Draconic Awakening

The travel through the maze was profoundly hard, and many would consider it a death sentence. As with every turn lay dangerous monsters, every shelter was inhabited by monsters that orchestrated the trap of making its prey think it was a shelter to use.

Either it be Wendigos or other strange creatures, one thing was sure—Wendigo Crust was hell in its own caliber.

Ragnar had lost count of the days he had been walking this maze. So far, he had killed a number of Wendigos—either grade one, or two—and sometimes he went up against a grade three.

All in all, he prevailed thanks to his wits and proper trickery against each beast fought, and won every battle by probably getting lucky or by his own strength.

The journey had taken him longer than expected since he had to take detours whenever he encountered a Dreadling or a large pack of Wendigos blocking his way, and this would cost him hours of travel.

No matter how strong he got, he avoided taking on numbers or anything past his capacity. Thanks to his Cloaking Ember Mark at least, killing the Wretchborns had turned out to be more of an easy task than originally planned for.

During this journey too, he had gained at least three more Ember Marks and many more Arcane to his core. He was far stronger than he was at the start of the realm and believed he could take out a grade three Wendigo on his own and barely survive if he did not use any trickery.

And finally, after so long traveling in this cursed landscape, a glimmer of hope finally grazed his eyes.

It was night, and he sat on top of a large rock pillar which he had climbed before sundown. Despite being safe, he did not spare himself the thoughts of sleeping—talk less of actually falling asleep.

He had learnt a very bad lesson about sleeping while in Wendigo's Crust, and that was when he was sleeping on a rock pillar taller than the one he was on now. That time, a Dreadling had come to devour him. Luckily, his shadows had warned him, and in the end of everything, to escape the monstrous Dreadling, he had to jump off the high pillar and use his flames to create an explosion to distract the beast while he fell to his crushing end.

Luckily, he did not die but was buried under a rubble of rocks from the destroyed pillar he shot his flames at.

The Dreadling had lost all interest after seeing his disappointing sacrifice and had no interest in digging up a crushed corpse.

Luckily, Ragnar had survived both the jump and the crumbling pillar. In fact, he had not been hit by a single rubble but hid himself thanks to the cloak. The only agony he felt from the attack was that of his legs and spine trembling from the force of the drop.

After that single encounter, he found it extremely hard to even think about the idea of falling asleep. The sight of a Dreadling up close was really a traumatic thing.

But this time, on a pillar, he had not seen a Dreadling or any beast. But there was a radiant light in the distance, shining its golden rays like a small sun—a sun of hope.

Ragnar was not a big fan of hope, so he entertained none of it, but simply let out a shaky laugh which instantly turned to incessant coughing from the dry soreness of his throat. It was a miracle he was still able to talk despite his lack of water and the cold air in his lungs.

But there it was—the way out of this misery of a place. The gate out of Wendigo's Crust, and in a day's worth of travel, he would be there.

---

It was morning again, and Ragnar climbed down the tall stone pillar. Upon reaching the ground, he immediately became a blur, racing through the maze as quickly and stealthily as he could.

He moved with such raw instincts, he could almost be considered a beast that had lived here himself... almost.

Still, he no longer needed the help of his shadow to navigate his path before he could move. He was able to easily avoid several passing Wendigos that he encountered along the way without wasting time.

And those Wendigos that merely nestled in his way—if they were too much to be handled—he would take a regular detour with the help of the Dancer. But if he encountered a handful of grade ones or two grade twos, he would engage them and come out of battle as the victor with little to no injuries on his being.

He was fast and highly skilled and managed to make a great distance until it was night.

When the last lights of the day disappeared, suddenly Ragnar stopped his quick movements. Climbing up a small hill of boulders he saw along the way, he quickly reached the top, lying on it and staring into the distance. He could see it—the large tall pillar that stretched up into the air. It was too wide to be considered a pillar, but probably a mesa.

The dark stone mesa stood so high up in the air, and all Ragnar could see at the top of it was the radiance of light he had spotted the other day, shining down its majestic light over the cursed plain of Wendigo's Crust.

But with the shine of hope on this world came the depths of cursed resent at the bottom of the mesa.

Ragnar's attention was caught by the noise from below, and his eyes were now staring at the most unbelievable image he had ever seen. At the bottom of the dark mesa, called by the glimmer of hope the light brought, were dozens—no, hundreds—of ice Wendigos trying to climb their way up to the light that shone upon the crust.

It was as Ragnar feared—his way out of this hell would be nothing short of unpleasant.