The Tyrant was still behind them, its towering figure moving slowly in the distance.
Rain reminded herself that they could not waste any time. And yet, she had no strength left to rise.
However, that was alright.
She had felt the same way the previous time she fell, and the time before that, and the time before that…
Letting out a quiet groan, Rain sat up, then slowly staggered to her feet. Walking over to where she had dropped the hunting knife, she picked it up and sheathed her blades. The crude sheath she had made for the enchanted dagger was coming undone, sliced by its sharp blade… but it would hold for a day or two, which was more than she could ask for.
Finally, she looked at Tamar.
“How… how are you doing?”
The young Legacy was laying down on the stretcher, breathing heavily. Her breathing did not sound good.
“…I’m alright. I heal fast. The bleeding is already stopping.”
Rain nodded.
Even if the bleeding did not stop, there was little she could do. All she could do was trust in Tamar’s incredible resilience.
Walking over to where the alloy harness lay in the mud, Rain glanced at the corpses of the three Nightmare Creatures. Usually, she would have harvested meat and soul shards from them, but the Tyrant was too close.
There was no time.
‘I just need to hold on until nightfall. Then… then, I can rest.’
She put the harness on and pulled the stretcher.
She just had to keep walking.
And keep her essence flowing.
Life had been complicated, but now, it was very simple. The scope of her existence was narrowed down to these two things.
She dragged Tamar away from the dead abominations.
They continued their gruesome journey.
As Rain walked, she could feel her soul changing subtly. There were countless radiant crystals at the heart of the whirlpool now, all being pressed together by the crushing pressure.
She could feel the pressure growing.
As it did, the rain was becoming more violent, as well. It slowly grew from a constant downpour to a pelting deluge, as if the sky was slowly splitting open.
The weather was strange. Tamar had mentioned once that it did not rain that often, or that much, in the southern reaches of the Moonriver Plain… her ancestral Citadel was somewhere nearby, so she would know.
It seemed that the world was either helping them or trying to kill them. Rain wasn’t sure which, and didn’t care to find out.
All she cared about was making it to nightfall alive.
And in the end, she did.
However, to her despair, the long-awaited reprieve did not come.
Usually, she was able to create some distance between them and the Tyrant by the time darkness fell. The abominable giant would lumber in the distance in the first half of the day, then slowly disappear beyond the horizon in the latter part. However, this time, she could still see its silhouette, following them from far away.
Perhaps she had grown so weak that she couldn’t maintain sufficient speed anymore, or perhaps the Tyrant was slowly adapting to being blind. It was even possible that its eyes were gradually regenerating… Awakened abominations possessed stunning vitality, after all, just like Awakened humans did.
What seemed impossible for a mundane person was nothing special to them.
In any case, the giant was too close.
Soon, darkness enveloped the world. The three moons and the sea of stars were hidden behind the clouds, so it was even more oppressive than before. The rain fell in a constant stream, reducing the visibility even further.
Rain lowered herself to the ground, kneeling in the mud.
“…Are we stopping?”
Tamar couldn’t hide the grim feeling of dread from her voice.
Rain slowly shook her head.
“We can’t stop. Not tonight.”
The Tyrant was too close, so they had to keep going.
She took a deep breath, feeling cold air cut her tortured lungs.
“Summon a luminous Memory.”
They had avoided using one before, afraid that light would attract uninvited guests, but there wasn’t much choice now.
Soon, a wave of stark light flowed from behind her, illuminating a narrow circle around them. The streams of water falling from the sky seemed to ignite with that light, glistening like precious gems.
It was pretty.
Rain sighed.
Then, she rose from the ground and continued walking.
South, south…
How far south had they gone, already?
When would they reach their goal?
It did not matter.
Rain continued to walk, arduously pulling the heavy stretcher behind her. She continued to spin her essence and listened to the tremors running through her soul.
She had reached a state of being beyond exhausted.
And yet… the worst part was that she couldn’t see the Tyrant anymore.
It could have been far away, or only a few hundred meters behind them. It could have even been reaching for them with its countless hands, already.
‘I need to keep going.’
And so she did.
Slowly, all thoughts disappeared from her head.
All that was left was the ringing of her soul, which was slowly growing louder and louder.
Rain did not notice that the pelting rain was becoming heavier and heavier, as well. A powerful wind rose, sending water flying almost parallel to the ground. Soon, a blinding flash illuminated the world, and a deafening thunderclap shook the heavens.
The rain was turning into a furious storm.
She smiled, feeling the streams of cold water wash the mud off her sunken face.
Her smile was a little scary.
Eventually, the lightning grew so frequent that there were almost no breaks between its flashes. The thunderclaps had fused into a continuous litany of deafening roars. If it had seemed as if the sky was splitting open before, then it was collapsing entirely now.
A vast and prodigious storm had descended upon the Moonriver Plain.
And yet, Rain wasn’t aware.
She could only think about walking forward, one step at a time.
But then…
She couldn’t walk forward anymore.
Not because her strength had abandoned her, but because there was nowhere for her to go.
Rain stopped, barely noticing that there was no ground in front of her.
There was no mud, no stone outcroppings.
Instead, she was standing in front of an abyssal drop.
She frowned.
‘Have I… have I lost direction and swayed toward the canyon?’
But that was not it.
Slowly, she grew cognizant of her surroundings.
The thundering storm, the blinding flashes of lightning, the impenetrable darkness… and a deep, reverberating hum that seemed to penetrate her very bones, resounding from somewhere below.
Rain looked into the abyss and staggered.
She might have fallen over the edge if not for the harness that attached her to Tamar’s stretcher.
The young Legacy called from behind, struggling to make her voice heard over the storm:
“Rani… Rani, is it…”
In front of them, the Moonriver Plain came to an end.
The great plateau ceased abruptly, creating a vast and head-spinning wall of stone that stretched from east to west, as far as the eye could see.
Countless canyons merged or opened into the vertical abyss, most of them expelling enormous jets of foaming water.
The streams of water merged and plummeted down, creating an unimaginable, endless waterfall.
It was as if the world was crying.
‘…The Weeping Goddess.’
They had reached the great waterfall that served as the boundary of the Moonriver Plain.
The Lake of Tears was somewhere far below. The city governed by Clan Sorrow was situated on its shore, and their Citadel was somewhere close, cut into the cliffs.
Rain’s eyes widened.
Not from joy, but from horror.
‘We’re… we’re dead.’
Turning around, she waited for lightning to illuminate the world and saw the dreadful shape of the Tyrant.
The abomination was not too far away.
There was no time to come up with a way to descend to the bottom of the towering cliffs. There was no time to explore the edge of the plateau, searching for the Citadel of Clan Sorrow.
The goal of their ghastly journey, which had been supposed to be their salvation, was nothing but a death sentence now.
Because the Tyrant was too close, pursuing them…
And they had nowhere else to run.
