I climbed higher, digging my fingers into ridges of hardened ground until my palms burned. When I finally pulled myself over the edge, my knees hit solid land.
It was red.
Not the bright red of fresh blood, but a dark, dried shade, as if the ground itself had soaked in countless deaths and never let them go. The surface was cracked and uneven, veins of deeper crimson running through it like exposed muscle.
I pushed myself upright, chest rising and falling too fast.
Around me stretched a valley of ruin. Broken structures jutted from the land like bones, walls split open and towers collapsed inward, half buried by ash. Seas of pale gray dust lay pooled between the ruins, unmoving, their surfaces smooth and deceptive, like water that had forgotten how to flow.
The sky above was a suffocating red, layered with drifting clouds the color of old wounds. No sun. No horizon that felt safe to look at.
My throat tightened.
Is this truly Arkael?
"Ah, another one here."
The voice came from behind me.
I spun around, my heart slamming against my ribs.
He stood several steps away, tall yet hunched, his frame bent as though the weight of the world rested on his back. A hood concealed most of his face, shadow swallowing his features, but his arms were visible. They were long and thin, skin pale like ash stretched too tightly over bone. Veins and nerves traced along them in stark relief.
He leaned on a crooked staff, its surface scarred and darkened with age. At his side hung a pouch, worn and heavy, stitched together with mismatched thread.
My breath caught.
It was him.
"The Wanderer?" I said, my voice barely steady.
A low chuckle slipped from beneath the hood. "Oh, it seems I am quite popular among riftborns."
I swallowed, my fingers curling into fists. "Why are you here? If you plan to sell me something, I do not have anything on me."
"No worries." He tilted his head slightly, as if amused. "I simply welcome all visitors of Arkael. This time, all two hundred and fifty of you."
He paused.
"Well. Two hundred and thirty seven of you."
The words sank into me slowly.
My stomach turned cold. "What happened to the others before me?"
"You ask questions eagerly." His voice rasped, dry as grinding bone. "I found them in quite a predicament. Likely meeting death."
The valley seemed to grow quieter.
No wind stirred the ash. No distant sound answered him.
I felt the ground beneath my feet, red and unyielding, and for the first time since arriving, the weight of the numbers truly hit me.
This was not an entrance.
This was a counting.
"Where am I?" I asked, my voice sounding small against the vastness around us.
The Wanderer rested more of his weight on the staff, its tip sinking slightly into the red ground. "You are in a region called the Ashen Ward. Quite unlucky for a first spawn, I would say."
My gaze drifted back to the valley.
He was right.
Nothing here felt like it was meant to sustain life. The air was dry and tasted faintly bitter, like burnt metal lingering at the back of my throat. The ash seas stretched endlessly between ruined structures, their surfaces too soft to trust, swallowing anything that lingered too long. No trees. No flowing water. No sign of anything edible.
Food was scarce. That meant my supplies were all I had.
The weight of my pack pressed against my shoulders, suddenly heavier now that I understood how little this place would give back. Every ration I carried mattered. Every sip of water had a number attached to it.
The Wanderer watched me in silence, his presence unsettling yet strangely calm, as if this wasteland were nothing more than a familiar road to him.
I turned away and began walking.
The valleys were the only solid footing I could rely on. The red ground held under my boots, firm but uneven, forcing me to watch every step. Each movement sent faint vibrations through my legs, as if the land itself remembered every footfall that had ever crossed it.
As I moved deeper between the ruins, the silence grew heavier. My footsteps echoed dully, swallowed almost immediately by the ash-filled air. The broken structures loomed closer now, walls split and eroded, surfaces etched with marks that looked too deliberate to be natural.
I tightened my grip on my weapon.
This was my first step into Arkael, and it had already made one thing clear.
This place would not kill me quickly.
My priority was clear.
I had to ignite my ember.
But to do that meant exposure. Exposure to danger, to combat, to death itself. In Arkael, the first death was almost guaranteed for those who stumbled into something far stronger than they were. It was not a matter of skill or courage. It was simply the nature of this place.
I raised my left arm and glanced at the bracelet fused into the sleeve. The faint screen flickered to life.
Corruption Gauge: 17%
My chest tightened.
If I died now, it would spike immediately. Thirty seven percent in a single instant. That much corruption, this early, would leave a stain I might never truly erase.
No. I could not afford that.
I clenched my jaw and lowered my arm. Igniting my ember mattered, but surviving mattered more. There was no glory in a reckless awakening. Only a shortened path toward becoming something I could not control.
That meant avoiding my first death at all costs.
I slowed my pace, forcing myself to breathe steadily. Every sound mattered here. Every shift of ash, every distant echo could be a warning. I scanned the ruins carefully, watching the angles of collapsed walls and the gaps between broken stone.
If Arkael was a place that tested endurance, then I would answer it with patience.
I would observe before acting.
I would run before fighting.
And if something watched me from the ash seas or the blood red valleys, then it would find me cautious, deliberate, and very much alive.
At least for now.
I stopped when I saw it.
A statue stood half buried in ash, its lower half swallowed by the pale gray remains while its upper body rose like a warning left behind by the dead. The material looked like stone at first glance, but the surface was too smooth in places, too uneven in others, as if it had once been flesh that hardened mid scream.
The creature had wings, wide and folded close to its body, their edges chipped and eroded. Eyes covered its form, clustered along its torso, its neck, even along the base of its wings. Some were round, others stretched thin, all carved open as if forever watching.
Its mouth hung open.
A long tongue spilled out from between jagged teeth, frozen in a twisted curve. The end of it bristled with spikes, sharp and cruel, like barbs meant to tear rather than pierce. Even as a statue, it radiated something deeply wrong.
But it was not the shape that unsettled me most.
It was the feeling.
Standing near it made my skin prickle, like cold needles pressing from the inside. My corruption gauge buzzed faintly, the bracelet warming against my arm as if reacting to an unseen presence. The air around the statue felt heavier, thicker, carrying a pressure that pressed against my thoughts.
This thing was not just a monument.
It was giving off something else.
A presence. A residue. As if whatever it represented had not fully left this place, or as if the statue itself was a wound in the world, still leaking a trace of what once stood here.
I took a cautious step back, heart pounding.
If this was merely a statue, then Arkael was far more cruel than I had imagined.
And if it was not… then I had just wandered far too close to something that should never have been approached.
I turned my back to the statue and noticed something carved into the broken wall behind it.
Scribbles.
Lines twisted into symbols that bent my eyes when I tried to focus. The language was unfamiliar, wrong somehow. The strokes were sharp, frantic, overlapping each other as if whoever carved them had not cared for clarity, only urgency. I could not read a single word, yet my chest tightened as though my body understood what my mind could not.
I glanced back at the statue.
It was still there.
Unmoved.
I exhaled slowly, my heartbeat thudding in my ears. Maybe my nerves were getting the better of me. I reached out and ran my fingers across the carved wall. The surface was rough and uneven, flakes of stone breaking off beneath my touch.
Then I heard it.
A dry, janky sound. Stone grinding against stone.
My hand froze.
I turned.
The statue's tongue was no longer resting against its chest.
It was higher.
Not by much. Just enough for me to notice. Just enough to make my blood run cold.
The eyes carved into its body seemed deeper now, their hollows darker, as if shadow had pooled inside them.
I swallowed hard.
This was not happening.
I slowly turned my back to it, forcing my feet to move, one careful step at a time. My pulse hammered so loud I was sure it would give me away.
Then the sound came again, louder.
Crack.
I spun around.
The statue was no longer whole.
Stone split along its wings, chunks breaking away as something beneath pushed outward. The tongue snapped free with a violent scrape, stretching unnaturally as it unfurled. The eyes blinked open one by one, wet and glossy, no longer carved but alive.
It screamed.
The sound was not loud. It was close. Inside my head. A shrill pressure that made my vision blur as the ash around us lifted violently into the air.
I ran.
The ground shook behind me as stone shattered. Heavy impacts slammed into the ash, each step of the creature tearing free more of its false shell. I could hear it dragging itself forward, wings scraping, tongue lashing against the ground with a sickening wet slap.
I vaulted over broken debris, lungs burning, ash clogging my mouth. I dared a glance over my shoulder.
Too close.
Its tongue shot forward, spikes ripping through the air. I twisted just in time. The barbed end tore through my sleeve, slicing skin. Pain flared hot and sharp as blood soaked into the ash.
I stumbled but did not fall.
I rolled behind a collapsed pillar as the tongue slammed into the ground where I had been standing, cracking the stone apart. The creature reared back, wings spreading fully now, eyes locking onto me all at once.
My bracelet buzzed violently.
Corruption Gauge: 19%
No. No no no.
I forced myself up, drawing my weapon with shaking hands. My breaths came fast and shallow, my body screaming to flee, to hide, to blink and let death take me.
I refused.
The creature lunged.
I threw myself aside as its body crashed into the pillar, reducing it to rubble. Stone fragments tore into my legs. I screamed as pain exploded through me, but I stayed conscious, stayed moving.
This was not a fight I could win.
This was a fight I had to survive.
I ran again, every instinct focused on escape, the creature's scream echoing behind me as the Ashen Ward swallowed us both.
Somewhere deep inside my chest, something burned faintly.
Not fire.
Not yet.
But the promise of it.