While Elena was trying, and failing, to find Petra's future research assistant, Hexfill had also split away from the main group.
He moved through Oriest alone.
He crossed shattered streets, climbed broken terraces, and followed the old routes that his feet remembered, from the time before they had left for the Grand Gathering. Before long, he reached what remained of the Mercenary Alliance's headquarters.
-
The old headquarters, a once grand building, had changed drastically.
Half of it was now reduced to rubble.
A colossal root lay across the building like a fallen mountain, its bark thicker than a fortress wall, and its enormous weight caving in the roofs and halls. Entire sections of the structure had been flattened beneath its sheer size, with stone and steel pressed into a crushed mess. What remained leaned at broken angles, with beams exposed and walls cracked wide open, groaning softly as the wind threaded through the fractured frame. Each gust of wind carried the sound of a slow collapse, as if the building itself was ready to fall, yet still somehow persisted, retaining that last thread of stability, and overexerting itself in a silent insistence to await one final guest.
-
Hexfill slipped inside through a collapsed outer wall and moved with heavy steps.
He passed under hanging beams and over piles of crumbling brick. More roots threaded the corridor like veins, snapping towards him at unpredictable angles. He cut the thinner ones with a single motion, causing black water to spit out and hiss on the floor.
Hexfill wiped a spec from his cheek and kept moving.
By the time he reached his destination, his body was already bloody, with large sections of his armor melted and deformed, and one eye a short step away from blindness.
He was a sorry sight...
Soon, he reached the Alliance Leader's chambers, his chambers, the very place where he accepted the badge from his father to inherit his position.
The door was split, the ceiling was bowed, yet the main desk still stood in the corner beneath a cracked window, unharmed, almost waiting. He walked up and opened the hidden drawer, then pulled out a small black key, its messy surface flaking with rust like its old skin.
He pricked his thumb and fed the key a drop of blood.
The metal shivered, and then the rust slid off in thin sheets, revealing a pearl, bone-like smooth key beneath the grime.
A deep resolve flickered in his eyes.
He clutched the key harder.
Hexfill left the office and crossed through the inner halls towards the grand chamber.
When he arrived, he looked around.
Half the ceiling was gone, and rain-carrying wind fell straight through the broken glass dome above his head. To his right, the same root that had cut the headquarters in two rose like a wall, forming a cliff of black bark that vanished into the storm outside.
He stepped out into the open space of the grand chamber and paused.
Debris covered the floor in small hills.
After a moment to look around—
He kicked aside broken stones and split tiles until the central design appeared before him. The chamber floor was a mural, a grand circle of inlaid stone that told the story of the Mercenary Alliance and its founding, as well as the short history of the powers that formed it long ago.
In the exact center of the circle, a small keyhole rested where a wolf's eye would be.
This indented hole was so small that it was basically unnoticeable.
Hexfill pressed the pearl key into the opening.
DONG! Hooong—hooong—BANG! Kc-kc-kc-kc-kc…
The chamber trembled, and a deep grinding sound spilled from the earth. Despite the damage from above and the weight of roots pressing down on the hall, the mechanism still flickered to life. The mural loosened at its edges, dropped a fraction, then began to slowly descend.
Kc-kc-kc-kc-kc…
Dust fell in curtains as half the chamber seemed to ripple and lower with a rumble.
Rumbel!
Hexfill stood still, his hands at his sides, while the floor carried him down into the darkness of the mercenary alliance's headquarters.
-
The descent felt long, too long.
Then—
Dong!
The deep reverberation rolled through the shaft and slowly faded away, the heavy clang sinking into a low hum, before dissolving into silence. When the floor stopped moving, the dust jumped and spilled, as the temperature dropped sharply.
Hexfill stepped forward.
The chamber was vast and deathly pale, with an aura unlike anything he had ever seen before.
It wasn't carved from stone, no, not at all, it was formed from bone, and an endless expanse of it. Walls, pillars, and arches formed from the remains of a colossal creature, its body stripped down and reduced to architecture. The smell was clean and old, producing a dry cold that settled under the skin in an unnatural way.
Hexfill had been here once before.
Nearly a year ago, just before the first calamity began, he had come to this place and planned to enter the White Wolf Trial.
Unfortunately, he had failed before even reaching the door.
The reason for that—
He looked up…
The door at the far end of the chamber waited for him. Hexfill was once again confronted by this terrifying door. It was set into a skull, no, it was formed from a skull. Shards of white bone curved around it like jagged petals. Runes were etched along the bone in channels that looked more like claw marks than any true script. Each channel was flooded with a wild, bestial spiritual energy that lashed out in small arcs. The lines didn't flow in gentle waves, they pressed outwards, hungry, almost as if trying to leap free from their runic channels and tear at whatever came nearby.
Hexfill's heart felt cold.
Last time, he had stood where he stood now and knew, in a way that came from the soul, that if he pressed forward, he would die without a doubt. Not quickly, not cleanly, no, he would die in the most horrible way possible.
It was a feeling that was directly conveyed to the mind.
Back then, he had turned away, he had given up!
He was a disgrace!
He had told no one he had come to this place, and now, returning, he understood even less, but he had run out of time. It was now or never, that was what his soul was screaming…
Hexfill took one step, and in that instant—
BOOM!
Every part of him tightened together!
The skin at the back of his neck prickled, and his heart crushed his chest from within. Ba-dump! His heart beat heavily, the air seemed to thicken, and his vision began to constrict, blackening near its edge.
He couldn't take another step!
His body wouldn't allow it!
His legs shook uncontrollably, and his mind was screaming at him to run. Every ounce of his being was sending out warning signs, telling him that he should not be here, no, it was telling him that this was not a place where he could be!
Regardless, he gritted his teeth and stepped forward—!
Boom!
—!
That single step was enough to send him into a spasm.
He 'couldn't' take another step, his 'body' wouldn't allow it!
Fear on a level that he could only imagine began to boil up from the depths of his heart.
Ba-dump—!
But, for some reason….
There was something even further…
Something that allowed him to take a second step….
Was that... a green light?
- Step!
Ba-dump—!
That 'light'... What was it? Was that… a hole? No...
Hexfill didn't have time to think about it. The distance from the platform to the door was far too great. He advanced another step, moving completely off the momentum from his first.
- Step!
He took another, then another, and another…
- Step!
- Step!
- Step!
The chamber was unnervingly quiet…
- Step!
Each step was like a deafening crack of thunder that filled the void.
Hexfill continued!
In his heart, for a mere moment, he almost felt as if something had wrapped around his neck, tightening around his throat… then suddenly—snapped!
- Step!
The next step was slightly easier…
Why was that?
He moved towards the door with painstaking movements. His body became increasingly cold, and his mind continued to object, yet he stepped again and again, continuing towards his goal.
Hexfill didn't know how long had passed. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours, or even days…
But the moment his hand pressed against the 'door', all the sensations that had been rejecting him disappeared all at once.
Silence…
Hexfill's eyes were bloodshot.
His chest still heaved heavily, and his breath burned like a furnace ready to split.
Despite seemingly having reached his limit…
His palm pressed forward!
The door creaked open.
Woosh!
Hexfill was shrouded by the billowing wave of white mist that spilled out from the door.
In the next moment, he lost consciousness…
With his fading mind, he only heard one word, one word that echoed from a deep and primordial voice.
'Inconceivable.'
* * *
'His' mind returned to him, awakening in a white void.
He stepped forward, his four paws pressing into soft snow. The snowstorm around him howled as a roaring wall of white wind that concealed everything beyond a few steps.
The cold chill was sharp like knives, slicing through his fur, and piercing deep into his body.
His small nose twitched.
His head tilted toward a faint shadow in the distant snow.
Then—
He died.
-
'His' mind returned to him, awakening in a white void.
He stepped forward again, his paws sinking into the soft snow. The wind screamed as the storm twisted into an endless sea of white, swallowing everything. His memories rolled, slipping away like water between claws.
He pressed forward, fighting through the shapeless landscape.
A shadow flickered past.
He looked up.
A blur of black swept down from above.
Talons flashed.
And—
He died.
-
'His' mind returned to him, awakening in a white void.
He stepped forward once more. His paws trembled, but he moved faster than last time. The snow burned his paws, the wind tore at his fur, but he no longer noticed.
His memories churned and twisted like the sea during a storm.
He had forgotten who 'he' was…
So, 'he' ran!
The snowstorm screamed around him, but he didn't stop. A blur moved through the snow ahead, something vast and hungry. He dodged, sliding across the snow as talons slashed down behind him.
He survived for a moment.
Then—
The ground cracked…
Bang!
An unseen tiger crushed him to death!
-
Then a lion!
-
Then a bear!
-
Then a dog!
-
Then a bird!
-
Over and over, in an unending cycle…
-
Again and again, the small wolf cub lived, advanced, and died.
Time was unclear here.
Each life could have been a day, a year, or a hundred years, it all started to blur together at some point.
With each death, the small wolf grew stronger. With each rebirth, it adapted. With each hunt, it lasted longer and longer, dying again, rising again, and living again.
The snowstorm never stopped, but neither did he.
Over time, 'it' began to change.
The cub became a hunter…
Then a predator…
Then something even greater…!
Its claws tore through flesh, its eyes pierced through the storm, and its body grew vast and powerful.
-
Eventually, the wolf cub reached adulthood.
As centuries bled together, the lone wolf's heart began to be haunted by flashes of memories that were not his own. He remembered a boy, small and frustrated, standing before a man who handed him an emblem. The boy refused it, but it was forced into his small hands.
There were tears, but that was the end.
The great wolf snarled and tore through its next victim with its bloody jaws, forcing back the strange pain that bloomed in its heart.
-
Days passed.
He remembered again.
It was a young man this time, he was breaking a boulder with just the light of his sword. The cheers surrounded him, but the emptiness in his eyes was never filled.
The adult was not there, and the youth was alone.
The wolf tore through a bear the size of a tree, trying to chase that infectious emptiness away.
-
Weeks passed, and with it, another memory.
The scene of a 'young adult' standing before a tall skeletal-like young man in an alley, his hands shaking, and toes blackened with frostbite, before he was carried away.
The scene of a 'young adult' sitting across from a voluptuous woman clad in purple, her seductive laughter echoing through the room before leaving with the man and her beauties.
The scene of a 'young adult' offering his hand to an abandoned child, her small feathers trembling in the rain as she followed him, her figure still covered in blood.
-
Months passed.
Another memory.
The wolf saw the boy again, this time as a man, surrounded by many, shouting and accusing. Behind him stood a black tree that blocked out the horizon. The man fled, alone, taking with him only his closest of friends, leaving all that he had.
The wolf, now a giant, crushed the forest beneath his weight.
Boom!
-
Many years passed.
It had been a long time, and the occasional flash of memory had slowed down, but after many months, the wolf was finally given one last fragment of time.
The man again, older, covered in blood, wielding a sword before a tide of relentless enemies.
Many years seemed to have passed.
The wolf could recognise those 'eyes'.
The man's eyes were the eyes of a predator, pure and ruthless, forced by his circumstances to throw away everything that made him 'him'. But unlike itself, he had lost his wisdom over the years and devolved into a mindless beast, a creature known for only slaughter and revenge. What a pitiful man.
The wolf wondered, 'What had happened to this man, and what had happened to his friends?'
Behind the wolf, thousands followed. An army of smaller wolves that moved as one, shaking the earth with every step. He had conquered the snow and the mountains, and now, everything belonged to him.
But… why did he feel so empty?
The wolf king looked back at the countless lives behind him. He saw their eyes, their loyalty, their dependence. Yet, his heart felt hollow, like a pit that could never be filled.
Why?
He had everything, yet it all felt meaningless.
What was this inexplicable melancholy?
He often sat alone atop the highest peak, looking down at the white world that stretched to the horizon. The snowstorm had calmed, but the silence had worsened.
-
Decades passed.