“I’ll go first. Follow after thirty seconds,” Elijah ordered, glancing back at the others. They were both obviously exhausted, with glazed eyes and slack expressions. Their shoulders slumped, and their clothes bore the evidence of their many battles. Even Hu Shui’s normally pristine outfit had been stained with blue, red, and black.

  Elijah was very aware that, outwardly, he wasn’t any better off. The only difference was that he also knew that he could keep going for much, much longer. He’d done it before, and he expected that he would one day need to do it again. Compared to what he’d been through in the Broken Crown, the situation in the Labyrinth of Dead Gods was no more difficult to endure than a tower.

  He wasn’t sure if that was due to his advanced progression or if the dragon-focused Primal Realm had just been that overwhelming. Probably a bit of both. But the point was that Elijah hadn’t even come close to the end of his rope.

  The other two didn’t have the advantage of having been through something even similar, much less worse.

  Hu Shui nodded, and Benedict said, “We’ll be right behind you.”

  Taking a deep breath, Elijah turned back toward the pillar of rainbow light. Now that he’d drawn close enough, he could feel the varying attunements of ethera that comprised the whole. Some of them mixed, but many simply wove their way around the others in a complex tapestry that he could never hope to understand.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on, though. Each of the hundreds of columns outside represented a different attunement, and they funneled that particular flavor of ethera into the dome. In turn, the ritual circle – or array, perhaps – forced them into a pattern that created the Godroad.

  It wasn’t just space magic. It was so much more, but Elijah was a long way from understanding how it all fit together. Figuring out as much as he had was only possible because of his past experiences combined with his acute senses.

  He climbed the steps to the square platform, and with each one, he felt the blistering energy more keenly. It wasn’t nearly enough to singe his durable body, but his clothes very nearly caught fire. If he’d been alone, he might have disrobed in an effort to preserve his attire.

  But he didn’t think it would be appropriate to strip down in front of the others.

  Thankfully, there were only five steps, so it only took a second or two to reach the low summit. Then, without further ado, he stepped into the column.

  Immediately, a scream of agony ripped free of his throat, and he felt himself being unmade. It only lasted an instant before he fell upon a cold floor, entirely unharmed. With echoes of the pain still rippling through him, he took a moment to take in his surroundings, and he quickly discerned that there were no threats.

  With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet. Running his hand through his hair came with a static shock, and he couldn’t ignore the steam wafting up from his shoulders. In the thirty seconds it took for Hu Shui to arrive, Elijah studied their new surroundings, and his initial impression proved accurate.

  The chamber was exactly the same size and shape as the domed building from which they’d come, though it was made almost entirely of gold trimmed in silver. The walls glowed with formless illumination. The only thing missing was the column of rainbow light.

  Benedict arrived after another thirty seconds, looking just as harried as he had only a minute before. His hair also stood straight up, as if he’d just stuck a fork in a wall socket. Elijah would have laughed at the absurdity of it if he wasn’t certain that Benedict would have taken it entirely wrong.

  If anyone was incapable of laughing at himself, it was Benedict.

  The man hastily smoothed his hair as the trio inspected their surroundings. It was much as Elijah’s first impressions suggested, though there was a gate on the other side of the round chamber.

  Once they were absolutely certain they weren’t in danger, Elijah turned his attention to the new notification he’d received upon arrival:

  “The Aureum,” Elijah said. “Any ideas what that means?”

  “I don’t know,” Benedict said.

  Hu Shui answered, “I believe it is tied to the fall of the djinn.”

  When Elijah asked how he knew that, Hu Shui explained that, in preparation for entry into the Primal Realm, he’d engaged in as much research as he could. And given that his organization had raised a couple of Librarians and Archivists, that meant that his research was much more focused than someone like Elijah could manage.

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  “Do you think I could borrow one of those Librarians when we get back?” Elijah asked. “I’ve had difficulty finding information that can help me.”

  That much was true. Ironshore had begun to raise a few Librarians to serve the city, but they were low leveled, and their abilities were too weak to dive very deep into the Branch’s Knowledge Base. They were great for surface-level stuff, but Elijah wasn’t interested in that kind of thing.

  “Of course. For a price, obviously. They are busy people, and pulling them away from their responsibilities should be compensated.”

  Elijah shrugged. “That’s fair.”

  “Some of mine have the ability to reduce the cost of buying guides,” Benedict said. Then, he added, “And you can use them for free.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Hu Shui.

  Benedict shrugged. “Everything is free in Benediction. Money just brings out the worst in people.”

  “What do you do with the ethereum people earn?” asked a curious Elijah. After all, killing various creatures was rewarded by the system. One needed to visit the Branch to acquire those rewards, but they were there all the same. Surely, the people of Benediction had earned a large sum of ethereum.

  “It goes to the greater good,” he said with a shrug. “Everyone donates it to the government, and we use it to fund the city’s needs.”

  “Communism never works,” Hu Shui stated evenly. Given that he was Chinese by origin, he had some insight into the subject. Though it did elicit a little curiosity.

  “It’s working fine for us,” Benedict replied. “Maybe everyone else is just doing it wrong.”

  “That’s the thing, isn’t it? It’ll always be wrong because it is incompatible with human nature,” Hu Shui pointed out.

  “We’re not here to debate the merits of communism,” Elijah interrupted. “Let’s get back to the djinn. What happened to them?”

  “Very well,” Hu Shui said, though he glared a little at Benedict, who seemed completely oblivious to the man’s disdain. “The first thing you must know of the djinn is that they are not technically a race.”

  “I was led to believe they were an elder race.”

  “They are. But they aren’t. No one is born a djinn, but anyone with enough talent can become one,” he explained. “The records are a little vague as to the method, but they are clear in their assertion that it is still possible. Few established societies allow it, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Why else? Hubris. Djinn are characterized by a need to continuously progress.”

  “That’s no different than most people subject to the system,” Benedict pointed out.

  “True. The method is the difference. They are no less concerned with levels or cultivation, but they are even more interested in tapping into the more esoteric attunements. Space and time, specifically, though they also dabble in subordinate attunements like causality.”

  “And that is why you’re here,” Elijah guessed.

  “As I said before, in part,” Hu Shui admitted. “Regardless, that drive to unravel the underlying truths of magic and the multi-verse almost always pushes the adherents toward overreach.”

  “In what way?”

  Hu Shui shrugged and answered, “It varies. Sometimes, they build great, etheric machines meant to harness those forces. Other times, they tap into forbidden powers.”

  “Like the abyss.”

  He nodded. “The possibilities are as endless as a djinn’s curiosity,” he responded. “Or their self-importance. They believe they are better than other elder races, and according to some accounts, a trio of djinn are responsible for laying the foundation for the very system upon which we depend.”

  “And yet, they are considered to have fallen,” Benedict pointed out. “If they were so powerful, then that would not be the case.”

  Hu Shui sighed. “I don’t know the whole story,” he said. “But this entire scenario, from the time loop to what was happening to Eden…it supports the idea that this is a cautionary tale meant to show us the dangers of overreach.”

  “The Chimeric Forge told a similar story, though instead of magic, the chimera were obsessed with self-improvement through biological modification. When that didn’t work, they resorted to other means, eventually becoming the elder race known as mechaniques,” Elijah explained. “I’m sure that if we looked deeply enough, we’d find similar stories with the other fallen elder races.”

  For instance, he’d read that ogres, in a quest to empower themselves so that they could dominate the multiverse, enraged a group of sorcerers who enacted a plan to slowly eradicate them by making them progressively infertile. For centuries, their population dwindled to the brink of extinction, and to save their people, their elders made a deal with the Voice of the World Tree.

  The cost was their pride and intelligence. The ogres’ elders – transcendents all – believed their people could overcome such a curse. In the end, their pride pushed them forward, and it authored their downfall. Now, though ogres still existed, they were reduced to menial laborers who were widely regarded as barely sapient.

  Every now and again, one might rise to overcome the curse, but it was exceedingly rare.

  Elijah told that story, adding, “It seems like there’s a common thread with all the fallen races.”

  “Pride. Arrogance. A drive to dominate the other races,” Benedict supplied.

  “What does it mean for us, though?” Elijah asked. “We’re still flying blind here.”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Hu Shui. “But I think context matters.”

  They all agreed to that much before deciding that they should take the relative peace of the chamber as an opportunity to rest. They’d been going almost non-stop for months, and none of them were in great shape. Even Elijah was mentally exhausted. So, he deployed his tent, and Hu Shui provided a small, ethera-powered hot plate so they could heat their meals.

  After that, they enjoyed a tense few days of rest. None of them spoke to one another very often. Instead, if they weren’t sleeping or eating, they focused on their own progress. Both Hu Shui and Benedict had gained enough levels to acquire at least one new ability, and they’d yet to familiarize themselves with them.

  On top of that, the dense ethereal atmosphere was perfect for their cultivation, and over those few days, Elijah felt the ethera fluctuating around them. For his part, the atmosphere was far too thin to allow for any appreciable gains. However, he did continue his efforts to familiarize himself with his newly empowered body. The months of constant fighting had gone a long way toward that goal, but Elijah was well aware that he’d yet to fully tap into his potential.

  The fact that he’d managed to lift the automaton was evidence of that.

  There was more power within him, and he just needed to figure out a way to use it. That was not really surprising. After all, most people took decades – or even centuries – to reach his level of cultivation. His rapid pace meant that he moved to the next grade before he’d had a chance to adjust to the last gains. That, combined with the speed with which he’d leveled, meant that he was far, far behind when it came to reaching the potential implied on his status.

  And given how much experience he’d already gotten in the Labyrinth of Dead Gods, it wouldn’t be long before he took another leap forward. Level two-fifty was much closer now than when he began. Chances were, by the time he completed the Primal Realm, he would only need to visit a Branch to step into the realm of demi-godhood.

  But for now, while he couldn’t progress, he could adjust. And that would have to be enough to get them through the trials ahead.

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