Chapter 38 - Arcasia's Spire (1)
Swooosh—
The colossal beat of wings that split the clouds thundered in my ears.
At first, keeping my balance had been a struggle. Even with my body strapped firmly into the saddle fixed to the griffon’s back, every flap of its wings sent my entire frame jolting upward. The land far below looked tiny, almost like a painting, and the clouds felt so close I could have reached out and touched them.
Every time I glanced down at the distant earth beneath my feet, my stomach gave a slight twist, but I got used to it soon enough. Blackmore looked entirely different from above. A pitch-black forest stretched on and on until, all at once, it gave way to gray wasteland, and beyond that lay a blanket of thick, rolling fog.
That was Kalmash, the place we were headed.
Arcasia's Spire, huh...
I fell into thought as I gazed quietly down at the world below. Arcasia's Spire was said to be the ruins of a forgotten magic tower, a relic of a great necromancer hailed in the primordial age as the Dark Lord. It was a Great Labyrinth deep within the Boundary—so far in that it could be called the heart of that horrific abyssal realm.
When a particular place is eaten away by an aberration, its structure and nature warp beyond recognition, until it becomes a space where endless chaos and darkness take root. Such places are generally called labyrinths, but even among them, there are special cases. Beyond simple erosion, the space itself evolves into an aberration.
Once it reaches that point, calling it a labyrinth feels almost inaccurate. It is still labeled a Great Labyrinth because of how absurdly dangerous it is, but by then, it is essentially a single domain.
Of course, there weren’t many of those on the continent, and the ones that did exist were usually buried in some godforsaken backwater where no one ever set foot. Arcasia's Spire, where the primordial scripture was sealed away, was no different.
The reason anyone would bother challenging a place that dreadful was obvious: the usefulness of the Space Rune.
Every rune had its own unique traits, but the Space Rune was in a class of its own. What made it especially valuable was how brilliantly it harmonized with other runes, because the very concept of space was the fundamental foundation underlying all existence.
Of course, manipulating the source of space consumed a tremendous amount of Mental Image, but its versatility more than made up for it. Its compatibility with magic was especially outstanding; with enough Mental Image and skill, it was even possible to transfer a spell formula itself right in front of an opponent’s nose.
We’re here.
Having flown swiftly on the griffon, I finally spotted the enormous pillars rising in the distance. The only passage that led across to Kalmash—the Chain of Order.
The griffon that had been racing through the sky lowered its altitude and landed directly ahead of us.
Arkan dismounted first, and then I got off after her, followed by Adina and Rudine in turn.
“Are we crossing over like this?”
“Yeah. Why, is there a problem?”
“I thought you’d be dragging a whole line of people along with you. That’s why I’m surprised.”
“Why would I bother? With you, Sixth Lord, and me here, what more do we need?”
Well, that was true enough.
I might only be a rune specialist, but Arkan was basically a strategic weapon simply by existing.
“Move aside.”
She walked slowly toward the pillar and raised her hand. The moment her palm touched the surface, black light burst out just as it had when we crossed into Kalmash last time, swirling like a turbulent current across the stone.
Clang! Crrrk!
Wild, garish visual effects erupted around the pillar, and gradually a foul stench rose through the air, thick and rotting like a corpse left to decay.
RUMBLE—
The passage opened, and beyond it spread a wasteland stripped of all light.
Arkan turned and flashed me a bright smile.
“Shall we go in, Sixth Lord?”
...
Damn it. So I really had to come back here again.
Dragging my feet, I crossed through the passage.
It had already been several days since we entered Kalmash.
All that had greeted my eyes in that time was a repeating landscape of a dim black sky, dark red rock, and a desolate wasteland. We walked, and walked, and walked again beneath the heavy shroud of darkness.
Every time we stepped deeper in, breathing became difficult because of the peculiar stench clinging to the air, but the real problem was that I could hardly make out anything in front of me.
“...A little to the left from there.”
Just like before, it was Adina’s job to guide us now that her Spirit Eye had opened, and she did it with a fair amount of docility. Then again, perhaps because she’d crossed Kalmash once already, she was leading us with a calmness that bordered on suspiciously composed.
The difference this time was that the deeper we went, the more unknown monsters kept springing out at us.
Kieeeek—!
The monsters beyond the Boundary were all so thoroughly consumed by aberration that their shapes were almost impossible to distinguish, but every one of them radiated a ferocious, ominous pressure.
And not just one or two of them, either. They kept bursting out in swarms every time we pushed deeper in, which was honestly starting to get old.
On top of that, there were plenty of particularly troublesome, bizarre creatures with abilities that induced hallucinations or spewed poison mist.
The only mercy was this.
“Tsk.”
Snap!
At the flick of Arkan’s finger, a long, warped shaft of black light bloomed from her fingertips, twisting into a spiral before piercing the murky air like a lance of brilliance.
The purplish hue that differed from ordinary magic stained the space around us as the beam shot forward.
CRACKLE!!
The fired light traced a flowing curve and tore the monsters apart limb from limb.
...
At minimum, those creatures were Demon-class beasts. Whenever Arkan flicked her fingers, they were shredded to pieces in an instant. Compared to Calamity-class or Annihilation-class beasts, they were still lower on the ladder by a wide margin, but a Demon-class beast was still born with inherent anti-magic traits, which meant its resistance to spells was drastically heightened.
In other words, their durability against magic was supposed to be absurdly tough. And yet, in front of Arkan, they didn’t even last a full second before their flesh was torn apart.
What was even crazier was the speed at which her formula unfolded; at a glance, it looked as though the spell was simply complete before it had even been cast.
If other mages calculated their spell formulas through incantations, thoughts, or magic circles, then she was operating on a level where no calculation was needed at all.
I already knew from the original story that a Great Lord’s strength defied common sense, but even knowing that didn’t make it any less shocking every time I saw it.
Still, it does make things easier.
Kieeek! Kieeeeek!
Every time monsters lunged at us, Arkan would simply flick her finger and turn them into corpses, so honestly, it was remarkably convenient.
Of course, I could have stepped in myself, but I needed to conserve the power of my runes. If a Calamity-class beast showed up like last time, then I’d have no choice but to handle it personally.
Up ahead, Adina kept leading us with her violet glow flashing faintly in her eyes, following the traces of Sephirot that lay beyond the dense miasma.
“...A little to the right from that thicket.”
“You can actually see something?”
“Of course I can. I can see the traces of light you mentioned, but... is it really okay to just keep following them endlessly? I mean, will anything even come of this?”
“Huh? The paths beyond the Boundary are already set anyway.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Ordinary aberrations exist within the rules of the world. No matter how powerful they become, they are still subordinate to the world’s order.
But domains are different. A domain is, quite literally, a space with its own rules.
It isn’t a place where the world’s laws hold sway; it is a place that forcibly imposes its own laws back onto the world.
Kalmash was no different. Once the domain of Sephirot, the World Tree of Light, it had been eroded by beings from the Outer Sea and turned into a domain of chaos.
In other words,
this place itself is one giant domain.
Fortunately, traces of Sephirot still remained, and those traces intertwined like threads to form a path. Only those with the Spirit Eye could see them, and by following them, one could reach the desired destination.
That was the rule of this domain called Kalmash.
Which was why we needed Adina’s help to find our way.
“...You really do know everything, don’t you, Sixth Lord?”
After hearing my explanation, Arkan let out a dry laugh as if she couldn’t believe it.
I ignored her and kept walking.
That was when it happened.
“...There’s something ahead.”
Adina suddenly stopped in her tracks.
Something vague could be seen through the thick fog. At first, it looked like nothing more than the silhouette of a spire, but as we moved closer, its true shape became clear.
Countless patterns were carved into the surface of the spire, which resembled black marble, and they looked almost like black serpents crawling across the dark stone.
Now and then, a flash of red light would flicker between those patterns, as if the spire itself were breathing.
The pillars were unnaturally twisted, as though their frame had been knotted together, and between them rose cliff-like walls that thrust upward toward the sky.
The summit was hidden by fog, but judging by its sheer scale, it was clearly tall enough to pierce the clouds and then some.
What was stranger than anything else was the structure of the spire itself.
Ignoring every geometric law, space had been folded over on itself, and some parts had the inside turned outside, while others had the outside turned inside.
It was a structure that created the illusion of infinite continuity, like a Möbius strip, yet it towered straight upward to stab the heavens.
An appearance that plainly twisted the order of the world.
It was the very definition of chaos.
A Great Labyrinth.
Arcasia's Spire.
We’ve arrived.
It was the place where the Primordial Scripture had been sealed.