Chapter 33: Chapter 33 – The Ash Plains
The horn kept echoing long after the sound should’ve died.Low. Metallic. Too human for a monster’s call.
We froze on the ridge, smoke curling around us. The air smelled like burnt iron and old meat.
"Friendly neighborhood welcome committee," I said. "Five stars already."
Nobody laughed.
The plains stretched ahead in warped lines of black glass and ash dunes, glowing faintly under a blood-red sun. Heat shimmered off everything, turning distance into liquid. Far to the north, the orc city flickered like a mirage—spires of obsidian breathing orange through the haze.
We started moving.
Every step left a footprint that glowed before cooling. The ground wasn’t solid; it pulsed under the boots, slow and sluggish, like the crust of something still alive. The Guild’s probes hadn’t lied: this world wasn’t terrain—it was tissue.
[Environmental Scan: Mana Saturation → 185 %]
[Hazard: Heat / Toxic Fume Accumulation ↑]
[Recommended Action: Do not breathe too often.]
"Thanks," I muttered. "Was planning to stop breathing anyway."
Lucien glanced over. "Something funny?"
"System’s just giving life advice."
He nodded, dead serious. "Take it."
The first hour was walking through a furnace. Wind carried grit that hissed against armor. The sky flickered between daylight and crimson twilight every few minutes, light stuttering like a dying bulb.
Elise tossed a spark into the air. It vanished before it hit the ground.
"See that?" she said. "Mana eats mana here. Fire gets swallowed."
She threw another; the flame imploded with a sound like a sigh.
Varga’s voice came through comms, steady. "Means ranged output will drop. Conserve energy."
"Conserve?" Elise said. "In this heat?"
"Save the drama," he replied.
I kicked a pebble. It skidded two meters, melted, and re-formed behind me.
"Okay," I said. "Physics has left the chat."
[Observation Logged — Spatial Recoil Phenomenon.]
[Possible Cause: Environmental Mana Feedback Loop.]
"Translation," I muttered. "World eats its own spit."
"Focus," Selene’s voice crackled faint from the stabilizer channel. "Telemetry shows movement east of you. Possibly scouts."
"Copy," Varga said. "We’ll keep low."
The link cut. The air swallowed her voice.
We found the first corpse an hour later.
Ashspawn—or what used to be. It lay half-buried in slag, armor fused to bone. Not torn apart—dissected. Precision cuts, joints separated clean. Whoever—or whatever—had done it had patience.
Lucien crouched. "This was recent."
Elise frowned. "Think they fight each other?"
"Or something studies them," I said.
Varga scanned the horizon. "Stay alert."
We moved again, quieter now. Even Elise kept her flames tucked close.
At some point I realized there were no birds, no insects, no background noise. Only wind and the slow creak of cooling rock. Every time I blinked, the skyline seemed closer—like the city crawled a little while I wasn’t watching.
By midday, the heat broke into wind. A storm was building—ash spinning in lazy spirals.
[Warning: Mana Storm Forming. Wind Velocity ↑ → Safe Shelter Advised.]
Shelter meant death if we picked the wrong hole. We pushed on until the ground began to slope downward into a basin of cracked basalt.
The air shimmered. Shapes moved below—four-legged, low to the ground.
"Wargs," Varga said. "Pack of six."
He raised a hand for halt.
The creatures prowled among the fissures—skin molten, eyes white-hot. One lifted its head and sniffed the air.
"They smell us," Elise whispered.
"No sudden movement," Lucien said.
I blinked sweat out of my eyes. The wind shifted, carrying our scent straight down.
"Too late."
The first warg screamed—a sound like glass scraping metal—and leapt.
Varga’s barrier flared mid-air; the beast hit it and exploded into shards of molten rock. The rest charged.
[Combat Engaged: Hostiles × 5][Lightning Step — Ready.]
I moved before thinking.
[Lightning Step 1/3 → Active][Cooldown: 2 s]
The world snapped sideways; I reappeared behind the nearest warg and drove Fangpiercer up through its jaw. Heat flared against my palm.
[Fangpiercer Critical]
[Armor Penetration 30 %]
It fell in two pieces. I spun, let Gloamthorn ride the momentum into the next one’s flank. Sparks, blood, hiss.
Behind me, Elise’s fire erupted—more controlled this time, blue-white arcs that cut the storm’s edge. Lucien’s sigils glowed on Varga’s armor, sealing micro-cracks as claws scraped against him.
The last warg hit me square in the ribs. Weight of a truck. We tumbled.
Pain stabbed deep—too deep.
[Absolute Regeneration — Suppressed]
[Major Trauma Detected: Rib Fractures, Internal Bleeding.]
[Recovery Efficiency → 27 %. Cooldown Extended (12 s).]
"Fantastic," I wheezed.
Every breath felt like sandpaper. No flood of heat, no instant reset—just pain digging in and staying put. I jammed Fangpiercer under the warg’s throat and pushed until the handle burned my hand. The beast convulsed, hissed, died.
[Partial Recovery Achieved.][Warning: Residual Injury — Unresolved (Estimated Healing Time 10 min).]
The air went still. The storm backed off like it had watched enough.
Lucien scanned me with a faint glow from his palms. "You all right?"
I forced a nod. "Define all right."My chest popped with every breath. Regen had done the math and decided I wasn’t worth full price.
"Still moving," he said. "Good enough."
Lucien’s glow dimmed. He studied me for a beat longer than necessary."You take hits like that and keep standing," he said. "Most F-ranks would be paste. What are you really packing, Cross?"
I forced a shrug. "Good genes and worse luck."
Elise glanced over, curious now. "No, seriously. Two S-ranks, an A+, and you’re not slowing us down. Don’t tell me it’s just cardio."
"Fine," I said, rubbing my ribs. "You want the headline? I reawakened after Fog-Mire. Got a blacksmith-type skill. A-rank—Forge-something. Lets me read and reshape metal, strengthen equipment, that kind of thing. Not flashy. Just useful."
Varga grunted. "Forge-mastery. Explains the knives."
"See? Nothing dramatic," I said quickly. "I build. You all break. Symbiotic relationship."
Elise smirked. "And here I thought you were hiding something exciting."
"Please," I said. "If I ever get exciting, I’m probably dying."
That earned a small chuckle. Conversation dropped, heat swallowed the silence again—and I let it. The lie tasted metallic in my mouth, but it was better than explaining how my real upgrades came from women the system classified as objectives.
Elise knelt by one carcass, curiosity overriding disgust. "They bleed magma. See this pattern? Same runes the orcs had on their blades."
"Means?" I asked.
"Means someone’s branding them," she said. "Or building them."
I stared at the sigils—circular, forged into bone. They pulsed faintly, not random.
"Those are letters," I said before thinking.
Lucien glanced up. "You can read them?"
"No," I said. "But they’re too neat to be magic gibberish. Someone wanted them seen."
Varga grunted. "We move."
We moved. The storm trailed us, whispering.
Hours blurred. We crossed a valley of glass ribs—massive arches jutting from the ground like the skeleton of a god. Each one hummed when we passed. The tone changed pitch depending on who walked closest.
When I stepped under the largest, the hum spiked.
[Resonance Detected.]
[Hidden Path Response — Low Level Forge Frequency Match.]
I froze.
"Cross?" Elise asked.
"World’s singing at me," I said. "Don’t take it personal."
"Keep moving," Varga ordered.
But the hum stayed in my bones even after we left the valley. Every step felt like it struck sparks inside my chest.
By the time we made camp—a shallow overhang half-melted into the hillside—the twilight cycle had started again. The light turned crimson, shadows thick as tar.
Lucien set up a barrier dome—thin, white, humming low. "It’ll keep heat and fumes out for a few hours."
Elise sat cross-legged, wiping soot off her gauntlets. "First day and we’re already half-baked."
"Could be worse," I said. "Could be paperwork."
Varga didn’t smile. "We lost a quarter of supplies to the heat. Keep rations tight."
Lucien’s gaze lingered on the horizon. "They’re watching."
We followed his eyes. Far across the plain, pinpricks of light flickered—torchlines moving in formation. Columns. Soldiers.
"They’re building camps," Elise said softly.
Varga exhaled through his nose. "They know we’re here."
"Maybe they always did," I said. "We’re not invading their world. We walked into their home."
Lucien’s voice was quiet. "Then the question is—who sent the first gate? Us or them?"
No one answered.
The crimson sky pulsed once, bright enough to throw our shadows against the rock. For a heartbeat, I saw my reflection in Gloamthorn’s blade—eyes glowing faintly gold from residual mana.
[Quest Update — Objective 1: Reach Inner Ring (Progress 22 %)][Optional: Recover Cultural Artifacts → Reward Unknown.]
"Optional quest," I muttered. Yeah, those always end well.
The wind shifted again, carrying distant drums—slow, rhythmic, almost human.
The sound echoed through the basin like a heartbeat.