The phoenix flew for a long time after leaving the cave behind, and for a while, no one spoke. Raijin and Eliot lay unconscious near the center of its massive back, half-buried in the long strands of burning plumage that somehow gave off warmth without reducing them to ash.
Seraphiel sat beside them with his knees pressed into the strange flame-like fur, one hand hovering lightly over Raijin's chest—careful not to touch the boy—while the other remained near Eliot's bandaged arm.
The orange-haired Saint had treated both of them properly after they took off, producing several small vials, strips of pale cloth, and a needle-like Memory. Although his movements had been rough and impatient, there was nothing inexperienced about them.
Raijin's cuts had been sealed, Eliot's crushed arm had been wrapped and fixed in place by thin metallic braces, and some pale liquid had been forced down both their throats despite their unconscious state. Neither boy had woken up afterward, but their breathing had steadied, and that seemed to be enough for now.
The Saint himself looked less like a warrior and more like a homeless bum.
His ruined armor had vanished at some point, replaced by a loose black coat with a high collar and simple dark trousers tucked into ugly-looking boots.
The hole in his side was still there too, though smaller than before, surrounded by blackened flesh and faint orange lines that pulsed slowly beneath his skin. Every few breaths, the wound hissed softly, blood evaporating into thin red steam as his body regenerated piece by piece.
Eirwen sat closer to the front of the phoenix, one hand buried in the burning plumage to keep himself steady while the other rested on his thigh. He was wearing a different Memory as his armor again. [Kissed by the Sun] as well as [Raven's Feather]—the last Memory he had worn and then destroyed in the explosion that defeated The Burrowing Death—were gone.
The Memory on him now was the Steel Shroud, one of the Memories he had received in the underground fighting arena. It was iron-silver in colour, light and easy to wear, with sharp edges all over its surface, especially on his elbows and knees.
Andromeda remained near his side, quiet as always, her dark hair whipping around her pale face as heated wind rushed past them. She looked sick from the height, but she did not complain or utter a single word. Eirwen noticed that, but he was constantly going back and forth between his Soul Sea and reality, trying to understand his new attribute, [Echoes of the Drowned].
It still required far too much Essence for him to use fully, and from what he had learned, he could at most use the powers of the Dead Oracle. It was a simple form of snow manipulation.
When he returned again, the sky of Cocytus stretched above them, pale and endless, filled with layers of clouds that moved strangely against one another, some drifting slowly like mist while others churned like frozen storms trapped in the heavens.
Below them rose mountains.
At first, Eirwen thought they were flying above the highest peaks in the region. The phoenix soared over cliffs that pierced straight through the cloud layer, their black stone sides buried beneath sheets of ancient ice and snow.
Some mountains were so tall that their lower halves vanished entirely beneath the clouds, leaving only jagged crowns visible like islands rising from a white sea.
Frost clung to them in impossible patterns, forming bridges, arches, and hanging glaciers that looked as if they had been frozen mid-collapse countless years ago.
Here and there, entire walls of ice hung suspended over empty space, glowing faintly blue beneath the pale light. Wind screamed through narrow passes between the peaks, carrying snow that twisted through the air like wandering spirits.
For several minutes, the group flew between those mountains, the phoenix weaving through them with slow, majestic beats of its fiery wings, and the sheer height made even the air feel thinner. Then they passed through a break in the clouds, and Eirwen saw the horizon.
The mountains they had been crossing were nothing but foothills.
Far beyond them, so distant that they should have faded into the sky, stood a range of peaks that made everything beneath the phoenix look childish.
Those mountains rose higher than the clouds, higher than the storms, higher than logic itself.
Their summits disappeared into a second layer of pale mist far above the first, and beyond that, Eirwen could barely make out darker shapes still climbing into the heavens.
His mind tried to measure them and failed. He had seen tall structures in the waking world, had seen cliffs and towers, and had witnessed the impossible scale of the Dream Realm in pictures and videos, but this was pure insanity.
The Saint followed his gaze and gave a tired chuckle. "Don't stare at those too long."
Eirwen glanced at him. "Why?"
"Oh, the horrors. You don't want to know," he said lazily, not caring enough to explain, but caring enough to tell them not to look.
Andromeda slowly turned her head toward the Saint, but he did not explain further. He simply leaned back against the phoenix's burning plumage, pressing one hand against his side while his eyes remained on the impossible mountain range in the distance. Eirwen narrowed his eyes, wanting to ask more, but the man's expression told him there would be no answer worth the effort.
'Why does everyone around me either speak in riddles or refuse to elaborate on their words?!' Eirwen groaned openly.
The phoenix continued flying, and Cocytus opened beneath them in fragments of impossible beauty and horror.
They passed over a frozen sea so vast that its far edge vanished into the horizon, its surface smooth in some places and shattered in others, with ridges of blue-white ice rising like the waves of an ocean that had been stopped in time.
Beneath the transparent parts of the ice, dark shapes rested in the depths. Some were ships, ancient and broken, their masts trapped under the surface like dead trees.
Others were larger.
Much larger.
Eirwen saw the curve of a spine that stretched for kilometers, the outline of a fin as large as a city wall, and the shadow of something that he could not even begin to describe.
Further on, they flew over valleys filled with black forests where every tree had turned to glass-like ice, their branches sharp and brittle enough to glitter like blades.
In one canyon, enormous statues stood half-buried in snow, each one missing its head, their hands raised toward the sky as if they had died pleading. Snow had gathered in the folds of their stone robes, making them look like frozen corpses waiting to wake.
In another place, an entire battlefield lay preserved beneath frost, with broken weapons, shattered structures, and the remains of things that were definitely not human. Frozen blades protruded from the snow like grave markers near most of those remains.
Sometimes the phoenix passed over ruins so old and buried that only the tops of towers remained visible. Sometimes they passed over open plains where nothing existed except snow, wind, and distant moving dots that might have been Nightmare Creatures.
Every sight made Cocytus feel larger, deeper, and far less empty than it had seemed from the ground.
'And this is just the beginning, boy,' Leviathan spoke in his mind. 'This place is the Graveyard of the Underworld. The true place of endless torture and suffering, where peace is a word unknown and untaught to those unfortunate enough to be sane and capable of thought.'
Those words made the boy's mind flare up. Just thinking about all the possibilities for strength that lay here made him giddy like a little kid.
Seraphiel, meanwhile, remained quiet through all of it.
His eyes occasionally lifted from Raijin to the landscape below, and whenever they did, something unreadable passed across his face.
Eirwen noticed, of course. He had noticed that there was something abnormal about the two brothers. As a matter of fact, everybody in his little cohort was abnormal in one way or another. Even Andromeda.
For now, however, he did not push those two. There were too many obstacles at the moment. Later, perhaps. When they were somewhere private, and without anybody stronger nearby to try to stop him.
The phoenix suddenly let out a loud screech, pulling him out of thought. The sound rolled through the sky and shook loose snow from the distant peaks.
Its wings folded slightly, and the massive Echo began descending toward a thick ocean of clouds below them. Eirwen's grip tightened around the burning fur as the world tilted forward. Andromeda shifted closer to him, her shoulder pressing against his with panic written all over her face. The Saint only looked ahead as the phoenix dived.
Wind roared around them, shrieking like thousands of unbearable whistles, heat streaming backward from the Echo's body and leaving a trail of orange light behind it.
And just seconds later, they hit the clouds.