Gale’s knees buckled. He collapsed onto the elevator floor, phone still in his clutched hand. He felt Dani disappear from his head as she unsummoned herself. From his connection with Dani, he also felt her fear.

The sword wasn’t the problem. It was the thing beside it that made this whole shit impossible. The image of that thing burned into his retinas. Indescribable, otherworldly. An actual nightmare demon.

“There’s something up there,” Gale said into the phone. “Something next to the sword.”

“What do you see?” Erin asked in her same monotonous voice.

Gale’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. “I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s like-like a goat, also a lion and a lizard or a dragon. I don’t know. All at once? Maybe? And the eyes. A crown of eyes, watching everything. What the fuck is that?!”

“What frightens you most, Gale?” Erin suddenly asked.

“What?” he blurted out. “There’s a nightmare demon up there, and you’re asking me this now?”

“Answer the question.”

Gale choked on his words before answering, “I don’t know. Dying against that fucking thing?”

“Your words are not true to yourself,” Erin said. “Those are not your true fears. You fear inadequacy. The inability to rise to what life demands of you.”

Gale flinched.

“You fear the doubt that lives inside your mind,” Erin said. “That you will fail when others need you most. That your parents knew this truth when they left you.”

“I’ve gone over that. I fear something else. And it’s that thing over there.”

“Your fear reveals itself in your hesitation. In your questions. In your need for constant proof before action.”

Gale tried his best to steady his shaking shoulders. “Of course I want proof. Going in blind gets people killed.”

“And yet you stand at the threshold of a challenge that demands courage without certainty,” Erin said. “Fear and courage are not opposites, Gale. They are the same force viewed from different angles.”

“Courage without thinking is just stupidity,” Gale said.

“Is it? When the woman of fire put herself to protect you from the guardian’s armament, did she stop to calculate the odds of her survival? Did she demand proof of success before acting?”

No.

All he did was call her name, and she jumped in immediately to save him. It even almost cost her life. Without Vianne’s store, she wouldn’t have lived. She put herself on the line without asking for anything in return.

“You should understand what truly frightens you,” Erin said.

“And what frightens me?” Gale asked.

“The future of having no one to stand by your side,” Erin said.

Gale couldn’t respond. He really couldn’t. What he feared the most was his wish coming true from that night in the orphanage. Always that goddamned night that changed everything.

“The sector’s name is Courage, yes? The sword itself named this very sector,” Erin said.

“So what?”

“What you fear cannot harm you unless you feed it,” Erin said. “Stand up.”

His body reacted to the command, but his legs wouldn’t listen when he tried to pick himself up. His legs buckled once more as he clenched his fingers on the cold metal floor.

“The true nature of courage is not the absence of fear,” Erin said. “It is action despite fear. Your ancestors knew this when they faced extinction. They knew the odds. They lacked certainty. Yet they fought.”

“And lost,” Gale said.

“Not all battles end in victory. Yet cowardice guarantees defeat.”

“Am I just destined to die then?” Gale steadied his breathing, calming down. It was a dumb question.

“Tell me, child. Do you fear your death or the death of your loved ones?” Erin asked. “The tide does not differentiate between those you love and those you do not.”

Ever since they entered this rift, it was always him who did his best to protect the others. Even Rachel encouraged him to be the vanguard. Would their situation really change if he got that weapon? It could. Maybe. Give them a bigger chance at survival.

Gale imagined his friends being ripped apart by the flesh warriors and the monstrosities of the Proctor. Clenching his fist, he couldn’t let that happen.

He picked himself up, his legs still shaking wildly. Stop fucking shaking. He sucked in air, closing his eyes. Steady. Calm the nerves. Fear is but a mental illusion created by what is unknown.

“There is no need for proof for the sun to rise tomorrow. The constant of gravity will hold you to the surface of the planet. Truths need no evidence as they are woven into the fabric of reality.” Erin sighed through the phone. “Your fear seeks to only delay the inevitable.”

Erin was right. Fear is just a concept of not understanding that truths need no proof. He didn’t need proof to succeed or to jump into the face of danger. He’d goddamn jump in to do everything he could to protect.

“Child of Cev,” Erin’s voice crackled through the phone, her voice was low, speaking as seriously as she could. “You have powers beyond mortal ken. Do not waste them searching for proof of greatness.”

Greatness requires no proof. Gale grinned. His legs still shook, but he pushed through. Lifting his right leg up, he took the first forward step out of the elevator.

The second step came easier, but this time, he almost slipped on the flesh creep surface as it exploded with blood and white pus-like fluids. Its putrid smell, which he had became used to, couldn’t distract his eyes from staring at the top of the tower.

Right foot, another step. Left, another. He had to manually control his own legs to move. Just keep moving. It didn’t matter if he was scared. What mattered was that he kept goddamned moving.

Looking down at where he was walking, bodies littered the road to the tower, somehow seemingly making a straight path to it. They were all bodies that had the semblance of humans. Most were wrong. Indescribable.

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Multiple bodies wore priest-like flowing robes. None of them had any flesh in the skull. Ocular instruments were embedded in their eyes. Wires connected to them, originating from the back of the skull.

Some were faceless. Their bodies showed evidence of being mauled and sliced up by a sword. Their chest cavities were fully open. No organs left inside them, though.

And then there were the mounds of flesh away from the path that made up small hills as he walked by. Funnily enough, the smell of rotting flesh couldn’t distract his shaking legs.

What were those mounds? It was as if someone had ground meat and bones together and just left them to rot outside. To make numerous mounds like this, it would’ve taken thousands of bodies.

Gale kept walking. Breath of the Void’s tendrils stretched out throughout the sector, avoiding the top of the tower. No living things, no movement. It was just him.

Alone.

What was he truly so afraid of? It’s not death. He lied to Erin. His true fears were not being able to talk and see them again.

Hiding the truth from his friends? That was a lie too. He just didn’t know what they would think of him if they let himself get closer. After he got back on Earth, he deluded himself, thinking that he had made progress.

The result? Gale kept them all at arm’s length. He never truly expressed himself. Maybe one time with Mia. And that was too hard.

What about the people in this rift with him? They faced flesh warriors and abominations together. Fought back to back against the virtually late Resonant Guardians.

Vianne, how do I even balance telling them what I am and what I can do when it’s all a part of me?

Of course, she can’t answer. She’s gone too. She was just a fragment of her living self, essentially just a memory.

Gale’s legs stopped shaking. The cadence of his legs stabilized. He passed by the road of dead flesh. If this is what that monster can do, would anyone even accept him if he truly became a nightmare demon?

Opening up to others. It sounded ridiculous from the perspective of the outside. Rachel somehow opened up to him effortlessly, although she had her own secrets. Could he… accept that?

He didn’t need to know all her secrets to be happy beside her. Her secrets weren’t what made her who she was, the heart of the group, the warmth that he craved.

That’s right. Maybe he could easily tell some secrets, bit by bit, the smaller ones. The secrets themselves are not what defines him as a person. They would accept him as he is, who he is, no matter if he kept some stuff behind him.

They followed his lead in Harmony’s defense hall. That counted for something. For once, he took a lead even though to him it sounded like a cruel joke.

They trusted him with their lives. Heck, if there were things they could do that he couldn’t, of course, he would trust them with his life too.

It didn’t matter if Ollie wasn’t in the right mind to lead. That wasn’t the reason why he should take the lead. Being special was also not the reason why he should take the lead.

Gale looked up at the tower once again. Walking and being in his head the whole time, the tower had now grown to become larger than life in front of him. Massive veins twisted up from the ground, feeding the flesh that fought at something at the threshold.

One thing was for sure. Mom and dad gave him all the tools he needed. Not just to survive on his own alone. He had to lead them to make the right choice. Dad would punish him whenever he made a mistake in leading the family through a thick, dangerous part of the forest.

Is the reason he should take the lead due to the chasm created by Erin?

No.

Survive.

That was the one thing no one can beat me at. And fuck if I couldn’t protect everyone, then don’t call me a Dainv.

Gale found himself in front of the tower. Massive flesh writhed in front of him. The entrance to the tower could not be seen. No stairs or anything that resembled something to climb on.

When did that ever stop him?

Even the smoothest tree could be climbed, and this tree wasn’t smooth. It was disgusting corruption that needed to be culled.

His hands reached out to the nearest handhold of the flesh. As expected, it had a heartbeat. It didn’t matter. Disgust is temporary. His friends dying was permanent.

Gale began to climb. Handhold by handhold, he climbed faster and faster. Some days, he’d even beat mom and dad at the race on who could climb the fastest. They’d say it wasn’t fair since he was so light.

Life wasn’t fair though. He allowed himself a grin as he clawed at the flesh again, pulling himself up.

Halfway up the tower, the flesh beneath Gale’s right hand pulsed and writhed violently. Above him, a mass of flesh unfurled, pink and dripping with viscous mucus. It looked like a tongue, and it whipped itself in his direction.

Gale flattened himself, forcing his whole body into the flesh creep. Some of the shit got into his nose, but it was that or getting whipped away by the massive tongue.

Air passed by him. Looking back at the tongue still mid swing, a flash of black, deeper than the emptiness of space, cut through the entire section. The tongue disappeared, replaced by bits of grounded flesh that fell, adding to the mountains of flesh below.

Hands moved once again as Gale kept climbing.

After a couple more minutes climbing, the flesh creep had met a threshold. The flesh stopped abruptly, as if sliced by a giant knife. Above was only the black surface of the tower itself.

Gale pulled himself up to the edge. His fingers brushed against a barrier that felt like pushing through fog with the consistency of water. Cold and damp, but not wet. It clung to his skin as he pushed through, like wading through fog thickened into a semi-solid form.

Launching himself upwards, his hands and feet met with the cold metal of the tower. The air tasted different here. Clean, almost like forcefully sterilized. The smell of rot no longer permeated through his nose.

In front of him was the tower’s sleek black metal. Grooves and etchings formed on the surface. Billions of lines, patterns, and geometric shapes flowed across the surface similar to when he let Breath of the Void in, yet also different. Some patterns also held the ones he’d seen from the Harmony and Solace sector.

For a moment, Gale hesitated to go up. Wood and metal were inherently different. Looking up more, flowing organic lines formed handholds for him to use.

From where he was, it was about 10 metres give or take. Gale launched himself once again, apexing just enough for his hand to catch on to the handholds. He continued his climb, no longer thinking about the what ifs of whether he would die.

What mattered was to continue moving forward, and it was now only a little further.

Only a little further.

One more vault. His right hand reached the edge of the top of the tower. In one smooth motion, he swung himself onto the floor’s surface and stood up shakily against the guardian of the sword.

The four prongs surrounded him, rising like massive fingers toward the swirling darkness above, creating an arena atop the tower.

And there it was. The thing with the crown of eyes.

Close up, it made even less sense. Three creatures occupied the same space. Its lungs in the back and front moved at different varying intervals rather than one rhythm. All the eyes of its crown fixated on him.

Legs shook. Heart hammered, but he forced himself to stay standing.

I will not fall.

Analyze.

[Arad the Dreaded One]

[Stage: Transcendent ➔ Resonant]

[The Void’s breath forces those with only a trace to lower their heads.]

[Essence: 657,913/ 2,421,873]

[Classified as Rogue subject. Capture into Manifest is available]

[Description: A chimera born of perversion in the deepest depths of the Void. He was captured by Master Lucid as a pet, enslaved to servitude for billions of years. Yet he did not rebel. He revelled in his goal and purpose to keep invaders at bay.]

The chimera shifted, lowering its supposed head to be eye level with him. Its head slightly bowed as if to welcome him. When it spoke, its voice rumbled from multiple mouths at once, echoing inside Gale’s skull.

“Welcome, child of the Dainvs. I am Arad, a being that dwells in the deep crevices of the in-between, the void, or whatever your kind calls it. A chimera from the spawn of Yerdu, given the title of the Dreaded One by Master Lucid himself. May I know who it is I am meeting today?”

Gale cleared his throat and spoke with a dry mouth. “I-I’m Gale Hathie. My mom and dad are Faeren and Reyler Hathie.”

The chimera waited. Its multiple eyes blinked at different independent intervals. Somehow, it seemed to have sighed when Gale said nothing more and tilted its multiple heads.

“It’s fine if you do not know the proper etiquette. Strange times make for strange meetings,” Arad said. “Tell me, why does the last Dainv of Cev smell of fear? I can taste it in the air around you.”

Gale took a step forward, forcing his feet to move and straightening his shoulders. “Without fear, there is no courage.”

Arad made a sound. A laugh? Maybe.

“Courage can exist without fear. It’s very interesting, you see. I was once a lowly subject of Master Lucid, now reduced to being the guardian of Cev’s sword,” Arad said as its eyes focused on different places once again. “Yet here you stand, trembling before me when you should stand tall, looking down upon me.”

He opened his mouth, then gulped, not knowing what to say. He’d only begun to learn what courage truly meant. Here he was now on his own volition and out of his depth. Still, he’d jump at danger for the sake of them.

Proof no longer mattered.

“There is no time to learn, young child.” Arad’s voice shook the whole tower. “Do you wish to be accepted by the sword? Even if you are the last child of Cev, you must overcome the challenge.”

“I’m taking it,” Gale said, taking another step forward.

All of its eyes fixed on Gale at once. “Oh child of Cev, accept this challenge and Erebus is yours for the taking. NOW FIGHT ME!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep