Beauty In The Horizon

Gladius couldn't begin to fathom what this portended, but one thing was abundantly clear – he had grown immeasurably stronger than he had been before making contact with the Spiritual Tree's energies. He would likely only need to unleash one or two slashes from his empowered sword to utterly annihilate mages as powerful as the Ember Forge group had proven themselves to be.

The rush of newfound power, of latent potential finally given shape and substance, was utterly exhilarating. Like this, with his abilities elevated to newfound heights, Gladius's future ambitions seemed all the brighter, his path ahead burning with the warmth of possibilities yet to be seized.

With everything of value extracted from this place, Gladius turned and began walking back towards the last mage he had spared, the one who would serve as an unwitting guide to help him locate the fabled city of Emberstar.

The mage was still sprawled across the ravaged ground where Gladius had left him, evidently having awoken at some point while the absorption had been underway. But the debilitating agony that wracked his broken body made so much as twitching a single muscle an exercise in sheer, mind-numbing torment.

He had no Mana within him to call upon, no means of utilizing any healing artes or defensive measures to ameliorate his condition. And truthfully, the mage held no true desire to attempt such a thing, his mind and soul too broken by the slaughter he had witnessed to entertain anything other than a surrender to the cruel inevitability of his circumstances.

He knew, deep in what tattered shreds remained of his psyche, that any action on his part would simply provoke Gladius's wrath anew. 

That was...unacceptable. 

Unbearable. 

He could not fathom suffering any further violation, any more brutal dismantling of everything he had once held sacrosanct.

But when the telltale cadence of approaching footsteps reached his ears, the mage couldn't help but tremble uncontrollably, his body betraying him as every wounded nerve ending screamed out in agony. 

The bleak, desolate look in his eyes spoke volumes as he gazed up at Gladius in silence, the pits of sheer despair that had once been vibrant orbs of confidence and pride now little more than hollow chambers devoid of anything resembling hope.

Gladius favored the broken man with another faint smile, his expression one of subdued triumph and vaguely predatory amusement as he spoke.

"Glad to see you're awake and ready to go. You do remember what I said, correct?" His tone was light, almost conversational – belying the unmistakable undercurrent of threat that lingered beneath the surface.

The mage's cracked lips parted as he forced the words out through a jaw clenched in agony, his voice little more than a rasping whisper.

"Mmn...Lead you to Emberstar City..."

Just being trapped in this helpless state of abject torment was its own unique anguish, one that threatened to drown the mage's mind in a sea of endless suffering should he dwell upon it for too long.

But he would endure. He would cling to these meager scraps of continued existence, if only to postpone the inevitability of a demise that reeked of something far worse than a clean, merciful death.

"Good. Now, let's get going." Gladius nodded in satisfaction and procured a random healing vial from one of the looted pouches. 

He unstoppered the small glass container and allowed two drops of the shimmering liquid to dribble into the mage's mouth.

The broken man twitched involuntarily as the power of the healing magic fused into his body, a warmth unlike anything he had experienced flooding through his shattered form. The immense, overwhelming pain that had previously held him in its merciless grip receded considerably, the excruciating agony dulling to a level where using his limbs once more became a very real possibility.

However, the state of his injuries simply would not progress any further without the application of his own inherent Mana reserves – the healing solution could only mend so much before its effects plateaued. 

He still had no internal wellspring of Mana energies to call upon, no means of channeling further restorative arts through his ravaged pathways. The only thing he could truly do was pick himself up from the ruination and force his body to move, no matter how every nerve ending screamed out in rebuke.

The mage looked around the devastated woodlands briefly before nodding down a specific, relatively clear path, his voice a strained rasp.

"The city's this way."

With that terse utterance serving as their unspoken pact, the mage began leading the way, his steps tentative and pained despite the minor healing he had undergone. 

Gladius followed a step behind, his presence an unstated promise of violence should any undue delays or deceptions take root.

The trail along this particular path was far slower now that Gladius found himself traveling in the company of what was essentially a cripple, but the meandering pace didn't fill him with any true sense of vulnerability.

Every time a Nascent Beast dared to cross their path, a mere casual strike from Gladius's spirit sword was enough to utterly obliterate the hapless creature with terrifying ease. Nothing could even begin to fathom the notion of approaching within a dozen meters of them – the aura of sheer, unbridled power that radiated from Gladius's form was enough to send the lesser beasts scurrying for the safety of their lairs, their primal instincts screaming out in terror at the presence of something so overwhelmingly apex.

Like this, the unlikely pair continued onwards through the gradually thinning woodland, Gladius's stride unhurried as he periodically unleashed flashes of lethal force to cut down any foolish enough to impede their path.

It was only when his enhanced gaze picked up on the sight of an immense, sprawling metropolis in the distance, its towering spires and archaic edifices visible even from hundreds of meters away, that Gladius finally allowed a modicum of his focus to shift towards their final destination.

In his past life, the mere sight of any major city from afar would have inspired a sense of awe and wonder at the spectacles those vaunted bastions of human ingenuity were capable of producing. 

But all of those architectural marvels now seemed like little more than quaint settlements when compared to the sheer, overwhelming magnificence of Emberstar City.

This place was beautiful in numerous, breathtaking ways that transcended the simple appreciation of aesthetics or manmade grandeur. Gorgeous, mesmerizing designs of winding flames and flickering embers seemed to dance across the surfaces of some buildings in an endless, hypnotic waltz. 

The very streets themselves appeared to be hewn from some form of exceptionally high-quality arcane stonework, radiating an inner luster that set them apart from even the finest masonry found in Gladius's previous world.

And then there were the people – countless denizens that meandered about the city's winding streets and pavilions, many of them bearing the unmistakable auras of mages as they walked with a confident, self-assured poise that spoke volumes of their power and status.

The city itself was utterly massive, its sprawling districts and sectors seeming to stretch on towards the horizon in a grand display of civilization that dwarfed anything Gladius had ever born witness to before. 

Even straining his newly-enhanced eyesight, he couldn't begin to discern where this urban behemoth's boundaries truly ended – an endless metropolis of magic and mystical might that surely rivaled some of the greatest cities of the ancient world in both scale and grandeur.

Gladius schooled his emotions for a moment, calming his raging thoughts as he asked in an even tone, "So this is Emberstar City?"

The mage warily nodded, a nostalgic, almost wistful look glazing over his eyes as he beheld the towering visage of his hometown laid out before him – so immensely close, yet equally far removed from his grasp as the light of the stars themselves. 

His life as a respected, even revered mage had been reduced to tatters in the span of a mere handful of hours, his entire world crumbling into ash as he found himself relegated to little more than an expendable tool in the hands of someone who shouldn't have possessed even a hint of Mana coursing through their veins.

And what made it all the more unpalatable, the more unfathomable, was the fact that this Strange Existence's abilities exhibited the same fundamental properties as the magic the mage had devoted his entire life to mastering. 

It was almost as if the universe itself had decided to mock him, to spit upon everything he had once held sacred by giving rise to an utter paradox, one with the power to effortlessly slaughter his peers yet lacking any true attunement to the Mana that supposedly governed all of existence.

The mage turned a weary, haunted gaze towards Gladius, his voice straining with the weight of his anguish as he asked, "Are-are you going to let me go now?"

The words seemed almost pitiful to his own ears, the desperate plea of a broken man who had witnessed the total and complete dismantling of everything he had once believed in with unwavering certainty.