Deep Sea Embers
chapter-557

The ranger from the Evergreen Mountains had a habit of saying, “Marching towards the apocalypse,” almost like a personal mantra. Each day, as he set up camp before the sun dipped below the horizon, he would look out at the sky, taking in the intense red hue that filled it. To him, this fiery sight was “quite the romantic notion.” He viewed it as a symbol of unparalleled bravery and the utmost love one could feel, all against the backdrop of an ending world.

Unfortunately, bravery and love couldn’t stop the inevitable hand of death. The ranger met his demise just a kilometer away from an important crossroad. An arrow—ironically, his weapon of expertise—had found its way into his chest, ending his life in an abrupt and cruel manner.

The Necromancer in the party acted swiftly to eliminate the attackers, who turned out to be a pair of rotting corpses that had been lying in wait along their path. These undead creatures sprang a devious ambush on the group. Their lack of breath and heartbeat made it impossible for the ranger, despite his keen senses, to detect them. Moreover, a convenient gust of wind had masked their rotting smell. This attack was yet another heartbreaking event in a journey that had already been fraught with difficult goodbyes.

An armored Warrior found his way to the edge of the camp and took a seat on a gnarled tree stump. He looked up at the sky, his gaze fixed on a particularly ominous, deep-red streak that stretched across it. This streak seemed to throb as if it were a vein filled with flowing blood. It was as though it contained countless malevolent spirits, all of them observing the crumbling world with a cold indifference.

The Necromancer joined him, sitting down next to the Warrior. Together, they quietly stared at the unsettling streak in the sky.

After a long period of silence, the Warrior, his voice slightly muffled by his helmet, finally broke the quiet. “Those two attackers earlier today…”

“They were the hunter siblings, the first among us to die,” the Necromancer responded. His voice, emerging from beneath his dark hood, was tinged with an emotionless melancholy. “They had been following us. The dead don’t require rest, which made them faster than us.”

“We gave them a proper burial just outside the gates of the kingdom. You even performed a ritual to calm their souls. Why would they come back to life after you’d gone through those measures?”

“The world is not what it used to be,” the Necromancer replied in a matter-of-fact tone, devoid of emotion but filled with a chilling sorrow. “Notice how that red streak in the sky has doubled in size since the prophet first warned us? It’s a growing wound in the fabric of our world. Both the ground below and the sky above are deteriorating at an alarming rate due to its influence. The line between life and death has become blurred, and it’s not as I once understood it to be.”

The Necromancer’s manner of speaking wasn’t to everyone’s taste. If the shield-bearing knight were still with them, he would undoubtedly have launched into an uplifting speech filled with advice and encouragement by this point.

The Warrior turned his gaze back to the camp. By the flickering light of the campfire sat the lone figure of the Paladin, clad in his armor, seeming to embody stoic determination. Hidden in the shadows cast by the dancing flames, the petite and fragile form of the Pyromancer could also be seen. The camp was now depressingly empty; it had once been filled with more members. Among the missing was the shield-bearing knight, who had frequently butted heads with the Necromancer and was always eager to dispense advice, whether it was solicited or not. He had met his end on the desolate plains surrounding Sandstone Castle, his death shrouded in inexplicable circumstances.

The Necromancer, visibly ill at ease amidst the haunting silence, spoke up. “Others may ‘catch up’ to us,” he muttered. Pausing for a beat, he clumsily pivoted the conversation. “If it happens, they’ll most likely be members from our original group.”

“Because of the hunter siblings from today?” the Warrior inquired.

“Yes, and also because they still remember their mission to march towards the apocalypse, even though they’ve forgotten us,” the Necromancer whispered, his voice tinged with regret. “We didn’t give their bodies the necessary treatment before the reach of that red light in the sky expanded.”

Curiosity piqued, the Warrior asked, “What exactly does ‘properly dealing with them’ entail?”

The Necromancer spoke without hesitation. “Burning their bodies with Soulfire until completely consumed, then crushing all the larger bones into fragments. If possible, submerge their skulls in acid and then bury them deep underground.”

“Understood,” the Warrior solemnly replied.

The next day, the group found the Necromancer dead, lying at the outskirts of their camp. His heart had been eerily extracted from his chest by some dark, unknown force, leaving a gaping hole. What was most unsettling was the slight, peculiar smile etched on his face in death—as if he were finally relieved to be free from the weight of their apocalyptic mission.

The remaining members—Warrior, Paladin, and Pyromancer—conducted a makeshift “funeral” for their fallen companion. They incinerated his body with Soulfire, meticulously smashed any remaining bone fragments, and submerged pieces of his skull in a clay jar filled with acid before burying it deep within the ground of their campsite.

Now, only three were left.

As the dark plumes of smoke spiraled up from the cremated remains, the Warrior once more found his eyes drawn to the ominous red streak scarring the horizon, as if bisecting the world. The Pyromancer, a slender woman named Groshka with fiery red hair, came to stand beside him. After a period of heavy silence, she voiced the question that had been hanging ominously in the air, but which no one had dared to ask.

“Shall we continue?”

The Warrior looked at her, remembering how she had appeared at the start of their quest—radiant, confident, and a little arrogant. Deemed “the chosen one” by the kingdom’s prophet, she had more faith in her own supposed destiny and powers than anyone else.

Yet, here she was, asking this soul-searching question.

“Of course, we shall continue,” the Warrior finally said, his voice muffled but resolute behind his heavy faceplate. “We have a kingdom to save, and an apocalypse to avert.”

“Is it really possible to stop the apocalypse by walking straight towards it?” asked Groshka, the red-haired Pyromancer. Her emerald eyes looked intently at the Warrior. “Is there actually a malevolent force at the end of that crimson streak in the sky, just waiting for us to vanquish it? Will defeating that enemy solve all of this chaos, just as the prophet promised?”

“The prophet has never been wrong before,” the Warrior retorted, his voice resolute, though muffled by the layers of his steel faceplate.

After a momentary standoff, Groshka nodded, her lips forming a thin line. “I understand.”

Just three days later, in an unnamed forest that stretched alongside a meandering river, tragedy struck. Groshka collapsed to the ground in a small clearing, her eyes wide in horror.

There were no enemies lying in ambush, no traps set by malevolent forces. Instead, she was consumed by her own magic—an uncontrollable burst of magical energy erupted from within her, searing and incinerating her almost instantaneously as though a swarm of angry spirits had torn her apart. Her scream was a brief and gut-wrenching echo in the forest; the agony seemed to last only an instant.

The silver lining, if one could call it that, was that the wildfire of her own making consumed her so completely that no additional rites were necessary to dispose of her remains. Not a fragment of bone larger than a fingernail could be found amid the fine ash.

Now, only two remained—the ever-silent Paladin, whose taciturn nature had intensified with each passing day, and the Warrior himself, perpetually encased in his imposing armor.

As they ventured further into the increasingly bizarre landscape, they moved in an unerring straight line, their path determined by the apocalyptic crimson streak that still marred the sky.

How long would this haunting journey last? Where exactly was it leading? What, if anything, was lying in wait at the journey’s end, lurking for those who were marching toward their possibly grim destiny?

Each day, the Warrior noticed the world becoming increasingly surreal beneath the red glow.

The timing of sunrise and sunset had begun to drift erratically. The sun, which used to set dutifully in the west, had now deviated, inching towards the north.

The sky itself seemed to change its hue, gradually shifting from its natural blue to a disturbing shade of purple-red. Occasionally, within the deep recesses of the clouds, strange forms and twinkling lights would appear as if otherworldly entities were moving within them.

The distant mountain ranges seemed to be distorting in shape. What were once vertical cliffs now resembled warped wooden boards as though melting or crumbling away. The very horizon seemed to be shifting upwards, as if the ground itself was undergoing some form of slow, inexorable upheaval.

Or perhaps it was the eyes of the observer that were changing.

Along with these visible abnormalities were invisible shifts—the flow of magical energy that once maintained a subtle equilibrium between the heavens and the world now surged like a torrential river. Wizards of old would lament the lack of arcane energy in the air outside the realms of civilization, but now the very atmosphere seemed supercharged. The morning winds appeared to be saturated with volatile magical forces. These energies interacted with their metal armors, generating subtle glows and electrical discharges. Once accumulated to a certain threshold, the energy would discharge with an audible “pop.”

As they moved forward, the world around them seemed increasingly alien, driven by a sky that had deepened from a mere red streak to an abyss of ominous colors. Yet, the Warrior and the Paladin continued their trek, their destination unknown, their mission unfaltering, each step accompanied by a world that seemed less and less like the one they once knew.

The Warrior felt a growing sense that the many unsettling changes in the world around them might signify that the end of their journey was drawing near. They were edging closer to the spot where that haunting red light met the ground. Even though it looked like a far-off destination, the notion of hope felt tantalizingly close.

Yet, just before they crossed an unnamed river that lay in their path, the Paladin suddenly halted.

The towering woman, who had been a wellspring of silent strength throughout their quest, took off her helmet. For the first time in what felt like ages, she spoke. “This is where it ends.”

“Why?” the Warrior asked, locking eyes with the last companion he had in this forsaken quest.

“Aren’t you surprised?” she questioned.

“I just want to know why,” the Warrior retorted, his voice betraying no emotion but carrying an unyielding determination.

The Paladin sighed and reached into her tunic. She pulled out a fragmented red gemstone and gently placed it on the grass beside her. “The kingdom has been annihilated,” she began somberly. “Columns of fire and rivers of magma erupted from the world’s core, enveloping and decimating the entire kingdom in a mere hour. The prophet’s spirit clung on until the very end, confirming our worst fears.”

The Warrior met her gaze but said nothing, silently absorbing the gravity of what he had just heard.

“Our journey has no meaning. It was pointless from the very beginning,” she continued, her voice tinged with a sorrowful resignation.

“So, the prophet lied to us,” the Warrior said, almost whispering.

“No, the prophet lied to those who stayed back in the kingdom,” she corrected him softly. “He needed the people to believe that the kingdom had dispatched its most elite warriors to tackle this catastrophe. Just like a century ago when we imprisoned the resurrected Elypsis, or seven centuries back when we vanquished the Frost Giants. He needed them to believe that heroes would save the world again. If not one, then a legion.”

“Prophets don’t make mistakes,” the Warrior muttered.

“Exactly,” she said, nodding. “He knew how the apocalypse would unfold. That’s why he was the first to understand the inevitability of it all.” She patted the ground next to her. “Sit, we’ve come a long way.”

The Warrior stood immobile, making no move to join her.

Unfazed, the Paladin spoke more openly than she had ever done throughout their journey. “You, and several others among us, began suspecting the truth midway through this quest.”

“Groshka, the Pyromancer, she might have been the only one who truly believed in the destiny laid out for her—right until the moment her life was consumed by her own flames.”

“It might have been kinder if she had never discovered the truth,” the Paladin remarked, shaking her head slightly. Just then, she watched in amazement as the Warrior took a determined step forward.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I am going to continue,” he declared.

“Why?” she questioned.

“Aren’t you curious? After realizing this entire mission might be futile, don’t you wonder why I still proceed?” The Warrior’s voice was imbued with an urgency, a fervor that had been absent before. It was as if by marching forward, even when faced with the knowledge of the expedition’s meaninglessness, he was seeking to affirm something essential – not necessarily for the world or for the prophecy, but for himself. There was a defiance in his step, a tenacity that could not be shattered—not by the collapse of a kingdom, not by the end of the world, and certainly not by a discredited prophecy.

There they stood, on opposite banks of a nameless river, each contemplating the roads not taken, their gazes reflecting the changing, enigmatic hues of the world around them. The Paladin was ready to call an end to her journey, while the Warrior was prepared to plunge even further into the abyss. Each was guided by their own unique interpretation of what it meant to be a hero, what it meant to have a destiny, and what it meant to navigate through the perplexing maze of prophecies and truths.

The Paladin observed him intently, choosing to remain silent.

“I want to at least grasp what that,” the Warrior gestured toward the eerie deep red streak in the evening sky, his voice tinged with a subdued urgency, “actually is. Our kingdom has been laid to waste, and perhaps the entire civilized world has been consumed as well. But I need to know what force is causing both the sky and the earth to wither and die.”

The Paladin studied her last surviving comrade for a moment that felt like an eternity before letting out a deep, weary sigh. “You can’t reach it,” she finally said.

“What do you mean?” the Warrior questioned, turning his head to look at her.

“That red light isn’t touching the ground. It’s not anchored to this world,” she explained.

For the first time, the Warrior’s face betrayed an expression of genuine surprise, visible even under his faceplate.

“In the hour after the prophet’s spirit left this earthly plane, he had an elevated view of everything. He realized that our world is spherical, floating in an infinite void. That red light… it dwarfs even the earth beneath our feet. It’s much more distant, and it’s not merely destroying the land. It’s tearing apart the very fabric of existence itself.”

As she spoke, she picked up the fragmented red gemstone she had laid on the grass earlier.

“He told me that the ancient astrologers were correct. The stars, the planets, they’re all celestial bodies floating in boundless space. What remains a mystery is why that red light always appears to us from a specific direction. Even though our planet spins and orbits just like any other celestial body, that red light seems almost etched into our sky, arcing from east to west, as if landing somewhere on this world.”

She paused, a note of wistfulness entering her voice. “That was the prophet’s final enigma, and perhaps it will be the last mystery this world will ever know.”

The Warrior felt as if he had been rooted to the spot. A sudden, overwhelming sense of dread unfurled within him.

And so it was, long ago and far away, beneath the dying embers of a once tranquil dusk, that a man came to understand the true nature of the world he stood upon, right on the brink of apocalypse.

The Paladin’s voice softened, contrasting sharply with her usual stoic and cold demeanor. For the first time, she displayed tenderness. “Rest your feet,” she said gently, “it’s all over.”

It’s all over.

What does one do when everything is at an end?

Pausing for a moment, the Warrior finally unfastened the longsword from his belt. He had intended to wield this blade to vanquish the looming enemy at the place where that ominous red light touched down, just like the great heroes of yore.

But now he realized this sword was far too short. It would never reach the celestial bodies, let alone alter the course of destiny itself.

The evening sky was increasingly consumed by that ever-deepening shade of red, almost as if the universe itself was acknowledging their grim realization. They stood there, engulfed by their newfound awareness of their own limitations, contemplating questions that perhaps neither they nor even the cosmos could answer.

His hand tightened around the hilt of his suddenly inconsequential sword. For a fleeting moment, these two courageous souls stood bathed in the unsettling luminescence of the fading sky, each lost in their own reverie about the unfathomable expanse that confronted them, pondering the complexities of what might have been, what should have been, and what simply was.

Caught off guard by fate, he and his once-thriving civilization had been left utterly unprepared. The abrupt snuffing out of their metaphorical lights had left them oblivious to the tectonic shifts that were reshaping their reality.

With an air of solemnity, the Warrior raised his finely crafted blade high above his head. It was a weapon forged from the most exquisite materials and honed by the most skilled craftsmen his kingdom could muster. Gathering every last reserve of strength from his weary body, he hurled the sword skyward with an anguished cry.

In that ephemeral moment, as the sword parted ways with his grasp, he thought he heard a voice wafting on the gentle evening breeze. It was a voice so faint and so distant that he couldn’t be certain whether it was real or a figment of his imagination.

“Who are you? Where do you come from?”

The Warrior had no clue as to the origin of the mysterious voice, or even if it had genuinely existed. Yet, in that brief, immeasurable instant, a phrase echoed in his mind—a phrase once whispered to him by a long-lost companion on a road now relegated to history.

“We are marching towards the apocalypse.”

The sword spiraled upwards, its polished blade reflecting the last glimmers of the day’s light as it appeared to defy the very heavens. It was a futile, perhaps even foolish, gesture—a final act of desperation by a man feeling increasingly dwarfed and cornered by the ungraspable enormity of the universe. Yet it was all he had left to give. Finally, the shining steel was swallowed by the encroaching crimson sky, a last gasp of human defiance amid overwhelming vulnerability.

His hand now empty, the Warrior felt, for the first time, a strange sense of clarity wash over him. It was as if the very act of relinquishing his sword had also freed him from the weight of his own fears, anxieties, and unanswered questions. He turned to look at the Paladin beside him. They were relics of a world slipping away, but in this transient moment, they discovered a mutual understanding. Their swords could never reach the limits of the universe; their journey was destined to conclude here. And yet, they faced the unfathomable abyss ahead with a newfound wisdom and a humbling recognition of their own limitations.

Standing amid the inexorably expanding curtain of red twilight, they were the last echoes of a perishing civilization, contemplating a future that they would never be part of. Yet, in that very instant, amidst the relentless uncertainty and the towering, impenetrable enigmas that faced them, they stumbled upon something that felt strangely akin to peace.

The mysterious voice—whether real or conjured—had posed questions that maybe had no answers. But for the Warrior, and perhaps for the Paladin as well, it was the asking of these questions that mattered most.

“Who are you? Where do you come from?”

And perhaps the most poignant question, left unspoken but hanging palpably in the air, as vivid as the deepening red sky above them: Where are you going?

They were marching towards an end, yes. But at least they were doing so with a togetherness that in itself, became a kind of answer.