« There is no end to an adventure. There has never been such a convenient thing as an ending. We simply decide it’s over when there is nothing else to share, either because we’ve already been shown the peak of bravery or the abyss of cruelty. »

The inside of the tower was more ‘normal’ than I remembered it to be. Through my memory, I recalled the stony layers surrounding us when we walked through those empty corridors, sharp lines coloured with a glowing yellow coursing from one corner to the other acting as veins of magic which nurtured the complexity of the barrier.

Perhaps the path appeared darker because I broke the enchantment in order to get inside, or maybe it was underlined by the furniture and wall painting made up by the mortals to turn the whole place into a more familiar environment.

In the past, we were all too preoccupied adoring the gods and letting them lead our lives. Maybe I should laugh, witnessing what had become of the artefact left behind by them, now merely used as a lodging by the mortals.

My journey lead me deeper in the tower, the air shaking at the sound of my footsteps inside the eerie silence of a night spent in solitude, trembling as it was for it knew of its disordered state and my unimpeded intention to correct its wrongs.

Being quite sensible to the presence of the unnatural, I had to admit this place felt empty, magicless, almost devoid of any extraordinary particle which fuelled our soul. Perhaps a secondary effect born from the destruction of the barrier which once enveloped the tower, but this sensation and phenomenon remained both strange and alien to me.

I felt like breathing in an area devoid of any energy to warm myself, like drinking water yet didn’t feel hydrated or bathing yet not cooling down. I guessed the aftershock from the barrier’s breakdown must have had a more impactful effect than I had imagined. Regrettable, but not alarming for I could already see the mana filling this void in a couple of days.

My eyes were set on the way forward, hidden behind the darkness of a lightless corridor where the lamp lost their fuel and the moon could not shine. I knew nothing of the internal structure of the tower, but it didn’t matter for I could simply alter its position and shape to satisfy my need.

Under the glow of my gauntlets which were shabbily trying to restrict my power, the walls and the floor were turned upside-down, leaving behind and stranded the standard sense of perspective and depth, before taking on the shape of a newly built place, quite similar yet not.

Exiting the boundary separating the broken reality and the original world, I set foot inside what appeared to be some sort of hall, a large room filled with decorum and sofas to accommodate people inside this meeting zone. This didn’t appear to be the canteen, but more like a room for the mortals to relax and socialize. A place which would usually be filled with joyful discussion and laughter from the youngsters.

Looking at its emptiness made me remember of this cursed dimension labelled “Limbo”, a parallel world forged by the hands of the Dark God to shelter his own nightmares before releasing them on the other side, namely on this world. Was the Dark God preparing for another invasion? That would explain my revival, at the very least.

Focusing on my current objective, which was to save my beloved Qalendra, I stepped forward. Darkness still covered everything, however, my vision could not be obstructed by the absence of light. On the other hand, the absence of mana did have an effect I almost forgot: without mana particles surrounding me, I could not resonate with them to detect obstacles around me, leaving me more-or-less blind.

The saving grace was my own overflowing magic reserve which helped me ‘see’ things at a short range. Alas, the range of this artificial sight was too short to discern anything at a comfortable distance, meaning furniture became unexpected obstacles and walls obstructed what I believed to be the path forward.

And yet, despite the inconvenient handicap brought upon me, my pace was never slowed down. It sounded confident coming from me, but all I ever did was pushing away those mentioned furniture or reconstructing the pathway to facilitate my walk. Nothing too grandiose or worth blabbering about.

Or so it should have been, until my gaze fell on the fallen body of a mortal.

“W-Who’s there?”

Their eyes folded behind the surrounding darkness, it was evident they couldn’t see me approaching. Even more when I was reshaping the fabric of reality in order to take a shortcut.

“Please help me, my friend is… She’s feeling unwell.”

I could sense the silhouette of one holding another in its arms, probably attempting a sort of desperate rescue to keep her friend… Alright. Yes, I could sense it through them… Their uneasiness… And also their illness.

Taking a closer look, I discerned traces of malformations everywhere, disgustingly bubbling like an ugly cancer all over the wonderful but now wasted mechanisms of their cracked souls, ravaged by yet another foul technic from those mad pretentious cultists.

“She only needs a mana crystal, or… Maybe in the Laboratory… Yes! Can you help me carry her to the Laboratory, please?”

The spiritual construct was a pitiful mess, barely hanging on a thin and fragile thread, slowly but surely eroding away through each passing second. And the absence of mana in the air only accelerated the erosion.

The unconscious one’s soul was malformed, probably an error in its early growth resulting in this shameful and unusable product. A shame indeed, for I did my best to delete the risk of those anomalies from randomly sprouting, but maybe time undid a few of my fixes.

In short, her life should have been ended a couple of years ago.

But someone sustained her. The linked one, the girl silently crying by her side, was hardly in a better condition.

Her friend; her soul connected to provide what was lacking.

It could actually work and allow them to live a bit longer. But that was all.

This scheme put a burden too heavy for a mere mortal to shoulder, even more when she was this young.

She was being drained, her very soul was being phagocytized to permit this longer and painful respite.

“Please, help me!”

I kept analysing the condition of her ill companion, the foundations of her messed up spiritual body clearly appearing before my eyes as an ominously burning candle in the dark. It was similar to watching a crumbling castle slowly falling apart or noticing one more dried leave on your favourite flower. Saddening, but inevitable. An ending way too common to be put on the same level as a fatality, yet also quite unnerving for making oneself feeling powerless. Both the poor girl, and myself.

In this world, I was the defender while Eendis was the invader. Each of us messing with the other’s birthplace would only lead to corroding a part of our own reality, resulting in a disorder which cannot be banded in the end.

Everytime I acted outside my world, something was lost. Everytime Eendis acted outside his own, something was destroyed.

Her soul, even if tampered by another mortal, was crudely tinkered with the knowledge from the Limbo. It couldn’t be fixed anymore.

“I only need a mana crystal! A little bit of mana to sustain her a bit longer…”

Without mana, the soul suffocated. A normal mortal would only feel discomfort after a short hour or two before the spiritual organs had consumed all of the stocked energy, but a broken one was similar to a jug with a hole: it could empty itself as fast as you could fill it. And judging by the many little cracks everywhere, I actually had to admit her resilience was the only explanation to her elongated longevity. That, and her gritting her teeth for so many years.

I couldn’t cure anything here, the poor thing could only suffer until her demise because of an incurable sickness, because of some malevolent intruder decided to mishandle the delicate spiritual receptacle.

“Please, save her…”

…

This was beyond my capabilities.

What I couldn’t repair, I could just recreate.

What I couldn’t replace, I could just remake.

However, her state was already beyond saving since the day she was tainted by the touch of the Black God.

There was only one choice I could make here.

I had to end her misery.

Gently, I gripped her hand, grabbing her frail fingers between the metallic phalanxes of my gauntlet to connect her soul to mine. She was merely a victim of a rash plot, making this painless was the sole mercy I could grant as a parting gift.

Probably because she felt another’s touch, she opened her eyes and gazed at me. She appeared tired, exhausted, her strength looted by years of struggle, and this unfortunate depletion of mana in the air only furthered the soul’s ulceration.

She gasped a faint breath of air before whispering a short word.

“… Torne?”

… So this is the last thing she would see in her life, the last person her eyes would focus on.

Due to the deformation of my external appearance thanks to my status as a dalenh, it seemed she confused me with someone else.

Of all the dear faces that could have emerged from her memory, from the ones who were dear to her, she subconsciously permuted my appearance with this person she knew as Torne.

I have long lost this feeling of guilt from usurping one’s place because of this uncontrollable condition, but the depreciated emotion left a void that had to be filled with something else.

Be it anger, depression or frustration… I had every reason to be submerged by complicated thoughts whenever a mortal looked at me, but only to stare at the illusion of someone they expected to watch one last time.

“… Torne, what happened? The Academy… The mana disintegrated, all of a sudden.”

I slowly patted the back of her hand.

“Forgive me, but it was necessary in order to push forward.”

“Push… Forward? What do you mean?”

Her faint voice met some issues when trying to escape her lips, but she still managed to get them out so she could get a grasp of the situation spiralling around her.

“You should worry about yourself, you don’t have much time left.”

She flinched upon listening to my warning, as all mortals to when they were told about their imminent demise.

Then, as if suddenly made aware of her own condition, her face contorted in a dull pain, too weak to properly react to the pinches sent by her failing spiritual organs.

It was about time to let her go.

It only took a small amount of time, but somehow it felt like an everlasting eternity.

The fingers turned into ember, then fell on the ground as charcoal. The erosion quickly spread to her arms, her shoulders, her legs and waist, everything disappearing before my watchful eyes, leaving behind a pile of black powder on the ground.

There. It was done.

…

I rose from my spot, followed by the other girl whose blue glowing eyes were stuck on me.

The stone she carried around, the nyrh’s fragment, concatenated to the memories from the sulking girl I enthralled forced me to set one more waypoint on my travel before looking for my wife.

“This… Man, the one you call a director. I know him.”

Finally, I saw someone I was familiar with inside a mortal’s pool of souvenirs.

At last, I had a definite path on which I could proceed without precaution.

Now, it was time to move forward.

“Show me the way to his room.”

Abiding to my rule, her spirit now guided by my will, the young scholar known as Brine Assetia dully obeyed.

“Yes, Protector.”