Chapter 637: Terra Incognita


    Entering into the Shadonds, even changed by Anneliese’s rewriting of its fundamentals, stripped Argrave of countless things that he’de to take for granted; fundamental aspects of being that helped qualify the world around him. He was the first to pass through the threshold, and once he did, several facets of several senses left him.


    Color ceased to exist. There were only different iterations of white and ck, and all in between. Or at least, so he thought—when Anneliese entered, he still saw her amber eyes gleaming brilliantly. He thought she might be unique in some capacity, but when the heroes of old followed after them, Argrave realized that the only color still remaining was that of one’s eyes.


    It was more than color. A dull, stale odor constantly wafted into his nose. It resembled cardboard. It became difficult to distinguish the intensity of touch—no matter how tightly Argrave squeezed the staff in his hand, it felt as though he was only squeezing it lightly. It made it impossible to tell how heavy things were, or how much strength his muscles were exerting. No matter how tightly he pinched himself, the pain felt like a dull ache no harsher than gently pressing a finger against a bruise.


    At the edge of his vision, that darkness that had warded them from entering the Shadonds persisted without an end. It did not encroach, but nor did it retreat. Argrave called upon his blood magic, casting a spell that sent an expanding whirlwind of blood outward. It was a wave of ckness that set all it touched into colorless mes. The Shadonds had a distinct presence, but the mes left behind an emptiness, an absence of presence. Anneliese raised her staff, both healing the wounds Argrave’s magic had caused himself and recreating the Shadonds into a ce they might be able to understand. Shards of light spread out like a storm of white petals, creating thend ahead.


    Once it took shape, this ce did look an area where people might be able to live were it not so far removed from thews of their world. They stood in a field of white grass, every de looking like it had been folded out of bleached paper and nted into gray dirt. Despite Argrave expecting he would need to face waves and waves of Shadonders, they were totally alone in this empty in.


    “Argrave—” Anneliese said, but her voice came out strangely. She touched her throat, then tried to speak again. “Something’s wrong with my voice.”


    It sounded t, emotionless. It had no pitch or tone—it was a constant thing,cking variation.


    “Yeah, I—” Argrave began, only to double-take. His voice… it sounded exactly<em></em>as hers did, to the point where he was unable to realize that he was speaking. “It seems, even changed, this ce follows fundamentally differentws from the world we left.”


    Others tested their voices, one by one. They all sounded identical. It might’ve been a bit of a hack for creating a perfect choir if the voices didn’t sound so dead, so emotionless.“We’ll need a way to distinguish our voices from one another,” Argrave decided, thinking of call signs for half a moment before dismissing the idea. “Our names will suffice. Say your name, then say ‘speaking.’ When you’ve finished, cap it off with ‘over.’”


    “Our enemies could easily take advantage of that,” came a voice from out of sight.


    “Argrave speaking, who’s speaking?” he countered. “I can’t see any enemies. We can deal with that when it happens. For now, say only what’s pertinent, and keep your eyes open to any and all strange noises. Over.”


    As if responding to his call, Argrave heard a very distant sound echoing across these silent ins. He whipped his head over to see a shape emerging from the darkness. At first, it was difficult to discern its shape. But as it broke free from the outer boundary of the abyss,ing to stand upon the white field, its form became clear.


    A horseman trotted forth, alone, a dark cloak billowing behind his shoulders. No wind blew, yet it flowed upward like smoke. Where the horse stepped, the gray dirt and white grass turned ck, seeping and spreading across the world as thick drops of inks might spread across paper. Where the darkness took hold, mist rose upward, recing the shadows Argrave had burned away.


    Argrave didn’t hesitate in stepping forward, a spell at the front of his mind. If this was the beginning of an attack, he hoped to reveal all enemies hiding in the shadows before it began. Emboldened by his recent gains in power, he called upon an S-rank spell, using Blood Infusion to strengthen it with his blood.


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    Using his scepter as his medium, he thrust it forth and conjured a pir of ck fire that moved with the speed of a hawk. But he heard a rumbling <em>bang </em>that sounded like a huge drum had been struck. His spell veered upward, punching a hole in the darkness. It tore through the Shadonds with little effort, vanishing into the distant horizon. Anneliese’s staff resonated, healing his wounds and recing that which his magic burnt away.


    The ck horseman stood there, a sword that billowed darkness in his hand. It was obvious from his stance he had parried the spell with that alone. Anneliese’s trantion of the Shadonds took shape behind him, revealing a sheer cliff edge. It seemed they stood on a teau of marble, the horseman on its edge. But as more and more of thesends took shape, something fell revealed itself.


    Far behind the lone horseman, a gigantic draconic creature flew in ce. It had one red eye where its mouth ought to be that peered upon them with malice, but it did not approach. It waited there fearlessly, even as the fire continued to pass by it. In the far distance, a towering ck tower took shape, partially concealed by the translucent wings of the dragon. Unlike all else, the tower did not remain visible for long—darkness fell back upon it, just as the tide fell back upon the beach.


    Argrave heard a voice from across the grassy teau, echoing out to them in a fashion identical to how everyone else’s sounded.


    “You are unwee,” the horseman told them, putting its sword back in its sheath. “Will youe as denial or eptance? Will youe as pain or mercy?”


    Everyone stirred uneasily, but Argrave was the first to respond. “I’ll not go gently into that good night. You might even say I’d rage against the dying of the light,” he said, feeling his humorous delivery of that line was somewhat stifled by the tness this dimension imposed upon its residents.


    “This ce is only eptance, and only mercy. If you’re here in defiance of that, it’s nothing less than you deserve.” It raised its head, and in that shadowy horseman’s face, he saw white eyes shining with life just as theirs did. It drew its sword once more, and dropped it into the ground. It sunk in, as if through water. Then, far behind it, the dragon craned its neck, roaring mightily through its eye in a dead tone intensified by the sheer volume of its call.


    A gargantuan ck hand reached up from the empty space below the marble teau, grasping hold of the side as it pulled itself up. There, one of the nightmares that Argrave knew as the Shadonders revealed itself, crawling up. Argrave heard other noises below—a consistent rumble, not indicating either the weight or the speed of what wasing, only that it was.


    The horseman turned around, sending its steed galloping forth right off the edge of the cliff. As it did, Argrave prepared a spell, shouting, “Argrave speaking. I’ll clear the surroundings, so duck!”


    Mere moments after, trusting the ability of all those that came with him, he sent out another wave of blood-imbued wind that ate through the surroundings like nothing else, feeling only a dull ache of pain soon soothed by Anneliese’s part of their cycle of death and rebirth. The white grass teau took shape around them. All around it, the monstrosities that had invaded the mortal realm since time immemorial crawled up, heeding the call of the dragon.


    “Over,” Argrave finished once his spell was.N?v(el)B\\jnn


    “Rnd speaking,” one of the great human generals of the past began. “I used my A-rank ascension to mark the dragon and the horseman. They possess a lifeforce that I can track. Wherever they flee, I can follow. Over.”


    “Anneliese speaking,” she said, mming her staff down. “Raven was right. I can see bindings between all of the beings here. All of these creatures are bound in a web of servitude. The horseman was one of the highest ranked, but there is something above even him. What approaches us now are the lowest of their society. Over.”


    “Mistiv speaking. The earth here is pliable via magic. Eighty-seven separate entities approach by ground. I’ll attempt to slow their approach by creating hindrances. Over.”


    On and on derations went, and in moments, the ambush turned into a non-issue as all contributed their own unique element to the fight. What had seemed a frightening prospective enemy seconds ago became a sluggish force exposed to the elements.


    “Argrave speaking,” he said after a time. “After we have freedom of movement, we pursue the horseman, then follow him up thedder using Anneliese’s [Truesight] ‘til we find the top dog of this ce. But before that…” Argrave strode boldly ahead of them all, into this world of ck and white, feeling a rumbling pain as he called upon the blood within his body. “I’m going to let loose. Over.”


    All power had limits. Argrave felt it was time to test the boundaries of his and Anneliese’s. This was a suitable testing ground, it would seem. Once, a single one of these monsters had nearly overtaken the capital of Vasquer. Now, Argrave and Anneliese, together, might prove their equal.