Five people slowly emerged into the open clearing. They were covered in dust and bore the marks of a long journey; their clothes looked old but had been neatly mended. Their movements were cautious and wary-there were no obvious signs of danger, but they did not yet inspire trust.
Scarlett slowly raised her head. And summoned her rapier.
"If this is another illusion…" she said quietly but firmly, "I have no mana, but I have enough anger to smash it to pieces."
Following her example, I manifested my essence and prepared for battle. I wasn't feeling great. But I had just over half a core of mana left.
"Stop!" said the man with the short beard sharply. He raised his hands, showing he wasn't holding a weapon. "We're not enemies."
"Hard to believe, especially after everything we've been through…" I said, tense.
The people exchanged glances, and the woman with long dark hair, who was walking beside the bearded man, cautiously spoke:
One of the men, tall and with gray streaks in his hair, stepped forward.
"My name is Kairon, and these are my companions: Lysandra, Helen, Torvin, and Brain." He nodded toward each of them. "We… we were sent to Spire a long time ago. Many years ago. We arrived here from the Citadel of Hope. We were searching for survivors."
For a moment, everyone was silent.
Scarlett and I exchanged glances. It was too much information all at once. But there was something genuine in those people's eyes-no deception, no illusion.
A woman with short dark hair, Lysandra, added cautiously:
"Are you… are you from the new group? You just arrived here this year, right?"
I glanced at Scarlett. She nodded.
"Yes. We… arrived this year." Scarlett's voice was quiet and subdued.
"We've been looking for someone like you," said Kairon. "And we're incredibly lucky. You're alive. That's… rare. You're the first survivors this year."
Suspicion hung in the air like a thick fog. I clenched my fists. I couldn't let my guard down just yet. Each of them looked normal, but who knows what the Spire is capable of?
"Why should we trust you?" asked Scarlett, her eyes shining not only with fatigue but also with suspicion.
"Do you have a choice?" said Torvin, a man of medium height with sharp features.
Helen, a tall woman with dark eyes and a stern expression, added cautiously:
"We can lead you to the Citadel of Hope. The journey isn't long, but it's safer if we go together. Besides, I doubt you'll be able to survive even one night in your current condition."
Scarlett and I exchanged glances. Everything had happened too quickly, too abruptly, to trust them right away. But deep down, I knew we had no choice. We weren't in the best shape, and going alone would mean certain death.
"All right," I said finally. "We'll go with you."
Kairon nodded and stepped forward to lead the way. The group began to move cautiously, and we followed them, straining to hear every sound the forest made. The faint rustling of leaves, the crackling of twigs underfoot, our own breathing-everything seemed too loud after the long silence.
At one point, Lysandra turned to me:
"The Citadel is a safe place, and the path there won't be difficult. So you'll still need to be careful."
I nodded.
"We understand."
My mind was slowly coming back to itself.
And so, moving slowly and cautiously, we began our journey to the Citadel of Hope. Only now, among a group of strangers. Well, at least people…
We walked like that for another couple of hours; the forest gradually thinned out, and the path became more visible. I still couldn't fully relax; my whole body ached, and every thought of the nymphs' trap made me wary. Scarlett walked beside me, her steps confident, but her eyes constantly scanning the surroundings.
After a while, the forest path widened.
And ahead, between the trees, a wagon came into view.
An old but sturdy wagon stood on the narrow forest road. It looked as if someone had left it there decades ago, but the wheels seemed surprisingly sturdy, and the canvas cover was intact.
"What… I managed to say, not believing my eyes.
Kairon noticed our stunned silence and nodded:
"Don't be afraid. It's ready. We have a journey ahead of us to the Citadel of Hope."
I frowned. A journey on this? Without horses?
And then I realized: something was happening to the body of one of the men, Torvin. His form began to change. His muscles swelled with strength, his face elongated, his spine curved differently. I stepped back, unable to believe my eyes.
Torvin was no longer there. Standing before us was a huge, sturdy horse with wild teeth, muscular and terrifyingly powerful. His eyes shone with intelligence and understanding, as if he were a living mind, not just an animal.
"He… he'll bring the cart," Lysandra said quietly, as if answering my silence. "That's his essence. Don't worry, it's just how he manifests."
Scarlett barely blinked. I watched as Torvin-Horse gracefully lowered himself to the wagon, harnessed himself to it, and began to move. Every movement was precise and confident, and in that moment I realized: we were truly lucky.
"Well…" I finally managed to say, "that's damn strange."
Scarlett just snorted, her eyes flashing with determination once more.
We carefully climbed onto the wagon, trying not to fall. I sat down next to Scarlett, still tense, but with a tiny spark of hope in my chest. The horse took the reins, and the wagon slowly set off down the forest road. Every movement felt like a return to life after a nightmare: the ground beneath the wheels, the air around us, the smells of the forest-everything became unexpectedly tangible and real.
I glanced back at the people walking alongside us and felt a strange sense of relief. These people knew how to survive here, in this world of the Spire. They were older, more experienced, and they had found us-the only survivors of this year.
Scarlett glanced briefly down the road ahead, then looked at me:
"Looks like we'll be able to survive another week or two, if we're lucky."
I nodded, realizing that despite the exhaustion and all the nightmares, a chance to reach the Citadel of Hope lay ahead of us. And I wasn't going to let it slip away.
We had been riding for several hours. Torvin moved along the forest path so quietly, as if it could read our minds. I was still trying to recover from what had happened in the nymphs' trap. Scarlett sat beside me, her eyes slightly narrowed but calm, as if ready for any turn of events.
"This… Citadel of Hope-what is it, anyway?" I said, breaking the silence.
Lysandra, one of the women in the group, nodded, smiling wearily:
"It's a fortress. A gigantic one. Literally the size of an entire city, enclosed within impenetrable walls. It's probably the safest place for people, too. No monster dares to approach the Citadel because of the Construct."
"The Construct?" Scarlett asked, frowning slightly.
"Yes," said Kairon, a man with graying temples. "In the Citadel of Hope stands a huge machine called the Construct. It is controlled by the castle's current owner. In terms of power, this Construct is roughly… equal to Emperor Relict. But we've never been able to determine its exact power level. So this information is just speculation."
"But how do people live in the castle? Where do they get their food and water?"
"As long as the construct has an owner, the city generates an endless supply of drinking water," Lysandra replied. "Food is a bit more complicated. Inside the city, there are several huge fields with perfect soil, and anything planted there grows at an incredible rate." But that's still not enough, so in addition to that, we have to hunt and raise relatively safe monsters in special pens.
"And how many people are there?" asked Scarlett.
"About two hundred thousand right now," replied Brain, the third man in the group. "For the Spire, that's an incredible number. Over the centuries that people have been coming here, only a tiny fraction has survived. After all, when people arrive here for the first time, they get lost; some even die during the transformation process. But lack of information is the main enemy, so most often people die before they even manage to reach the Citadel. Some awaken their Essence along the way. Like you. But most don't, so only the luckiest survive. And only those who, upon entering the Spire, found themselves here in the Green Space of Eliar have a chance of survival. Actually, it's quite strange-according to our calculations, your year should have entered the Spire about six months ago. How did you search for the path for so long if you entered this zone so long ago? You seem capable. Apparently, those nymphs weren't your biggest challenge."
After saying all that, Brain chuckled softly. But to be honest, I wasn't in the mood to laugh.
"You said this place is called the Green Space of Eliar? Then what's the name of the icy wasteland next to it?"
"Do you know about the White Wasteland of Askeil?" Lysandra asked in surprise. "You really had bad luck showing up right on the edge of the Eliar biome. Now I understand why you haven't made it to the city on your own yet."
Scarlett and I exchanged glances, after which she began to speak.
"Actually, we didn't spawn at the edge of the Eliar biome. We spawned right in the middle of the Askeil Wasteland. And quite a long way from here. To get here, we walked through the wastelands for four months."
As soon as Scarlett said that, silence fell over the wagon. Everyone in the wagon stared at us with wide eyes; from their expressions, it was clear that, in their opinion, Scarlett had just said something completely absurd.
"That's utter nonsense," Kairon replied. "The White Wastes, like all the other biomes in this world except for the Eliar biome, are literally death zones." "No one has ever come from there. All the survivors living in the Citadel are those who appeared here. And you say you came from the White Wastes-and walked through them for four months?"
"Does it make any sense for us to lie?" I replied rather sharply.
When I said that, Helen-who had been silent until then and was sitting to my left-suddenly hugged me, which made me feel extremely awkward.
"Poor kids, you must have been scared, just like I was 30 years ago, only worse." "She was crying, which only added to the awkwardness of the situation. Actually, I wasn't alone-maybe Scarlett wanted to be pitied too? But when I looked at her, I saw only a sly smirk, so I had to give in and try to relax in the arms of a woman I didn't know, who must have been a little younger than my mother.
"Still, you must have been very lucky not to run into any truly terrifying monsters out there, since you made it all the way here," Brain said, trying to reassure himself.
"I wouldn't call it luck. Actually, I really was lucky-unlike him," Scarlett said, pointing at me. "He found me when I broke my leg climbing the mountain, heroically carried me to the shelter we miraculously found as night fell, and opened it by sacrificing two of his own fingers." And just before that, he wandered into a snowy grove, which was most likely the monster known as the Emperor, and after escaping it, he stumbled upon an even more terrifying creature and miraculously went unnoticed. As if that weren't enough, in the near future we had to kill a newborn king to continue our journey. And he did it, awakening his true Essence on the brink of death-it looked pretty epic, I'll tell you.
She spoke calmly, but clenched her fingers for a second.
After hearing that story, Helen held me even tighter. "How awful, what a nightmare," Helen said, sobbing.
"Why are you taking credit for my achievements instead of me?" I said, looking at Scarlett with a frown.
"I just felt like it."
She snorted, turned away from me, and continued to stare at the road. And so began our journey with our older companions.
We had been driving for several hours, and the road was gradually turning into something more like a real trail. The wagon's wheels sometimes sank into the soft ground, sometimes thudded dully against the rocks. Torvin, still in the essence of a horse, pulled the wagon confidently and calmly, as if this road were as familiar to him as a street in his hometown.
I sat on the edge of the cart and looked at the forest.
It no longer seemed as hostile as it had before.
But I still couldn't quite relax.
Scarlett sat beside me, resting her elbow on the side of the wagon. Her eyes were half-closed-she wasn't asleep, but she was clearly conserving her strength. Occasionally she winced softly when the wagon jolted over a bump.
"How much further to your Citadel?" I asked.
Kyron, walking alongside the wagon, smiled.
"If all goes smoothly-about ten days."
I whistled softly.
"Ten days… why so long?"
"Don't worry," said Lysandra. "This road is one of the safest. That's why it takes so long."
She paused for a moment and added:
"By Spire standards, of course."
I wasn't sure that reassured me.
We rode until evening, until the forest had finally grown dark. Then Chiron stopped the group and ordered us to set up camp.
The fire was built quickly. One of the elders took some pieces of dried meat and a bag of some kind of grain out of his bag. Helen set down a small metal pot.
The smell of food seemed almost unbelievable to me.
I suddenly realized I hadn't eaten anything decent in a long time.
Scarlett sat by the fire with her legs stretched out, watching the flames.
Helen noticed this and said quietly:
"You two look like you've been through a war."
"We have," I replied.
Everyone was silent for a few seconds.
Then Brain smiled.
"You know… the story of how you came from the White Wasteland-it'll definitely make the list of the craziest ones."
I shrugged.
"I doubt it."
"No," said Chiron. "It really is a rarity."
He tossed a twig into the fire.
"But you'd be surprised how many crazy stories we've heard."
I looked up.
"Like what?"
Lysandra smiled.
"One guy from our class summoned an essence right in the middle of falling off a cliff."
"And?"
"He survived."
"How?"
"His essence turned out to be bonded with the wind."
I snorted.
Chiron added:
"And one woman fought the Lord of the Worms underground for three days."
"And did she win?"
"No," - he said calmly. - "But she got out."
I glanced at Scarlett.
She was silent.
But the corner of her mouth twitched slightly.
Chiron looked at both of us and said:
"What you did is impressive."
He tilted his head slightly.
"But in the Spire, almost everyone who survived went through something similar."
I paused for a second.
And suddenly I understood.
We aren't unique.
We're just… another pair of survivors.
Strangely, that thought somehow even calmed me a little.
The road gradually became easier.
The forest thinned out, and occasionally we came upon clearings.
We moved slowly but steadily.
Sometimes we encountered monsters-small ones, almost pitiful compared to what we'd already seen.
A couple of times, Kairon or Brain simply chased them away.
Once, Scarlett raised her hand, and the creature was literally crushed into the ground by gravity.
In the evenings, we built a campfire.
And we talked.
Once, the conversation turned to time.
I asked:
"How long have you been here?"
"Twenty-nine years," Helen said calmly.
I nearly choked.
"Twenty-nine?!"
She nodded.
"Time passes here just as it does on Earth. At least in this biome."
Chiron added:
"We've checked it dozens of times."
"So… if we make it out…"
"The same amount of time will have passed there," he said.
I looked at the fire.
Thirty years.
Scarlett said quietly beside me:
"So no one's in a hurry to go home anymore."
No one answered her.
On the seventh day, the forest began to change.
The trees grew shorter.
And the ground became rocky.
Sometimes we came across strange pieces of stone on the road.
I noticed one and asked:
"What's that?"
Kyron looked at it.
"Old structures."
"Whose?"
"The Eliars'."
I frowned.
"Who are they?"
Lysandra shrugged.
"We don't know."
"An ancient civilization," Brain added. "Most likely they lived here long before humans."
Scarlett said quietly:
"And where did they go?"
No one answered.
By the morning of the eighth day, the forest had almost disappeared.
Trees still grew along the edges of the road, but now stones were appearing more and more frequently among them. At first, they were just debris-gray, moss-covered boulders.
Then slabs began to appear.
Smooth.
Too smooth to be natural.
I spotted the first one an hour before noon.
"A stone," I said, pointing at it.
Kyron looked and nodded.
"Old roads."
"Whose?"
He didn't answer right away.
"The Eliars'."
The word sounded as if he were uttering the name of a long-vanished people.
I looked around.
And now I began to notice more details.
Fragments of columns.
Ruins of walls.
Stone blocks half-buried in the ground.
Scarlett noticed them too.
She leaned forward slightly and said quietly:
"There used to be a city here."
"Perhaps," Lysandra replied. "We don't know for sure."
"Have you explored it?"
"Only the edge."
Kyron grimaced.
"It's better not to go any deeper."
"Why?"
"Because there aren't usually abandoned places in Spire."
The wagon continued to move slowly along the ancient road.
And soon we saw the temple.
It appeared suddenly among the trees.
The huge columns that had once supported the roof now lay on the ground, broken into pieces. The stone walls had crumbled, but still formed a strange circle around the central building.
The temple itself was destroyed, but not completely.
Its upper part had collapsed, but the massive walls still stood.
Even in ruins, it looked… majestic.
"There it is," Brain said quietly. "The Eliar Temple."
Scarlett frowned.
"I don't like this place."
"Nobody does," Chiron replied.
The wagon drove between the columns.
And at that moment, the forest fell silent.
Completely.
I noticed it right away.
No wind.
No birds.
No insects.
Just the creaking of the wheels.
I opened my mouth to say something.
And then a scream rang out.
- NOW!
A shadow flashed to the left.
Something struck the wagon.
It jerked violently.
Torvina, in the essence of a horse, was pulled by the reins, and the wagon lurched forward.
I lost my balance.
The world turned upside down.
I tried to grab the side of the wagon.
I didn't make it.
The ground hit me in the shoulder.
Then in the back.
I rolled over the rocks and came to a stop against a broken column.
The air was knocked out of my lungs.
For a few seconds, I just lay there, trying to breathe.
When my vision finally stopped blurring, I lifted my head.
The wagon was already far away.
Too far away.
Torvina had obviously been forced to run.
Screams and the sounds of battle echoed somewhere ahead.
"Damn…" I rasped.
I tried to get up.
My body protested.
My chest ached.
But I had no choice.
I braced myself against a column and stood up.
And then I saw them.
Three creatures were slowly emerging from behind the rubble.
They looked like humans.
Once upon a time.
Now their bodies looked as if stone had begun to grow from within.
Their skin was covered in gray cracks.
Their arms were long.
Their fingers were like hooks.
Their eyes were cloudy.
Empty.
One of them tilted its head.
And hissed.
I exhaled wearily.
"Well, of course."
I raised my hand.
A flame flared above my palm.
But it was weaker than I'd hoped.
One of the monsters lunged forward.
I took a step back and released a fiery arc.
The flame struck him in the chest.
The creature burst into flames.
But it didn't stop.
It crashed into me.
We both crashed to the ground.
I punched it.
Its stone skin cracked.
The creature hissed and tried to claw at my face.
I drove the flame straight into its throat.
It twitched and went limp.
You have killed a matured minion…
I ignored my bond, pushed the body aside, and stood up.
The remaining two were already running toward me.
I clenched my teeth.
And summoned my sword.
The fight was brief.
But it wore me out more than I would have liked.
When the last monster collapsed, I stood there, breathing heavily.
My hands were shaking.
I looked around.
The cart was nowhere to be seen.
The forest began to rustle again.
But now there was something… different in that rustling.
I sensed it almost immediately.
At first-like a slight pressure.
Then-like a chill running down my spine.
Instinct.
Danger.
Something was moving deep within the ruins.
Slowly.
But relentlessly.
And that something was far worse than the creatures I had just fought.
I froze.
Listening.
The ground trembled almost imperceptibly.
And then an essence awoke inside me.
The Ashen Wanderer.
It wasn't a thought.
Not a decision.
More like… a direction.
A survival instinct.
I just knew where to go.
Toward the temple.
I turned and ran.
The stones slipped beneath my feet.
My chest burned.
But I kept moving.
Behind me, somewhere in the ruins, a sound rang out.
A dull thud.
Heavy.
As if something enormous had stepped between the columns.
I didn't look back.
The temple was getting closer and closer.
Crumbling walls.
A dark entrance.
I ran inside.
It was quiet inside.
Too quiet.
And then I saw it.
A door.
Huge.
Black.
No handle.
No symbols.
But with yet another incomprehensible device, similar to the one in the wastelands.
It's waiting for a sacrifice.
I reached in. And felt mana being sucked out of me at a terrifying speed, along with my blood.
My head spun.
As soon as the device released my hand, I stepped back from the door, clutching my head.
A slight wave of nausea washed over me.
And suddenly, my bond whispered to me.
You, have bestowed a new epithet.
I summoned my bond. And among the epithets I had already seen, one new one stood out.
Guest Eliar
I took a step forward.
And pushed the door.
It opened slowly.
And the darkness inside… responded.