The air on the road leading to the "Whispering Mountains" grew so thick that inhaling felt like breathing fine sand. The golden ash, which had begun to coat the leaves and turn the surrounding forest into a gallery of silent crystalline statues, possessed a terrifying property: it absorbed sound. The creaking of trees, the rustle of wind, even the hoofbeats of their horses—all were buried beneath the weight of this silence forcibly imposed by the "Guardians of the Covenant."
Alaric marched at the front, his body a battlefield for a hidden war. The stone tattoo, once a symbol of Merlock's dark dominion, now reacted wildly with the light emanating from the horizon. The cracks in his skin pulsed with an argentine purple, struggling against an encroaching golden hue, as if two curses were vying for ownership of his body. Suddenly, Alaric stumbled, plunging his sword, "Soulgloom," into the ground for support, while a muffled sound of tearing stone escaped his chest.
Elara rushed to him, placing her trembling hand on his shoulder, reddened from the glow. She cried out in a tone full of anxiety:
"Alaric! Stop… your body cannot bear this contradiction. The light in the sky is trying to summon the tattoo, and the tattoo resists by draining your life. We must rest before you vanish entirely!"
Slowly, Alaric raised his head. One of his eyes had lost its whiteness entirely, becoming an abyss of seething blackness, while the other still held a glimmer of his shattered humanity. He spoke in a voice like shattering glass:
"There is no rest, Elara… If I stop now, my heart will turn to stone before we reach the foothills. Those 'Guardians' in the capital have sent their scouts. I feel their eyes piercing the crust of my mind. They aren't searching for us because we're enemies… they're searching for me because I am a 'glitch' in their perfect system. I am the darkness that stains the garment of their false purity."
Behind them, General Kalgar watched the horizon with eyes that had not known sleep for days. His silver mask, forged by Azrael, had begun to lose its luster, spots of golden rust appearing on it. Kalgar turned to the few remaining knights and shouted in a dry, military tone:
"Form a defensive circle! Do not touch the petrified trees, and do not let the golden ash accumulate on your armor. Let the weary remember that the alternative is to become a salt statue in an endless celestial display!"
Suddenly, the grey mist parted to make way for a terrifying phenomenon: threads of vertical light fell from between the clouds, like massive arrows driven into the earth. From among those threads emerged beings with no feet, floating a few inches above the ground. They wore robes woven from light, their faces featureless white marble masks, save for a single slit from which a blinding light emanated.
These were the "Covenant Scouts." They carried no swords or spears; instead, they held scales of liquid crystal.
One of them spoke, in a voice not heard by the ear but reverberating as a sharp ringing inside the skull:
"Alaric… bearer of the accursed tattoo. You are the scab that must peel away so the truth may emerge. Surrender yourself to the light, and we shall grant you a merciful fading. Resistance only prolongs the defilement."
Alaric shuddered, pulling his sword, "Soulgloom," from the earth. The black blade began to emit thick smoke that wrestled with the surrounding light. Alaric charged toward the first scout, shouting:
"Your mercy is death, and your light is oblivion! I am no scab for the likes of you to peel!"
A strange clash erupted. When Alaric's sword struck the scouts' scales, the sound was not the ring of steel, but the sound of exploding thoughts. Each blow forced Alaric to see painful memories: his mother's face as she bid him farewell, his village burning, blood he had spilled unjustly. The scouts were attacking the "conscience," not the body.
Meanwhile, Elara tried to support the knights, but she discovered their ordinary weapons passed through the scouts' bodies as if through air. Elara shouted to Azrael, who was hiding behind a rock:
"Azrael! Is there any way to strike them? Swords are useless!"
Azrael emerged, trembling violently, and took a handful of "Oblivion Powder" from his quiver, the powder he used to make his masks. He screamed hysterically:
"The light feeds on truth and memory! Throw them something they do not possess! Throw chaos at them!"
Elara took the powder and scattered it into the air, murmuring an incantation her grandmother had taught her long ago. As the powder mixed with the scouts' light, they began to waver, their marble faces cracking. Alaric seized the moment, focusing all the tattoo's darkness into a single blow, cleaving the first scout in two. The latter exploded, turning into shards of radiant glass.
The other scouts retreated, not out of fear, but as if reassessing this threat. One of them spoke before fading into the light:
"The stolen crown will not protect you, Alaric… it is itself a trap set by the Ancients for those in despair like you. We shall meet again at the mountain's walls."
The scouts vanished, and the deadly silence returned. Alaric fell to his knees again, the tattoo having crawled to cover part of his neck, turning his skin into dark stone. He looked at Elara with immense weariness and said:
"They know our destination… the mountain is no longer a secret. Elara, if I get there and turn completely to stone before I find the crown… promise me you will leave me there and save yourself."
Elara did not answer. Instead, she approached him, wiped the ash-mixed sweat from his brow, and tied the blue sash tighter around his hand. Her gaze was harder than the stone covering his body—a gaze that said she would not leave him, even if the sky collapsed with all its light and the earth with all its darkness.
The group set off again, toward the Whispering Mountains, which began to loom on the horizon like stone claws trying to tear the golden sky. They knew that every step bringing them closer to the crown also brought them closer to uncovering a truth that might be more bitter than the curse itself.