CHAPTER 127
Assimilation
The moment Korrax’s aura stopped shielding them from mine, the tiny spiders began to wither and die.
Like spring flowers that suddenly found themselves in deep winter, the entire black sea collapsed almost at once, its vastness gone in an instant.
It had stretched across many districts, swallowing the roads, the ruins, and everything in its path. Now it lay dead, its presence erased so suddenly it felt unreal.
The towering spiders scattered across the black sea survived, but they had nowhere left to hide. They could no longer lunge from the depths like the assassins they were.
The Isari fell on them quickly, moving through the mist with renewed strength, cutting them down one by one beneath a white horizon that seemed to have no end.
It was a harrowing sight to see the city destroyed so completely.
The winds that had already battered the city intensified further, striking buildings of every height—from low, squat structures to towering spires that once pierced the sky.
One after another, the taller structures gave way under the pressure, their collapse sending deep tremors through the land. Whatever still stood was stripped, fractured, and then buried beneath relentless snow.
The city was bending to my will, the land itself remade in my image, and I felt so alive, the power of the mist empowering me in ways I had thought impossible.
My creations, the Isari who had borne countless wounds in the battle against the horror of the black sea, were healing. The pain I felt through our connection was already fading, and beyond them, the sight of Haldrin on the horizon was the clear promise of an ending.
The end of this battle, of this clash among gods, and above all, the end of Korrax.
His form still stood tall, trying to shape itself into a single powerful being that would certainly be capable of unleashing enough auric power to end the mist and me.
But could he kill Haldrin?
At full strength, perhaps. If the whole black sea had managed to return to him, if he had been given a few more minutes to complete himself, then maybe he could have met Haldrin on equal terms. But stripped down as he was, diminished by everything already lost, I did not believe he could win.
Even then, Haldrin did not hesitate.
Again and again, crimson shells struck Korrax. Each impact shook his whole body and blasted chunks of him free, sending them crashing down into the ruins below.
I watched in silence as eight crimson shells slammed into him, while I kept my distance to avoid being caught in the blast.
By then, the Isari had finished off the remaining spiders around Korrax, and at last, he was one again, as he had once been.
His form was, however, complete, though it was only a fraction of what he had achieved on the surface after fleeing Sjakthar.
Even diminished, I still could not say with certainty that I could defeat him in a direct clash. The moment he entered the battlefield, the miasma had returned with him and started pressing back against the mist.
But it no longer mattered. Haldrin, who had only paused now and then to fire at Korrax’s growing form, had arrived at last, and the two colossal titans began to clash.
For a moment, I thought of stepping in, of joining my creation’s side. But I was exhausted. My reserves had fallen too far, too low for the kind of power I had been wielding, and the battle was already turning. So I stayed back and watched as one of my creations brought down a God.
There was no sense wasting what little I had left. This was not the end of the road, and I had no idea what still waited for me beyond it.
Minutes passed beneath the constant impact of Haldrin’s mighty fists and Korrax’s growls, while what remained of the land was pulverized beneath their sheer strength.
When it was over, Haldrin stood above him. One massive foot held Korrax flat against the shattered ground. Then Haldrin turned his head toward me and waited.
He wanted to give me the glory of the kill.
My first thought was that the prophecy had somehow twisted his mind, but no, that was simply Haldrin.
Around him, the Isari stood as well, one fewer than before, and Ella looked to me. “Your words shall come true,” she said.
What were the words again?
I paused, trying to remember what I had said.
“I, the God of Creation, will rip the core from your dead body. And when you die again, not even the Grey will take you. You will return to nothingness and be forgotten.” Those were the words I had spoken in a moment when even I doubted such a thing was possible.
So I walked toward them. Korrax no longer struggled. He had no limbs, and even his head had been severed, yet he was still alive.
Only the rise and fall of his chest, a mockery of breathing, showed any outward sign of life. Beneath it, I could feel his auric core.
I used a shadow step and appeared on his chest in an instant. My hand went down through ruined flesh, and I drove my ice tendrils deeper until they found the core. Then I closed around it and pulled.
“Korrax, God of Many. I hereby fulfill the prophecy and banish you from the Grey. You shall return to nothingness and, in time, be forgotten,” I said as the core left his body, severing his life one final time.
Those who returned from the Grey could not go back after dying again, but I doubted the same rule applied so neatly to gods, for whom the laws of the world barely mattered.
So it was for the Grey to accept my command or deny it. In its silence, I understood that it had accepted.
I felt something change in the wind when Korrax died. The power of the prophecy finally dissipated, and with it, some of the strength within the mist.
That was good, considering I still had to disperse it before the cold killed the chainrunners.
They were still sealed beneath heavy layers of ice, trapped inside the massive shelter I had formed around them. I could sense Rogara awake now, already pushing heat into the frozen enclosure, doing what she could to fight back the cold.
Even with that, they were still freezing. I could feel the shaking in their bodies through the ice, the weakness in those who had already fallen. If I wasted any more time, some of them would not survive.
I extended my will into the storm, into the mist and the winds that had scoured the city down to its bones. They did not stop at once. The air still surged through shattered towers and across the collapsed streets, carrying snow in violent sheets.
But they were mine.
I reduced their force gradually, stripping the strength from each current until the great gales that had toppled great towers dwindled into scattered gusts. The mist followed, thinning, unraveling, dissolving into nothing more than drifting frost.
Even so, snow continued to fall across the land, and the cold remained merciless to human flesh.
I understood then that this place would not return to what it had been. The snow would fall here long after the memory of this battle faded. Long after the names of those who fought were forgotten. This land had been claimed, reshaped, and marked in a way time would not easily erase.
***
With Korrax dead and the mist dissipating, I knew it was time to free the chainrunners from the cage I had built for them. But before that, I had to make a decision.
In my hands rested an auric core.
If I had time, and if I were not about to venture into lands where gods walked, I might have stored it for another creation—perhaps a weapon for Haldrin, something that would ensure he could always defend the City of Ice.
Maybe even raise another of my creations, such as Ella, to godhood.
She often chose which of my commands to follow and which to ignore, but I knew she always acted in the interest of the Frostkin and their well-being.
With Haldrin and Ella as gods, nothing short of a great calamity could threaten the City of Ice.
All good options, ones I would have taken, had I the time. But I did not.
So the next best option was simple: absorb it myself.
This was not like absorbing a crimson, onyx, or ebony core. Those were fragments of power. Auric cores were something else entirely. By taking it, I would not only gain strength, I would also inherit Korrax’s divinity itself.
More than that, his will would become mine.
His claim had ended with his death, but the will that reshaped reality would merge with mine. That alone would greatly increase my ability to protect the chainrunners in the journey ahead.
Haldrin and Ella said nothing. They watched. They understood the weight of what rested in my hand.
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Ella would want me to take it. Above all else, she wanted me to return to the City of Ice alive after all.
Haldrin, on the other hand, simply wanted to see his master grow stronger.
Under their silent gaze, I tightened my grip on the auric core.
It resisted.
For a fraction of a second, the divinity within it pulsed against me, a final assertion of Korrax’s existence. Then the surface fractured. Not shattered, merely fractured, with fine lines spreading across it like fault lines beneath stone.
The snow around me stilled.
The air tightened.
Then the core broke.
Power did not explode outward. It folded inward into me. A surge of auric force poured through my arm and into my vessel, and for a brief instant, the horizon trembled. The shattered towers groaned, and the frost beneath my feet crystallized further, hardening into something denser than ice.
My mana didn’t simply return. It surged in waves, more than doubling what I would usually generate by myself.
The exhaustion that had weighed upon me was swept aside as my reserves expanded far beyond their previous limits. I felt the boundaries of my vessel stretch, then reinforce, cracks sealing and refining the same ice skin that caged the Grey.
And beneath all of it, my will felt much deeper than before.
It was then that it became clear to me why beings who had lived for so long would fight others of the same insane strength over these cores. A single one was enough to elevate a God far above the rest.
I knew then that the next time I called the mist or used the Language of the World, reality would yield far more readily. Even the mist in the City of Ice would be altered once I returned.
That was the power contained within a single auric core.
***
“Don’t go. Please, Simon, don’t.” My sister’s voice still echoed in my mind.
“Please, Simon,” she had repeated over and over.
“You’re only an apprentice. You should stay. This trial is too dangerous.”
Maybe I should have listened.
People talk like there’s a wide gap between apprentices and veterans. There isn’t. Not really. Or at least that was what I thought. Survive four or five runs, and you’re a veteran. There’s no middle ground, especially considering how short the average chainrunner’s life is.
My father had been one of those veterans. He survived more than twenty runs in the times before New Araksiun.
In the end, even he died to the fog, leaving my sister, my mother, and me to fend for ourselves. Our mother did not last long after that. The grief brought a sickness of the mind, and it took her within the year. After that, it was just my sister and me.
Some said he died a hero, saving his comrades. Others claimed he got separated in the chaos of a run. A few even whispered that he hadn’t died at all, that he abandoned us and started over in another district.
The truth was far more brutal. His name carried no weight. Despite whatever he did in his final moments, almost no one remembered it. Not a single survivor who witnessed his death ever came forward to tell us what happened. He was part of the run one moment, and then he was gone.
Not surprising, considering how many died in the times before New Araksiun. But knowing that didn’t make it easier.
Few become legends like Artemis, who stood toe to toe with enhanced humans even before wielding an artifact and killed artifact bearers during the rebellion in District 98.
Or Cairen, with his rapier, known for striking beasts’ hearts and necks with speed and precision few can follow.
Or Gustav, who climbed from nothing and now carries Bloodreaver. They say he can endure its berserk state longer than anyone who ever tried before him.
And then there’s Omen. Some don’t even call him a chainrunner anymore. People often argue about what he is.
I’d heard plenty of stories about him before this run. About the lunatic who chose to live in the fog with beasts instead of with people.
After meeting him… I think most of those stories were probably true.
He has abilities that chainrunners normally only see in the worst creatures out there. His understanding of the fog is unnatural. And the way he looks at people when he speaks… It’s unsettling.
The strange thing is that half the time, he isn’t even looking at you at all. His eyes drift somewhere else, as if he’s watching something far away.
But standing near him, I always had the same feeling.
Like someone, or something, was studying me.
And the strangest thing of all? He seldom carries an artifact.
Most chainrunners would kill for one. Yet he walks into the fog without them, like they’re tools meant for lesser warriors.
Those people were all great legends. But my father, despite his sacrifice, had been forgotten. Another chainrunner to die, and nobody who knew him saw his final moments.
“How am I supposed to stay behind while others risk their lives in my place? You know everyone’s going to attempt the trial,” I told my sister.
“Not everyone,” she snapped. “Just you and your idiot friends.”
She wasn’t wrong. Among the apprentices, only I, Harold, Tom, and Martin attempted the trial.
It was harrowing, but we completed it, and becoming riders made us feel unstoppable, as if nothing the fog could throw at us would leave a dent in our armor.
We were so damn wrong.
More than two hundred chainrunners had set out, and now, as we looked around, there were barely more than a hundred.
Half the chainrunner force on this run was simply dead.
Harold was one of them.
I watched from afar when Gorin lunged for Harold as he fell from the bridge. Their hands almost met.
Almost.
It didn’t matter that Gorin almost saved Harold, because he died all the same.
Death is unforgiving like that. A tiny mistake, a moment of distraction, and that’s enough.
My other two friends were still alive, but they weren’t standing by my side as riders. They had a much more important role in one of the wagons. Still, their sunken eyes and pale faces made me doubt they were still truly alive.
Maybe they weren’t. Maybe I wasn’t either. Maybe death was closing in, and that was why I was thinking about my life at a moment like this.
We were sealed in ice. Entombed, really. Omen had raised the walls around the shelter, and they had closed over us like the lid of a coffin.
Inside, it was dark. The only light was what little leaked through the ice itself, a faint blue glow that made everyone look already dead.
Outside, beasts fought. No, not beasts. Demons. That was the only word that fit. Our demons against the fog’s demons, and we could do nothing but listen.
Every chainrunner reads old reports sooner or later. Sometimes out of curiosity, wanting to know what others have seen out there. Other times to prepare, to know what enemies we might face.
None of them mentions anything like what we saw in this run. Not a swarm that size. Not something that covered the land so completely it felt like it stretched as far as we could see.
In one moment, we were surrounded by a swarm so vast that even the other fog beasts hunting us decided to flee. In the next, there was nothing but ice and darkness all around us.
But somehow, one of us still stood against it, a demon like the ones from the fog, except it was on our side.
We couldn’t see what was happening outside. We could only feel it. The ground rattled beneath us in long, rolling tremors, and explosions reached us as muffled thuds, like something enormous was striking the earth again and again. The ice trembled with each impact but held firm, even when the wind slammed into it hard enough to make the walls groan.
We had been shielded from the worst of the wind, but even those walls couldn’t keep the cold out once the gales came. It crept through the ice itself, sinking through our clothes, our skin, and into our bones. Even the air pressure seemed to change all at once, pressing down on us until my ears ached and every breath felt too shallow.
Rogara awoke when the winds did. She rose in the dark, her eyes catching what little light remained, and without a word she summoned white fire into her palms.
The flames spread outward and hovered above us.
The white fire painted everything in a pale, restless glow that made shadows crawl across the ice walls. Chainrunners sat pressed together, their skin bluish in the firelight, their lips cracked, their bodies trembling. Some held weapons across their laps with hands that could barely grip. Others held nothing at all.
A few had closed their eyes and gone so still I couldn’t tell if they were sleeping or something worse.
The fire held the cold at bay, but it was hungry. It fed on what little air we had left, and within minutes, breathing became a conscious act. Each inhale felt thinner than the last, like trying to drink from a cup someone kept pulling away.
Omen must have seen this coming. Or rather, he was the one who brought such a calamity, and so he had shielded us from it as best he could. At least, that was what I thought.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.
We shivered and waited, trying not to waste energy, and hoped Omen and his demons would find a way to win this battle.
I was sure Gustav and Cairen felt it too. They were the ones who led us, and now they stood with their backs against the ice like the rest of us, powerless.
I could see it in their faces. Not fear, not exactly. Shame.
The kind that comes from knowing you should be out there, that every instinct you’ve built over years of surviving the fog is telling you to fight, but your body and your mind both know the truth.
Whatever was happening outside had gone beyond anything a human could fight. They knew it. We all did. So we stood there in the dim glow of Rogara’s fire, breathing thin air, and waited for someone else to decide whether we lived or died.
Then the battle went quiet.
A winner had emerged, which meant Omen and his followers had won, or he had died, and we would be next.
The silence was worse than the noise. During the battle, at least I knew something was still fighting for us. Now there was nothing but the crackle of Rogara’s flames and the sound of shallow breathing all around me. The white fire still hovered above, but it seemed dimmer now, as if even it was running out of something to burn.
It was clear to me that everyone had the same thought. Around me, the chainrunners raised their weapons. In the pale glow of white fire, I watched hands tighten around hilts and hafts, knuckles white, fingers shaking. Despite knowing our chances were none, they prepared for a fight anyway.
Dying fighting was far better than dying a coward, even if nobody would remain to tell our tale.
I thought of my sister then.
Not of her words or her warnings, though those had followed me since the moment I left. I thought of her standing in our doorway, waiting for someone to come back and tell her what happened to me. I thought of her asking, and I thought of the silence she would get if no one survived to answer.
That was what frightened me most. Not dying. Vanishing. Becoming another name no one remembered, like my father before me.
In the small chance someone managed to survive, I hoped whoever did would remember me. Not as a hero. I didn’t need that. I just needed one person to have seen me standing, spear in hand, so that when my sister came asking, they could tell her that I died facing the fog. That I did not cower. That I fought for her, for our people, and that I stood my ground.
And I hoped this person would not have to lie.
When the ice around us finally began cracking and crumbling, I felt terror.
I was terrified in a way I had never been before. Something deep within me told me the devil himself was outside and that I should run as far as I could.
But I did not run.
I raised my spear and let my instinct guide me, straight toward the breaking ice, and I lunged forward before anyone else could. Not because I wanted to die first, or out of some noble desire to lead the charge.
I did it because if I was the first through, everyone behind me would see. They would see how I met whatever waited on the other side. And if even one of them escaped, my sister would know.
To my surprise, my spear met an unmovable force. It hit and broke without showing any sign of piercing anything, and the impact nearly sent me to my knees.
The shock jarred my arms all the way to the shoulders, but before I went down, a hand caught me. Steady and firm, it held me upright with no effort at all.
The hand that caught me belonged to the same devil I had just tried to kill.
That devil was…
Omen.