"Feed me…"
The voice demanded.
"Desire me…"
Another whisper came.
Aiden stared at the wall, and then glanced at Jack. The hunter was still half-asleep on the ground, which meant he didn't hear these voices.
"Uh, I'm good, pal," Aiden answered. "You can just stay there."
"You… can hear me…"
The voice sounded surprised.
Aiden cursed under his breath.
Then, the wall of darkness began rippling.
Aiden jumped to his feet.
The blade appeared in his hand with a thought.
The entire wall began rippling, like a lake that welcomed a pebble.
Jack rose from the ground as he heard Aiden's movements. He looked at Aiden first, and then turned toward the wall of nothingness.
"What in Oblivion's name is that?" Jack muttered with fear. "What have you done?"
"As if I could even cause such a change," Aiden rebuked the hunter, who was now on his feet. "I heard a voice, and then—"
"A voice?"
"From over the edge. A creepy-ass voice," Aiden affirmed. "It wanted me to feed it desire."
Jack seemed to be confused, and then shaken. He looked at the giant wall turning into an angry ocean of darkness.
Then, it began swallowing the barren lands, one footstep at a time.
The two men stared in horror.
"The edge is… crawling," Jack muttered, his voice cracking. "This is bad."
"I can tell," Aiden said. "But how bad?"
"A world-ending bad," Jack answered. "We need to run away — now!"
The two men did not hesitate to bolt away from the campsite, leaving everything else behind. They could hear the wall's crawling coming in a deafening grating sound.
Aiden looked back.
The once-still wall was now an angry ocean.
Then, he heard the voice again.
"I'll give you the power… that you crave…"
"I promise that you shall control fate…"
"Surrender yourself to me… and I will make you the king… of life and death."
Then, something began emerging from the wall of darkness. Aiden saw a giant head emerge, big enough to be mistaken for a school bus.
"Jack! Something is coming out!" Aiden shouted.
Jack looked back, and saw the creature too. A monster big enough to flatten cities. Its head contained countless silver spikes, and its eyes radiated immense hunger.
Then, it let out a shriek.
One that turned the entire barren lands upside down.
Jack collapsed on the ground, disoriented.
Aiden was just fine, for some reason.
"Get it together!" Aiden shouted as he pulled the man to his feet and began dragging him away. Jack was still confused, but managed to push himself forward.
The crawling wall was enormous, but it was slow. The same was for the creature, which was still emerging from the edge of the world.
Soon, the shrieks grew distant.
The grating became farther.
And Aiden no longer heard the voice, only their footsteps and labored breaths.
The two of them never stopped to rest.
They didn't slow down, no matter how much their bodies begged them.
Instead, they ran straight back to the farm using Jack's compass and map.
It was dawn when they caught a glimpse of the farmlands.
Jack collapsed.
Aiden fell to his knees.
The two of them gasped for air, their faces bespeaking a horror that far transcended their need to rest. It spoke to them on a primal level, telling them a singular truth:
They have witnessed a world-ending threat.
"We need… to tell them," Jack said between gasps. "We need to warn the world of what we saw."
"Can they even do anything against them?"
"Oblivion can," Jack replied. "He is the god separating us from the nothingness. We need to seek his church, and the Seekers Guild."
"Of course, gods are a thing here," Aiden said with a laugh. "I just want to get out of here."
"I'll get the carriage ready," Jack said, rising to his feet. His entire body was shaking. "We need to flee before that thing gets here."
"It should be a few days before it does, judging by its speed," Aiden noted. "Instead of running to tell gods, how about we save our asses? Gods should already know that this is happening."
"You might not care about the Fringes, but I do," Jack said as his voice dropped an octave. "These are my people, living as best as they could. I'm not going to wait for Oblivion to notice the threat."
Aiden was silent, and watched the man trudge his way back across the farmland. He turned to look at the direction they came from, and saw black clouds gathering in the distance.
★★★
Aiden looked at the carriage with wariness.
Not only did Jack take out a carriage with enough instability to bring down an empire, he also took out… a strange creature from the stables.
"What is this bird?"
"This is no bird, but an Elgorn," Jack explained as he patted its feathered head. "This is the most common form of transportation here in the Fringes."
"In my world, this is an ostrich-sized chicken," Aiden said with a frown. "And why is it so muscular?"
"To transport people," Jack said. "What's an ostrich?"
"Uh, I guess you don't have that here," Aiden muttered. "In any case, this looks like the quickest shortcut to death."
"The quickest shortcut to death is to stay here. I traveled across three cities with Bamba here," Jack said, petting the Elgorn again.
Its three red eyes turned crescents with happiness.
"Don't say I didn't warn you when something happens," Aiden said as he raised his bag and jumped on the passenger's seat.
"You are rather naggy for a freeloader," Jack said. "Make yourself comfortable while I fasten the reins. We'll set out in a moment."
Aiden acted like he didn't hear the snarky comment and focused his attention on his bag.
He had brought clothes, water, and rations of food — all from Jack.
At the beginning, Aiden considered looting the man using his ability.
However, Jack's generosity and well-mannerism with him made him rethink his choices. He wanted to leave that lifestyle behind, which he has been forced into by the circumstances.
If he could, he wanted to turn a new leaf.
If not, then he wanted to survive long enough to achieve that.
"Sit tight, princess," Jack said as he jumped into the carriage's driver seat and pulled on the reins.
Bamba let out a chirp as it galloped away.
The carriage moved with relative ease, and Aiden almost fell from the sudden burst of speed. The elgorn was faster than a horse, but its talons barely made a sound against the uneven ground.
"I was meaning to ask you something," Jack shouted over the roaring wind. "How come you can speak our language just fine?"
"I can?" Aiden asked. "For me, it sounds like you can speak mine."
"Oh, it should be one of those abilities that outworlders get," Jack said with a nod. "How many did you get?"
"…only this, according to you," Aiden said with a frown. "Are they common?"
"For outworlders, they are," Jack said, ignoring Aiden's obvious lie. "Most of them obtain some sort of power after jumping over the world's edge — a means necessary to survive in this harsh world."
"What kind of abilities are common?"
"Uh, let me remember." Jack scratched his head. "My brother said that it was different for every one of them, but most of them get adaptive abilities like ultra-instincts. You have that, right?"
"What makes you confident that I do?"
"You killed a Hungerborn like it was the most natural thing in the world," Jack said. "Although it was unranked, it's still an admirable feat."
"I don't think I have any instincts, but I did feel… that what I did was natural to me," Aiden said with a frown. "What do you mean unranked?"
"Everything has a rank here," Jack said, smiling. "This world demands strength, and people evolved to conquer it. The more strength you accumulate, the higher your rank would be."
"How many ranks are there?"
"I honestly know just the first two," Jack admitted. "A Spark, which is the weakest ranked human, and the one above that is a Glimmer."
"The difference?"
"How would I know?" Jack shrugged. "I just know enough not to mess with them — ever. A spark might be the weakest, but here in the city, they are the strongest humans. If you mess with one, your life is over."
"And you are taking me there?" Aiden asked.
"Better than wait for our inevitable death," Jack said. "I even asked my rabbits to migrate Inward. This place is no longer habitable with its blizzards, Monster Risings, and now this."
"How about you explain every term you use, since you know I'm completely oblivious to these things?" Aiden asked with frustration.
"And where is the fun in that?" Jack said with a grin. "It lets me see the real you."
Aiden squinted his eyes. "A Monster Rising is when the number of monsters increase in the world, forming hordes of them and threatening human bases. It should be a natural phenomenon."
"You already knew?" Jack asked with surprise.
"I don't," Aiden said with a smirk. "But a friend of mine liked these kinds of stories, filled with fantasy and monsters. He would tell me about his favorites everyday outside the bowling alley."
"What's a bowling alley?" Jack asked.
"Oh, you don't know?" Aiden said with a smirk. "Two can play this game."
Jack let out a chuckle.
Aiden felt more comfortable after that.
Despite the looming threat, the two began chatting.
Instead of world-scale knowledge, Jack taught him how to survive in the city: who to avoid and who to fawn over.
"What's my best plan over there?"
"If you can, join the Seekers Guild. It's the only world-wide organization over there, and obtaining its backing would give you enough authority and wealth."
"Is it easy to join?"
"I've tried to join them for the past ten years, but failed," Jack said as his grip tightened on the reins. "The seekers are too aloft to let any stranger into their midst. Most of them are nobles from the Middle Rings, sent here to train in a risk-free wildland."
"I'm guessing the Middle Rings are far from here?"
"Most people die without seeing them," Jack said. "The Fringes are the outer parts of the world, the closest to the edge. We live on crumbs of what the Midworld discards."