The revelation weighed heavily on my mind as I got ready for the shard. Only when the familiar weight of my nodachi was on my hip did I clear my mind and focus on the objective. The legion had provided us all with a set of armor that I left on the stand. The heavy plate, or even the chainmail options, did not mesh well with my fighting style, so I did not bother putting them on. Instead, I wore a stylized gambason that I had customized at one of our prior stops. The thick padding would help against blunt damage without restricting my movements too much. Over the thick padding, I wore a leather breastplate that ended just before my shoulders. It left my muscular arms exposed while steel bracers covered my forearms. Looking at myself in the bronze mirror of my room, only now did it set in how far I had come.
Various scars covered my arms like pale white cuts that healed badly. My regeneration may have been a boon, but I had taken far too many risks until now. And knowing myself, I would take many more in the days to come. Where once my hair was a raven black with a few streaks of platinum in between. I noticed the platinum had begun to spread, consuming more of my black hair. Steeling my resolve, I pushed these thoughts to the back of my head as I left the room, heading back towards the arena. Other recruits all streamed towards the same place. When we began getting close to the arena, we saw full-fledged legionaries standing at the side of the street banging their weapons against bronze shields, creating a powerful rhythm.
The rhythm echoed through the streets like the beating of a war drum. Each strike was measured, deliberate. Not a single soldier broke formation as their weapons struck the bronze in perfect unison. The sound crawled beneath my skin, stirring something primal within me. The song of blood responded eagerly, rising to meet the call.
Around me, the recruits fell silent.
Even those who had spent the past weeks posturing and trying to display their dominance now walked with rigid backs and tight jaws. Whatever bravado they had clung to was stripped away by the weight of what awaited us.
This was no longer training; this would be our graduation. And those who survived would become legionaries.
As we entered the arena, the scale of the preparation became immediately apparent. The central field had been altered. Massive runic pillars now stood in a wide circle, their surfaces carved with intricate inscriptions that pulsed faintly with mana. Between them, the ground itself had been reinforced with mana. I could feel the fluctuation of spatial mana so thick that if I so chose, I could reach out and grab it.
"Form ranks!"
The command cut through the air like a blade. Once again, we split up into two groups. The smaller group that represented the path of kings formed to the left, while the warriors grouped up to the right. I saw Alexander from the back of the line, still smiling as ever. For those who did not know him, you would think that he was fine, but for those who did… You could see the ever-so slight quiver of his eyelids and the minor strain on his top lip, showing his discomfort. An officer led us onto a runic platform radiating immense spatial mana to the point that if I wanted to, I could activate it in an instant. I held myself back from displaying such obvious signs of sorcery lest I wanted to incur the church's fury more than I already had.
The runes began to glow a dull blue as they charged to full strength before a familiar feeling of vertigo washed over me. Having used Blink for more than 6 months at this point, my resistance to the nausea of teleportation was high. The same could not be said for some of my fellow recruits, as they puked their guts out. While I was observing the room we found ourselves in. It was a small marble room with five indents where the memory shards were held. They looked the same as he remembered. Like tears in the reality of murky glass. With a confusing mesh of various affinities. The most prominent being space and something strange… The only way I could describe it was empty.
"Void…" There was genuine melancholy in Aeron's voice as he spoke. Just the mention of the word sent shivers down my spine as a sense of wrongness washed over me. But as quickly as the feeling of being watched by an infinite number of eyes appeared, so too did it vanish. 'What… what was that?' I asked Aeron, still unerved from the presence I just felt. My fist kept clenching and unclenching as I tried to calm myself. "It's best not to ask. There are some things better left forgotten." I tried getting more out of him, but he completely ignored me, not offering any further explanation. I just stood there waiting as the other recruits left through the memory shards. Before I even knew it, it was my turn.
Without wasting a single breath, I laid my hand on the shard before I was consumed by darkness. When I reappeared, I was once again impossibly weak in the same dark room I was in the last time I entered the memory shard. The only difference this time was that I was not shackled to the floor. Now that I know what to expect, I did not panic. I just sat cross-legged with my eyes closed while I waited for the cultist to appear. The minutes bled away as nothing happened. I sat there for what must have been an hour, although I had no way to know before the door slid open.
And the familiar cultist entered without ceremony. The same black robes reeking of blood and decay. The same eyes that looked as if a storm was trapped within. But the most eye-catching detail was the fact that now I could see underneath the darkness of their hood. What I saw was hard to describe, let alone believe that it was real. They had no faces, only the grotesque mixture of roots and flesh wrapped over cracked bone. They were some twisted form of undead if my assumption was correct. "They are not undead. Look closer, the roots itself contains life, at best it is some form of parasite." Although I appreciated the feedback, it did not help much. My experience taught me to be aware that they would not be my opponents.
Instead of waiting to be dragged away again, I stood up and motioned for them to lead the way. Their stormy gaze was on me for longer than I was comfortable with before they turned back into the long hallway. Following closely behind them, everything looked exactly as I remembered it. While my physical body was taken back to the point when I first did the memory shard. My magical and spiritual perception was far greater, and at this point, I would take any advantage I could get. The hallway stretched for what felt like an eternity before the two cultists stopped in front of a truly ginormous door that would dwarf even Jurgen.
The door was intricately curved out of stone, depicting various dragons engaged in conflict with the so-called lesser species. And above it all stood an image of Yakon Ra, the golden king. If history were to be believed, he was the greatest and most powerful tyrant to have ever lived. Legends say that Yakon was so large that when he was slumbering, others would mistake him for an island. He had curved horns like a ram with a serpentine head. Yet his most distinct feature was his two sets of wings. The cultists placed their hands on the door, infusing it with a green and blue mana that I was not familiar with. What caught my attention was the casual use of sorcery as if they were breathing.
Aeron snorted in my mind. "What would you expect, boy? The church has no influence here. If I am not mistaken, they have not even been founded yet." He was right, of course, but only partially. We did not know what time period this memory shard occurred in, so the possibility that the rebellion had already begun was still there.
The giant stone door opened to reveal a large, dark room. The room resembled a cave more than any manmade structure. At the sides of the cave were two waterfalls that led to a bond in the center. Fog rose from the body of water covering the bottom layer of the room in a dense cloud. I could hardly make out any details, within making me hesitant to enter. That choice was taken from me as the cultists unceremoniously shoved me inside before closing the door. My instincts got the better of me while I was banging against the door trying to open it. But my strength was insufficient to accomplish the task.
I heard pebbles fall to the ground as something large moved behind me. Aura pumped through my body while I prepared to fight for my life. I turned around so quickly that my vision spun. My world turned dark as a shadow was cast over me. Craining my neck to view up, all I saw were two glowing orbs of the same stormy mana that the cultists had. They looked virtually identical besides the size and the fact that the two orbs were split by vertical slits. "Sssso You were the champion?" A distinctly feminine, serpentine voice reverberated through the room with such bass that I could feel the ground shake.