Path of Dragons

There were more of them.

A lot more.

And Elijah knew why. The Primal Realm had been open for a couple of days by that point, and it had wasted no time in disgorging hordes of undead. As the group slowly traveled through the city, making their way to the third and final shrine, they encountered thousands of zombies, ambulatory skeletons, and other, more esoteric undead. The worst were the wraiths, which had no corporeal body, but instead presented as wisps of mist that, according to Sadie, could drain a person of all life in only a few moments.

Elijah knew he wasn’t in danger of that rapid of a death, but the presence of what amounted to ghosts definitely left him feeling like he was walking through a horror movie. That sensation was only assisted by the cloudy atmosphere, which had cast the entire city in deep shadow.

That, too, was all too normal for the area, and Sadie revealed that they’d been dealing with it from the very beginning. In the deepest parts of winter, it was entirely dark for weeks at a time.

No wonder she and Dat had been so desperate for help.

Then there were the demons. Apparently, Zhang Yue’s ability was only capable of shielding them from the undead, so they were forced to avoid the wandering demons via more mundane stealth. Thankfully, there weren’t many of them around – which would change over time, Sadie assured him – but even then, there were more than a few close calls.

If it came down to a fight, at least some of them would die. Probably Gideon. Zhang Yue, almost certainly. Even Nico was at risk. Elijah felt certain that Dat, Sadie, and he would make it, but with so many enemies around, there were no guarantees.

Still, there was a part of Elijah that wished they had more time. The zombies seemed neverending, and though they wouldn’t give a ton of experience, the sheer numbers would make them a good source of levels. The time constraints as well as the risk of being overwhelmed kept him from suggesting farming them, though. There was too much at stake to focus entirely on progression – even if he was close to reaching another threshold where he would gain a new spell.

No one spoke as they made their way through the city, which left Elijah to study his surroundings. As expected, there were plenty of undead around, and much of the city showed the telltale signs of long abandonment. Windows had been shattered, bloodstains decorated many of the walls, and shops had been scavenged clean. However, on more than one occasion, Elijah felt something he didn’t expect.

There were people in some of the buildings.

They didn’t feel particularly strong, and most were loaded down with scavenged supplies, but they were as normal as anyone else he’d felt in Hong Kong. Some were extremely young, though.

When the group stopped to rest in one of the more defensible buildings, Elijah asked Sadie about them.

“Scavengers,” she whispered. “Mostly necromancers.”

“Some of them were children,” he responded, keeping his voice low. Zhang Yue’s ability extended to sound, but Elijah didn’t want to push its bounds. The man was already beginning to look a little haggard, but Elijah wasn’t certain if that was from the strain of constantly using his abilities or if he was just worn out from stress. Probably a little bit of both, but it was obvious that the Explorer was in over his head.

“Those conclaves operate on a razor thin margin,” she explained. “Everyone has to contribute.”

“Why doesn’t Heaven’s Bastion just take them all in? They’re people too. Even if you don’t like their classes…”

Gideon, who was sitting nearby, snorted. “Trash, the lot of them. Good for nothing but consorting with the dead. They have nothing we want, so why should we spend our resources supporting them?”

“Wasn’t talking to you.”

“He’s not wrong,” Sadie said reluctantly. “Not about the trash part. Our resources are extremely limited, Elijah. We’re already teetering on the edge of viability. If we added any more people, the entire settlement would fail. As much as my heart goes out to those people –”

“Don’t waste your sympathies on them,” Nico interjected with no small degree of venom in his tone. “They would kill you in a second if they could. Likely, they would reanimate your body and use it for labor.”

“If I could help them, I would,” she said in a small voice. Then, she pushed herself to her feet and walked away. She didn’t go far – just to the window – but it was clear that she didn’t want to talk about it.

For a moment, Elijah considered following her and offering some comfort, but he didn’t think it was his place. So, he reluctantly remained where he was, giving thought to the situation in Hong Kong. On one level, he understood the notion of scarcity. The leaders of Heaven’s Bastion – which included Gideon, unfortunately – had been forced to make decisions as to who was worth helping. If they chose wrong, then the whole community would collapse. In that case, most people would die. Instead, they had picked favorites based on their usefulness – at least that was what they’d implied – so that they could save some portion of the population.

It wasn’t a complex concept, but in practice, it was incredibly complicated. And Elijah wasn’t so naïve that he discounted the likelihood of corruption. It was almost a certainty.

Yet, he also knew there wasn’t much he could do about it. He was just one man, and the completion of his mission – to close the Primal Realm – would help everyone, not just Heaven’s Bastion. So, he didn’t see how any of the information he’d just received could change his path.

It was food for thought, though.

Eventually, the group was well-rested enough to continue on, and the journey through the city went much as it had for the past day. The prevalence of the undead was even more stifling with every passing hour, and there were quite a few different varieties that presented themselves. The most troubling were the hulking, chalky white creatures with incredibly long limbs with too many joints.

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Wights, they were called, and according to Sadie, they were some of the most powerful creatures they’d ever encountered. From what Elijah felt of them, each one was ascended, though only just. Thankfully, there weren’t many of them, and the ones that were present were incapable of seeing through Zhang Yue’s group stealth.

But Elijah could tell that they sensed something amiss, which added a great deal of tension to each close encounter. Still, the group made it through without being forced into a fight, eventually arriving at their first major obstacle.

The Hung Shing Temple at Ap Le Chau had once been located on the northern coast of Hong Kong Island, but for whatever reason, it – along with its surroundings – had been relocated inland. So, to reach it, they were forced to cross Victoria Harbor via a narrow causeway that stretched from the island to the mainland.

As they did, Elijah felt dozens of powerful undead sea monsters on either side. If they were detected, any one of those unliving abominations would be able to assault them. And just like in the city proper, if one creature broke through Zhang Yue’s stealth, then they would all be fully exposed.

About halfway across the causeway, a crash sounded from up ahead, and Elijah watched as one of the flying creatures extricated itself from the crater caused by its impact. Even as its bones reformed, it threw itself back into the air, with something wriggling in its claws.

A second later, a massive white saltwater crocodile launched itself out of the water, its jaws snapping as it engulfed the flyer. The crocodile hit the ground a moment later, destroying that portion of the causeway. Water flooded the area, creating a thirty-foot wide gulf as the crocodile retreated. Like the wights, it was clearly powerful and just as obviously undead – at least to Elijah’s senses.

Everyone just stood there for a long moment, hesitant to move forward.

“I want to go home,” Zhang Yue muttered after a few seconds of silence. “I just want to leave this place…”

“It’s okay, bro. Nobody really wants to be here,” Dat said, clapping him on the shoulder and forcing a smile. “Think about the hero’s welcome we’ll get when we get back, though. I bet they’ll even give you a promotion. You’ll have your own suite, just below Song Tianwei’s floor. You’ll see.”

“Just do your job,” Nico spat. Left unsaid – but evident in his tone – was the implication that there would be consequences for failure. That got Zhang Yue moving.

Fortunately, the Explorer’s ability proved up to the task of concealing them as they crossed the causeway. After that, it was more of the same, though there were even more undead – especially the powerful varieties – than on the island behind them, and many of them were moving outward, spreading the Primal Realm’s influence.

Elijah also saw a few demons that had seemingly taken control of whole hordes of zombies. The demons themselves were exactly what Elijah would have expected, with pitch black skin, sweeping horns, and wings. There weren’t many of them, but they all wore robes that concealed the rest of their forms, but he saw enough to recognize that they were equipped with powerful bodies and likely possessed hooves instead of feet.

Thankfully, they were easily avoided, largely because they seemed focused on tasks of their own.

So, there was nothing keeping the group from reaching the Hung Shing Temple at Ap Le Chau. From a distance, it resembled the Tin Hua Temple – at least in terms of structure, coloring, and general size. However, as they drew closer, Elijah saw that it differed in a few key ways. For one, its surroundings were decidedly shabbier, reminding Elijah of the sort of urban decay that was so prevalent in major cities on the decline. For another, it lacked the prominent frescoes of the Tin Hua Temple. And finally, the façade was slightly different, with blue walls instead of white. The green roof was similar, though.

After a brief discussion, Elijah approached the door, and when he did, he saw a notification flash before his mind’s eye:

You have arrived at the Ap Le Chau Temple. To earn the Blessing of Cunning, enter and complete the challenge within. The challenge resets in 7 days upon completion or failure. For access to The Desolate Reach, only one party member (maximum of six for each instance of the blessing) is required to obtain the blessing. Do you wish to enter? [Yes] or [No]

“It’s like the Man Mo Temple. Like a tower,” Elijah said. “We can all enter this one, though.”

That prompted a discussion as to whether or not they wanted to send everyone inside. Gideon was fine with Elijah repeating his feat from the Man Mo Temple and going in alone. However, he was overruled by the rest of the group – save for Zhang Yue, who offered no opinion – so after that, they stepped inside.

After a brief moment of nothingness, Elijah arrived at a completely changed landscape. A gate loomed before him, flanked by two stone statues depicting stylized lions. One turned its head to him and spoke, “Through shifting paths, the clever stray. A winding test to light the way. No map will serve. No rules apply. The maze is solved only by the cunning eye.”

“Another ridiculous poem,” Gideon growled. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” Sadie answered. “Shifting paths can imply that the maze changes. Maps won’t help. Maybe the line about no rules means that physics doesn’t apply? I’m not sure.”

As Sadie and the others discussed it, Elijah focused on Soul of the Wild. And what he sensed did not match what he saw before him. Choosing to trust the spell that had never let him down, he stepped forward and laid his hand on the jade inlaid column directly behind the lion statue.

At first, there was a little resistance, but then, something changed, and Elijah’s fingers passed through.

“Uh…guys? I think I figured it out,” he said, his arm sticking through the wall up to the elbow.

“It’s an illusion?” Gideon said, stepping forward. He thrust his own hand toward the same wall, but instead of going through, a force erupted from the wall, throwing him backward hard enough that Elijah wondered if the man had broken bones. Nico was there in a second, mending Gideon’s injuries. “What the hell? How?”

“That one’s solid. This one isn’t,” Elijah said, withdrawing his hand.

Then, Sadie touched the same wall Elijah had, and she received a similar backlash to Gideon. She weathered it much better, though, only grunting as she stumbled backward a few feet.

“Interesting,” Elijah said, tapping his lip. To him, there were pieces of the maze that felt entirely ephemeral, but the rest seemed solid enough. However, only he seemed capable of bypassing even the illusory bits.

The only question was why.

Some members of the group were disinterested in puzzling it out, though. Gideon, in particular, wanted Elijah to just go “do his thing” so they could receive the blessing. But Elijah wasn’t so quick to do so. For one, he wasn’t sure what would happen to the others if he left them behind. It wasn’t past the system to require everyone who entered to receive the blessing before they were allowed to leave.

For another, he found the conundrum interesting, and he wanted to figure it out.

So, he commenced with a series of experiments until, at last, he reached a conclusion. “It’s based on belief.”

“What?” asked Sadie, who’d helped him while the others simply rested.

“I can feel that these walls aren’t real,” Elijah answered. “I trust my ability, and because that, I believe I can walk through the walls. None of you have that advantage.”

Gideon looked up and sneered, “So you’re saying that we need only believe, like we’re in a fairy tale?”

“Something like that, sure,” Elijah replied. “It’s all about mental discipline. I’m sure you can handle it.”

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