City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Into The Darkness

“What… happened?” Richard’s mind was hazy as he woke up, the world in front of him blurred and his thoughts slowed to the extent that he couldn’t formulate sentences in his mind. All sorts of colours filled his vision, robbing him of the ability to focus on anything. Concentration was something that had come easily to him even as a child, but now it felt exceptionally difficult to muster up. His broken thoughts wandered everywhere, leaving him unable to accomplish anything.

“Need… control…” he struggled, spending an untold amount of time to gather the will to focus. He finally felt his body, but he quickly found that his senses weren’t in line with his actions at all. An attempt to move his left hand led to his leg kicking out, and as he tried to raise his head his arm shot down. It took a number of tries for his vision to slowly clear up, revealing a dark sky on the verge of dusk.

Everything around him seemed to be an indistinct grey, with a strange, twisted branch in the corner of his vision that was trembling slightly. Everything felt like a delusion, but as his mental faculties returned he decided to use the blessing of truth. His vision immediately changed, revealing distorted laws all around and clearing up the mismatch in his senses.

Richard looked at the laws in the sky, trying to analyse them while he recalled just what had happened. This process had already become instinctive to him, being the primary method he used to understand any new land. His thoughts started to move faster and faster, his memories awakening to reveal an unparalleled strike slashing down on him.

“The Darkness portal!” he suddenly shouted and sat up, recalling how the timeforce of the Eternal Dragon had automatically saved him on the verge of death. That also meant he was in the Darkness, a land that the old dragon’s radiance could not reach, the final destination of all Chosen.

Richard looked into his surroundings and found himself in a barren wasteland with no sunlight, water, nor life. A few dead trees were all he could see in the vast expanse, their branches twisting in all directions with no semblance of coherence. He calmed himself down and recalled the details of the blessing that had brought it here, specifically the fact that it wasn’t a random location he would be sent to. He had set the destination to the Land of Dawn, which should have been Flowsand’s territory to pull into the light. However, he wasn’t certain whether a portal constructed in that sort of emergency could necessarily be accurate.

All around him were desolate plains, with clearly no one to provide directions. He struggled to stand, but his body still felt disconnected and his thoughts jumped around continuously. While he managed to get to his feet for a brief moment, he fell back to the ground once more. He thus spent some time lying motionless on the ground, trying to recall any information he had with regards to the Darkness.

His first thoughts went to the momentary experience that the pope of the Church of Glory had granted him, as well as a travel diary that he had eventually been unable to resist reading. The book had mentioned that the first thing to do upon entering the Darkness was to establish a coordinate system, recalibrating one’s sense of space and time to deal with the chaotic laws. This new system would allow him to regain his normal perception and movement.

With both prior experience and his title as a Lord of Space, Richard was amongst the best spatial mages of Norland. Given a goal, his mind started to show its agility as it established a coordinate system and restored his movements. This time, he stood up without as much trouble, shifting his focus to anchoring himself in the flow of time. Thankfully, those last moments where timeforce had whisked him away from death had also given him some material to work with.

Richard started examining his body, only to be shocked that mere traces of his mana were still around. He settled down and checked again, finding that his body was actually riddled with injuries that left most of his organs twisted and damaged. When he fell the first time, it wasn’t just because of the distorted space. Forcing his memory as hard as he could, he returned to his last moment of consciousness where the aftermath from the portal being shredded had actually struck him.

His expression darkened with both confusion. He still couldn’t understand just how such a powerful being could exist, such that even someone like Iskara was no more than a tiny reptile in comparison. Unfortunately, there were no answers to be found right now. Setting the question aside, he looked around at what he’d brought with him. He still had his sword case, and the destiny crystal lay silently in his pocket, but the rest of his equipment was missing.

Once he had inspected his equipment, Richard turned to the more urgent matter of replenishing his mana. He sat down to meditate, but after a few minutes of coming up short he sighed and opened his eyes. There was no astral energy around in the Darkness, and no other sources that he could seize either. It seemed like replenishing his mana was easier said than done.

He looked again in all four directions, but his perception couldn’t identify anything outside of the wastelands. Muttering to himself in resignation, he walked towards the closest tree as he recalled another bit of advice in the diary Martin had given him. The second most important thing to do in the Darkness was to walk. Through movement, one could observe the changes in the laws and understand them better.

The tree itself provided nothing. It was dozens of metres tall and its branches were sharp, but it was neither metal nor wood. It seemed instead to have been petrified into stone, with no energy to speak of. Resigning himself to his state, Richard started walking into the depths.

The laws here did indeed change constantly, but it wasn’t the same as in the Outlands where there was no rhyme nor reason to it. Here the distortion itself seemed to be constant, allowing one to analyse and grasp the laws underneath.

Richard walked on for what felt like eternity, quickly improving his analysis until he didn’t feel out of sorts. One day, he finally found a change to the distant horizon, a small spot that he focused on to find a number of buildings within. It seemed like a small town that was enveloped by a faint black barrier, with shadowy figures walking around within. His eyes gleamed as he changed directions, but he slowed down once he was close. The Darkness wasn’t completely devoid of living beings, but they were of hundreds of different races and were quite possibly hostile. In some cases, they could even see him as food.