Soren sighed before he begrudgingly turned around and stared at the central city of Droc.
It was an expansive city of steel, bustling with activity and festivity.
Judging by the banners hanging from every lamppost and balcony, the celebration was for the coronation that had taken place days earlier.
The citizens clearly hadn’t received the tragic news—that the previous Emperor of Vulcanis had been assassinated and that an Order Break had torn through Genesity.
The high-ranking officers in the city surely knew about the situation in the far south, but the common folk?
They had no way of knowing about a tragedy that had occurred tens of thousands of miles away.
Soren shook the thought from his mind and started walking north of the fortress.
Towering stone structures and reinforced steel bunkers stretched far into the dark sky, their peaks lost in the perpetual haze of smoke and ash.
He watched the festive faces dancing through the streets, the vendors hawking delicious-smelling food from their stalls, and he could only grimace.
All of this would change when news arrived that war with the Empire of the North—Exodus—was imminent.
These poor souls were living in the very city that served as the first line of defense against the northern empire’s onslaught.
Soren ducked into an alleyway, away from prying eyes, and unsheathed the Dream Sword.
He poured syntropy into it, willing it to reveal the location of the academy.
The blade turned foggy—a clear sign that the academy lay much farther north than he’d hoped.
Suppressing a groan, he sheathed the sword and set out to gather supplies.
If he was going to trek through the middle of nowhere, he’d need to be prepared.
He wandered through the central city, weaving from stall to stall, store to store, spending his meager coins on essentials.
After a few distrusting glances from merchants, he managed to buy camping gear, rations, and a change of clothes.
His current attire stank worse than a gutter rat, and he refused to travel any longer in it.
With his coins dwindling to practically nothing, he splurged on a shower.
It was a small luxury, but morale mattered.
Once he was clean and geared up, Soren slung the leather pack across his shoulder, adjusted his new red-lined black cloak, and reorganized his belongings until everything sat just right.
For the first time since the Order Break, he felt almost ready.
He made his way through the crowded market districts until the chaos began to thin.
The residential district was quieter—the festivities were concentrated near the city’s hub.
Here, the towering steel structures began to level off into shorter stone houses.
Soren grinned.
This was what he’d been waiting for.
He rolled his shoulders, stretched his legs, and crouched low, channeling syntropy into his lower body.
With a single explosive push, he launched himself upward, scaling the side of a several-story stone building.
His fingers found ledges and cracks, and within seconds, he reached the top.
From the rooftop, his heart quickened.
This was freedom—the open sky, the wind, the endless expanse of the city sprawling beneath him.
He closed his eyes and guided the syntropy to pool in his legs while keeping his entire body enhanced.
Power swelled through his muscles, thrumming with potential.
When he opened his eyes, the view stole his breath.
Stone houses stretched to the horizon, rivers of lava cut glowing veins through the city, and the intimidating, towering walls loomed far in the distance.
“Alright,” he muttered, a wild grin spreading across his face.
“Let’s see how fast I can cross this city.”
He launched himself across the rooftop, landing on the next with a roll and springing forward again.
The cool winds whipped against his face, and the sense of freedom washed over him like a tide.
He couldn’t fly—not yet—but this was close enough.
The wind in his hair, the city blurring beneath him, the weightlessness of each leap—it was intoxicating.
He raced across the city, rooftop after rooftop, covering in an hour what would have taken him all day through the maze-like streets below.
He felt the syntropy slowly drain from his body, consumed by his constant enhancement, but the necklace around his neck provided a steady trickle of extra energy that was just enough to keep him going.
That extra reserve allowed him to be less conservative, to experiment with pushing his output higher.
Within an hour or so, Soren finally reached the northern gate.
Standing at its base, he tilted his head back and stared up.
The wall was a monument to human ambition—thousands of feet of reinforced steel and stone, pulsing with glowing runes that hummed with ancient power.
It felt alive.
“Halt,” a voice, sharp and authoritative, cut through his wonder.
Soren turned.
A guard approached with a serious expression, hand resting on his weapon.
“What is your purpose here at the gate?”
Soren bit back the sarcastic reply that came to mind.
To leave, obviously.
“I was instructed by Commander Kay to come to the northern wall and explore the lands beyond,” he said, keeping his voice level.
The guard’s eyes widened.
He glanced at his partner, then spoke hurriedly into the communicator in his ear.
After a brief exchange, he nodded.
“You’re free to go.
We expected you a day or two later, but it seems you’re ahead of schedule.
Follow me.”
Soren fell into step behind him, but his mind churned.
A day or two?
That would have been a massive waste of time.
Any Awakened worth their salt should have made it here faster.
The guard led him to a human-sized entrance beside the colossal main gate—the kind built for creatures of truly enormous proportions.
They stepped inside, and Soren found himself in the belly of the wall itself.
It was semi-hollow, filled with enormous gears and intricate mechanisms that connected to the gate above.
It was a marvel of engineering, and Soren couldn’t help but stare.
The guard chuckled.
“Truly one of the wonders of the world, ain’t it?”
Soren nodded, then forced himself to settle his expression.
He couldn’t afford to be distracted.
The trials ahead demanded his full focus.
The guard’s smile faded as he noticed Soren’s shift in demeanor.
A somber mood settled between them.
I’m required to tell you this, though I’m sure you already know.
Outside these walls, there are only things that want to kill you.
Beasts that feast on human flesh.
Abyssal Creatures that slipped through detection.
Nothing out there is friendly.”
Soren listened intently, a wave of gratitude washing over him.
He hadn’t known.
He was a scavenger from Genesity—a boy raised in the safe confines of a walled city, where his only enemies were other scavengers and Undercity dwellers.
This guard’s warning might have just saved his life.
The guard reached the other end of the inner wall, unlocking a series of security runes and mechanisms.
The door groaned open.
Below him stretched an ocean of violently flowing lava—a natural moat designed to keep the horrors of the wasteland from scaling the walls.
Beyond that, barren land, scattered mountains, and smoking volcanoes.
“Good luck,” the guard said.
He fiddled with a set of runes, and a shining bridge of light materialized across the lava.
“This bridge will vanish the moment you cross it.”
Soren breathed in deeply, then nodded.
The situation felt painfully familiar—like crossing the invisible bridge Captain Valen had created in the Abyss.
He could only pray that an Abyssal Titan wouldn’t show up to ruin his day.
He stepped onto the ethereal bridge and began walking.
‘The bridge will definitely hold,’ he told himself, willing it into existence.
He refused to accept any other outcome.
After a couple of minutes, his boots landed on solid stone.
He turned to look back—and watched the bridge dissolve into specks of light.
‘Couldn’t even stay for a moment to make sure I didn’t have second thoughts.’
He looked up at the ashy sky.
The sun was peeking through the smoke, caught somewhere between morning and high noon.
Already, the heat was unbearable, The sun’s blaze and the magma-heated rocks bearing down on him.
He missed the cool breeze of the fortress city instantly.
But he’d anticipated this.
His new cloak was equipped with self-cooling runes, supposedly rechargeable with his own syntropy.
Well, he just hoped syntropy could stand in for entropy.
‘If it doesn’t, there goes my life savings.’
With a grim smile, he pulled out the Dream Sword.
The blade still showed fogginess—the academy remained far—but if he squinted hard enough, he could tell the haze was slightly less dense than before.
That was enough.
A glimmer of hope.
He sheathed the sword and marched forward into the barren world, keeping his syntropy usage minimal.
He didn’t know what horrors awaited him, but he’d be ready for them.