Date: August 21, 542 After the Fall of Zanra the Dishonorable
Seven days. For seven days Kazai had been traveling northeast, following the Seer's instructions. The map the old man had given him was old, tattered, with faded ink and stains that were impossible to decipher. But Kazai didn't need the map—he felt the path. Somewhere deep inside, where his Spirits of Sin dwelled, a faint, barely perceptible call pulsed.
Forests gave way to hills, hills to rocky ridges, and the ridges to a grim, scorched wasteland where even the air seemed thick and heavy, saturated with ancient sorrow. There were no birds here. No beasts. Only grey, lifeless earth covered in cracks, from which a pale, luminous mist seeped, and rare, twisted trees that seemed to have died before he was even born.
His horse collapsed on the third day. It simply crashed to the ground, its eyes, wide open, frozen in terror. Kazai didn't even pause. He unfastened his bags, slung them over his shoulder, and continued on foot, without slowing, without looking back. His body felt no fatigue. His muscles worked flawlessly, his breathing remained steady, and his thoughts were clear as a mountain stream. The rank of Herald made him nearly impervious to cold, hunger, and exhaustion.
On the fifth day, he entered the mist.
Thick, milky, it rose from the cracks in the earth and spread across the waste, hiding the horizon. Visibility dropped to a dozen paces, and Kazai slowed, listening. The silence was deceptive—somewhere deep within, beyond the veil, he heard rustles, whispers, unintelligible voices that merged into a single drawn-out, mournful wail.
And in that fog, in that pale haze, he first felt them.
Spirits.
They were blurry, semi-transparent, with vague outlines of bodies that alternately took shape and then vanished back into the mist. Their faces—if they could be called faces—were contorted by grimaces of pain and fury. Their eyes burned with cold blue light, and from their maws, when they opened them, burst something like a whisper—thousands of voices merged into one mournful, extended moan.
The first spirit attacked suddenly. It lunged out of the fog right in front of Kazai, its spectral claws aiming for his throat, a bone-chilling scream erupting from its gaping mouth. Kazai didn't even flinch. He simply raised his hand, and a clot of crimson energy, dense as molten metal, burst from his palm. The energy struck the spirit in the chest, and it crumbled to dust before it could even scream.
*A Warrior,* Kazai assessed by its aura. *Weak. Predictable. But there are many.*
He moved on. The spirits appeared again and again—singly, in pairs, in small groups. They attacked indiscriminately, without strategy, driven only by hunger, a thirst for the life force they sensed in a living human. Kazai killed them one after another, without wasting excess strength.
On the sixth day, he came upon a vast depression—a place where the earth had sunk, exposing ancient, moss-covered ruins. Walls of black stone, once majestic perhaps, now lay in ruins, and between them, in the gaps and fissures, the mist swirled. The air here was colder than in the wasteland, and the fog was thicker, almost tangible. Kazai felt his Vessel constrict, reacting to the proximity of an ancient, alien power.
There were not simply many spirits here. There were hundreds of them.
They emerged from the ruins, from the crevices, from the mist itself. Their spectral bodies shimmered in the pale light, and their voices—hundreds of voices—merged into one mournful, prolonged chorus that made Kazai's ears ring. Warriors. Pillars. Kazai counted no fewer than three hundred, and their ranks continued to swell.
He closed his eyes for a moment, restoring his breathing, and summoned his spirits.
First came Wrath. A crimson flash tore through the mist, and from it burst a massive figure woven of flame and molten stone. Wrath was enormous—twice the height of a man, with powerful, bulging shoulders and long, muscular arms. His skin, cracked and oozing lava, gleamed crimson, and his eyes—two blazing coals—stared at the horde of spirits with cold, calm fury. In his right hand he gripped a huge greatsword, its broad, heavy blade continuously streaming with sparks and small droplets of molten metal.
Wrath did not roar. He made no sound at all. He simply stood, and his presence forced the spirits to step back, to bunch together, to lose what little coordination they had.
After him came Pride. He was unlike Wrath—he did not burst forth in a flash, did not shake the air with his might. He appeared quietly, like a shadow, like morning mist, like something that had always been there but never revealed itself. His cloak, woven of darkness, billowed though there was no wind, and his bony, unnaturally long arms clutched paired blades whose edges shimmered with a dull, silvery light. His face—smooth, featureless—was turned toward Kazai.
He awaited orders.
"Kill them," Kazai said. "All of them. Leave none."
Wrath stepped forward. Pride glided after him, and the battle began.