Chapter 44

  The suns had circled him twice since he left the temple. Two full cycles of light and dark, spent hovering above the black sea, his back straight, his eyes fixed on a horizon that never seemed to come closer—until now.

  Far ahead, through the veil of dusk, he finally saw it. Jagged silhouettes rising from the plains like broken teeth: the remains of a city. Ruins, half-swallowed by grass and shadow, towers collapsed into their own reflections. Even from afar, the sight carried weight—familiar in the way all ruins are, a reminder that something had once lived there, built, dreamed, and then vanished.

  He let out a slow breath.

  Finally.

  The cube hummed faintly beneath him, keeping its steady pace just above the undulating grass. It was almost graceful now, their movement—man and artifact gliding in silence, leaving nothing behind but ripples of displaced air that stirred the blades below into slow spirals. The beasts had not grown used to his passage. He could feel them still, distant minds brushing against his awareness like static, curious but hesitant. Most didn’t bother to check though, his disturbance was too foreign to them.

  Still, he hadn’t slept.

  Fatigue gnawed at the edges of his thoughts, blurring them like fog on glass. He had meditated when he could, drifting in half-conscious states that refilled his reserves, but true rest remained out of reach. He refused it. The balance of energy, the delicate rhythm of motion, the constant awareness he had to maintain—each demanded attention. He could not risk slipping. A moment of carelessness would see gravity and teeth claim him.

  So he floated, unmoving save for his breathing, letting the cube carry him forward through the waning light.

  Above him, the skies of Ithural stretched in smudged colors—indigo bleeding into the violet horizon, where the twin suns melted away into a single streak of crimson. A day and a night had passed, yet the light never looked quite the same twice here. Shadows seemed alive, and the air vibrated faintly with unseen motion. The Sea of Grass was quieter now, the wind low, the waves of black stalks rolling with the languor of something vast and tired.

  He had come to know it intimately—the rhythm of its breath, the subtle rise and fall that hinted at life beneath. And somewhere along the way, he had started to understand how this strange expanse lived.

  It wasn’t empty. It never was.

  At first, the existence of flying creatures in a place ruled by underground predators had seemed impossible. The entire sea was a trap. But as he drifted deeper, he noticed the anomalies—clusters of vegetation different from the rest. The grass grew thicker there, taller, and hidden among them were squat plants with bloated stems and bulbous fruits that could be faintly seen under sunlight.

  Curiosity, or perhaps boredom, had made him observe from a safe distance. The fruits ripened quickly, falling from their stems in slow drops. Within minutes, the air above would tremble with a sound like buzzing wings. Then, out of the haze, the beasts appeared.

  Raime had watched one descend: a sleek creature with four meaty wings, its elongated body a blend between a worm and a pterodactyl. It dove in a perfect arc, snatched a fruit in its hooked beak, and ascended again without so much as touching the ground.

  A marvel of design. Efficient. Beautiful.

  Then the earth had moved.

  The ground beneath the fruit had exploded, a maw of jointed plates snapping upward. The flying beast never even screamed—just vanished between the jagged edges of the predator’s jaws, the sound of impact echoing across the plains.

  Raime had watched for a long moment, unable to look away. It was horrifying, yes, but fascinating in its own terrible logic. A system of balance. Prey and predator locked in perpetual dance, each shaping the other’s existence. The fruits fed the flyers; the flyers fed the ground-beasts; the cycle fed the grass. A brutal, perfect circle.

  That’s how they sustain themselves.

  He would have left it at that, content with the distant observation—if one of those flyers hadn’t noticed him.

  It had been small compared to the others, curious rather than hungry. It circled above, chirping in a high, whistling tone before diving toward him. He’d given it a warning—an instinctive flare of psionic pressure meant to push it away. But the creature had only shrieked louder, wings folding as it darted closer.

  Raime sighed softly at the memory. And that was the moment everything went to hell.

  Thunk had moved faster than thought. The lever cracked through the air, wrapped in a sheath of psychic energy, it hit center of mass and the flyer’s body was flung to the side, dead. The corpse spiralled down, hitting the grass with a soft, wet thud.

  The reaction had been immediate.

  The first underground beast erupted to claim the falling body. Then another. Then a third, further away. Their roars vibrated through the ground, calling to others. And from above, drawn by the scent of blood, more flyers came.

  In seconds, the air and earth had become a blur of violence.

  Predators devoured flyers midair, flyers pierced the bodies of the ground-beasts before being crushed themselves, and the black grass turned slick with fluids that steamed faintly under the light. Raime had barely kept himself above it all, urging the cube forward while the world beneath him devoured itself.

  He’d escaped only after pushing his speed to dangerous levels, burning through psionic reserves faster than he ever had before. But he’d survived.

  In the wake of the chaos, he’d discovered a rhythm to replenishing his energy, something close to automatic. Each breath, each motion, each moment of concentration seemed to align with the world around him, absorbing energy instead of letting it pass beside him. He had turned the journey into a kind of long meditation session.

  And now, as the ruins drew closer, he could feel how that meditation had changed him.

  His control was sharper, smoother. He could hold himself in perfect stillness even as the cube glided across invisible currents. His Threads no longer strained less with the effort of keeping the cube afloat—they flowed, like extensions of thought and instinct. The once-constant headache had faded into a background hum, manageable, and familiar even if still unpleasant.

  He was stronger. Not in the explosive way of a sudden revelation, but in the endurance department he made big progress.

  The kind earned, not given.

  Raime blinked slowly, focusing on the horizon again. The ruins were clearer now, their outlines forming against the dying light. Towers bent at unnatural angles. Walls half-eaten by grass. A single spire still stood at the center, thin and jagged, leaning like a spear piercing the sky.

  He increased the cube’s pace slightly, enough to feel the push of air against his face.

  The journey across the Sea of Grass had felt endless, an expanse designed to test patience rather than courage. The beasts had become less frightening than the silence. The monotony, the constant sameness of motion—it had tested his nerves until only a quiet calm remained, and a purpose. Move forward, check your surrounding, maintain balance. Do not stop.

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  And so he had.

  The last hour of travel felt almost unreal, the field around him bathed in amber and violet light. The predators below had grown sparse here, or perhaps wary of the shifting terrain. Stones began to appear—broken slabs half-buried under the grass. The first hints of civilization swallowed by time.

  Raime’s heart tightened as he saw them. Relief, yes, but something else too—an unease that came from knowing what ruins meant in this place. The temple had been a ruin, too. And what had he found there? Secrets, yes. Power. But also the shackles of responsibility, he still felt indebted for all he had taken, and soon he would have to pay the price. He could feel it.

  He exhaled, brushing the thought aside.

  The cube drifted higher, clearing the last rippling wave of grass before the land dropped abruptly into uneven ground. Cracked stone, scattered columns, the skeleton of a once-mighty city now claimed by alien nature.

  He slowed his approach, eyes sweeping the area.

  At this distance, he could see faint traces of architecture—the remains of wide streets, shattered statues, collapsed arches overtaken by black vines. The city must once have been enormous. Even in ruin, it sprawled across the horizon.

  And yet, despite its decay, something about it called.

  Raime felt it even before his Threads brushed the outer edges. A pressure, faint but insistent, lingering in the air like the echo of an old heartbeat. Not alive. Not quite dead either.

  He straightened, letting the cube hover in place for a moment.

  The journey was over. The Sea of Grass lay behind him, stretching in vast black waves under the twilight. Ahead, the ruins waited—silent, watchful.

  Raime rested his hand on Thunk, fingers tracing the familiar grooves in the weapon’s shaft. He could feel his exhaustion pressing in, the ache behind his eyes like a tide ready to break. But there was no point in stopping here.

  The grass had ended. The predators were gone. The next challenge waited among the stones.

  He leaned forward slightly, commanding the cube to advance.

  The hum deepened, and the air shifted around him. The first shadows of the city reached toward him like fingers as he crossed the threshold between wilderness and civilization’s corpse.

  “Let’s find a place to sleep first,” he murmured under his breath. Voice barely audible against the whispering wind.

  And as the last rays of the suns fell behind him, Raime entered the ruins of the capital.

  [Tutorial Progress Updated]

  Objective Completed: Cross the Sea of Grass unassisted.

  Reward Pending...

  He completed the third phase of the tutorial, it took a long time compared to the first two, now was not the time to check further, and he would not accept the rewards until he was sure the extra point in Resolve from the quest will not mess him up with another unwanted evolution.

  So he steeled his mind against the desire to know the next quest objectives, and focused on his surroundings, he will collect his due in time. He waited so long for cashing in his previous rewards that waiting a day more for the newest one wasn’t something that would faze him. He thought long and hard about the infusion choices he had, but the reality was that even with all of his newfound knowledge he couldn’t really make an optimal decision. There was too much he didn’t know, and he was hoping the voice could guide him in the choice.

  Raime refocused on his surroundings, He was just inside the premises of the city—probably an industrial area. Many squat and large buildings were present around him, but little to no houses, or at least he thought so given the crumbling state of the place.

  He was looking for someplace at least with a cover for the night, but apparently he would have to delve deeper to find a suitable place.

  The first streets he crossed were nothing but skeletons.

  The cube glided above cracked stone and shattered tiles, the black grass thinning until it gave way entirely to bare ground. Wind slipped through open doorways and hollowed windows, whispering across the empty city like a language no one spoke anymore.

  Raime slowed his pace. Every movement, every sound he made, felt too loud. The cube’s low hum bounced off walls stripped of their skin—faded murals, melted metal frames, walls etched with grooves that might have once been writing.

  He let his awareness unfurl in slow spirals, brushing through the empty air, feeling for some presences. Nothing answered. No beasts beneath the earth. No flicker of thought beyond his own.

  Only echoes. The psychic residue of something vast and old, washed thin by time yet refusing to fade completely.

  He moved deeper, weaving between what might once have been plazas and taller buildings. There was much to explore, but he wasn’t feeling very adventurous right now, he just felt the edge of exhaustion touch him, now that he was so near to a place in which he could rest.

  The city must be immense, he thought. There was no end in sight, he was moving quite fast and seemed no closer to reaching the inner part of the capital. He didn’t have any measure of reference based on his speed, but still it seemed to him that it was more likely that the city was the size of a region. And the more he went forward, the more the structures grew denser toward the heart of the ruins, more intact, though age had warped them into strange shapes. Some leaned at impossible angles; others seemed to have melted mid-collapse, the stone flowing like wax before hardening again. Whatever force had destroyed this place, it hadn’t been the simple passage of time.

  Raime’s gaze lingered on a toppled statue as he passed—a humanoid figure half buried in rubble, its face eroded smooth. In one hand, it held a rod or a sceptre In the other, a sphere cracked down the middle. The details were gone, but the posture—the arrogance of it—reminded him of his pathology professor.

  Assholes transcend dimensions, he thought. Even civilizations.

  The suns had sunk below the horizon completely now. The light was getting scarce while the temperature dropped, wind carrying a faint whistling sound.

  He needed shelter before full night fell.

  He guided the cube through an archway where a building still held part of its roof. Inside, debris littered the floor—broken furniture, shards of glass, some kind of mineral dust that shined faintly under the dim light. It would do. The walls still stood, and there was only one entrance.

  Raime dismounted, feet touching the ground for the first time in days. The stone was cold under his boots. His legs protested briefly before adjusting. He stretched once, rolling his shoulders, feeling the stiffness of long stillness ease away.

  The cube settled beside him, lowering until it rested on the floor. He gave it a brief glance. “You did well,” he muttered. It hummed once, as if in acknowledgment—or maybe that was just his imagination.

  He moved slowly through the building, clearing a space near one wall. Dust stirred around his movements, catching the faint light of the map. He arranged some old stones into a makeshift seat, leaned Thunk against his leg, and let his body finally rest.

  The silence was almost physical here.

  Not peaceful or hostile—simply immense.

  Raime exhaled, long and slow, letting his mind stretch again. His awareness expanded through the structure, feeling the faint hum of energy trapped in the stone, the memory of the people that still lingered. He caught brief flashes—not sights, but impressions. Movement. Emotion. A crowd.

  A scream.

  Then nothing.

  He opened his eyes.

  “This city fell fast,” he murmured to himself. “or at least, this part of the city did.”

  For a while, he sat motionless, simply breathing. The strain of the crossing weighed on him now that he had stopped. His limbs felt heavy, his thoughts slow. But it was the emptiness that exhausted him most—the long silence of travel, the monotony, the constant demand for attention. Now that it was gone, the release felt almost unbearable.

  He wanted to sleep. Desperately. So he blocked the entrance with stones he found nearby, there was no lack of those with all the damage the city suffered. And then he took the little cloth he manage to salvage from the cube and made himself something resembling a bed, something that was probably looking uncomfortable even to a caveman. But it was all he had, and he felt that right now he could easily fall asleep standing, so his new resting place would do.

  He ate a quick, cold meal, the meat not really appetizing but it filled his stomach and made his body ready for a restorative sleep. He leaned Thunk on the wall beside him, the Tetra Unum was floating in front of the door, and Raime was asleep as soon as he laid down.

  His sleep was uneventful, he was too tired to even dream apparently, and he woke up an unknown number of hours later, light filtering from the ceiling and scarcely illuminating the room. He took a deep breath, lately he started to wake up and be active, without wasting time. But today he felt the need to indulge in a moment of relaxation, there were no predators here, he was in what he believed to be the center of the rift, and he would have to confront the owner of the voice soon, so he wanted to take a minute to rest his mind and prepare for the coming day.

  But apparently that was not meant to be, the voice spoke again, making him tense in his moment of rest.

  You are awake. A statement, not a question. The being knew.

  Go to the center of the capital. There is a palace there, you will understand you are in the right place when you’ll see it. Come and meet me there. We have much to discuss.

  The voice came and went like the wind. He couldn’t even feel how it had managed to enter his own mind, it left no residue, no trace and the fact that he couldn’t even fathom how it did what it did, made him really feel the gulf between their power. This being was in a league of their own. He knew it already, after seeing how it had imprisoned the Eye. But seeing the aftereffects and experiencing it directly was a world of difference. He understood something that put him at ease though. If this being wanted to hurt him, it would have already done so. It waited for him to rest, and if he wanted to control him, Raime was sure he would already be a puppet in its hands. He exhaled through his nose, his thoughts momentarily scrambled.

  He glanced once at the ceiling, and the rays of lavender light filtering inside the room.

  “Fine,” he murmured, voice low, resigned. “Let’s see what you’ve got to say.”