An Age of Isolation

Xilian was born an optimist, perhaps even a little too carefree.

"Hello, everyone! Xilian Soflova here, White Cliff Town's rising star!"

Xilian pressed the muzzle of his gun against the Demons' heads. "No need to rush. There's a signed bullet for everyone!"

The gunshot cracked, spraying foul-smelling blood.

Xilian emptied his gun. The Demons, crazed with bloodlust, gave him no chance to reload.

The campfire blazed, but little Soul Marrow remained in it. Its pure white flames were almost gone.

The Demons pressed forward despite the fire. Their claws flailed like branches in a gale, leaving bloody gashes across Xilian's body.

Deep breath.

Xilian clenched his jaw so hard he could hear his molars grind together.

Raise the sword. Take the head!

The instant his blade split the first Demon's body, a rotten stench burst from the wound.

It wasn't blood. Black sludge thick with flecks of rust splashed across his face like scalding tar. Xilian ran his tongue over the corner of his mouth, and the sweet metallic taste sent the pressure in his skull screaming.

"Anyone care for a tango?"

Xilian roared and kicked over the pile of stones beside the campfire. Soul Marrow that had yet to burn out scattered with the flames, raining down on the Demons like meteors and burning blackened holes into their bodies.

Seizing that brief respite, Xilian snatched a blazing brand from the campfire and poured a little Soul Marrow into its flames. Pure white fire surged upward once more, illuminating the darkness around him.

A Demon lunged. Xilian held his sword across his body to block its sharp claws, then swung his other hand and drove the brand deep into its mouth.

A shriek mingled with a harsh sizzling sound. Flames swiftly consumed the Demon's throat, and warm ashes drifted through the air.

Seizing his chance, Xilian thrust his blade through the Demon's chest. It toppled backward helplessly and landed hard in the campfire.

The flames leaped up, swallowed the Demon's body whole, and turned it into a wildly thrashing ball of fire.

Sword in his right hand and burning brand in his left, Xilian backed into the corner of a ruined wall.

Under the light of the burning Soul Marrow, the Demons' bloodlust waned. Like beasts afraid of fire, they slowly retreated, though their scarlet eyes stayed fixed on Xilian.

Xilian kept his guard up and edged sideways to another position.

There was little Soul Marrow burning in the brand. It would not last long, and its light was weak.

The campfire had carved out a safe patch around Xilian. This brand could do no more than keep the spreading Grey Fog from swallowing him.

Even in despair, Xilian somehow found himself laughing.

"I'm going to survive this."

It was an ugly smile.

The Demon was not the true danger in the night.

The so-called Demon were merely byproducts of that forbidden power, the slag left behind after smelting metal.

What truly turned the night into hell on earth was the Grey Fog that lay everywhere.

Xilian had no idea where the Grey Fog came from. He knew only that whenever night fell, it descended without warning, veiling the sky and swallowing the land. Within it lurked a power called Chaos.

A sword could kill Demon, but it could not cut through the Grey Fog, much less dispel Chaos.

Only the light of burning Soul Marrow could drive the Grey Fog away and shield humans from the corrupting touch of Chaos.

Even if Xilian killed every Demon in a bloody battle, he would die in agony from the Grey Fog's corruption by Chaos the moment his Soul Marrow burned out.

During his nights patrolling with Nuen, Xilian had seen townspeople who had accidentally been corrupted by Chaos.

Their skin had turned pale and their veins a sickly blue, as though an invisible force were tormenting their flesh, twisting healthy limbs into crooked, misshapen forms.

At first, the corrupted townspeople could retain some reason. Gradually, though, they grew bloodthirsty and deranged until they were no different from Demon.

The fire must not go out.

Xilian turned and climbed the ruins. Ignoring the pain in his body, he hauled himself higher.

The firelight flickered. The Demon followed close behind.

Xilian gripped the burning brand between his teeth and swiftly reloaded.

He held his fire, waiting until a Demon came so close he had nowhere left to retreat before blowing its head apart with one shot.

Xilian reached the top of the ruins. It was a good place to make a stand. From that height, he could easily drive his sword through the Demon skulls.

Swing the sword. Again and again.

Fatigue and pain coiled around Xilian's nerves, tightening little by little like a noose.

He kept the brand raised until his arm ached and went numb, until he could no longer feel it at all.

A cool night breeze brushed Xilian's cheek, briefly drawing him out of his taut concentration.

Gazing into the endless night, Xilian made out a few faint points of light.

Each point of light was a Torchlight Lighthouse, and each Torchlight Lighthouse sheltered a city-state.

"Since the Noonday Calamity, the nights have been filled with the Grey Fog of Chaos. It has torn the Civilized World apart, isolating each city-state from the next and leaving us like solitary pieces of firewood, burning as we await destruction."

Xilian had seen those words in books countless times. They read like the opening of an age, a warning printed on its first page.

In an age when the apocalypse had yet to end, Grey Fog had severed contact between city-states. The ordered world had collapsed into scattered islands.

White Cliff Town had last had contact with the outside world more than twenty years ago.

Xilian did not want to spend his life in small, impoverished White Cliff Town. He often gazed at the night sky, imagining the grand, bustling cities behind those points of light on the horizon.

But now he was going to die here.

No!

Focus returned to his fading eyes. As if enraged by this dark world, Xilian glared into it, his chest full of fire.

"I'm not dying in a little place like this!"

Xilian growled and fired his last bullet. It tore through a demon's throat and shattered its spine. Its misshapen head lolled as the rest of its body tumbled into the darkness.

As if rewarding Xilian for holding on, a faint ray of light touched his face.

Xilian turned. A dim blue glow was rising at the edge of the horizon.

Dawn was near.

Without realizing it, Xilian had fought through the entire night. If he could hold out until sunrise, this nightmare would end.

Joy surged through him. Then a sharp pain cut it short.

"Damn it..."

Xilian looked down. A long, thin spike had pierced his abdomen. At its base was a blood-soaked tail that stretched into the darkness below, vanishing behind one of the demons.

The spike ripped free in a spray of blood. The tearing pain nearly sent Xilian into spasms.

Before he could fight back, the force of the tail flung him into the air.

As the world spun, Xilian tried to watch his life flash before his eyes. All he saw were spots of white brought on by the pain.

Xilian slammed into the ground. A sweet, bloody taste rose in his throat. He suspected he had broken several bones and was bleeding badly inside.

"Cough, cough..."

After vomiting up mouthfuls of dark blood, Xilian groped across the dry sand and found his sword again.

The familiar feel of its hilt against his palm brought him a strange flicker of relief. But when he struggled to his feet, he realized the burning brand had vanished into the night, along with his jar of Soul Marrow.

"Xilian..."

"Bone and blood, flesh and soul..."

Eerie voices whispered in Xilian's ears.

He saw the townspeople walking toward him. His teacher Nuen led them, followed by his brothers Tim and Mick, and Ava, the most beautiful girl in town.

They had all come to welcome him.

Even Nuen, who was always so cold, wore a smile as he held out his hand to Xilian.

Xilian's gaze grew hazy. His body temperature plunged, his fingertips turned white, and fine grains of ice formed beneath his nails.

Damn it! Damn it!

Xilian cursed silently.

A sliver of awareness remained. He knew everything he saw was an illusion, yet his body would not move. It was as though the cold had frozen him where he stood.

The will to survive and a sense of despair tangled together inside Xilian.

Corruption by Chaos did not mean that a few seconds of exposure could pass without consequence. The instant it touched you, your fate was sealed.

Xilian still remembered the carpenter Nuen had executed. The man had claimed he had only brushed against the Grey Fog by accident. He had even stripped naked to show that nothing about him had changed.

Nuen had insisted on cutting off the carpenter's head anyway. Inside the severed throat, Xilian had clearly seen ring upon ring of wisdom teeth, like overlapping blades in a meat grinder.

"Hah..."

Xilian breathed out a gust of cold air.

The blood coursing through his veins was freezing into tiny crystals. Every pulse brought a sharp, needlelike stab of pain.

Frost clouded his pupils. His dying heartbeat echoed in his ears, each beat duller and heavier than the last, like a bronze pendulum striking a corroded bell.

Before he had seen the wider world, Xilian was going to die in this cruel Wilderness night.

Just as the last trace of warmth was about to leave Xilian's fingertips, a searing pain like fire erupted in his left palm.

A force fiercer than magma poured into Xilian's veins along the lines of his palm. Molten-gold patterns surfaced on his skin.

Xilian saw it.

A tattoo of serpents devouring each other's tails emerged. Their scales shifted and interlocked, weaving an ancient halo beneath his skin. Every inch of the newly formed design hissed like hot iron plunged into water.

Then Xilian heard the surf. It came not through his ears, but from deep within his soul.

A vast, surging, restless Sea.

In an instant, the frost covering his body shattered into powder.

Xilian staggered to his feet. The arc of his sword split the stagnant air. As its edge cut into "Nuen's" distorted face, the first ray of dawn pierced the horizon.

Warm sunlight spilled across the world.

A burning Demon burst through the ashes, its claws slashing toward Xilian's throat. He had no strength left to fight back.

Death was upon him, but hurried footsteps came from the dawn light.

A sword cleaved through the demon's ravaged body, stopping its claws above Xilian's head. Ashes danced in the beam of light like a thousand transparent moths rushing toward a flame.

Behind the dispersing ashes, a familiar figure stood with his sword raised, silhouetted against the light.

Xilian looked at him and murmured.

"Nuen... Teacher?"

Then Xilian collapsed into the warm sunlight.