Morning greeted Eni with a cold, prickling fog that crept along the ground, as if trying to grab her boots. She left the cozy tavern behind, leaving the brief calm and the noisy Archon Assembly. Images still spun in her head: Nick's glowing pink eye, Maeno's predatory smirk, and Insip's hollowed-out stare. But reality quickly reminded her of itself—the Voice in her head remained dead silent. It wasn't a peaceful silence; it was heavy, suspicious, as if the Voice was hiding in the corner of a dark room, watching her every move.
To shake off that sticky feeling of being watched and ease the tension, Eni decided to speak first. She knew the best way to hide a lie was to act like she was actually curious.
"Hey, Voice," she called, watching the sun lazily break through the treetops. "Do you even know what kind of world this is? Where are we, really?"
The answer came almost too fast—suspiciously fast. The Voice let out a heavy, theatrical sigh, his tone dripping with unwavering confidence.
"It's just a standard magical world, Eni. One of thousands. There are monsters, there are heroes, and then there's you. Don't go looking for a double bottom where there isn't one."
Eni didn't say a word, she just gripped her sword hilt tighter. "Just a standard one," she repeated to herself with a bitter scoff. After what she'd seen in the Seraphim's bunker, after Nick's talk about erased souls and the In-between, the Voice's lie felt almost tangible, like rotten food. She realized the truth: the Observer either didn't know the whole truth, or—more likely—he was deathly afraid she would find out.
Before long, the trail led her to a dried-up riverbed where the skeleton of a massive wrecked ship lay on its side. Its masts, looking like the picked-clean ribs of some ancient leviathan, stabbed into the gray sky. Eni climbed inside. The rotted wood groaned under her boots, reeking of iodine and old dampness. At first, it looked like scavengers had stripped the place clean, but in the far corner of the hold, buried under a pile of rusted chains, she found a heavy iron-bound chest.
Inside was a book. It was in terrible condition: the cover eaten away by salt, the pages glued together by water, and part of the title was gone forever. Eni hoped to find some cargo logs or a map, but the moment she cracked open the surviving scraps, she froze. These weren't stories or charts. It was a prophecy, written in that same jagged, terrifying style Nick had been quoting.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
The lines blurred, but Eni hungrily devoured every word:
"...brother's revenge for brother. The death of Kartavan";
"...and the miserable ones invaded the In-between";
"...what [illegible] in the forest, lost in the depths of [illegible], poor children!";
"Immortal, iron legion";
"War [illegible], the fall of [illegible], reboot [illegible]."
The word "reboot" made her heart skip a beat. It resonated too strongly with what Insip had said about having infinite chances. Knowing this find could cost her her life if the Voice noticed it, Eni quickly shoved the book deep under the hem of her uniform, into the expanded inventory where the Voice couldn't see items.
She kept moving, but a few miles later, her gut told her to stay low. From over a ridge came the heavy thumping of wings and a distinctive, guttural screech. Dragons. Again.
Eni dove behind a massive oak, holding her breath. Peeking out, she saw them—four winged lizards circling over a clearing. Her past experience screamed: Run. One dragon was a deathmatch; four was a funeral. But something inside her had changed. The power she'd taken from Quivertertar's death and the confidence Nick had given her during their spar boiled in her blood.
It was like her safety switch had shorted out. Instead of backing off, Eni leaped out of cover. With one powerful push of her legs, she launched herself twenty meters into the air, performing a transcendent leap that would have made even Daedalus look twice. Hovering over the nearest dragon, she let out a feral scream and slashed right through the base of its wing. The membrane tore with the sound of a ripping sail.
The beast slammed into the ground, kicking up clouds of dust. Eni landed right after it and, before the monster could even react, finished it with a short, precise strike. She stood there, chest heaving, ready to take on the other three, but they just screeched in panic and banked hard, not daring to dive.
That's when she noticed: this dragon was smaller than the ones she'd fought before. Its scales hadn't yet hardened to stone, and its claws were shorter.
"Hmph..." the Voice mused in her head. "Not bad, Eni. But don't get too proud. Those were just whelps. Teenagers that wandered off from the pack. A real adult would have crushed you without even noticing."
Eni didn't answer. She didn't care if they were kids or not—she had tasted victory, and she knew her personal limit had grown significantly.
After a few days of grueling trekking through woods and wastelands, Eni spotted the lights of another village ahead. It was a backwater place, smelling of manure and woodsmoke, but exactly what she needed. She rented the cheapest, most inconspicuous room in the local tavern, bolted the door, and covered the windows.
Waiting until the Voice was lulled into a daze by her monotonous thoughts, Eni quickly pulled out the Coalition artifact and clicked the switch. The blue blocking pulse flared once and died down, plunging the room into a saving "silence" from the Observer.
