Redmane lingered in the burning remains of Midva Forest for a time.

  Not in mourning. He knew full well it would all grow anew.

  He remained to soak up the power the Flame of Redmane fed him, and expanded the spread of that flame a bit, so that at least some of Flora’s creation would not have gone to waste.

  Corpus: 40,344

  Gnosis: 2343

  He would have preferred sitting with her at the castle and eating a pile of Magister’s Delight. But, given the dire circumstances, this would have to do.

  He’d met his enemy.

  An enemy who would not be likely sit and wait for him to make his next move.

  And so Redmane took off directly from the forest, circling higher and higher until he’d found the proper altitude for soaring, and took aim for the southeast.

  The Aridorn Wastes took up a generous portion of that section of Volos. He’d seen it on maps, and more recently on the Gnosis-made atlas built by the System. It was a broad crescent of arid land, with desert on the far eastron side, all of it sheltered by a nearly circular valley of mountains.

  The city Redmane sought was supposed to be somewhere in the center of that place, where the desert met the tundra. He recalled there being a town on the borderlands, in the largest gap between the ring of mountains, but he did not recall the names of either place.

  He’d know them when he saw them.

  This would be another long flight. Several days spent high in the air, soaring toward the southeast, the opposite corner of Volos from Taracon. Castle Redmane, Taracon and this old forgotten city in the desert could make three points of a triangle.

  The flight left him time to reflect on events, and possibilities.

  Flora was safe. That was a substantial relief.

  His comrades were fighting across their domain, but he didn’t knew not long they could last against an entire host of Numantians. Long enough to delay them while he handled this final task, he hoped.

  If they ran into trouble, they could retreat through the Abyss again. Numantians seemed to have an aversion to Abyssal travel.

  Apart from that, there was nothing else in play.

  Nothing he knew of.

  This man, Jarel Craith, was an unknown.

  Redmane couldn’t help but feel like he hadn’t yet seen what the Praetor was truly capable of. And certainly not what he was capable of with the help of those dark presences watching over him.

  Would he be equal to that in power, when at last his own power was fully unsealed?

  He had no idea. But he would soon find out.

  The promise of such a battle filled his guts with fire. He found himself anticipating the clash. The test. The collision of steel and claw.

  But there was a touch of fear there as well.

  It wasn’t fear for his own safety.

  No. It was Flora, and the others. All the people counting on him to protect them. Redmane studied the nugget of fear in his stomach like an explorer having discovered a small, unfamiliar life form under a rock.

  Perhaps it would be useful.

  It would keep him focused.

  The battle was no mere indulgence. It served a just and necessary purpose.

  What began as a mad dash for freedom had grown into a fight for the freedom of his entire world, with him at the tip of the spear. The Five Heroes had cut him up and sealed him away, and by the Numantians’ own folly had they unleashed him again.

  They would be the architects of their own demise.

  Fitting.

  The terrain beneath him changed slowly, and then all at once. In the first two days it was all the same, green hills and lakes, forests and distant mountains. And then, late in the morning of the third day, the grasses thinned and the terrain flattened and he saw a ring of dark mountains stretching across the horizon.

  When the sun was near its peak, he flew over that town he’d seen on the atlas.

  You have entered Zone: Senera, Desert Town

  Tasks:

  1. Slay Outrider Stenn

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  2. Slay Kennelmaster Golas

  3. Slay Mayor Baldrek

  Tasks Completed: 1/3

  Nearby, outside the town, he saw another Numantian legion encampment. They would be down there fighting the natives right now. If the need for haste wasn’t so great, Redmane would have flown down there and assisted them like he had with the others he’d recently encountered.

  Time was of the essence, now more than ever.

  Perhaps he’d return when his business with the Seal of the Dragon was done.

  He flew on past, despite instincts pulling at him.

  The day progressed, and as the sun climbed higher in the sky, the tundra beneath him gave way to shrubby desert, and at last to an endless expanse of golden sand. Dunes rose beneath him, shifting like waves. He noticed they began to slope downward gently, forming a miles wide basin in the very heart of the desert.

  The lowest point of that basin, the heart of it, concealed a city.

  Redmane’s eyebrows rose. Surprised he hadn’t seen such a massive place earlier in his flight. But it had been artfully concealed by the terrain, and the way the desert seemed to be slowly reclaiming it felt as though that too were a part of its very design.

  The buildings rose from the sand, remarkably untarnished by time or erosion. The architectural style looked like that of the Abyssal Wells, and the tomb of Vos. Solid, rectangular buildings built from jet black stone. Except this was no small, hidden place. This was once a metropolis. It was nearly the size of Taracon, except it spread out horizontally rather than vertically.

  Strangely, the System didn’t seem to recognize it as a Zone despite its size. But then again, it hadn’t recognized the other places featuring these buildings either. Except for the Deepwell Monastery, which it must have detected because of its proximity to other places relevant to the Blight.

  The System was blind to these sites, or it considered them unworthy of mention. Or perhaps it didn’t want people looking here, and omitted them from the atlas on purpose.

  He directed his attention to the city below again, scanning around for a spot to land. From this angle and altitude he noted that the place did not so much resemble a city which had grown over time but something centrally planned. Everything laid out in concentric circles, orderly blocks and uniform streets.

  It may not have been a city at all. It may have been a temple complex, or a military base. Both, perhaps.

  Redmane descended slowly, still searching for a landing site. And also a good place to begin searching for the Seal of the Dragon. Everything was so similar to his eyes that it was difficult to judge the purpose of one building versus another.

  When he reached a certain distance from the tops of the buildings, the ground rumbled.

  He ruled out the possibility of a sudden earthquake when he saw why it was happening.

  These architects had fooled his eyes again. This nameless city had defenders standing dormant, ensconced in the walls of black stone like carvings. But they were not carvings, in fact. They stepped out from the walls which held them and their eyes came alight, glowing gold.

  They were giant things. Tall enough to peer over the walls of Castle Redmane. Their steps shook the earth beneath their feet, but otherwise they made no sound as they came alive, the articulated joints of their bodies functioning so well they were uncannily human in the way they moved.

  Eugorid Sentinel

  Monster Type: Automaton

  Level 400

  His presence appeared to have activated a dozen of them, or more, just in this immediate area.

  And this was an enormous city...

  Unless he could find a quick way to dispatch these things, fighting them all would cost him far more time than he could spare.

  But he may not have that option.

  The nearest three Eugorid Sentinels looked up at him at the same time with their expressionless stone faces. Their eyes flared, and they shot three solid beams of Gnosis up at him. Redmane guessed it was a warning snot, because they let him sail clear of it without firing another.

  Up at a safer altitude, he pondered what to do.

  Best to rule out simple solutions first.

  [Automaton] marked as Prey

  Astral Stalker

  Gnosis: 2328

  As Redmane’s body faded into an ethereal state, flight became a simple process. He could hover in place and move about with perfect control over his position in the air. So he tested his Skill against the perception of the stone giants, lowering himself back down until he was at the approximate level where they had taken that warning shot.

  Four of them looked right at him.

  But this time they did not attack.

  For now, it was an acceptable outcome.

  Redmane hovered about the city at speed, inspecting every building passing beneath him, indifferent to the eyes of dozens of Eugorid Sentinels tracking his incorporeal passage. That they could see him but had no weapon to deal with his presence strongly suggested that there would be a weapon capable of dealing with him somewhere.

  He reminded himself to remain cautious. This place’s builders had proven their cunning a few times already.

  The trouble was that he knew nothing about the sigils carved into the walls of buildings and archways, lining either side of the streets. They could have been decorative, or dormant magic traps waiting to go off the moment he became corporeal again.

  For the time being, he was content to observe that they weren’t going off as he passed. Yet.

  And so the street by street search carried on.

  It comprised educated guesses. The large, circular building over there could have been a temple, or a concert hall, or an arena. That cluster of buildings could have been a barracks, or simply residences. He’d have to go inside every building to discover its purpose, another thing he did not have time for. Throughout it all, the giant Eugorid Sentinels continued to activate and stare at him as he floated through the streets.

  He’d awaken them all, at this rate.

  By the time the sun was well past its peak in the sky, descending to paint the clouds red and orange, he thought he’d just about done so.

  This place was vexingly maze like. Worse, the building themselves were so redundant in their design he caught himself going in circles more than once. Even the inmost circle of the city center was composed of structures so similar to each other that he wondered what this place’s purpose was to begin with. Anyone who lived here would probably have gone mad.

  Redmane had nearly given into madness himself when he came upon something new.

  Something that made his eyebrows shoot up.

  He floated back around the corner he’d just turned, in case they had seen him.

  There were three of them. Gathered in a small plaza whose centerpiece was a statue overlooking a dark pool which strongly resembled an Abyssal Well. The first of its kind Redmane had seen under the open air.

  They were having a muted conversation. The first man he didn’t recognize. A burly fellow, clad in black robes, like his two companions. He didn’t wear his very well, his frame was too brawny.

  The second was Aric Morholt.

  The third could have been Redmane’s twin brother.

  Except for the brown hair and green eyes, and the way he stood, straight-backed and rigid.

  Redmane focused on Aric. Stupefied.

  He’d eaten him. Devoured and digested him.

  He closed his eyes to search his Soulspace for Aric’s soul. And a cold dagger of shock struck him in the spine when he realized he wasn’t there.

  Nor was Aerin Morholt, his cousin.

  Nor was…

  PATREON