Heir of the Fog

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

A Ring, A Sword, and a Path Home

My visit to Sethis Vauren's Tomb was by far the greatest find I had made so far in the fog. I could scarcely imagine how a simple ring would go on to reshape not only my own life but that of countless others. The item itself, so minuscule, felt absurdly powerful in my grip, radiating a hidden potential.

Yet the murals painted on those ancient walls made no mention of storage rings. They depicted only a sword—Doomcarver.

Should I leave it here, collecting dust in the tomb?

Of course not.

I had encountered plenty of artifacts in the fog, many just as cryptic. Typically, if they did not suit my immediate needs, I left them behind. Hauling random trinkets or unwieldy relics would only complicate an already dangerous journey. But this dull, rust-eaten sword had been enshrined as something legendary. To walk away from it felt unthinkable.

Now, at least, I had a way to carry my other gear. The ring allowed me to stow my backpack and all my supplies inside its pocket dimension, so the only items still on my person were my gauntlets, bracers, cloak, and this mysterious sword. Even the Prophet's Tongue—clearly an artifact in its own right—had slipped past the ring's anti-theft inscriptions. Perhaps the ring interpreted it as just another piece of organic tissue. None of that, however, changed the fact that Doomcarver was impossibly heavy.

I barely managed to shift it, let alone heft it off the stone floor.

Anger simmered beneath my excitement. It burned at the thought that storage rings had been deliberately concealed from us and worse, that such a powerful tool had been left here to rot. How many lives could have been improved if this secret had been shared instead of buried? I still didn't fully understand the sword's true capabilities, but one thing was certain—I would not let it be wasted as well.

Clenching my teeth, I peered at the runes etched into the blade, half-buried beneath corrosion. I touched the sword again, studying every bit of faint glow from the carvings. When I pressed my hand against the hilt, I felt a slight shift of weight. It was still crushing, but marginally less so than the moment before.

I tested it by straining my arms—no, I still couldn't properly lift it. But at least I could move it enough to drag along behind me.

So I dragged it.

The noise rang out, echoing in the tomb's silent corridors. My heart pounded, but a thrill of triumph sparkled in me. I had the ring. I had Doomcarver. Now I could leave.

Pushing forward, I stepped into the open air beyond the tomb's threshold, hauling the sword's tip across the stony ground. As if responding to my departure, beasts converged on my location. Possibly they heard the rasp of metal on stone. Possibly they sensed the surge of faint mana from an ancient relic waking after centuries of dormancy.

We fought. They died. Their corpses, minus their cores, went swiftly into my storage ring—a blissful convenience that I found amazing. No more lugging heavy carcasses around. With a mere thought and rune in the air, I could retrieve tools, water, or food from the ring. It was the ultimate remedy for logistical headaches.

The crafters of Araksiun were true geniuses.

Yet my journey away from the tomb was anything but easy. Doomcarver's continual scraping made stealth impossible, attracting swarms of predators hungry for flesh. I found myself battling pack after pack, only to collapse in exhaustion at intervals. I resented how the sword slowed my pace, but I also felt a feverish delight that each confrontation ended with a ringful of resources.

After a time, I noticed something peculiar about the blade. Each time I paused for breath, the sword seemed marginally lighter. The thick red-brown rust flaked away more readily. Its edge, once blunt and ragged, began to show patches of smoother metal. It was still nowhere near combat-ready, but the transformation was undeniable.

Eventually, I stopped by a wide, crumbling archway to rest. My arms ached from dragging the unwieldy blade. With an irritated sigh, I studied Doomcarver, trying to guess how it was changing. If it keeps losing rust at this rate, I mused, maybe it will start looking like a proper sword. But for now, it was nearly impossible to swing as a proper sword.

"Kara, can you analyze this? Am I going crazy?" I asked, half to myself, half to the AI embedded in my mind.

[Kara]

[Analyzing… Incompatible data detected. Analysis tool limited. Please measure the sword's weight using some external method.]

My lips pursed in frustration. "External method,". I decided to try, improvising a balance in a small clearing of rubble. First, I placed a large chunk of collapsed column on one side, then carefully set Doomcarver on the other. The balance tipped heavily toward the sword. Frowning, I swapped it out for a different piece of debris, then another, adjusting the weight again and again until I finally found a near-perfect match. The stone column I ended up with must have weighed hundreds of kilos—yet it balanced almost evenly with the sword.

But when I manually lifted the stone column I had settled on, my muscles tensed under the strain. Even with my strength, hoisting something that weighed hundreds of kilos was no small feat. The effort was immense, my grip tightening as I forced it off the ground.

Yet, when I attempted to lift Doomcarver, despite knowing it had the same weight, the sensation was different. It was still unbearably heavy, but something about it felt… off. As if, despite logic dictating they should weigh the same, the sword wasn't pressing down on me in quite the same way. The balance had proven they were equal, but my own senses told a different story.

[Kara]

[Araksiun runic inscriptions such as higher engravings were all secrets of each craftsman. The Engraving of Dominion might be among these, somehow augmenting your strength by converting your willpower to force.]

I snorted softly, half in triumph, half in annoyance. So that was how Sethis Vauren had wielded this blade. On top of that, the murals had hinted at two more inscriptions: the Sigil of Severance and the Inscription of Conviction. Kara hypothesized that the Inscription of Conviction might restore the sword itself, slowly repairing rusted steel by tapping into its wielder's resolve. Indeed, I had already seen signs of that, the way the blade shed corrosion and became sharper.

It seemed that this blade—at least the two higher engravings on it—was tied to the wielder's willpower. As long as one possessed a strong will, their own strength would be magnified, allowing them to wield the sword. I supposed that the reason no one else had taken up the blade was simply that only those with a will strong enough could truly harness its power. However, at the same time, it would consume willpower just as it consumed stamina.

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Willpower itself was a strange concept to me and even to Kara, despite her vast knowledge of Araksiun. I had once believed Kara's knowledge to be limitless, but now I saw its gaps, especially when it came to magic. Anything considered "dangerous knowledge" had simply been omitted from her database, as she called it. For some reason, the people of Araksiun had deemed such information too perilous for an AI to possess.

Still, we managed to deduce that willpower was somehow tied to intent—the same intent that guided mana when harnessed outside one's body. I theorized that corruption, perhaps, was a form of free-flowing mana that could be shaped based on one's will or intent, which, as far as I could discern, were essentially the same thing. My studies of these runes and my time in the fog had only reinforced this notion.

Yet, I struggled to comprehend how pure will could be transformed into physical strength. It wasn't a psychological effect—it was real, tangible, something that turned raw determination into power beyond natural limits. The more I thought about it, the more I felt the burning need to understand. If willpower itself fueled strength, what happened when someone ran out of it in battle? Would their body simply fail them, or would the sword become unbearably heavy, impossible to wield? Too many questions, far too few answers.

The Sigil of Severance functionality, however, remained a mystery. The murals depicted strange arcs or slashes, possibly some formidable offensive technique, but I had no way to test it if I couldn't even swing the sword.

As I continued onward, dragging the sword behind me, I finally reached District 1. My storage ring felt fuller than ever, brimming with the spoils of countless skirmishes. Easily more than a ton of carcasses now, all compressed into that pocket dimension. At the outskirts of District 1, I started encountering diremaws again—those prowling beasts that thrived in familiar terrain.

I welcomed their appearance. Diremaws might be brutal, but they were consistent, always in packs, always reliant on savage teamwork rather than cunning magic. They also provided ample edible meat. Two separate diremaw packs found me in quick succession, likely drawn by the constant scraping and shrieking of Doomcarver's tip across the ground. My ears rang, half-numb from hours of metal on stone. But I did not waste any kills. Soon, over twenty fresh diremaw carcasses joined the ring.

At first, I had assumed the ring's capacity of five tons was nearly impossible to reach. Now, as I considered that some single creatures in the fog could weigh multiple tons—especially onyx core monsters like cyclopes—I realized it might not be so far-fetched after all. If I kept up this approach of never dodging a fight, I might max out the ring's storage before long.

But I had no clue how many resources I would need to fulfill my evolving plans. I did know that continuing to fight was safer for me than flight, ironically, because I was too noisy to avoid detection anyway. And so, by the time I trudged into District 100 region, the ring was nearly full.

All the while, Doomcarver dragged on, literally. The blade still weighed a colossal amount, but with each passing hour, the rust receded further. Its dull edge gained a faint metallic gleam, though it remained far too heavy for normal wielding. My arms and shoulders burned from effort, yet I sensed the sword responding to my perseverance, as though acknowledging my determination with every kilometer I forced it across the ground.

For a moment, I toyed with the idea of venturing into District 100. Perhaps I could bring them a peace offering—piles of carcasses from my storage ring, as there were plenty of beasts around to replenish my stock before returning to District 98. Yet an image flashed in my mind: me appearing at their ward, this massive sword dragging at my heels. I saw the alarm on their faces, the confusion. Would it truly help to march in unannounced again, bringing so many dead beasts while wielding a colossal blade? No, that seemed unwise—a repeat of what had happened when they turned against me.

In the end, I decided against it.

Circling the wards of the higher districts was far simpler than seeking a new path through uncharted territory. All I had to do was walk near the protective boundary, following the curve of the ward until I reached another segment of the primary road. Usually, no rubble or collapsed structures blocked these well-trodden edges, because anything salvageable near wards was collected by Chainrunners.

I considered making a similar detour around District 99. Though they had treated me kindly once, I could not justify delaying my return to District 98 any longer. My heart throbbed with anticipation whenever I thought of the people I had left behind.

Without the sword, I could have slipped in unnoticed. But now, that was impossible, so I had no choice but to circle this district as well, even though it took a long time.

So I pressed on, bypassing the outer edges of District 99, heading straight toward District 98. The miles felt both brief and endless, each step bringing me closer to home. The ring was nearly full by then, brimming with dozens of beasts I had slain. Most were Tier 1 creatures, as day-roaming monsters near wards seldom possessed higher-tier cores.

As soon as I neared my familiar hideout—the place I had come to call my home in the fog—memories flooded my mind. I thought back to my uneasy welcome at District 100, and I wondered if District 98 would greet me any differently. Perhaps I would only scare them. I considered how much time had passed: three years and four months since I left my home. My heart pounded at the realization that, to many who lived there, I might be long forgotten.

I had changed drastically. My height had grown; my posture, once timid, had become more upright and self-assured—or so I told myself. I had no scars to speak of, thanks to my long sleeps and rapid healing, but my features had shifted. A faint stubble now traced my jaw, reappearing days after each shave. Even my eyes had lightened from deep brown to a clearer shade, a subtle difference few might notice.

Then there were the hidden alterations. My ligaments, ankles, and knee joints were no longer purely human in structure; the repeated reorganizations of my body during each long sleep had warped them. An experienced healer or scholar of anatomy might find me unsettling. Still, at a casual glance, I remained human enough, especially while wearing Hazeveil's enveloping cloak.

Meris would be thirteen by now. Tarin—my brother—would be around fifteen. I could hardly keep the ages straight in my head; it felt as though half a lifetime had passed. Had they grown into different people entirely? Would they see me as a stranger?

Uncertainty tugged at me like a lead weight. Would they even recognize me if I just walked in? And how would I carry this monumental sword behind me, letting it scrape across the district's paved roads? Surely it would raise alarm the moment I crossed the ward's boundary.

I stared into a cracked mirror I had stashed in my fog-side hideout, trying to judge how changed I truly was. My reflection stared back, familiar yet alien. The same person, but older, sharper in the eyes, with an aura of weariness from countless battles. "I'm still me," I whispered, as though the words alone could calm my spiraling thoughts.

Kara assured me that my self-doubts were natural, just a juvenile phase, as she called it—something I was overthinking, a worry that wasn't worth my concern. But how could I be sure she was telling the truth and not just trying to reassure me? I had no frame of reference, no way to know how someone my age was supposed to act or feel. For years, I had been surrounded only by beasts, not people. Maybe I had truly become an outsider by nature.

Ask me about the daily routines, manners, and behaviors of half the ebony-core beasts near the wards, and I could probably describe them in detail without even needing to check my bestiary or notes. I could even explain how certain creatures behave at different stages of their lives—when they become more aggressive or when they retreat into caution. But how were humans supposed to act? How was I supposed to act? That… I had no answer for.

Even during my time inside the district, I struggled to understand many of the behaviors of those around me. But now, after years of isolation in the fog, I felt completely disconnected—as if whatever understanding I once had was slipping further and further away.

Yet, despite all that uncertainty, I would not let my fears stand in the way of my return.

After a much-needed bath—one final attempt to wash away the gore and dust of the fog—I gathered my courage and turned toward District 98's entrance. Each step felt heavier than any confrontation I had faced in the fog. My breath hitched, and anxiety fluttered in my stomach. If I fell against beasts, I would simply enter another long sleep. But if I misstepped with my family or the people I once knew? There would be no easy resurrection from that kind of rejection.