Chapter 1: The Desert Had No Business Being This Hot
The sun was shining with the sort of enthusiasm that would have been admirable had it not been attempting to roast everything beneath it alive. It hung in the heavens like a molten golden coin, enormously pleased with itself, pouring its light across an endless wilderness of dunes until sand and sky seemed determined to blind anyone foolish enough to look at either for too long. Every grain glittered. Every ridge shimmered. Heat rose from the ground in trembling waves that bent the horizon into peculiar shapes, and there was not so much as a polite breeze to suggest that the world possessed the slightest sympathy for those unfortunate enough to be walking through it.
Caelan Ardyn had decided several hours ago that he hated deserts.
This was perhaps unfair to deserts in general. He had encountered only this particular one, and it was entirely possible that somewhere in existence there existed a pleasant desert with cool evenings, conveniently positioned springs and trees that produced chilled fruit. This one, however, seemed personally offended by him. Sand had found its way into his boots, his sleeves, his hair and several other places he preferred not to think about. His loose blue-and-white clothes, once perfectly respectable clothing bearing the emblem of the Heavenly Flame Sect across the back, were now coated with dust. The heat itself was less of a problem; a steady circulation of ki kept his body comfortably cool despite the blazing sun. Unfortunately, cultivation had yet to produce a technique capable of preventing sunlight from being annoyingly bright or sand from getting absolutely everywhere.
"Damn," Caelan muttered, dragging one foot out of particularly deep sand and immediately sinking the other into it. "When is the sun going down?"
The sun, having no intention of answering, continued burning.
Caelan glared at it anyway.
He was thirteen years old, a cultivator of the First Stage of Foundation Establishment, son of the former Sect Head of the Heavenly Flame Sect, and known throughout much of his world by a title that sounded considerably more impressive when one was not covered from ankle to shoulder in desert dust.
The Azure Knight.
At the moment, however, the Azure Knight wanted water.
He also wanted food.
And shade.
Mostly shade.
None of these seemed unreasonable requests.
What made the situation considerably more irritating was that Caelan had absolutely no idea how he had arrived there. He remembered resting beneath a tall pine after training, leaning against its trunk while cool air drifted through the sect grounds and the scent of grass and wood lingered around him. He remembered closing his eyes. Perhaps he had fallen asleep for a few minutes.
Then he had opened them and discovered that somebody had apparently stolen the entire Heavenly Flame Sect and replaced it with several thousand miles of sand.
There had been no spatial fluctuation that he could remember. No formation activating beneath him. No enemy cultivator stepping from the shadows with a triumphant laugh. No attack, no explosion, no distortion of ki and no warning from his instincts.
That alone narrowed the possibilities considerably.
The Heavenly Flame Sect was not some roadside clan whose barriers could be slipped through by anyone clever enough to hide their presence. Ancient formations covered its territory, layered over one another through generations of cultivation and refinement. An outsider capable of reaching into the sect, moving Caelan without alerting anyone and bypassing those formations entirely would almost certainly have to be a Dao Ascension cultivator.
Which was not exactly comforting.
The other possibility was worse in a different way.
Someone from within the sect itself.
A sufficiently powerful Sage with access to the sect's formations and knowledge of their workings might have managed it.
Caelan didn't like that possibility either.
He had considered both explanations repeatedly while crossing the desert and had gotten nowhere beyond deciding that whichever explanation proved correct, someone was going to owe him an exceptionally good answer.
What he had encountered since waking had done little to clarify matters.
A giant serpent made of sand had emerged from beneath a dune.
It had risen above him, opened a mouth large enough to swallow him whole—
—and stopped.
Its jaws remained open.
Its body trembled.
It clearly wanted to attack.
It simply couldn't.
Caelan had stared up at it for several seconds.
Then he had poked it experimentally with a current of wind.
The serpent recoiled.
Caelan grinned.
Ten minutes later, after amusing himself by repeatedly flicking bursts of air against its face while it became increasingly furious and increasingly incapable of doing anything about it, he finally put it out of its misery.
After that came a creature resembling a cactus that had somehow acquired legs, teeth and a deeply antisocial temperament. It spat acid at a lizard passing nearby, chased another creature halfway across a dune and then turned toward Caelan with murderous enthusiasm.
Nothing happened.
Its body locked the instant intention became action.
Caelan had walked around it twice.
The cactus creature's eyes followed him.
"You really can't, can you?"
It snarled.
Caelan leaned closer.
"Go on."
Nothing.
"Try."
The cactus shook with apparent rage.
Caelan laughed.
Then there had been three black things which moved as though somebody had cut pieces out of the shadows themselves and taught those pieces how to bite. They had attacked practically everything else around them.
They could not attack him either.
That, at least, was familiar.
Destiny's Chosen remained exactly as it had always been. Any being equal to or weaker than Caelan simply could not initiate an attack against him. They could run. They could defend themselves. They could block his attacks if they were capable of doing so. They could attack anyone else nearby.
But they could not attack Caelan.
The path simply did not exist.
That fact had made exploring the desert considerably less dangerous than it first appeared.
It had also made it considerably more entertaining.
What remained disturbing was that none of the creatures resembled spiritual beasts Caelan knew.
None possessed familiar cultivation.
None responded to the world quite correctly.
And after several hours of wandering, Caelan had accepted something he would normally have considered ridiculous.
This was not his world.
He had no idea where it was.
And the place appeared to be full of strange creatures that, fortunately for them, could at least attack something other than him.
Hours of walking had left him more annoyed than exhausted. His Foundation Establishment body could endure far worse than a desert march, and circulating ki through his body kept the worst of the heat comfortably at bay. His mouth was still dry, however, his stomach had started complaining, and the endless dunes were beginning to offend him on a personal level.
Then, between two enormous dunes, Caelan saw green.
He stopped.
Blinking once, he rubbed his eyes.
The green remained.
Trees rose from a depression in the desert ahead, their broad leaves forming a dark canopy over a pool of water that glittered beneath them. Bushes clustered around their roots, and even from this distance Caelan could see their branches moving ever so slightly.
Moving.
Which meant wind.
Wind meant shade.
Shade meant not staring at sand for a while.
"Shade," Caelan whispered.
A heartbeat later, sand exploded behind him.
Ki surged naturally through his body, strengthening muscle, bone and reflexes as it always did when he prepared to move seriously. It was such basic combat practice among cultivators that Caelan hardly thought about it anymore. Strengthen the body first. Everything else came afterward.
Wind curled around him.
Caelan launched himself forward.
His foot barely touched the crest of the first dune before another current caught beneath him and hurled him onward. He crossed the remaining distance in a succession of blinding movements until the vicious sunlight suddenly disappeared and the cool shadow of the trees washed over him.
He stopped beneath the nearest one.
For several seconds he remained perfectly upright.
Then his knees gave up.
Caelan dropped into the sand beneath the tree with a groan that would have greatly disappointed anyone imagining the Azure Knight making a heroic entrance.
"Oh, that is better."
Cool air brushed his face.
He leaned backward against the trunk, eyes closed, and decided that if anyone wished to murder him during the next five minutes they would simply have to make an appointment.
His stomach growled.
"You're not helping."
Snap.
Caelan's eyes opened.
Weariness disappeared immediately.
He was standing before the broken twig had finished settling into the undergrowth.
There was no weapon at his side and no need for one. His right hand opened slightly, and a faint current curled around his fingers, invisible except for the grains of sand that began circling his boots.
Something moved behind the bushes.
Caelan watched.
A small creature stepped cautiously into view.
It barely reached half his height. Its body was rounded and compact, covered in vivid red fur interrupted by jagged bands of blue. Large ears rose from its head, though one was currently drooping as if uncertain whether standing upright was worth the effort. Its eyes were enormous and remarkably expressive, and tiny threads of electricity crackled occasionally across its paws and tail.
Caelan stared at it.
The creature stared back.
A spark jumped from one paw to the ground.
Caelan raised an eyebrow.
The creature swallowed.
"P-Please don't hurt me!"
Caelan blinked.
The wind around his fingers vanished.
"You talk."
The creature's ears lowered.
"Yes."
Caelan continued staring.
This was not particularly helpful.
Most of the things he had met so far had hissed, roared, screeched or glared at him furiously while discovering that they were physically incapable of attacking him.
"You can actually talk?"
The creature looked mildly offended despite being terrified. "I just did."
"Fair point."
Caelan folded his arms, though he did not completely relax. "What exactly are you? Some kind of spiritual beast?"
The little creature hesitated.
"I don't know what that is."
"Summoned beast?"
Another blank look.
Caelan sighed. "Of course."
The creature glanced nervously toward the surrounding trees before taking another tiny step forward. "I'm a Voltkin. Juvenile stage."
"A what?"
"A Voltkin."
"No, the other thing."
"Juvenile?"
Caelan stared at it.
The Voltkin stared back.
"This conversation isn't improving."
The creature's tail twitched.
Caelan crouched slightly so they were closer to eye level. "Start from the beginning. What are you, what is this place, and why has nearly everything I've met today wanted to kill something?"
The Voltkin's expression changed. Fear remained, but something sadder appeared beneath it.
"Most of us can speak," it said. "Or we're supposed to. But something has been happening. Creatures have been changing. They become violent. Empty." It shuddered. "Like there's nobody inside anymore. They just attack whatever they find."
Caelan's amusement vanished.
"What causes it?"
"I don't know."
"Useful."
"I'm sorry!"
Caelan waved a hand. "I wasn't blaming you."
The Voltkin relaxed by perhaps half an inch.
"And where are we?"
The creature glanced around as though the answer ought to be obvious.
"This world."
Caelan waited.
The Voltkin waited too.
Caelan's eyebrow slowly rose.
"Excellent. Very informative."
"I don't know what you call it!" the creature protested. "Different regions have different names. There are places beyond this one too. Other lands. Other worlds, maybe. Sometimes things appear here that nobody has ever seen before."
Caelan became still.
"Other worlds?"
The Voltkin nodded.
Caelan sat back on his heels.
That was not the answer he had hoped for.
"So I really am somewhere else."
"I suppose?"
Caelan rubbed his forehead.
For a brief moment he considered whether all of this might be an illusion. A particularly elaborate one, perhaps. Yet illusions left inconsistencies. Formations left traces. Mental techniques interacted with the soul. He had checked every possibility he understood during those first several hours.
Nothing fit.
He looked again at the little creature.
"Do you have a name?"
The Voltkin blinked.
"Voltkin."
"That's your species."
"Yes."
"I asked for your name."
The creature looked genuinely confused. "I don't have another one."
Caelan stared at the sparks dancing along its tail.
"That's depressing."
"I never thought about it."
"Well, now I have." Caelan pointed at it. "Sparky."
The creature's mouth opened.
Then closed.
"Sparky?"
"You're covered in electricity."
"That's your reason?"
"It's an excellent reason."
Sparky appeared to consider arguing. One look at Caelan suggested this would accomplish nothing.
"...It's not terrible."
"There you go."
"It isn't very impressive either."
"You've had the name for six seconds and you're already complaining."
Sparky's ears rose.
Caelan grinned.
For the first time since waking in the desert, he did not feel entirely alone.
They returned to the shade together. Caelan leaned against the tree, while Sparky settled a short distance away, still watching him with the cautious fascination normally reserved for dangerous animals that had unexpectedly decided not to bite.
"So," Caelan said, brushing sand from his sleeve, "do you know how to leave this desert?"
Sparky opened his mouth.
The branches above them moved.
Caelan's head snapped upward.
Several roots burst from the earth while long branches twisted downward like enormous wooden snakes.
They ignored Caelan completely.
One wrapped around Sparky's middle before the little creature could even scream properly, yanking him into the air.
"Sparky!"
Wind screamed.
Caelan's arm moved.
A razor-thin current of compressed air flashed upward.
The branch came apart cleanly.
Sparky dropped.
Caelan moved beneath him and caught the falling creature in both arms as more branches lunged from the trees.
Not toward Caelan.
Toward Sparky.
"Hold on."
"Wha—"
Wind gathered beneath Caelan's feet.
He shot backward between the trees with Sparky against his chest. A branch swept toward the little creature, only to be knocked away by a sharp sideways burst of air. Another curled around from behind.
Caelan flicked two fingers.
The wind slammed it aside.
Then the trees themselves began moving.
Their trunks twisted grotesquely, bark peeling apart to reveal enormous mouths lined with rows of sharpened wooden teeth. Glowing eyes opened above them. Roots tore free from the earth, each tree dragging itself forward with heavy, grinding movements while branches rattled overhead.
Sparky made a very small noise.
"Those are Barkmaws."
"Of course they are."
The Barkmaws screamed.
Their leaves lifted.
Caelan narrowed his eyes.
The glowing leaves shot through the air.
Every single one curved toward Sparky.
None came toward Caelan.
Caelan raised one hand.
Wind rolled outward in a broad sheet, catching the volley and sending the leaves spinning harmlessly into the sand.
He glanced down at Sparky.
"They really don't like you."
"This isn't funny!"
"It's a little funny."
"Caelan!"
"Fine."
He moved away from the grove and set Sparky down behind a rocky outcrop.
"Stay there."
Sparky stared up at him.
"There are a lot of them."
Caelan looked back.
At least twenty Barkmaws were tearing themselves free from the soil, dragging enormous root systems behind them as they advanced.
Toward Sparky.
Every time their attention shifted to Caelan, something happened. Their branches stopped. Their roots hesitated. Their bodies simply refused to complete the motion required to attack him.
Caelan watched one struggle against the invisible certainty for several seconds.
Then smiled.
"Interesting."
Sparky peeked over the rock.
"I thought we were dead."
"We?"
Caelan glanced back.
"They can't attack me."
Sparky stared.
"What?"
"They can't."
"Why?"
Caelan shrugged.
"Destiny."
Sparky's expression suggested this explanation had somehow made things worse.
Caelan stepped away from the rock.
"Don't worry."
Sparky looked at the advancing Barkmaws.
"There are twenty!"
Caelan rolled his shoulders once.
Ki surged throughout his body.
Muscles strengthened.
Bones hardened.
Reflexes sharpened.
The enhancement happened naturally and instantly, as routine as breathing before combat. Any properly trained cultivator strengthened the body first. Only an idiot entered a fight without doing so.
Caelan smiled.
"There is no way some overgrown trees are beating the Azure Knight."
Sparky blinked.
"The what?"
Caelan looked back.
"The Azure Knight."
"You have a title?"
"Obviously."
"Why?"
Caelan looked offended.
"Because I'm impressive."
Sparky opened his mouth.
Caelan raised one finger.
"Don't ruin the moment."
The Barkmaws thundered forward.
Twenty towering creatures, each several times broader than Sparky and tall enough to look directly down at Caelan, charged across the sand. Roots struck the ground with heavy impacts, throwing clouds of dust behind them. Branches sharpened into spears. Leaves lifted around them in swirling clouds of green light.
They could not strike Caelan.
But that did not mean they were helpless.
One Barkmaw dragged its roots upward and crossed them before its trunk defensively.
Another wrapped layers of branches around itself.
Several spread out, creating barriers between Caelan and Sparky.
Caelan's grin widened.
"Oh, you can defend yourselves."
One Barkmaw shrieked.
Caelan laughed.
"Good."
Wind stirred around his feet.
Then around his legs.
Then around his entire body.
Sand began moving.
At first it was only a thin spiral.
Then more joined it.
Loose leaves lifted from the ground. Broken twigs rattled across the sand. Sparky's ears flattened as the air changed direction around them.
Caelan raised one hand.
The entire grove seemed to inhale.
The Barkmaws reacted immediately.
Roots dug deep.
Branches interlocked.
Several pressed together into a wall of wood.
Caelan tilted his head.
"That's actually not bad."
The wind intensified.
The wall groaned.
Sparky's eyes widened.
"What are you doing?"
Caelan looked over his shoulder.
"Getting rid of them."
Then he closed his hand.
The desert exploded.
A hurricane erupted around the Barkmaws.
Sand, leaves and shattered branches vanished inside an enormous rotating wall of air. The creatures tried to anchor themselves, driving roots deep beneath the ground, locking branches together and placing layer after layer of wood between themselves and the storm.
It did not matter.
The first Barkmaw was torn from the earth.
Then another.
Then five.
Within seconds, all twenty were spinning helplessly inside the hurricane.
Their defensive shells shattered.
Roots snapped.
Branches broke apart.
Heavy trunks collided hard enough to explode into fragments.
Caelan stood at the edge of the storm, one arm lazily extended, controlling the rotating winds with small movements of his fingers.
Sparky crouched behind the rock.
His fur stood straight out.
One Barkmaw managed to wrap several roots around a buried stone formation and hold itself in place.
Caelan noticed.
He flicked his wrist.
The hurricane strengthened.
The entire chunk of stone came out of the ground with it.
Sparky stared.
Caelan looked pleased.
A few seconds later, there were no Barkmaws left.
The hurricane weakened.
Sand rained from the sky.
Broken fragments scattered across the desert.
Silence returned.
Caelan lowered his hand.
Sparky slowly emerged from behind the rock.
His ears stood straight.
Tiny sparks ran uncontrollably across his fur.
Caelan turned toward him and spread both arms.
"Now," he announced loudly, "you have witnessed the unstoppable force known as Caelan Ardyn!"
His voice echoed across the dunes.
Nothing answered.
Caelan waited.
Sparky began wagging his tail.
"That was incredible!"
Caelan nodded solemnly.
"I know."
"You destroyed all of them!"
"I also know that."
"That storm!"
"A little excessive."
"You pulled a rock out of the ground!"
"That part was funny."
Sparky continued staring at the ruined grove.
Caelan folded his arms, clearly enjoying himself.
"Please continue."
Sparky did.
Then something happened.
The broken pieces of the Barkmaws began glowing.
Caelan's smile disappeared.
Wood dissolved into thousands of tiny particles of light. They rose from the sand in glittering streams—green, gold and pale white—until the battlefield looked as though it had suddenly filled with fireflies.
Sparky stopped talking.
The lights floated upward.
Then turned.
Every particle moved toward Caelan.
He stiffened.
"Again."
The streams reached him.
Light sank through his clothing and skin without resistance.
Warmth spread through his body.
Not heat exactly.
Something deeper.
It flowed through his muscles, entered his bones and mixed with his ki as though it had always belonged there.
Caelan's fingers curled.
There was no pain.
That almost made it worse.
He had experienced the same thing with the creatures he defeated earlier. Every time one of them died, part of whatever remained had entered him.
He had hoped it was a coincidence.
Twenty Barkmaws made coincidence increasingly difficult to defend.
"Why does this keep happening?"
Sparky stared at him.
"That isn't supposed to happen."
"Wonderful."
"When Aetherkin die, their essence returns to the Worldstream."
"The what?"
"The Worldstream. Everything returns eventually." Sparky moved closer and sniffed suspiciously at Caelan's leg, as if expecting the answer to be hidden somewhere in his trousers. "But it shouldn't go into you."
Caelan looked down at himself.
"I feel fine."
"That's not the point!"
"Feeling fine is usually an excellent point."
"But you're absorbing dead creatures!"
Caelan considered this.
"That sounds worse when you say it like that."
"How else should I say it?"
Caelan had no answer.
Sparky's concern lasted approximately another ten seconds before excitement won.
"Do you think I could become that strong?"
Caelan looked at him.
"If you train."
Sparky's eyes brightened.
"And evolve?"
"Probably."
"You really think so?"
Caelan grinned.
"Sure. But don't expect to catch me."
Sparky frowned.
"Why?"
"Because I'm already amazing."
Caelan placed both hands behind his head and started walking.
Sparky hurried after him.
"You didn't even fight them properly."
"They were trees."
"They were dangerous!"
"To you."
"That still counts!"
"Probably."
Sparky continued arguing for several minutes.
The desert remained hot. The sand remained unpleasant. The sun remained a celestial nuisance with no concept of moderation.
But something had changed.
Caelan was no longer thirsty.
He noticed it perhaps an hour later.
His stomach had stopped complaining too.
Even the small amount of energy he had spent was returning far more quickly than it should have.
The strange essence he had absorbed sat inside him like a reservoir of warmth, slowly becoming part of his body.
Caelan frowned as he walked.
That was not normal.
Not even by his standards.
He tried sensing deeper within himself.
Nothing immediately answered.
No familiar explanation presented itself.
Something strange is happening.
This was, Caelan reflected, an impressively useless observation considering he had awakened in another world, befriended a talking electrical animal and just absorbed twenty murderous trees.
They continued through the desert for hours.
The sun moved slowly westward, apparently having decided that torment was best enjoyed at leisure. Heat shimmered across the horizon. Dunes rose and fell before them endlessly.
Then Caelan stopped.
Sparky walked three more steps before noticing.
"What?"
Caelan pointed.
Far ahead, something enormous was moving.
Sparky narrowed his eyes.
The object emerged gradually through the haze.
First came a tall mast.
Then another.
Then great metallic sails which gleamed silver beneath the sunlight.
Finally the hull appeared.
Caelan stared.
It was a ship.
A vast silver vessel sailed directly across the desert.
Not over it.
Not floating above it.
Through it.
Its enormous hull cut across the dunes exactly as an ordinary ship might cut through waves. Sand rolled away from its sides in great golden sprays, while metal sails swelled despite the almost complete absence of wind. Strange machinery hummed somewhere inside it, the vibration travelling through the desert beneath Caelan's boots.
He stared for several seconds.
Then he looked at Sparky.
Sparky looked at him.
"Are you seeing that?"
"Yes."
"That's a ship."
"Yes."
"In the desert."
"Yes."
Caelan pointed again, just in case Sparky had somehow missed the important detail.
"Ships aren't supposed to do that."
"I know!"
"Good."
The vessel drew closer.
Tall banners hung from its masts, marked with symbols Caelan did not recognize. Figures moved across the deck.
People.
Or creatures.
At this distance, it was difficult to tell.
Caelan's expression sharpened.
His right hand lowered naturally beside him.
Wind stirred around his fingers.
Sparky stepped closer.
"You think they're dangerous?"
Caelan watched the approaching ship.
"I think everything I've met today has either been unable to attack me or asked to follow me."
Sparky glanced upward.
"I asked to follow you."
"Exactly."
"That's not dangerous."
"You've known me for a few hours. Give it time."
Sparky stared at him.
Caelan smiled faintly.
Then his eyes returned to the vessel.
Someone was standing near the railing.
Watching them.
Caelan could feel it.
The ship's strange humming grew louder.
Sand rolled away beneath its enormous hull as it approached the oasis.
Caelan stepped forward.
"Come on, Sparky."
"Where?"
"To find out why there's a ship sailing through sand."
Sparky hesitated.
"Do we have to?"
Caelan looked at him.
Sparky sighed.
"We have to."
"Exactly."
Together, the boy who should not have been in this world and the little creature who had been terrified of travelling alone walked toward the impossible ship.
Behind them, the final traces of the Barkmaws faded into the desert air.
Far beneath Caelan's skin, the energy he had absorbed stirred.
And somewhere aboard the approaching vessel, a pair of unseen eyes continued watching him.