the walls of the tunnel made the entire room shake and caused trails of dust to fall from the roof. It slowed as it got closer, so that I could hear its jaws snapping in a measured, steady rhythm. Clack clack clack. Again and again. Then drag a little further forward. Clack clack clack.

Then his head inched slowly into the cave.

‘Oh. Shit.’

This centipede was easily the size of a centipede and a half of the one we killed. His body had turned a rusty red color, now only slightly translucent. Each jaw was long and wide like a man’s and serrated like a bone saw.

He froze. His head lowered a few feet. The jaws snapped.

Then he shot forward at a speed that should have been impossible for something his size. I dodged back as the jaws closed right in front of me, then rolled forward and grabbed the front leg. With a sharp twist, the leg broke free from the body, but the giant millipede was moving again, each leg slamming down, the body bucking and curling, every inch of it moving.

I could see Regis running around the rear end, biting and snapping at everything he could. From the other direction, the black fire was hitting the shell hard like ballista arrows, but the flames left only dark burn marks. The entire exoskeleton was covered with a thick layer of aether, which drove away even the fire from the soul.

Imbuing the severed leg with aether, I tried to shove it up into the millipede’s belly, but another leg hit my shoulder and the blow slipped out of the aether-coated chitin.

Throwing the severed appendix to the ground, I conjured an aether blade and sliced ​​the nearest leg. My blade cut and then broke. Cursing, I wished for more power in the aethereal dagger, focusing on its shape, forcing it to expand and grow bigger. The dagger swelled to the approximate size and shape of a shovel, then broke.

Caera braced herself when the millipede turned its attention to her. He let out a hissing scream and started toward her.

Summoning as much aether as I could quickly, I punched straight up. The chitinous underbelly cracked and the millipede’s body shuddered, legs scraping the crystal-covered earth. I punched again and again, creating a series of broken craters along his lower body, but it wasn’t enough to slow him down or regain his attention.

The silver shards of Caera’s artifact whirled quickly in front of her, no longer firing projectiles. Instead, a steady beam of soul fire connected them, forming a thin barrier in front of her. As I prepared to grab the millipede’s legs in a last-ditch effort to contain it, a third satellite broke free of the clamp, then another, and they joined the others.

The thin barrier bloomed into a wall of black fire an instant before the centipede struck it. Caera’s eyes sharpened as she leaned forward, concentrating on keeping the defensive barrier in place. The impact shook the burrow, and the millipede’s body doubled over like a derailed train as the front stopped suddenly, but the rear continued to spin forward.

The jaws opened, trying to close the edges of the soul’s fire shield. Purple-black sparks flew wherever the aether-coated centipede touched the dark flames, scorching everything they landed on. The black light reflected off the sweat that clung to Caera’s face, highlighting her features. His teeth were bared in a grimace of concentration, his scarlet eyes gleaming as if they too had been set on fire.

She was holding back, but I knew she couldn’t hold back for long.

A sudden, building pressure on the other side of the cave made me spin, wary of some new threat. Instead, I saw Regis rising from a pile of aether crystals. His flames grew ragged, his wolf shape less obvious as his features turned to shadows as he shifted. I could see the tips of the hard thorns growing all over his body and the horns protruding from his head, but I knew it would be some time before he could get back into the fight.

There was no time to guess his use of Destruction. Aethereal rays flashed around me as I used God Step to the millipede’s contorted head. Infusing aether into my fists, I punched the aether-coated exoskeleton repeatedly, creating a cobweb of cracks in the thick chitin.

The centipede recoiled from the blows, its head popping out from under me so fast I spun in midair before falling to my feet. The head rocked back and forth and the jaws snapped together menacingly. For a single breath, things in the cave were almost still.

Caera breathed heavily behind her shield, but when I met her eyes, she tilted her head just a few inches, assuring me she was okay.

All our attention – even that of the giant centipede – was drawn to Regis. The shadows disappeared from him, revealing the full extent of his Doom form. Just like when we fought the so-called “Wild Stuff,” he was huge. His chest and forelegs grew tautly muscled, his back slanted slightly down and ablaze with jagged, unnatural purple flames. Horns like sharp rams curved forward like a bull’s, while its snarling mouth was full of serrated daggers.

When he spoke, his deep voice reverberated through the room, more a primal growl than speech. “Try spanking me now, bitch!”

Regis leapt half the length of the lair to crash into the tangled millipede, its jaws infused with Destruction ripping and tearing. He ripped off legs and made huge cuts in the carapace, through which thick, reddish mud spread. But the centipede was resisting. Despite Regis’ size, the giant beast was still much larger and curled around him like a python, using its body to crush him. Legs stabbed like daggers all over his body, dodging hardened fur.

Black blazing bolts of spirit fire hit the creature, firing even faster than before. The thick aether barrier was fading, and for every ten rays that dissipated against it, one passed, causing the chitin to crack and hiss as the soul’s fire burned through it.

Suddenly, the millipede went into a deadly roll, slamming like a maniac into the cave with Regis trapped against its body. Caera’s artifact returned to defensive mode when part of the millipede’s body smashed it against the wall.

Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I conjured a blade of aether in my fist. I guided the formation, keeping a clear image in my mind: a long, thin blade, translucent purple instead of blue. I had the necessary aether – I knew I had – it was just the understanding I lacked. Some important understanding of how aether could form a solid form—a weapon—kept slipping out of me.

Still, I tried. The dagger lengthened, but the tip was indistinct. The shape faltered, coiling like the huge body of the millipede, which writhed and shattered around me. I strengthened my will and the blade straightened. The edges quivered and danced, more like a fire than tempered steel, but the shape held.

I tracked the path of the centipede’s spiral structure. It was chaotic, meaningless… but there was a pattern to all that chaos. Holding the blade in both hands, I split my mind. With one part, I kept the shape of the sword. With the other, I focused the aether on every muscle, joint, and tendon. My head ached with the exertion, my body screamed as it struggled to hold on against the tension.

The Burst Step pulled the world under my feet, and then I was standing on the other side of the den, nothing left in my hands but a faint thread of aether. Behind me, there was a constant, steady crashing noise as the millipede’s body fell to the ground. A deluge of red mud gushed from a cut that occupied half of its body, turning the ground into a bloody soup of crystals, half-eaten remains and bloody ooze.

Are you okay? I thought of Regis, who I couldn’t see between the folds of the centipede’s corpse. The pressure exerted by his form of Destruction had eased.

‘Do not mind me. I’m going to lie here in this stinking soup of death for a minute, he thought wearily.

With a tired laugh, I turned my attention to Caera, who was leaning against the far wall. I had promised to bring her on these ascents in exchange for her help in stealing the Compass. However, seeing the Alacryan noble hold firm in these last zones, having her as a teammate felt less like a commitment and more like a genuine partnership.

“Caera,” I yelled when I saw her getting to her feet. “Leg worm-”

Something in her expression stopped me from walking closer to my blue-haired companion as she limped toward the center of the room.

Regis appeared around a clump of centipedes, shaking the dirt from their fur. He came to stand beside me, and we watched in silence as Caera found a relatively clean space near the center of the den. Soulfire suddenly exploded out of her, forming a sphere of black flame that faded as quickly as it had appeared.

Now standing in the center of a bare earth ring, she withdrew something that glinted silver in the dim light, then dipped it into the ground. Your brother’s dagger.

Dropping to her knees, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against her fist. Her shoulders began to shake as tears streamed down her cheek before falling to the ground.

“Come on,” I whispered before turning away. Regis followed me, allowing her a moment of privacy to grieve.. The half-muffled sound of broken sobs resonated in the silence.