CHAPTER 120
A Wardless Path
The river formation proved as effective as we had hoped it would be during the many months of training. So, it was no surprise that we reached District 100 without a single casualty, despite the large number of beasts attracted by our presence.
Without a ward, the path within District 100 stretched farther and farther into the fog, but even then, we advanced without casualties, though each mile wore down our riders more and more.
On most runs, the wounded who couldn’t run were left behind—a grim decision, but one everyone understood. The riders, however, didn’t need to run. Those injured remained in the inner lines, two of them, but one horse died in combat, so that rider was placed within one of the wagons.
Each wagon already carried five chainrunners and two cannons, yet still had room for a few more. We had planned for moments like this.
It was only on the path between District 1 and 2 that the cost of the run began to show. Even the strongest chainrunners at the front began to show signs of exhaustion, their breathing growing heavy.
Cairen stayed mounted, driving his horse straight into a pair of fog-beasts. His blade glanced instead of biting deep, and both creatures slipped past him, crashing into the formation. The front ranks scattered as they fought them down, and our advance stuttered dangerously.
Every broken rhythm invited more beasts. A complete halt meant more beasts would reach us and perhaps even give time to the injured ones to rejoin the fight.
Artemis never slowed, but I could feel the strain building inside her. Her movements lost some of their sharpness, her blows carrying less bite.
Gustav was worse. Bloodreaver drove him past human limits. Each swing of his axe cracked stone and split bodies alike.
Unfortunately, that same strength beyond human limits gnawed at his will and mind, with his vision blurring as his consciousness slipped into a berserk state.
Once a mighty beast joined the fight with a defiant roar, Gustav broke formation entirely, driving his horse straight into it and almost being swallowed by the sheer number of beasts ahead.
“Come back, you fool!” Artemis shouted, spurring after him rather than abandoning the leader of the run.
Their absence, even though only momentarily, created a ripple that tore a hole in the river formation, with even more beasts slipping in and risking a complete halt of the run.
Yet, before Gustav could be surrounded by beasts, he heard Artemis, and for a moment, we thought he was turning back, regaining his senses. Artemis and the others relaxed, but only briefly, as he didn’t slow down. He charged straight toward his own allies at the frontline.
The berserk state caused by Bloodreaver wasn’t new, but Gustav was rarely pushed this far during runs, so few had ever seen him like this.
Gustav’s axe came down in a killing arc toward a chainrunner who barely had time to react.
I moved to intervene, but Artemis was closer. She snapped her arms up, the bracers blazing, and a barrier flashed into existence directly in the axe’s path. The strike slammed into it and stopped dead. The recoil traveled back through the blow like a wave, and Gustav was thrown from the saddle, almost knocking him out.
The sound of the axe hitting the barrier cracked through the fog like thunder, a clear display of how much strength Bloodreaver had given him after so many kills.
“Damn fool,” Artemis snapped.
Countless rotations had passed since the run began. Even the best needed rest, and we had prepared for this moment.
Rogara met my gaze, eyes bright and waiting.
“It’s time,” I said. “Go.”
She smiled. “Yes, yes—finally.” Tugging the reins, she urged her horse forward.
There was no bell to signal the rotation; there was no need. Rogara might have been new to the chainrunners, but everyone knew the power of the white flames.
Rogara reached the front and unleashed a wave of mana so intense it burned everything it touched, even the fog was drawn into it, and the path ahead blazed clear.
The river surged forward again.
Artemis and Cairen hauled Gustav out of the front ranks while his mount paced beside them, snorting frost. They loaded him into a cannon wagon, his eyes unfocused, and slid back into the inner lines.
“About time,” Artemis muttered.
“Rest,” I said as they drew up beside me, Artemis on my left, Cairen on my right, and Gustav not far ahead on the wagon. “Rogara’s reserves are deep. She can keep this pace for a long time.”
“I’ll take you up on that offer,” Cairen said mockingly, though he sounded grateful for the respite.
“Yeah, same. Wake me when it’s my turn,” Artemis said. She slid from her horse in one smooth motion, hopped onto a wagon, and used one of the cannons as a pillow. By the time the wheels rattled over the next crack in the stone, she was already asleep.
She was more exhausted than she let on. She’d been keeping pace with enhanced fighters all this time, without sharing a single one of their advantages.
Even so, seeing someone drift off that quickly in the middle of chaos—steel clashing, beasts shrieking just beyond the line—left most of the unit staring. Cairen kept glancing back at Artemis as if he half expected her to sit up and admit she was only pretending.
“You can sleep too, if you want,” I told him. “You shouldn’t join the normal rotation, so you have time.”
“Haha, I doubt I could, even if I wanted to,” Cairen replied, tightening his grip on the reins.
Soon, the entire unit surged back to full speed, Rogara leading the charge. Her mana reserves seemed endless as she met every ebony beast and even the onyx ones head-on, refusing to yield a single step of the road.
Her spear work, learned by studying chainrunner fighting styles, had been honed to strike far beyond its physical reach.
Chainrunners on all sides watched with wide eyes as a cyclops, a one-eyed giant about six meters tall and over four tons, threatened the run ahead, standing directly in our path.
It was an onyx beast, the kind that never reached crimson, too consumed by raw brutality to evolve further.
Rogara did not waver. Fire flowed from her core into her spear, and with a single sweeping strike, she released it. An arc of white flame tore forward along the road, carving through cobblestone, the bases of buildings, and any lesser beasts caught in its path.
The cyclops had no defense against it. The flaming arc tore through both legs at the knees, searing and slicing in the same instant. For a moment, it stood as if nothing had happened. Then its lower legs slid away, and the giant crashed down, the impact rattling through the stones beneath our mounts.
The beast roared, thrashing against the cobblestones, its hands clawing at empty air. But it would not remain helpless for long. Cyclopes were notorious for their life magic; their healing could be as vicious as their strength. Rogara knew that as well as I did, after all, she had studied the chainrunners’ bestiaries.
She broke from the formation, sprinting past her own horse, cloak snapping behind her. When she reached the cyclops’s head, she thrust her hands forward and loosed a broad burst of flame.
It wasn’t meant to pierce; it was meant to shove. Fire slammed into the giant’s upper body, forcing it to topple and roll away from the road, crashing through ruined walls beyond the edge of the Via Appia.
Finishing it would have taken time. A cyclops’s neck was thick as a tree trunk, and far harder to sever than its legs. I could almost feel her urge to end it now, to make sure it never rose again. But when her eyes met mine, I saw the discipline settle. She remembered her purpose. Not to slaughter every beast we met, but to clear the path ahead.
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I nodded in approval. The beast would not challenge the run again in time; cyclopes were not fast, and by the time new legs had grown, we would be long gone.
And so, with Rogara clearing the path ahead, we finally reached District 2. There was no need for detours; I had removed the debris that once blocked the Via Appia months before the run took place.
The first real sign of District 2 was the green. At first, it was just stray bushes piercing the cracked stone, then trees, growing thicker and closer together until no one could mistake it. We had entered the dominion of Thelora—the Life Tree.
The others stared at the thick walls of vegetation, the sheer number of trees pressing close to the road. By our agreement, Thelora kept most of her growth off the Via Appia itself. The roots that used to tear through the stone were gone, held back by a will older than any of us.
As we crossed deeper into her domain, roots erupted from the soil—thick, twisted lengths of living wood that made several chainrunners flinch and raise their weapons. None of the roots reached for us. They lashed out at the beasts chasing us.
Some roots slammed into beasts with enough force to send them flying. Others coiled around them, binding limbs before hurling them away from the road.
The more vicious ones did not get that mercy. I watched serrated roots, grown like saw-teeth, wrap around them and pull tight until scales, bone, and flesh tore apart under the pressure.
It was an awful sight for most chainrunners, the sheer brutality the Life Tree could unleash, but I hoped they would trust me that none of it would be directed at them.
“Are you certain about this?” Cairen asked, voice low. We had gone over this part of the run many times, but hearing it in briefing and seeing it with his own eyes were very different things.
All of them saw the roots’ fierce attacks, the moving trees, and the beasts lurking within the vegetation, which stayed out of our path, yet surrounded us from all sides.
Gustav, now fully conscious and riding in the inner line, eyed the roots warily. “Remind me,” he said. “You made a deal with a tree, and that’s the only reason we’re not being crushed right now?”
“I hope so,” I replied. I had made a deal, and although I did not believe Thelora to be a wielder of lies, I could not be completely certain. Still, I doubted she had anything to gain from betraying us here.
“Oh, great. So we just hope the roots don’t smash us to pieces. Wonderful,” Gustav said, tightening his grip on his weapon.
“Yes. But we cannot linger,” I said. “Slow the pace, let the horses and men rest as they move, but don’t stop. Our time here must be brief.”
It was no empty warning. Thelora had been explicit: if corruption took root in us while we were in her domain, she would treat us no differently than any other intruder. And I had no precise measure for how long it would take us to reach the next ward to purge the corruption forming within them.
Cairen scanned the forest of roots and branches, no doubt imagining how quickly they could turn on us if Thelora changed her mind. Then he looked back at us. “You don’t need to say that twice. Gustav, give the order.”
Gustav nodded, turned in his saddle, and bellowed, “Half speed! Rest while you can, but don’t stop moving!”
The shout jolted Artemis awake. She blinked, sluggish, as if I’d dragged her out of the best dream she’d had in months. Her mouth already formed the beginning of a complaint about Gustav’s voice being louder than the beasts and the fighting, until she actually saw where we were.
The fog in District 2 was thinner, almost delicate, compared to the choking haze outside. Despite the brutal display we had just seen from the forest, the place itself was beautiful. Trees arched over the road, their leaves whispering in a breeze we could actually feel, and a river ran beside the Via Appia, its water startlingly clear and blue.
The soft rustle of leaves in the wind stood in sharp contrast to the howls and echoes of the outer fog. There were still beasts here, many of them, but the land itself did not feel hostile in the same way. It felt watchful, dangerous, yet strangely alive.
For a few serene moments, the chainrunners walked a path they had only read about in history books—tales of a past world not made of concrete, but of grass, rivers, trees, and their connection to the wind.
I had not anticipated how much the sight would affect them. Shoulders eased, voices quieted, even fear seemed to thin for a little while. It was a welcome mercy, especially knowing this might be the last beautiful place some of them would ever go through.
For all the fear the forest had stirred at first, by the time we reached its edge, most of them dreaded the exit. They had experienced the vision of a world none of them would believe if not seen with their own eyes, and what awaited us outside was pure madness yet again.
The first wash of dense fog rolled over the front line like a curtain dropping. Gustav didn’t hesitate. “Prepare yourselves!” he bellowed. “Full speed ahead!”
At that command, the peace ended. Beasts had already been drawn toward us.
Rogara blasted open the path ahead, displaying onyx power that rivaled crimson and a well of mana far beyond what her body should hold. But in truth, that last blast spent the remaining mana she had stored.
She didn’t stop. She reached through our bond and pulled mana from me, refilling herself entirely.
She was still my warlock, and she did what she was meant to do, even when her own vessel had nothing left to give.
***
As onyx beasts became more common, their numbers thinned, but the run grew more dangerous. Even more once we got the first sight of crimson blocking our path.
It dwarfed the cyclops, easily four times its size. Thin, pointed legs held up an immense, heavy body that looked wrong for the frame supporting it. Its arms were narrow and unnaturally long, and its head stretched forward like a spear. Behind it, nine bone tails writhed. One stiffened, and the creature calmly pulled it free as if drawing a weapon from its own spine.
A silent beast that required no sound to announce itself, so large that the fog did little to hide it even from afar. The kind of horror most could barely imagine, and few ever had to witness with their own eyes.
They had trained for this, drilled countless times on what to do, and built cannons to face such monsters. But none of that softened the shock of seeing it with their own eyes.
It threw the bone tail with the weight of a siege weapon. Mid-flight, it fractured, multiplying into a cloud of smaller shards that spread wide and darkened the sky even if only for a moment.
Rogara snapped her spear forward and raised a thin veil of white flames across our path. The entire run halted for precious moments as they braced for what was about to come.
The shards struck the veil and vanished into fire before they could reach us. The chainrunners exhaled in relief, but I felt what that defense cost Rogara. The veil trembled at the edges, and beyond it the crimson beast was already readying another throw, patient and methodical.
“This one is mine,” I said, and moved out from the inner line at last.
Until now, I’d handled what harassed the formation from above and below. But crimson was different, and I decided it was too early to wake the cannons.
Hazeveil released the illusion. Then I used shadow step and reappeared directly before the crimson beast, close enough that its breath disturbed the fog around my face.
My true form stood uncovered, but the distance and fog kept it hidden from the chainrunners. To them, I was still Omen. To the beast in front of me, I was something else entirely.
The voices from the Grey were… relentless.
They spoke in a tongue I knew not, but the beast clearly did.
Each word struck like a spike. The creature’s composure collapsed, replaced by sudden, frantic motion. Bones inside it shifted and surged outward, forming jagged thorns that broke through its own hide and shot away in all directions, as if the beast was reacting in mad instinct.
I raised a wall of ice to block the thorns flying toward us, and the voices grew more relentless. They spoke of things only the beast knew, perhaps its past, driving into its psyche in ways I could only guess.
When it could not bear the pressure any longer, the beast fixed its gaze on me. And in that moment, it saw through me, past the surface, into something that should never be witnessed by living eyes.
The Grey was there, present, far more numerous than the entire unit of chainrunners. Beings of many forms, many worlds, and many times. They were all there, watching through the fracture in reality that was my form.
For all its size, the crimson beast collapsed to its knees as if its strength had been cut away.
The impact trembled through the road and into the wagons, but it stood there, unmoving, staring at me with empty eyes.
I couldn’t tell whether it was still looking at me, or whether the mind inside it had simply… ceased to be.
As mercy, I raised a disk of ice high overhead, far above the creature’s reach. Perfectly round, massive, as wide as the beast’s own body. It hung for a heartbeat like a pale moon, silent and final.
Then I released it. The disk fell straight down, cutting deep into its back and spine, nearly severing it.
The beast barely reacted, even as I pushed the ice the rest of the way through until it met the ground, ending what the Grey had already broken.
It wasn’t particularly resistant to direct attacks. A ranged predator, dangerous from distance, fragile up close.
And it wasn’t from the Abyss, as an abyss-born mind might have endured what it witnessed through me. This one could not.
The formation slowed only for a moment, but everyone saw it. They saw a creature that had stood in our path with cold certainty suddenly unravel into panic, into something like despair.
I hadn’t realized how loud it had been, how much sound it had carried through the fog, until the silence afterward made the line feel uneasy. Even through fog, they watched it change from composed predator to something driven mad by fear.
I felt their stares as I returned beneath Hazeveil’s lie.
They wanted to ask questions, I could see it in their eyes and the way some were about to speak before stopping themselves, none daring to ask. They weren’t certain they could bear the answer to what had happened.
Beneath the illusion, I noticed something else. It was small, barely visible, but there was a tiny crack in my ice flesh.
The same ice flesh that had endured blows from a God had cracked under voices. Or perhaps not the voices themselves, but the intrusion, the act of letting the Grey reach into another mind through me.
For a moment, I wondered whether the beast would rise again.
It did not.
Even as part of me, the Grey remained something I couldn’t afford to treat lightly. It had reach, appetite, and in one way or another, every vessel that tried to hold it eventually cracked.