Cades had continued his march for about a week, his legs had indeed begun burning at some point during the endless march, a march that he knew for a fact was probably somehow related to him, or to the island he came from, especially when one considered that this march, this endless route, this endless distance that he would have to cover twice over if he ever had the need to return to this place, was bigger, longer and harder than any before.
And indeed, he was scared, one of his last two emotions was warning him, he had punched this chain with all he had got, yes, he had been exhausted and barely there, not even using magic, but the closer he got to what he prayed was the end the more of the huge marks had begun appearing, marks that he knew for a fact were old, and the closer he got the newer they got, oftentimes even leaving something silver inside, something he knew too well, something that had seemingly been following him, the coins that were inside the temples, they were on this chain as well, and whenever he passed they began to transform into silver worms, crawled towards him and soon entered his body, never to be seen again.
He was indeed terrified of this, but in the end he didn't pay it much heed, this had happened often until now, and despite the fact that the engravings on the inside of his body, on the very arteries that transported his magic all over the bodies, pushing it into muscles, hiding it in the bones, no longer did anything when the silver arrived, he wasn't particularly worried, he was simply scared of the silver, but not for a reason, no, he was more so scared of it at a primordial, instinctual level, as if his very soul was scared of that silver, as if everything inside of him would rather die than touch it.
Either way the holes grew more and more numerous, until he had finally begun to see something, something that was still hidden incredibly far away, it was something he had been hungering for for a long time, something that perhaps would've saved Cades back when he had finally completely broken, it was the next island, an island with a beautiful structure atop it, one that reminded him of the library he had once studied at, not the library of Hekima, but the library on ehetria, a library he had often entered as a child, a library he had left with an entire backpack full of books, a library in which he had been nicknamed the burglar back when he had been eleven years old.
The library that stood solemnly across the endless ocean of light that was still violently colliding with the darkness that came from above was mantled in an unnatural shadow, one even deeper than the ones that were normally covering the islands, hiding in the trees and cast by the darkness above, the darkness that, on the islands, behaved just as the sun would do on a normal world, in a normal realm, but not here, no, the entire building was hulled in endless darkness.
He could see being writhing within it, but as he came closer and closer the beings began to vanish and the building itself began to do so as well, instead turning into a castle, a fort, a simple house that was eerily reminiscent of his parents home and even something resembling the kurakkan he had once escaped from, but yet, despite his clear panic, he knew he couldn't stop, not was fi he could, his very legs, his legs that had carried him here all this way were refusing to yield, and indeed, he felt no danger, rather than that he felt as if that island was constantly transforming into other islands, ones that he had never seen before, ones that he would've preferred never to see, and a lot of temples, perhaps the reason for all the coins, perhaps also the reason for all the gashes, perhaps a being simply escaped from there.
But he was terrified and angry at the same time, he was terrified of the unknown and angry at the unknown, he wanted to learn and was both scared of what was to learn on that place, but he knew that he would have to go on and enter it, he knew that it would all be for the best, he knew that he should go ahead and enter the island hulled in shadows, no matter what, he felt something inside him telling him to go forward, something that had been there from the beginning, something that had begun to turn forceful as soon as the island truly had appeared, something both good and bad, something that had been driving him since he had been four years old.
And yet, just as he had finally completely set aside his innate terror, focusing on the possibilities that would help him instead, something came up instead, something that was quite funny in a way, after all he had come from a monster he could never defeat, one made out of wood, and now, as if to mock the wood he had fought before, there was one carved from stone standing to his side, causing the infinite chain to ever so slightly move, as if the infinite weight of the chain was meaningless in this place, as if the laws of nature itself could be broken here.
It had appeared out of nowhere, as if it had been invisible, or rather as if it had arrived here from across the endless sea of light, from one of the countless other chains that probably spanned through the endless light, invisible to him as if he was destined to be alone for all eternity, but indeed it had seemingly jumped that huge chasm, or rather it had simply crossed it.
Cades looked at the monster intending to analyse it and prepare if possible, but instead the monster already prepared it's own attack, raising it's huge fist above it's head, ready to strike down like bigger opponents like this one seemed to love doing.