Chapter 79

  The cold, cutting wind whistled across the wide, empty field that stretched outside the camp's palisades, a place of silence and concentration. Although the small fortress behind them had respectable dimensions, the gigantic figure that had been burned into the frozen ground was simply too colossal to be housed under a roof. The large teleportation circle demanded this undisturbed, icy space, because the slightest disruption of the symmetry, the contamination of a single line by a boot sole, could have caused the entire complex magic to collapse.

  It was more than just a simple drawing; it was a technomagical marvel of breathtaking complexity. Thousands of runes formed an interlocking, geometric pattern, perfect in its execution. Every single magical cipher fit the next character with mathematical precision to the centimeter, obeying a silent, complex logic that only the Veilweavers—the true masters of this art—could fully grasp. I murmured the title softly to myself, an expression of my deep reverence for Isen and Drav, who at that moment were making the final adjustments. They stood motionless in the center of the circle, in silent concentration, drawing the very finest, concluding lines with pure, shimmering blue mana into the cold air, before these lines obediently sank and completed the filigree pattern in the ground. The air was already crackling with the unrestrained, pent-up energy.

  To my right stood Maira, a figure of intense but quiet tension. Her dark eyes seemed slightly absent, as if her mind was already dwelling on the horrors to come, while her fingers ceaselessly felt the amulet she always wore around her neck. A silent invocation, a preparation, I thought, for what had to come. I turned to her. She was considered—alongside the rebels and our leader Axos—the leading authority, the expert on ancient rituals and dangerous sacrificial magic.

  “Have you ever seen something this large?” I asked, barely raising my voice above a murmur, my gaze still fixed on the immense, circular structure.

  She slowly shook her head, without looking up. Her answer was unexpectedly sober, almost discouraging, with a hint of melancholy. “I have only read about mass teleportation in books until now.” Then she lifted her gaze, and the expression in her eyes was of such deep seriousness that it instantly ruined my brief, composed mood. “Unfortunately, only in those that report on war.”

  I rolled my eyes in annoyance behind the cold steel of my helmet. Yes, damn it, it was war. We all knew it. It was the cursed reason why we were standing here in the icy cold, why in a few moments we would break into an underground command center with over a hundred men and face a mad Lord of Shadow and Storm. But after the damned, unsettling visions, after the talk from Axos—of duty and role—I simply had no energy left for another dialogue of the same nature.

  I pulled my helmet over my head, the cold metal briefly and sharply skimming my forehead, an additional barrier that not only concealed my face but also protected it from the stinging wind. My voice sounded muffled, distorted, and factual under the visor as I said, “Let’s get this over with.”

  To my left, Vin nodded. She smiled that tough, unwavering smile of the Elf ready to plunge into any hell, as long as there was a goal. Synchronous with her agreement, her hands began to glow in a bright, vibrant green, the color of nature magic, ready to support the coldness of the steel with elemental power. The magic was ready, and so were we.

  -

  The shift was so abrupt and complete that the senses had no time to register a transition. The moment of teleportation itself was a negation of space and time; no perceptible movement, no internal tremor, no tingling that warned the skin. It was the absolute void between two breaths. One second my feet felt the frozen ground in front of the Veilweavers' circle, the next moment we stood in a completely different location.

  The cold immediately struck us, biting, damp, and deeper than anything we had experienced before. But the scenery overwhelmed the senses. We stood on a wide, unreal-looking plain, surrounded by a gray, rugged landscape. Directly in front of us loomed the supposed entrance, its gigantic arches not formed from rock, but from deep blue, millennia-old ice. They jutted into the sky like the ripped-open teeth of a frozen, mythical Leviathan.

  Although the journey had ended suddenly, the hundred rebels behind us displayed impressive, rehearsed discipline. Hardly had we materialized than they dissolved from the initial density and quickly formed a perfect triangle, spears pointed outward in a defensive posture, ready to immediately confront any enemy that might appear out of nowhere. Maira, Vin, and I—the vanguard, so to speak—stepped out from the protected center, while Arik formed the tip of this formation.

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  But my inner voice, sharpened by years of survival, immediately sent an alarm signal. Instinct screamed. The entrance was too immense, the architecture too exposed and revealed—almost a grotesque invitation. It smelled of a theatrical trap, a bait for the naive. It was precisely for these kinds of doubts that Arik was here.

  Axos raised his hand in a terse, unmistakable gesture. The Ashblood obeyed without hesitation. His entire body did not disintegrate into smoke or mist, but into a vivid, barely visible cloud of millions of ash particles that rushed toward the ice portal with frantic, silent speed. But Arik’s reconnaissance mission ended abruptly.

  Mid-flight, he hit an invisible, solid resistance. The sound of impact was a dull, grinding energetic bang. It was so sudden and so hard, as if a massive, invisible wall had been placed in his way—like a bird hitting a pane of glass at full flight. An energetic afterglow briefly flickered, and in the next moment, the entrance was gone. Where the deep blue, shimmering ice arches had just been, there was now only an inconspicuous, gray rock face.

  A collective, annoyed groan and loud sigh ran through the ranks of the hundred fighters behind us. The iron discipline of the formation seemed to quickly vanish when faced with patience and surprise.

  A painful moment later, Arik materialized before us again with a stumbling jerk. He instinctively clutched his head, his movements uncontrolled, as if after a heavy blow. He genuinely looked like a dazed bird, trying to order his shattered senses.

  Vin, Maira, and I immediately stepped forward. My armored hand touched the supposed rock face. It was cold, yes, but I felt no granite structure, only a subtle vibration. The confirmation unmistakably surged through me: This was a veil, a perfect illusion of camouflage and protection, hidden behind a powerful, magical shield. The invisible defense was real, the rock face merely a deception.

  However, before I could utter my analysis, assess the strength of the shield, or suggest a plan, Vin reacted with an impulsiveness unusual for the level-headed Elf. She stamped her foot angrily, and instantly, massive, thick vines—glowing, toxic green, and armed with razor-sharp thorns—shot up from the frozen ground. They struck the illusion with raw, elemental force. The gray wall flickered brightly, shimmered, and distorted like water under a thrown stone, but the raw power of nature was anything but enough.

  When Vin recognized the absolute futility of her massive, elemental vines—the illusion hadn't suffered a single scratch—she stepped back with a deep exhalation. A fine sheen of glossy sweat covered her forehead despite the icy cold, a sign of exhaustion from the abrupt expenditure of energy. Her gaze was clouded by a rare, fleeting frustration.

  Maira immediately stepped forward and took her place in front of the smooth, gray wall. Without hesitation, she pressed her palm flat against the invisible barrier. In that moment, something disturbing happened: The skin of her hands, the fine veins on her forearms, and even her usually warm eyes began to pulse with a poisonous, glowing green. It was the magic of Erebos, the essence of her sacrificial magic, which she now directed against the foreign shield. For a few critical seconds, a greenish secretion spread across the surface of the illusion like a net of fine, organic veins, as if the poison were trying to eat its way into the structure of the defense. But then the wall seemed not only to repel the attack but to counter it with an intelligent reaction. A strange, energetic impulse emanated from the barrier, a silent counter-strike that instantly neutralized the glowing green poison and made it completely vanish from the surface. Maira flinched, as if the coldness of the defensive mechanism was penetrating her fingers, and stepped back with a deeply disappointed sigh.

  Now all attention was on me. Unease crept up my neck: Over a hundred people—the entire fighting force—were staring at me. They expected me, the morally ambivalent Paladin with the demonic essence, to perform a miracle against this seemingly insurmountable wall. They waited for the raw power that Vin and Maira could not deliver.

  Fine, I thought, they shall have it.

  “Didn't we agree that I could relax until the final showdown?” Gravor’s voice growled in my head, a dry, grumbling echo of my own frustration.

  I answered him mentally, my voice as calm and metallic as my helmet made it sound: “This is probably the last obstacle before the showdown. So pull yourself together.”

  A brief but meaningful silence ensued—Gravor weighed my words. Finally, his grin shot through me, a feeling that was both disgusting and anticipatory.

  “Agreed, Boss. What do you need? Wings? Demon-sword? Just increased power? Or the full transformation?” His voice in my head was now full of greedy, dark energy.

  “Sword and a little more strength in the arms,” I commanded. I wanted to break through the target, but not give too much over to Gravor.

  “Coming right up, Chief.”

  The change was instantaneous and brutal. A wave of demonic power shot through my bloodstream. I felt my muscles tighten beneath the armor, becoming harder and denser. It wasn't painful, but a feeling of cold-blooded perfection. Simultaneously, my sword changed in my hand. It lost its steel form. It became coated with Gravor's essence, transforming into that disgusting thing of red, pulsating veins and living, twitching flesh. A demonic artifact carrying the essence of horror within it.

  My plan was now reduced to the absolute simplest: Raw force against a magical barrier.

  I took the stance for a simple, powerful thrust, my feet planted firmly in the icy ground, my knees spring-loaded. I channeled much of Gravor's suddenly available power into my arm and my weapon, but deliberately held back reserves to avoid falling completely into the frenzy of the demonic energy. Behind me, there was tense silence—over a hundred pairs of eyes waited for the result.

  And then, with an unstoppable roar that I muffled inside my helmet, I struck.