The journey south was a brutal education in the continent's harsh geography. Kael traveled for months, a ghost at the edges of civilization. He skirted the territories of the Valerian Empire, a place he knew too well, its fiery Qi a familiar pressure on the horizon. He moved through the unclaimed borderlands, a patchwork of jagged hills and stagnant marshes that separated the great nations.
Here, his encyclopedic knowledge was his greatest weapon. He knew which streams were tainted with industrial runoff from the Empire's forges, which mountain passes were home to territorial Crystal-Hide Gryphons from the north, and which "abandoned" ruins were actually the dens of opportunistic bandits. He moved with the quiet confidence of a man who had walked these paths a hundred times before, because in a way, he had.
The greatest obstacle between the Verdant Maze and the Scourged Wastes was not a mountain range or a desert, but a people: the tribes of the Fenwood Marches. The Marches were a sprawling, waterlogged forest, a buffer zone fiercely protected by its inhabitants. They were isolationists, deeply suspicious of outsiders and hostile to all the great powers. To them, Kael—a young man with no tribal markings, traveling alone—was an immediate threat.
His first attempt to cross their territory ended swiftly. A patrol of silent, mud-caked warriors simply appeared from the swamp, their poison-tipped arrows aimed at his heart. In a past life, he would have been killed without a word.
This time, Kael did not run or fight. He raised his empty hands and spoke. Not in the common tongue of the continent, but in a near-forgotten dialect, a clicking, guttural language he had learned in his 82nd life from a Fenwood exile he'd shared a prison cell with.
"I seek only passage. I carry no steel of the Empire, no crystal of the Theocracy."
The warriors froze, their eyes widening in shock. The leader, a woman with a ritual scar across her nose, lowered her bow an inch. "You speak the Old Tongue. Who are you, outlander?"
"A pilgrim," Kael replied, his voice calm. He drew upon the exile's stories, weaving a tale of a personal quest, a penance given to him by his ancestors to seek a lost shrine in the southern deserts. It was a lie, but it was a lie wrapped in their own cultural traditions, seasoned with details only a native would know. He spoke of their spirits of the swamp with respect, of their ancient enemies with disdain.
They were still suspicious, but his knowledge had bought him a chance. They took him to their hidden village, a cluster of reed-and-thatch huts built on stilts above the murky water.
He was brought before the tribal elder, a man so old his skin looked like cured leather. The elder's eyes were milky with cataracts, but Kael could feel his gaze probing, sharp and intelligent. The old man listened to Kael's story, then posed a single question in the Old Tongue.
"The spirits of the Fenwood do not grant safe passage for free. They demand a toll. We have a sick child, his spirit fading. Our shamans have failed to brew the cure. The key ingredient, the Sun-Kissed Mold, grows only at the heart of the Murk-Den, home to the Symbiotic Behemoth. If you are the pilgrim you claim, prove your worth. Bring us the mold."
It was a death sentence. The Symbiotic Behemoth was a legendary beast of the Marches, a colossal creature that was less a single organism and more a walking ecosystem of fungus, vine, and beast.
A younger Kael would have despaired. But the Kael of 138 lives simply nodded. He remembered the Fenwood exile's final, wheezing breaths as he described the creature in detail. The Behemoth was blind, hunting by sound and vibration. Its hide was nearly impenetrable, but it had one weakness: a deep-seated fear of a specific, high-frequency sound produced by the shriek-bats that lived in the region's deepest caves.
For three days, Kael didn't hunt the Behemoth. He hunted the bats. He used his hardened body to brave the cave systems, capturing several of the creatures in a wicker cage.
He approached the Murk-Den, a foul-smelling clearing where a hill-sized creature slumbered. He moved with a patience born of countless lifetimes. When he was within fifty paces, he opened the cage. The bats, disoriented by the daylight, let out their piercing, ultrasonic shrieks.
The effect was instantaneous. The Behemoth awoke with a convulsive shudder. It did not charge; it recoiled, thrashing in confusion and fear, its massive limbs flailing away from the agonizing sound. It created the perfect diversion.
While the beast was distracted, Kael sprinted into its den. The air was thick with spores, but his poison-tempered blood resisted the worst of their effects. He found the Sun-Kissed Mold, a patch of phosphorescent fungus glowing with a soft, golden light, exactly where the exile's tale had placed it.
He returned to the village, presenting the mold to the stunned elder. He had done the impossible. He had faced their god-beast and returned, not with a weapon, but with the prize.
The elder looked at him for a long time, his milky eyes seeming to see more than a seventeen-year-old boy. He saw a survivor.
"The spirits have judged you worthy," the elder finally declared. "You will have your passage."
They gave him supplies and a guide to lead him through the safest paths to the southern edge of the Marches. As he stood on the precipice of the Fenwood, looking out at the shimmering expanse of sand that replaced the green, the guide pointed.
"There. The Blighted Sands. May your ancestors guide you, Pilgrim, for ours hold no power there."
Kael gave a nod of thanks. He had paid the toll, not with gold or blood, but with knowledge and will. He took a deep breath of the hot, dry air. It tasted of dust and corrosion. It tasted like the next step. He turned his back on the green world and walked into the red.