The map ended here.
Kael stood at the edge of the Grey Village's canyon. unwavering. Beyond this point, the Ashlands stopped being grey and started being... wrong.
The sky wasn't purple anymore. It was a churning, bruised oil-slick of colors that didn't have names.
Clouds moved against the wind. Shadows detached from rocks and slithered away when looked at directly.
"The Deep Waste," Elric whispered. The old Knight was leaning heavily on a makeshift crutch. He looked terrified.
"It's just land," Kael said, though his stomach churned. "Ground. Sky. We walk it like any other."
"It's not land," Elric corrected. "It's a wound. The gods didn't make this place, Kael. They abandoned it."
Kael adjusted his pack. He had three days of dried meat, two waterskins, and a sword that felt increasingly heavy. And he had the Cylinder.
It was purring. Not a mechanical sound, but the contented rumble of a cat that has just been fed.
"We move," Kael said. "Before Jax realizes we're gone."
They stepped across the invisible line.
Immediately, the sound changed. The silence of the Ashlands was replaced by a low, constant thrumming. It felt like the air itself was vibrating.
Gravity felt lighter here. Dust defied expectation, floating in suspended whorls.
They walked for hours. The terrain was a nightmare of obsidian spikes and pools of liquid that glowed with a sick, green light.
"Don't touch the water," Kael warned, seeing Elric stumble near a pool.
"I know," Elric snapped. "I'm old, not an idiot."
But Kael wasn't warning him because of poison. He was warning him because he could hear the water. It was whispering. Thousands of tiny voices, screaming in a language that sounded like breaking glass.
...come... drown... sleep...
Kael shook his head, trying to dislodge the voices. The Cylinder flared hot against his chest.
...mine... the artifact hissed. ...predators... weak...
It was jealous.
"Kael," Elric said. He had stopped.
"What?"
"Look at the sun."
Kael looked up. There was no sun. Just a bright, tearing rift in the oil-slick sky. But that wasn't what Elric was pointing at.
He was pointing at the horizon.
Floating—actually floating—above the jagged peaks was a mountain. It was inverted, its peak pointing down toward the earth, suspended by massive chains that vanished into the clouds.
"The Spire," Elric breathed. "The myths were true."
"What is it?"
"The prison," Elric said. "The First Sword didn't die in a tomb, Kael. He was locked away. In that."
Kael stared at the floating mountain. It was impossibly far, yet it dominated the sky. And the Cylinder was pulling him toward it. Physically pulling, like a magnet.
"We go there," Kael said.
"That's weeks away," Elric argued. "Through terrain that kills armies."
"We don't have an army," Kael said. "We have a Key."
He tapped the pouch.
Suddenly, the ground beneath them lurched. Not an earthquake. A heartbeat.
The obsidian spikes around them rattled.
"Something's coming," Kael said.
"I don't hear anything," Elric said.
"I do."
Kael drew his sword. The metal looked dull, pathetic against the vibrant horror of the Waste.
"It's not walking," Kael realized, his eyes scanning the impossible geometry of the rocks. "It's swimming."
"Swimming? In rock?"
"Run," Kael said. "To the high ground. Now!"
They scrambled up a ridge of black glass. Below them, the solid ground rippled. A fin—made of jagged bone and translucent flesh—cut through the solid rock as if it were water. Use broke the surface, diving back down with a splash of stone chips.
It was hunting them.
"The laws don't apply here," Kael whispered, watching the landshark circle.
He looked at Elric. The Knight was pale, his hand trembling on his sword hilt.
Kael looked at his own hand. The scar from the cylinder burn was glowing.
"We don't fight it with steel," Kael said. "We fight it with rules it understands."
"What are you doing?" Elric cried as Kael stepped down from the ridge.
"I'm becoming the bigger monster," Kael said.
He walked onto the rippling stone. The fin turned toward him.
Kael smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
"Come on then," he whispered. "Let's see who eats who."