The mountains of Andor did not welcome travelers.
Luckily, their tolerance for them was quite high.
There was a difference here. One Jin Huang understood within the first hour of the ascent, when a loose stone slipped under his foot and tumbled down the slope, clattering loudly enough to echo like an accusation.
"Mm." He glanced upward, eyes narrowed, face grim. "Hostile terrain."
Behind him, Qin Shuyue squinted at the jagged peaks stretching into mist, shifting as she adjusted her stance on the incline.
"It's not hostile," she said thoughtfully. "It's not anything. Just nature."
"Unfeeling nature," muttered Lu Chen.
The group pressed on.
The air thinned as they climbed, and the greenery of Albion's lower lands gave way to stubborn shrubs, then to lichen clinging to stone like survivors of some ancient war. The path- if it could even be called that- wound between cliffs and broken ridges, sometimes narrowing so sharply that even Hei Shisan had to turn sideways.
Cho Yanshi exhaled sharply. "A bit of internal energy would be more than welcome right now."
"Tell me about it," Qin Shuyue replied dryly, stepping over a jagged rock. "I'd give anything to just fly to this 'Valley of Kings.' Can't you take us, Jin Huang."
Jin Huang, at the front, suddenly seemed puzzled. "When does a cultivator become able to fly?"
The group stopped, staring at one another in disbelief.
"You can't already fly?" Hei Shisan asked, confused. "I could do it from the second I broke through to the Inner Core realm."
Jin Huang looked around, suddenly getting an idea. He was a few thoughts away from jumping off the side when he noticed something.
Up ahead, perched on a crooked outcrop like a particularly stubborn bird, sat a man.
He was old.
Not just old in years, but old in the way mountains were old. His beard cascaded down his chest in tangled grey ropes, and he wore a patched cloak that looked as though it had once been five different garments before surrendering to unity.
He was eating something, crunching loudly, but they only started hearing it after they noticed him.
Jin Huang approached cautiously. "Mister Mountain Man... sir?"
The old man did not look up. "If you've come to ask for directions," he said between bites, "you're already lost."
"We're heading to the Valley of Kings."
The crunching stopped immediately. Slowly, the old man lifted his head, his eyes far too sharp.
"Ah," he said. "Another group for the sword trial, then."
Lu Chen frowned. "Another? Trial?"
"Yes. You're the third group this month to wind up here, searching for that damned place."
"That seems unlikely," Shen Wuyou murmured. "This path is barely traversable."
The old man shrugged. "People are always seeking things they shouldn't. Don't they know that most of them won't be chosen?"
Qin Shuyue leaned slightly toward Jin Huang and whispered, "Do you think he's a secret master? Some kind of all-powerful hermit?"
Jin Huang whispered back, "He's eating rocks. Might be a lunatic."
"I can hear you," the old man said flatly.
Jin Huang straightened. "Ah- I was just saying how delicious those rocks look. What flavor are they- Lime?"
The old man held up what he had been eating. It was, in fact, a rock. "What do you mean? This is swan meat."
"…Right," Jin Huang said.
They sat with him for a while, although no one was entirely sure why. They thought, perhaps, that it was the altitude. Or the fact that he had, without asking, begun telling a story.
"Kilgharrah," the old man said, gazing out over the mountain range, "was not always mad."
The name seemed to settle over the group like a shadow. Even the wind quieted.
"He was the oldest, most ancient of dragons," the man continued. "Older than every kingdom of Albion, older than even those petty wars. He remembered when Albion was young… when the skies were still wild."
"During the War against the Old Religion, Kilgharrah chose to protect the druid tribes by letting himself be captured. He was prisoner to a human king for many, many years. Until the Immortal Mage found and released him, later enlisting his service in a war that forever changed Albion."
"It was during that time of war that Kilgharrah, the Immortal Mage, and Albion's last and greatest king forged the Once and Future Sword."
"And then?" Lin, who had been silent all this time, was visibly interested in the story.
"And then... he succumbed to age, as most of us will. Draconic magic is far too great to be housed in one being for so long. Without any surviving member of his race to be found, Kilgharrah was forced to hold all of that magic inside. It grew, festered, and corrupted him."
The old man popped another rock into his mouth. Crunch.
"Magic of such power," he said, "is a dangerous thing for creatures that cannot die."
Hei Shisan sniffed, "Didn't you mention an Immortal Mage? What of him?"
The old man chuckled, as if surrendering to a contradiction, "True. Emrys is another story entirely. Myrddin, he was once called. I know not what name the mortals know him by, now."
"Yes," he swallowed, "Myrddin is an enigma. A being of such power that he became power. Perhaps that is the only reason he has yet to go mad. No- perhaps he'd already been mad. Huhu!"
Cho Yanshi crossed her arms. "You speak as though you know him."
The old man smiled faintly. "I know of him. Few do not. Without him, there would be no Once and Future Sword, nor would the Last King have ever become king. His efforts led to the peace we know of now. Sadly, not even Myrddin could have saved Kilgharrah."
Sighing, the old man ate a handful of rocks with a melancholic expression.
Jin Huang narrowed his eyes slightly. "And the one who slew him?"
"Ah." The old man's gaze sharpened again. "A descendant. Of a once-great line of knights that served that same king. Blade in hand, destiny at his back… and just enough foolishness to believe he could win."
"He did win, though, didn't he?" Lu Chen asked.
The old man chuckled. "Oh, he did. Barely."
They listened for a while longer, and then Jin Huang said his goodbyes. No one asked his name; no one was certain they even wanted to know.
Higher still, the mountains changed.
The stone darkened, veined with strange mineral streaks that shimmered faintly in the light. The wind carried wordless whispers of something that made the skin prickle.
And then, they saw them. Figures... and dozens of them, standing along a ridge ahead, silhouetted against the pale sky.
"Bandits?" Lin panicked.
"No," Qin Shuyue said quietly, calming him. "Too still."
As they approached, the truth became clear. They were either statues, or figures that had once been people.
Each one stood frozen mid-motion- some with weapons drawn, others shielding their eyes, one even mid-laughter.
Stone. All of them.
Lin shivered. Qin Shuyue put her arm around him, looking around as she started. "This place…"
"…is not natural," Shen Wuyou finished.
Jin Huang stepped forward, examining one of the figures. The expression was too real. Too human.
"Could they really have been people?" He pondered.
"Obviously," Cho Yanshi replied. "Statues do not typically grow expressions of terror."
"That is not what I meant." Jin Huang frowned.
There was a faint residue here. Not quite spiritual energy nor anything he could name- not that he could accurately name spiritual energy anyway.
Whatever it was, it lingered as if watching. Waiting.
"Oi." came a voice.
The group turned sharply.
A young man sat atop a nearby rock, sword in hand, looking down at them with an expression that hovered somewhere between boredom and mild indifference.
He had rather short, gray hair tied loosely behind him, and his similarly colored robes were a torn and dusty mess. "You're blocking the view," he said.
Shen Wuyou blinked, Cho Yanshi tilted her head.
"The… view?" Jin Huang asked, turning as he gestured to the endless horizon that he could not hope to obscure from view.
"Yes." The young man gestured vaguely toward the horizon. "I came here to brood."
"Of course you did," Qin Shuyue muttered, "why wouldn't you."
Jin Huang stepped forward. "These statues-"
"Are inconvenient," the young man cut in. "I agree. Would you remove them- and quickly please, I've not got all day."
If there was a cricket present, its chirping would fill the silence.
"Yeah... How about no?" Jin Huang frowned.
Hei Shisan and Lu Chen came up at his sides with Shen Wuyou close by, his hand busy with the dice. Lin lingered behind with Cho Yanshi and Qin Shuyue.
The wind howled suddenly, sharper now, and far colder.
The young man's expression shifted. "You should keep moving then," he said.
Jin Huang's frown deepened. "Why is that?"
The young man glanced toward the distant land, at lesser mountains far off in the south-west.
For the first time, there was something serious in his eyes. "I overheard your talk with the old rock-eater. You seek some kind of sword, right?""
The wind rose, carrying that strange whisper again that none of them could decipher.
"The sword is calling. A trial will begin shortly. Time is running out."
Lu Chen gasped, "You're..."
The young man nodded, "... a sword cultivator. Yes."
He gazed at them again, making to stand as his left hand formed a sword seal and his right gripped the sheathed sword firmly.
"I should get moving as well. Mind if I travel with you?"
Jin Huang scoffed, "I don't even know your name guy-"
"I'm Han Jianyu, Peak Inner Core realm, sword cultivator. Will that suffice?" The young man's lips shifted ever-so-slightly into something that could only be called a smirk.
"Jin Huang, Early Inner Core realm, something similar to a cultivator," Jin Huang chuckled, then introduced the others.
No one argued after that. They moved, and quickly.
And though no one said it aloud, more than one of them felt it in every subsequent gust of air.
A faint, creeping sensation that something truly was calling out.