Leon reappeared in the blue room where the Grave Warden was waiting for him, looking almost like he’d never left in the five days since returning Leon to Stormhollow. Only a glass goblet of some kind of wine on the table showed that he’d done anything at all in that time.
“Leon,” Ambrose warmly stated. “Welcome back. Welcome back. Are you ready?”
Leon clenched his jaw and summoned all of his patience and all of his courage. “Am I ready to try and find out why one of your people went missing? A person who is, to my knowledge, one of the most powerful people in the entire universe, who is currently—or is supposed to be guarding Primal Devils? I don’t think there’s any realistic scenario where I would be ready for this.”
“A fair point,” Ambrose amiably replied. “I will give you as much support as I can, though it will inherently be limited as Arkhnavi is not Aeterna. My powers are great here on my plane, but what I can do elsewhere is… less so. Less so.”
“What kind of aid can you give me, then?”
“First and foremost: planning.” Ambrose again projected a detailed map of Arkhnavi and its swirling continent onto the table in front of him, and Leon approached to take in as much as he could. “I will get you as close as I can to the center of power, where Qo Weylekh ought to be found. I will make no guarantees, though. No guarantees.”
“You’re filling me with confidence, already,” Leon sarcastically replied.
“Fantastic! I will also give you this…” Ambrose conjured an enchanted stone that greatly resembled the Rumble Stone that Leon had been given by the stone giants. Leon didn’t even need Ambrose to tell him what he needed to do; he reached out with his magic to touch the darkness within the stone, and a map of Arkhnavi was seared into his mind in excruciating detail.
Leon hissed in pain, but such information was beyond invaluable, so this minor pain wasn’t anything to complain about.
“I shall give you one more item…” Ambrose conjured another silver twig from his soul realm, though this one was larger and glowed more brightly. “You need only snap this, and a portal will be created which will teleport you back to Aeterna.”
Leon nodded in gratitude as he took the twig. “Does it work the same as the last one?”
“It will be less instantaneous than the last one, and more deliberate on your part. A spatial portal will be created where you snap the twig, which you must walk through, returning you to Aeterna. Returning you home.”
“Good to know. Is there anything else I need to know before heading out?”
The Grave Warden waved his hand and projected images of ten people for Leon to memorize. “These are the mages sent before you. One for each other plane in the Divine Graveyard. Despite my best efforts, all were sent alone, piecemeal. Some were sent some time ago. All are now missing. All missing.”
Leon’s heart began to beat faster as all his instincts screamed at him to turn the Grave Warden down, to let someone else see to this task.
But… another part of him was intensely curious about what was going on over there. He also agreed with Xaphan that the Primal Devils should never be allowed to escape their prisons, no matter how few may yet survive. He had an Adamant weapon, pseudo-Adamant armor, a former Lord of Flame, two Inherited Bloodlines, and both of his Ancestors with him—though he had to admit that relying on the Great Black Dragon was comically idiotic, at least the Thunderbird was reliable.
And finally, he had a Universe Fragment. He doubted anyone else sent had such powerful gifts. He did his best to keep his head on straight and maintain a healthy degree of humility, but in his objective estimation—or as objective as he could be—he was the one most suited to surviving whatever was going on over on Arkhnavi without having achieved Apotheosis.
Leon clamped down hard on his pride, which wasn’t too difficult to do—all he had to do was remember how helpless he’d been when confronted by Krith’is. The ten people that Ambrose was showing him now were powerful mages in their own right, all tenth-tier, and all possessing gifts of their own. If they went missing, it was for a damned good reason, just like Qo Weylekh himself.
Of these ten people, eight were men and two were women. They all looked remarkably different, with some looking rather soft and unused to violence, and others looking hard and more familiar with violence than even Leon himself. He burned their images into his mind.
“Do you want me to look for them?” he asked.
Ambrose stared at him for a long moment, a smile frozen on his face. When he spoke, his smile slipped, revealing an expression of deep concern.
“Leon, I don’t know what’s going on over there. I don’t know. It worries me greatly. All attempts to contact my old friend have failed. I don’t know what you will find. I will not tell you to do anything, save for this: try and make it to the central city, try and find out what happened to my friend. This is my and my friends’ last resort. If you do not return, we will all be forced to act, and we will not discriminate.” Ambrose leaned forward, a look of such profound seriousness on his face that Leon’s heart nearly stopped. “The time we last met, we allocated one year to find out what was going on before we set aside all old covenants and acted. That was almost three months ago, now. You’ll have nine months and one week to investigate before we destroy Arkhnavi in its entirety.”
Leon stared at the Grave Warden in shock, the significance of what he just said not lost on him. Billions and billions of people lived on all of the planes of the Divine Graveyard, as far as he knew. To snuff out all of those lives was a monstrous thing, one only outweighed by allowing the Primal Devils to escape their prison.
And it seemed he was the last one standing between Arkhnavi and complete obliteration. The lives of all on the plane were going to depend on him completing his task.
“I’m sure my friends would appreciate it if you found their mages,” Ambrose continued, “but I will not ask you to do so. The task I ask of you is simple, yet potentially catastrophically dangerous: find out anything you can about what’s happening on Arkhnavi and report back. Try and reach the city if you can, and make contact with Qo Weylekh. Try and ascertain if his Universe Fragment is contained and secured. But even these last two I will only ask of you; not demand. If you ever believe it too dangerous to continue, then snap the twig, return to Aeterna, and give me your report. Return, and give me your report.”
Leon opened his mouth, but his tongue failed him. After several seconds, he simply closed his mouth and nodded to communicate his understanding.
“Then collect yourself, Leon,” Ambrose said. “I will give you as much time as you need to steel yourself, so long as you only need a reasonable amount of time.”
Leon nodded again, this time in thanks. He turned his eyes back to the map on the table and occasionally glanced at the ten mages sent ahead of him.
[Ready yourself for death, young human,] Xaphan advised. [To confront danger of this magnitude, you must give up all hope to live. Once you have no hope, you can act without fear. And you must feel no fear to do what you must to return home safely.]
[Your optimism is inspiring, demon,] Leon replied, his tone steadier than he’d thought it would’ve been.
To Ambrose, Leon asked, “Out of curiosity, the portal that will open when I snap the twig… how long will it last? How many people can I bring through it?”
“It will last for thirty seconds,” Ambrose explained. “Like an open door, all who enter in that time will reach Aeterna, so snap the twig only in safety. Only in safety.”
Leon nodded again as his dread and anxiety reached the point where his skin started to tingle and his muscles started to twitch. His stomach churned and he almost started to regret the last meal he ate with his friends and family, where they’d feasted on the best the palace chefs could come up with. He’d eaten heartily, unsure as he was when he might next taste such luxury again, but now his full stomach seemed more hindrance than boon.
Finally, after several minutes of trying to force himself to get back under control, he decided that waiting around wasn’t doing him any favors. The longer he pushed this back, the longer he’d languish in this state. If he wanted to calm down, then he had to move, he had to act.
“I’m… ready,” he whispered, his tone steady and resolute.
Ambrose slowly rose from his seat and fixed Leon in a grim stare. “I hope you’re right, Leon Raime. I hope you’re right.” Beside him, what looked to be a glossy black sphere of light appeared, with a dim core of dark blue. “Enter this, and be sent to Arkhnavi.”
“Just… walk into it?” Leon asked.
“Just walk into it,” Ambrose confirmed. “Just walk into it.”
Leon hesitated only for a moment, just long enough to take a single deep breath, before walking toward the sphere. However, just before he walked into it, Ambrose grabbed his arm, spinning him around to face him.
“Leon,” Ambrose said with a deathly expression, “return home. Even if you can do no more than see what’s on the other side of this portal, return home. Take no more risks than you judge the situation requires.”
“I’ve got it,” Leon said, a brief spark of annoyance flaring up within him. He’d steeled himself, and then been interrupted. He lightly shook himself free of the Grave Warden, who let him go.
“I don’t know where you’ll end up,” Ambrose stated. “All permanent portals into Arkhnavi have closed.”
“I’ll make do,” Leon declared. “That’s why you gave me the map. Now, are you ready for me to leave?”
Ambrose stared at him unblinkingly, then stepped back, and bowed his head slightly.
“Good. Wish me luck.”
“May you walk with your Ancestors,” Ambrose stated, a ghost of a smile playing at his lips. “And may Lady Luck smile upon you.”
Leon nodded gratefully, and then without giving himself time to hesitate any longer, he stepped into the black sphere. He was almost surprised when he broke its glossy surface, having thought it likely something else would’ve stepped in to prevent him from continuing.
Instead, as soon as he made contact with the sphere, it pulled him in so quickly that he didn’t think he could’ve changed his mind at that point if he wanted to. Turning around was no longer an option unless he wanted to use Ambrose’s teleportation twig. But Leon put that out of his mind to focus on the here and now.
Passing through the sphere was like walking into a freezing pool. He saw little through the darkness, the air around him feeling so heavy and pressurized that his magic senses had a difficult time leaving his body.
However, he was able to walk forward, and as he did, the darkness cleared slightly. The air remained still, but in the far distance, Leon could see a titanic beam of light cutting through the darkness of the abyssal void he now found himself in.
He recognized that he now stood in a spatial tunnel, disturbingly familiar to what he’d passed through multiple times in the Serpent’s Temple beneath the Serpentine Isles. The last time he stood in one of these tunnels, a similar beam of light had appeared, though that one had been unbearably hot. This one, on the other hand, was gentle and welcoming, and Leon instinctively understood that instead of trying to kill him, this light was showing him the way through the tunnel.
He moved quickly, covering more distance in those first few seconds than all the distance he’d covered in all the spatial tunnels he’d previously been in. He moved far enough that he started wondering just how long this spatial tunnel would be, especially since it was connecting two places billions of miles apart. However, almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, his surroundings began to distort and grow brighter, and then almost as suddenly as flipping a switch, Leon burst out of a dark sphere into open air—the other side of the spatial tunnel.
But he had no time to get his bearings as he immediately plummeted through the air. His disorientation lasted for several seconds before he managed to stabilize himself in the air, and he realized that the spatial tunnel had opened twenty miles above the surface of Arkhnavi.
Leon didn’t think too much about that, having been forewarned that Ambrose couldn’t control where the exit would be located, but he began to grow more concerned as he surveyed his surroundings.
He was still falling, but instead of the rich green fields, thick forests, and glittering deserts decorating the map that he had in his head, he saw only dozens and dozens of miles of gray, featureless wastes beneath him. From his height, he could’ve seen practically across the surface of Arkhnavi, but in one direction he could only see a massive black storm that chilled even his bones obscuring everything beyond, while in the other direction, the wastes continued seemingly endlessly, until they faded into the haze of distance beyond which even his tenth-tier eyes couldn’t see. Far above him were pitch-black clouds, preventing any but the most powerful rays of the sun from passing through, and even those were ragged and weak, casting all that he could see into gloomy near-darkness, further limiting how far he could see.
He was near a mountain range, though—a desolate line of barren peaks rising defiantly from the dusty wastes beneath, amounting to nothing more than stone and little else. However, he thought he saw a light out there, small and flickering as the darkness around it threatened to extinguish it. Compounding his concern, when Leon tried to project his magic senses, his magic made it only about a mile from his body before stopping, and even that far was like trying to swim through quicksand.
‘Seems this darkness is being augmented by something,’ Leon thought as he analyzed what he could sense around him.
Most notable was a strange and alien power inundating everything around him, clinging to him like oil, leaving him feeling filthy now that he’d noticed it. This strange power was interfering with his magic senses, causing even that one-mile distance to feel as magic-intensive as ten thousand miles.
With his nose wrinkling in displeasure, Leon tried to catch himself with his power, but his magic seemed to slip right off his body, failing to find purchase with this foreign magic power covering him.
His panic rising as quickly as the ground, Leon called upon his magic to cleanse himself of this dark power, but it stubbornly clung to him, and even if he cleared any, more just took its place. He was surrounded by this dark magic, and he wasn’t going to be able to clean himself before he hit the ground. As a tenth-tier mage, he felt confident that he’d survive, but he’d still be injured, and that could take a few minutes to heal even with magic.
So instead, he analyzed his situation and realized that he had two options: don his armor and try to use its power to cleanse himself of this dark magic and then try and fly, or transform and fly with wings instead of only magic.
He opted for the latter. As his magic entered the enchantment in his soul realm, he was quite gratified to feel his body shifting and changing until he found himself falling much more gently with outstretched wings.
His Thunderbird form seemed perfectly fine, even if he could still feel the dark power covering him like thick oil, and he was able to catch some wind and begin flying as he neared the ground. However, as he turned toward the mountains, intent on investigating that light he’d seen, he suddenly felt the magic around him contract. The bones in his wings painfully snapped, sending him again into freefall as a shriek of pain escaped his beak.
In his pain, Leon thought for just a moment that he could see a glowing red eye in the sky, larger than Aeterna’s moon, its attention fixed squarely upon him, the light it emitted piercing through the black clouds above with ease. But it was only a brief glimpse, vanishing as he tumbled through the air.
With his wings fluttering uselessly behind him, causing him terrible pain, Leon shifted back into his human form barely a mile above Arkhnavi’s surface. This didn’t fix his now-broken arms, but he was now able to conjure his armor to cover himself, and the tau pearl immediately released soothing magic into his body, relieving his pain and knitting the shattered bones in his arms back together.
Leon twisted in the air, sending his power surging through his body and his armor, preparing for landfall.
He hit the ground with tremendous force, but the wastes beneath him were surprisingly soft and thick and cushioned his fall more than he thought they would’ve. Not enough to prevent pain from flashing through his body as several more bones broke, but as he lay in the crater, the tau pearl began healing those injuries, too.
But he couldn’t stay there; his impact disturbed a massive dune, and in only a matter of seconds, Leon was in danger of being buried. The last thing he wanted was to be interred beneath all of this gray dust, and he fought through the pain of his broken bones to force himself up, to use his meager command of earth magic to keep the dust away, and to climb out of the crater.
Only upon reaching the lip did he finally fall to his knees and gasp for air, the pain in his body slowly dying now that he’d stopped moving and the tau pearl could work without interruption.
But even then, he barely had a minute of rest and healing before the sandy wastes beneath him began to vibrate and a terrible droning sound filled the air.
Something was coming, something beneath the wastes, and it was huge.
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