The descent wasn't peaceful.
My mind couldn't stop observing every detail of that destroyed kingdom. Two days. Two days was an absurdly short time — and, honestly, I was curious, almost obsessed, to identify where the flaw was that had made such a capable kingdom collapse so quickly. Because, if I didn't find that flaw, it would be mine too.
When we finally reached the ground, the signs of battle were everywhere.
And they weren't common signs. It wasn't just a matter of destroyed things — toppled towers, cracked walls. There were streets artificially widened, as though something had passed through there carving a path by brute force. Stains of dried blood darkened the stone in pools that had stopped glistening long ago. The whole thing had less the appearance of a creature attack and more that of a natural catastrophe — as though an earthquake, or a flood, had leveled everything and gone away.
And, beyond the ruins, there was the silence.
That absolute, heavy silence that only exists in places where death has passed and wasn't in a hurry. The kind of stillness that makes the skin crawl before the mind even understands why.
"Accompany me to the castle. It's there that we'll manage to make the swap."
"If you can wait, I'd like to check the kingdom first."
Eris seemed anxious.
The smell of death and the absolute silence awoke in her something I also felt — a primitive urgency to get out of there as soon as possible. But I needed to use rationality, not desperation. Anything I found in my favor could be the key to holding out longer than all those who came before me. And all of them had died.
"I promise I'll be as quick as possible."
"Yes… if possible, I wouldn't want to stay here for more than an hour."
Despite the evident nervousness, it was clear she understood what I was doing — even finding it strange and unexpected, she recognized it as something necessary.
In truth, even if she didn't give me the time, I would leave her waiting anyway. But the fact that she yielded on her own helped avoid unnecessary friction between us — and I needed her cooperative, not irritated.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Do you remember what the structure of his kingdom was like? I mean, from when you came here before?"
The state of destruction made it difficult to identify what each thing was.
The toppled constructions even seemed familiar, but I didn't want to draw hasty conclusions from rubble. And, while she guided me through the place, I noticed her nervousness beginning to diminish. Maybe having a purpose there — something to do besides waiting for death in the air — gave her something new to lean on.
"And here is where the castle is. If I'm not mistaken, he had built four towers, one at each point. And it was here that he died."
That kingdom's castle was, clearly, several levels superior to mine.
It even had a luxurious structure in its interior — details of wealth that, now, served for nothing more than to decorate a tomb. It was evident, from the shattered gate and the amount of accumulated blood, that the last battlefield had been that small hall. It was there that the previous protector tried to resist with everything he had left. It was there that he fell.
And it was there, amid the rubble of a destroyed throne, that I found something capable of finally shedding light on what had happened.
"What is this?"
"A book… I think it's a diary."
It was half burned, the edges darkened by fire.
It didn't seem to have any magical power — it was exactly what it appeared to be: a diary. But, in that place, a diary could be worth more than any weapon. Because it contained something none of us had: the testimony of someone who had faced the enemy and seen, with their own eyes, what would be coming after me.
"Unfortunately, many pages are burned or torn. But maybe it can help me."
Outside, the light was beginning to dim — and the nervousness returned to Eris's face, clear.
I had already asked for too much time.
"Show me what I need to do."
✦ ✦ ✦
The woman seemed relieved, advancing quickly toward a tower just ahead.
Seen up close, it didn't seem to be a defense tower. It was thinner, more delicate in construction. But the most curious detail was another: from afar, that tower was, without a doubt, the most well-preserved point of the entire kingdom. So intact, in fact, that it gave the impression of having been raised on top of the rubble — after the destruction, and not before it. As though the wall itself refused to let that tower fall.
"Let's go up."
We climbed the staircase that spiraled inside the tower, until we reached the top floor.
Up there, in a cramped space, a small altar rose about a meter from the floor. And, embedded in its rock, there was the mark of a sunken palm — a perfect mold of a hand, waiting.
"When you place your hand here, your kingdom will replace this one. And a dome of protection will rise, covering not just your kingdom, but the entire wall, for five days. That's the period you'll have to assemble your strategy."
She stepped back a few paces, opening space for me.
Unfortunately, apart from that palm, there was nothing else worthy of note — neither inside nor outside that tower. Even the altar didn't have a single word written on it. It was just that. The mark of a hand, and nothing more. As though whoever had built that place didn't think the protectors deserved explanations — just a place to put their hand and start dying.
"Okay. Let's do this."
I approached. Through a narrow window, I could see the outside — the entire landscape destroyed, and, beyond it, nothing.
I pressed the diary firmly against my chest. There would be time to understand what those pages held. But, for now, I needed to swap the kingdom. I extended my hand toward the mold — and, before my eyes, a message appeared in the air.
[ The enemy lurks in the shadows in search of the definitive victory. Survive. ]
The message didn't seem written for me.
It seemed written for anyone who someday found themselves in that exact position — a generic call to fight, to survival. But there was something in it that bothered me. "Lurks in the shadows." "Definitive victory." That didn't sound like the description of a dumb horde of hungry creatures. It sounded like a warning about something that thought. That planned. That waited for the right moment.
Before I could decipher what those words really meant, an enormous light took over everything outside.
And replaced the destroyed kingdom with another. Much more familiar.
"The process is complete."
✦ ✦ ✦
Eris's voice pulled me from the stupor while I still stared at the light dissipating.
We descended the tower, and outside, now, what I saw was my own kingdom. Much leaner than the previous one, more compact — but now driven into the foot of the wall, embedded in it as though it had always been there. There was nothing new, no additional structure granted by the swap. But I felt that place, that colossal wall at my back, still needed to be studied in depth. I would have five days to prepare. And I would need to use every second of them to understand the terrain that could kill me.
That was when I truly looked at what stretched beyond my kingdom.
The desert.
A dead and infinite wasteland, of cracked and grayish earth, that stretched as far as the eye could reach before dissolving into the dark mist of the horizon. There wasn't a tree. There wasn't a stone out of place. Nothing that broke the monotony of that emptiness — no accident of terrain where an enemy could hide, and also no refuge to which I could run. It was flat. Deliberately flat, in a way that seemed almost artificial, as though something had spent centuries leveling that ground so that nothing would ever grow there again.
And it was from there that they would come.
From that gray and silent nothing, from which, according to Eris, the enemies emerged "out of nowhere" — leaving no bodies behind. I stared at that empty horizon for a long instant, and something at the bottom of my stomach tightened. Because a battlefield with no hiding place should be an advantage for whoever defends. And yet, all those who defended from there had died.
"If you'll excuse me, I'll be going. I'll be back tomorrow with the materials necessary for what you need. If it's something out of the ordinary, maybe I won't be able to bring it — but anything within my reach, I'll do my best to provide."
Eris finally seemed more at ease upon seeing the great white dome rise.
It covered not just the kingdom, but the entire wall — a pale and translucent vault gleaming against the dark sky, like the only point of light in that dead world.
✦ ✦ ✦
"How are you going to get back?"
I had brought Eris using the Griffin. But I knew that, before me, probably no one there had ever had that kind of benefit.
"That's easy. Come with me."
The woman advanced to what seemed to be a new part of my kingdom — a section attached to the wall, as though the two structures were one.
"Here there's a gate that serves as a passage between the two sides. Unfortunately, it only works while someone takes responsibility for the kingdom. Which means that, after the protection ends, I'll only be able to appear from above, over the top of the wall. But until then, it's through here that I'll come."
I approached the door — which seemed to have been cut from the wall itself — but, upon trying to touch it, my hand was repelled by an invisible force.
"Unfortunately, the Lord of this kingdom doesn't have permission to cross to the other side."
Of course it made sense.
I was cornered. Sealed. Behind me, an impassable wall of over a kilometer. In front of me, a desert of absolutely nothing. There was no way out — except to survive, or die like all the others. The very geography of the place had been designed so that the protector had nowhere to flee. It was a trap with the name of honor.
"No problem… do I need to know anything else?"
The woman looked up for an instant, as though searching for something in her own memory. Then, she returned her eyes to me.
"There's a legend. They say that, every three months, the wall's protector is rewarded with something. Honestly, I don't know if it's true — it's something I heard from others who were here before me. But, otherwise… maybe something good happens, after three months."
Three months.
It was a small detail, said almost like someone who doesn't believe their own information. But I kept it. Because, in a place where the last protector lasted two days, the simple possibility of a reward every three months said one thing: the system expected someone, at some point, to be capable of lasting that long. And if the system expected it, then it wasn't impossible.
It was just impossible for everyone who tried until now.
We still talked a bit about the materials I needed.
Most was just to build the item I was missing — the Incubator. She didn't seem to mind the list, even the quantity, despite being small, being expensive. In truth, Eris seemed much more willing to help than she let on — and that, to me, was a good sign. Maybe there was, beneath all that arrogance, someone who actually wanted me to survive. Or, at the very least, someone desperate enough to root for it.
As soon as she finished noting down everything I needed, she left.
And, for the first time, I was truly alone in that place — with a lean kingdom, a colossal wall, a hungry desert, and a burned diary that perhaps contained the only truth capable of keeping me alive.