Genetic Awakening: My Genes Evolve Infinitely!

Chapter 193: Departing

Pell arrived with his mother just before the gate opened.

He was trying very hard not to look upset.

Rohan crouched in front of him. "Your charm is still attached."

"I checked from across the lane."

"I know. You were not subtle."

"I was being vigilant."

"That is a good word."

"Bren taught it to me."

"Of course he did."

Pell looked at the spear, then at Rohan’s face.

"You remember the promise?"

"I remember."

"The honest kind."

"The honest kind," Rohan said.

Pell nodded quickly, then stepped forward and hugged him.

Rohan froze for a fraction of a second.

Then he placed one hand carefully on the boy’s back.

The hug lasted only a moment before Pell pulled away, face red with embarrassment. His mother looked at Rohan with eyes that were too bright and gave him a small nod.

"Bring him back stories that are not too frightening," she said.

"I will edit them heavily."

"Good. He already thinks danger is impressive."

Pell protested, "I do not."

His mother looked down at him.

He amended, "I do not think all danger is impressive."

Rohan smiled.

Liora joined him near the gate a few minutes later. She carried her own pack and crossbow, her brace freshly tightened. Her face was calm, but her fingers worried at the strap across her chest.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"No."

She looked at him.

He adjusted his grip on the spear. "I am prepared. That is different."

Her expression softened.

"That is a very Veyrhold answer."

"I am being contaminated by local wisdom."

"Good. It might keep you alive."

Maerin called the team into formation before the conversation could sink too deeply.

The eastern gate rose.

Wind entered Veyrhold like something impatient.

Ash scraped across the threshold, curling around boots and pack straps. The world beyond the walls waited in shades of black, grey, and violet, vast and hostile as ever. Yet this time, Rohan did not stand at the edge of it alone.

Jorren took the front with another shield hand named Mavik. Maerin walked just behind them, map plate secured at her side. Veska stood near the centre with the harvesters. Liora and the archers held the flanks. Rohan was placed left-middle, close enough to respond in multiple directions, far enough from the harvesters that his ash-working would not interfere unless needed.

The formation moved.

Veyrhold’s gate groaned behind them.

Rohan did not look back until the final moment, just before the gate lowered.

He saw Pell standing beside his mother. Bren watching from a raised platform, one hand resting on the rail. Iri with her arms folded, pretending she had only come to inspect bandage placement.

Several wall guards watching in silence.

Then the gate closed.

The sound rolled across the ash.

They went east.

The first day tested patience more than courage.

The eastern route began along a maintained marker line, more stable than the wild paths Rohan had first followed from the west. Pairs of black stones marked the safe slabs. Metal stakes with fluttering pale strips showed wind direction. Warning charms clicked against one another where old ash pockets had been sealed or avoided. The expedition moved with disciplined caution, pausing often while Veska inspected the sky or Maerin checked changes in the ground.

The Ashen Marches looked different in this direction.

West of Veyrhold, the land had been broken and jagged, full of leaning slabs and skarn pockets.

Eastward, the terrain stretched flatter at first, with blackstone plates lying like cracked scales beneath thin layers of ash. In the distance, low ridges rose from the plain in long curved lines, too regular to be natural. Rohan found himself staring at them until Liora noticed.

"Those are outer hull ridges," she said.

His attention sharpened. "From the ship?"

"Pieces of it. The crash scattered debris across a huge area. The central wreck is farther east, but the outer ridges begin before the merchant flats."

"They are that large?"

"The old ship was large enough to carry thousands. At least, that is what the crash ledger says. Not all woke after impact. Some sections were never opened. Some burned for years."

Rohan tried to imagine it.

A ship huge enough that its corpse became geography. A vessel falling from the sky, breaking across an alien planet, leaving survivors to crawl out into ash and build walls from its bones.

No wonder Veyrhold treated the crash like scripture and wound at once.

"What was its name?" he asked.

Liora was quiet for a moment.

"The official name was Horizon’s Mercy."

Rohan looked at the ash plains ahead.

"That is a painful name."

"Yes. People do not use it often."

"What do they call it instead?"

"The Wreck. The First Hull. The Fall. It depends on who is speaking and how angry they are."

"And you?"

Liora adjusted the strap on her crossbow.

"I call it the reason I exist and the reason I am trapped. I have not found a shorter name that carries both."

Rohan did not know how to respond.

So he walked beside her in silence for a while.

By midday, the wind strengthened.

Ash moved across the ground in long low sheets, whispering around their boots. The expedition wrapped their face cloths tighter and slowed. Rohan felt the ash tug faintly at his senses, familiar now in a way that still unsettled him. Four months of Molten Assimilation had taught his body to recognise textures in the drift. Dry grey. Warm vent dust. Old burnt residue. Trace skarn. Faint storm charge.

He could not read the land as well as Veska or Maerin, but he could feel when ash was wrong.

Near the fourth marker rest, it was wrong.

Rohan stopped.

The person behind him almost bumped into his pack.

Maerin turned immediately. "What did you notice?"

There was no accusation in her voice. That alone showed how much had changed.

Rohan crouched and touched the ash with two fingers. He did not activate Molten Assimilation fully. He let only a thread of warmth move through his fingertips.

The surface layer was light and dry.