Hope you like the chapter! I think this one might need another edit but that may be the tiredness talking. Felt a little rushed at points so I may be back to do some work on it tomorrow.
“What kind of something else are you thinking?” Bud asked.
Hump didn’t answer immediately. He stood beneath the beacon, eyes fixed on Loften’s runes layered over the original spell formation, his thoughts turning over and over. something wasn’t adding up.
“I don’t know,” Hump said. “There’s a missing piece of the puzzle—something obvious that we’re not quite seeing. What could Loften have used this essence for that is still active after so long?”
“Maybe it’s something to do with knowing he would be imprisoned,” Emilia said. “Or how he closed the Path to Heaven in the first place.”
“Would it still be active now if that was the case?” Dylan asked. “Don’t think so.”
Hump retraced everything. The abandoned fortress. The bodies left where they had fallen. The defences that were drained by not destroyed. The murals of unfamiliar gods, yet no sign of the Pantheon. And then there was Loften, cannibalising these ancient formations for his own work.
Hump pressed both hands against his forehead, thinking. “The warlocks—they keep talking about freeing the Old Gods. Not just Uvdar, but all of them. Maybe they mean more than his army. What if there were gods before the Pantheon? Gods that the Pantheon overthrew. Gods that built the fortress we now stand in.”
“If that’s true,” Dylan said, “Why would the Path to Heaven lead here?”
“The Path to Heaven might have nothing to do with the Pantheon at all,” Hump said. “It may refer to this place—the palace that once housed these old gods. Only now it is in ruin. We’ve always assumed that it refers to the Heaven of the Pantheon. What if we were wrong?”
“What of it?” Celaine asked. “How does this explain the changes Loften made to these spells?”
Hump shrugged. “The most obvious answer is that he either wanted to save time or resources. By using the existing fortress, he had a power source and channels already in place. For an enchanter of his skill, repurposing them for his own goal may be easier than creating it himself.”
“It would make sense,” Emilia said. “When one power conquers another, they don’t always destroy what was there. They take it. Repurpose it. Why build something new when this already exists? We’ve seen this in our own history. The Nileshi are famous for having twenty three kings in only one hundred years, yet their palace has never changed.”
“Or it was beyond him,” Dylan said. “It’s possible Loften lacks the skills of the old gods. Either way, we’re still no closer to its purpose. What could Loften want?”
“Where are the gods?” Bud asked suddenly.
The others looked at him. The knight’s face was dark.
“We’ve been looking,” Celaine said with a small shrug. “There’s nothing here. What’s your point?”
“This is supposed to be the end of the Path to Heaven, so where are they? The old gods and the Pantheon are nowhere to be found. What if Loften used the fortress to imprison them?”
The moment Bud said it, the answer came to Hump.
“A pocket dimension,” he said.
It seemed so obvious and so right. His gaze went to the beacon—an artifact designed to keep the space of the fragment closed, preventing unwanted rifts and invasion.
“If there is any artifact that could be repurposed to create a pocket dimension, it would be this one. Not only that but the fortress fuel source provides a continuous source of essence. One that hasn’t failed even after a millennium without maintenance. Where better to seal away the old gods?”
Hump approached the runes of Loften once more, searching for some sort of activation point. anything that he could lock on to and try to manipulate. His spellbook didn’t react. Whether that was a struggle with the formation of the old gods, or the complexity in general. For now, he was on his own.
It took some time, but he located a location where Loften’s runes converged into a central point. He placed the butt of his staff against it, poured essence into the ancient runes, and the spell answered him. It was even larger than it appeared on the surface, spanning more than just the tower. He could sense runes all around them—the entire fortress part of this great formation.
And the ease of which he accessed it told Hump something—Loften must have prepared him for this. Just as the staff had allowed him to control the Gateway Network, it worked now on Loften’s runes. Without it, he would have needed to force his way into the god’s workings, but with it, they gave way to his will.
“I can activate it,” Hump told the others. “If we’re right, it should grant us access to whatever is beyond this fragment.”
“We have warlocks arriving, Karlac and his demons, and a third unexplained rift,” Emilia said. “I think we try it.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“How long will it take?” Celaine asked.
“Impossible to say,” Hump said. “I’ve never done this before. I haven’t figured it out entirely yet.”
“Then we’ll buy you what time we can,” Celaine said.
“We should scout out the Tree of Damnation and other rift in person and see if there’s anything we can see,” Bud said. “Celaine and Emilia, do you want to handle that? Dylan and I can keep Hump safe.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Hump said. “Just be back before the demon rift is open. And take Nisha with you. If anything happens, she can let me know.”
He turned to the dragon. “You go with Celaine, girl. Be safe.”
She nudged him but didn’t protest, which made Hump smile. They were both beginning to better understand her role in the party now.
***
The sky was a deep red when Hump finally figured out what he’d been missing. The demon rift was wider now. Cracks spread around it like fractures in glass, bleeding demonic light into the world. The beacon had grown fainter, straining to maintain whatever defence remained.
Celaine, Emilia, and Nisha had long since returned. They’d confirmed the Tree of Damnation, but at least for now it was progressing more slowly than Karlac and his demons.
Hump focused on the formation beneath his hand, fixed on Loften’s runes. the others gathered around him, forming a loose perimeter, ready for the fight when it came but relaxed for now. They all knew what was coming.
Above them, the first demons soon forced their way through the rift. They came in shapes that defied reason—twisted, armoured masses that floated through the sky. Others crawled across the cracks in the fragment as if they were part of a physical boundary. And soon came the weapons—constructs of war made from jagged masses of metal, bone, and flesh, pulsing with red essence. Living siege weapons.
They struck the barrier around the fortress, and the fortress groaned beneath the strain. Each impact shook the very foundations. The air trembled. The beacon flared in response, holding for now, but Hump could sense that wouldn’t last.
“Cracks already,” Bud said quietly.
Hump didn’t respond. He could feel the formation resisting him, not in defiance, but in complexity. This wasn’t a spell meant to be cast. It was a lock with the key in it. He only needed to turn it.
He adjusted his intent, aligning himself with the flow of the formation instead of fighting it, searching for that key. Searching for anything that responded to his desire to open.
The moment he found it, something shifted. The runes responded. Light surged through them.
“They’re through!” Bud said. “We have minutes.”
“I see Karlac in the sky,” Celaine said. “He hasn’t moved yet.”
A section of it shattered under the assault, and a wave of demonic essence poured through. The first of the creatures descended, descending toward the fortress like falling stars.
Celaine took aim at the targets veering closest to them, felling them as they flew. Nishari wanted to take off, but Hump urged her to stay. This time she listened.
Finally, the spell formation yielded. The appropriate runes responded, and a flood of essence left him. Something activated. Reality bent, not like a right tearing open space, but rather folding in on itself until a shimmering window was before them, suspended beyond the tower’s edge, floating in the air. It shimmered like a reflection in disturbed water, only beyond Hump saw a large antechamber.
“It’s open,” Hump said.
The final step.
The end of the Path to Heaven, and the entrance to Heaven itself.
“Move!” Bud barked.
They didn’t hesitate. One by one, they poured through the doorway.
Hump expected the warm touch of divinity. Instead, he was hit with the sensation of decay that reminded him of the Remnant Realm. Essence was empty here. Lacking in intent. Dead.
The structures still stood, tall and untouched by time all around them. White buildings of immaculate stone, towering overhead. The finest walls and manors, with smooth stone pillars and grand staircases. But the feeling of it all was wrong. worse even than the Remnant Realm. Drained, as though something had stripped the life and intent from it, leaving only the hollow shell behind.
White stone stretched out before them in sweeping architecture—pillars, terraces, grand structures that should have gleamed with brilliance. Instead, the colour was dulled, washed out into greys and lifeless tones. Hump turned slowly, taking it in.
Above them, colossal statues rose into the pale sky. The Twelve—each one towering high overhead, their expressions stern as they gazed down at any that entered this place. A large road stretched between them, paved in stone tiles. It led inward. This was no city or fortress, but a santum.
The structures that stood here were few, but each was immense—cathedral-like halls of white stone, their pillars rising like spears toward the dark, empty sky overhead, their stairways broad.
Toward the centre, atop the gentle slope, a palace of white stone looked over them. A wide building with many columns along the front, and a great dome over its central building. It all seemed so large, built not for humans, but for beings much larger. Certainly looked the part of a palace for gods in Hump’s mind, but they hadn’t found any yet. Time would decide that.
One thing he had no doubt was that this was where the Path to Heaven was meant to bring them. This was it, only it was far from what Hump expected from this so called Heaven.
Beside him, Bud stumbled forward, looking around in awe and shock.
“This is no heaven,” Bud said quietly, his voice heavy. “What kind of hell have we found? What is this?”
Hump didn’t answer. He had already turned back to the still open doorway. Through it, the red sky burned, demons pouring through the broken barrier. He stepped forward and pressed his will against it.
Closing it was harder. The space resisted, pulled open by the weight of what lay beyond. Hump gritted his teeth and forced his intent through the formation, withdrawing what he had granted. Slowly, the doorway folded in on itself. The red light dimmed. Until, with a final pulse, it sealed shut.
Silence returned. There was no way back now. Only forward.
“Well, we’re about to find out,” Hump said. “We’ve come this far. Finally, it’s time for answers.
“I’m afraid there’s one last thing first.” The voice cut through the silence like a blade. Sinister in a way that drained all the warmth from Hump.
He froze. A pressure settled over the space. The air itself seemed to grow heavy, as though something vast had stepped into the world and they were in its way. Hump’s gaze lifted. Karlac hung in the air ahead of them. How he’d gotten in, Hump had no idea. Yet here the devil was.
His wings stretched behind him like shadows given form, unmoving. The ruined eye still marred his face, but the other gleamed with a blood red light. He regarded them as one might observe something already claimed, a victorious smirk on his lips.
Then his gaze settled on Hump. “Hello again, Bearer of Infinity.”