On the Remote Outskirts of the Kingdom of Xenifort
"Master, wait for me—I can't keep up now!"
The gasping breath tore at his lungs, a desperate cry from muscle fibers pushed past their limit. The young aspirant's vitality was failing him. Chasing a sage who could glide upon the still air merely by whistling, his feet levitated upon guiding leaves, was no trivial undertaking.
"What ails you, my apprentice? Run to catch up! Do not neglect to chant every syllable of the mana script. If you fail to master it by tomorrow, I shall have you scale a mountain in the middle of a lake, one far higher than this!"
The old man, clad in long robes of deep forest green, as though strange roots extended from his very toes, flew onward. The spirited youth, stripped to the waist and wearing only shorts, had one hand grasping a steady rope, his legs pumping to keep pace, all while he was forced to read a sheet of charred parchment every time he paused for a breath. They were surrounded by a desolate wood. Withered leaves scattered along the path.
The trees, though resembling maples, possessed trunks that twisted and contorted in a manner that was visually hypnotic, their bark a ghostly white, much like the birch.
The chirping of tiny forest birds, no larger than various species of beetles, provided a sharp contrast of brilliant colors against the muted tones of the woods. Sunlight speared through the canopy, dappling the arduous trail they followed.
"Breathe, my apprentice, just breathe in rhythm! Ah, the paper has burned through already. Quick, grab a new sheet! New characters emerge. You must feel the mana. The body of a scholar must not yield to weakness! You must push on, even if it leaves you a cripple. Run! Be swift!"
The sun shone with searing intensity on the steep gradient. The apprentice, his feet already beginning to fail him, managed to read the script with greater clarity.
"Sorieth… gasp… hah—Torinza Materona. Wait, no. I read that wrong. That is a name, not an incantation. The name must follow later. Damn it all!"
"Names of the dead. The pure mana spirits surrounding you are volatile. Do not lose your composure or they will drag you away until only a husk remains. Your noble mother and father would grieve terribly."
The impassioned youth recited the spell, oblivious to his path or any obstacles. He chanted the azure and golden characters that appeared ceaselessly upon the parchment, which scorched anew with every word he spoke. He controlled the rhythm of the reading by regulating his breath. His battered body, certain bones already broken, began to mend. Until, abruptly, the flow of circulation ceased, the first time he had consciously achieved this state. He halted his breathing for a brief, eternal moment, before lowering his gaze to the path ahead. It plunged down, a chasm deep as life's ultimate frontier, a ravine whose floor was a thick forest, a vivid orange contrasting sharply with the deep green. As the autumn leaves below reflected the southern sun, the vista was as a painting rendered in the deep hues of pastel crayons.
"I… I have reached the summit… Wait, my hand… the parchment is gone, too. What has happened?" The apprentice's hand glowed with a faint aura before the fiery burn faded, the paper's task completed.
"You have done it, my apprentice. You have done it, but it is not yet good enough. Tomorrow, I will take you to the middle of the lake. Go back down now and record this day—your first successful passage in nine long months."
The young disciple, his hair the color of flame and his eyes alight with the fire of the burgeoning scholar, turned his confident smile towards his Master. He bowed his head, stood straight, and hurried past the Sage, who was seated upon the twisted tree trunk. As the trailing ends of the apprentice's long robes vanished from sight, he leapt down, seating himself upon the mountain's edge. Below lay a panorama of dense forest, the orange and deep green colors segmenting into distinct, thick clusters. Beyond that lay the busy outskirts, a clamorous coastal settlement where sea cargo was unloaded. People smiled broadly, and travelers found great favor there. But that was a child's view. From his perspective, a scholar's perspective, the air was thick with the wailing of carrion crows, and the cry of the nocturnal owl perversely echoed in the daylight. He saw the spirits, and any sage of his caliber would see the same.
"This place has thrived greatly since the Central Sea War, Otelahn. Do you not agree, General?" The Sage spoke with a warmth akin to meeting an old comrade. The gnarled roots clinging to his hand began to subtly expand, but as they reached to touch the foot sheathed in its jet-black iron greave, they were instantly consumed by a scarlet inferno.
"That boy will surely perish. The war that is soon to descend upon us will claim him. He will never become a Sage. He will be naught but a corpse, an object of use for rogue sorcerers and heretical scholars, never to see the light of day again."
A shadow fell across the aging Master. The Sage, a patron of the academy within the Kingdom, was merely conducting an outdoor examination today, which is why he found himself in these festive suburbs, an ironic coincidence that brought him face-to-face with the Crow-man, a figure in iron-black armor, entirely dissonant from this town, a contrast as vast as the sky and the deepest gorge.
"Sage, war never truly ends. Such soft training as this will only condemn them to death," Chennel Chennelyk, the Dark General, stated to the white-haired, partially bald Sage, who nodded in understanding.
"Black wings torn by a spear-hole. A body so starved and gaunt one might think it has never tasted water. Blood saturating the form, frightful to behold. The oil of memory seeks to tether it to this world. It flies lower than any waiting hell could receive, yet you retrieved it, did you not, General? You should have allowed it to walk there, or remain in that perpetual state, like the other entities that came before. But you…"
"Is it wrong to grant a path to one who does not even know who they are, where they came from, or who they once were? I have wronged no one. I do this because I must. My King commands it so. Though the people of this continent, or the entire world, may forget him, I will remember my King always." Chennel spoke with an icy composure. With every word he uttered, the surrounding leaves drifted down, carried by the wind, until they settled upon the shoulder of the Sage, who could halt nothing.
"In that action, you are not wrong. But the fact that Sages such as myself have encountered the being from the mire in our dreams—the King of the Kingdom of the Waves, slain by a bloodied blade held by an entity confused in its own soul—this is what matters. The continent may be ignorant now, and perhaps indifferent later. But this action will bring about the very war you say is imminent. The impact was already immense, and this time, the very turning of the earth will not be able to counteract it."
As the Sage spoke, he gazed upon the uncomplicated, bustling town. Children played in the streets with parents singing ballads of sprites and fae that were never real, or perhaps they simply did not know that these were not mere common tales. His apprentice walked among the crowds, a smile on his face that, even from this distance, was sharper than the vision of any hawk. A small smile appeared on the Sage's own face, on the skin that was beginning to wrinkle with age.
"These countless small lives will die because of war. No condition can prevent it. This, my dear Sage, is what we, and you, and they, and every faction, must now confront. You will soon encounter a ship. Warriors from the same place as me will arrive here. Watch over them. That entity, which begins to open its eyes beyond the darkness of its own memory, will honor you if you bestow something upon it. I will offer this as a sole warning. I came only to speak this, but I believe you should know it, Sage."
Lightning flashed on the high cliff overlooking the thick forest near the town, leaving behind a charred black feather, touched by hellfire. Did the crimson lightning reveal only a fleeting glimpse of life? And would everything depart exactly as he had stated?
The question formed in the Sage's mind, even though the answer was already clear. The final sound left by the Dark General was only the crash of the lightning strike.
The Shoreline
The waves rolled at the edge of the fishing grounds where the local canoes typically ventured. But as the howl of the sea sounded, every vessel moved away from the area. The water receded drastically, morphing into a deep azure squall. A swirling vortex plunged deep, as if descending into another dimension.
A great cluster of larger vessels sounded a blare from trumpets made of immense shark teeth. They began to pull their ships away from that perilous spot. "What in the abyss is happening? Just last month there was a whirlpool, and now it returns, without any whales or rays beaching themselves."
The captain of a larger ship separated himself, descending into a long-tail canoe kept for emergencies. He commanded the craft using a flute. The sail, which resembled a shark's fin, violently flapped in the storm generated from the deep gulf. He drew ever closer. But when the cry of dozens, perhaps a hundred, Storm Gulls sounded, he elected to halt.
"What in the bloody hell is that!"
a sailor on the main ship roared, sounding the trumpet repeatedly, urging the captain to return. The sight before them was colossal, terrifying in its sheer magnitude. It was neither the thousand-winged ray nor the whale of promised covenant. It was a giant vessel, ancient and archaic.
Their generation had never seen it, or believed it existed only in legend. It was a ship larger than any creature in that part of the sea, and as it rose fully from the depths, they were struck dumb. Even the sounds of the surrounding whales, which swam through the azure curtain to bump against their hull, fell silent.
The Guiding Bow led them. This was the company who had utterly destroyed the King on the Throne of Waves, leaving no one to stand by his side. They stood upon the gigantic ship. The wind whipped the leather cloak of the Archer, the Stone-Foundation Scholar who had become a Priest, or perhaps returned to his pilgrimage. The Female Warrior in steel plate armor stood with an unparalleled majesty, far exceeding that of many noblewomen. As for the being still seated, clutching a sword—it only partially opened its eyes. Yet, the world it saw now was clearer than the darkness it had known, though only slightly.
"So, how do we get down?" the Scholar Prossonk asked wryly. Helm immediately clasped his forehead as he lowered his bow. He looked around the deck, which was slick with water, algae, and the slime of still-writhing fish.
"We'll just use that old, black fishing net. Come on down. It's a shame only I have wings, nyah!"
"Next time, I swear before a God I don't even believe in, I'll cut out your tongue, you crazy blood-sucking fiend."
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