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Chapter 43 - Chapter 43: The Glass Valley

The descent began in silence.

Torian noticed it first—how the rustling of leaves gave way to stillness, how the wind thinned until even Skarn's wingbeats felt muffled. Beneath them stretched a landscape of glass, glittering under a high sun that offered no warmth. From above, the terrain looked like a frozen lake split by jagged ridgelines, crystalline rivers, and flat silver fields.

They weren't flying anymore.

They were gliding through something else—a silence too deep to be natural.

Skarn landed lightly on a sheet of pale, shimmering crystal that cracked softly beneath his claws. The impact made no echo. No bounce of sound. Just… a dull vibration, as though the world swallowed the noise before it ever had the chance to exist.

Torian stepped off his back, boots pressing into the crystal floor.

The ground rippled faintly under his feet like disturbed water, but remained solid. The grass—if it could be called that—was razor-thin slivers of translucent mineral, swaying in no wind, sharp enough to slice skin on touch.

He drew his hand back.

"It's all made of… glass," he murmured.

Skarn grunted, low and wary.

They moved forward cautiously.

No birds.

No insects.

No movement.

Only reflections.

Torian's image stared back at him from every angle—on the grass, the cliffs, even the sky. Every step he took splintered into mirrored fragments, his form repeated across surfaces that should've never held him.

It made depth meaningless.

He couldn't tell what was solid, what was illusion, or whether the sky above was real at all.

Then the spiral pulsed in his chest.

Faint.

Fading.

Torian stopped.

He opened his palm and summoned a spark.

Nothing.

He focused.

Still nothing.

Then—finally—a tiny flicker of fire curled from his palm.

It lived for less than a second…

…and vanished.

No smoke. No heat. Just gone.

"It's dead here," he said, voice dull.

"The flame… dies."

Skarn sniffed the air, agitated. His claws scraped the mirrored floor, and that sound—unlike any other—rippled through the valley in a strange, spiraling echo, warping in pitch as it traveled.

The sound didn't reflect.

It bent.

As if the valley reshaped sound like glass bends light.

They moved on foot now, deeper into the valley's heart.

Cliffs of vertical crystal surrounded them—sheer and jagged, like the broken spine of a god. Above, the sky had turned a faint hue of gray-blue. It didn't shift like real sky. It was too still.

Hours passed.

There was no wind.

No sun movement.

Only endless mirrored plains that looked the same from every angle.

Then Skarn stopped.

Every muscle in his body went stiff.

Torian raised a hand.

"What is it?"

But before Skarn could react, a soft crack echoed to their right—a perfect mirror-duplicate of Torian stepped from behind a jagged outcropping.

Same face.

Same clothes.

Same movements.

But its eyes were hollow.

No color.

Just reflection.

It lunged without warning.

Torian blocked instinctively, raising his forearm, and the reflection met his motion exactly—mirroring it perfectly, blow for blow.

Torian struck left.

It blocked left.

He spun and swept.

It ducked in the same instant.

Skarn roared and charged.

From the cliffs above, a second beast leapt—identical to Skarn in form and motion, made entirely of fractal glass and white shine.

It collided with Skarn mid-leap, and the two titans rolled across the ground in a storm of razor-sharp claws and crystal shards.

"It's us," Torian growled, ducking another blow.

"It copies everything."

He stopped moving.

Let it approach.

Then feinted low and dropped to one knee.

It mirrored the feint—but didn't compensate for the punch Torian threw from the side.

Glass cracked.

The doppelgänger shuddered.

But even the crack it suffered began to heal—shards folding back into shape.

Torian's flame sparked in his chest again.

Useless.

He'd have to win the old way.

With hands. With skill.

With who he was before the fire.

He took a breath and dropped his stance.

Let it come.

It moved in perfect sync.

He attacked with misdirection—throwing three feints before landing a real hit.

The blow shattered its arm.

He stepped into the opening, swept its leg, then drove his elbow down into its head.

It burst into shards, like hollow glass, scattering into the mirrored soil.

No scream.

No blood.

Just silence.

Skarn slammed his duplicate into a wall and bit through its spine, causing it to vanish in a spray of light.

Torian stood slowly, catching his breath.

His knuckles bled—real blood, something this place didn't understand.

That seemed to be the difference.

This valley wasn't built for life.

It was built to reflect.

To repel.

And in its center, just barely visible through the veil of shattered terrain, stood a structure: a tall stone obelisk, the only object not made of glass.

It glowed faintly blue.

Engraved on its face were four spirals—not reflections. Not illusions.

Real.

Ancient.

Fire. Wind. Water. Stone.

Torian stepped toward it slowly, heart pounding.

Skarn followed close.

The moment he touched the fire spiral, the stone pulsed—and the sky above flickered.

But unlike the others, the fire spiral was cracked.

Thin fractures spread across it like veins.

Torian pulled his hand back.

The spiral on his chest dimmed in response.

Not in rejection.

In mourning.

"It's broken here," he whispered.

"The fire. The gift."

"They erased it."

"And this place… keeps it that way."

Skarn let out a low, almost sorrowful growl.

The wind returned.

Cold.

Wrong.

The flame was not welcome.

The obelisk hummed beneath Torian's hand.

Not with warmth. Not with energy. But with a strange emptiness—a low, tremoring absence that resonated in his bones. It felt like something had once lived here and been pulled out… thread by thread, memory by memory, until the core remained hollow.

He backed away slowly.

Skarn remained still beside him, eyes locked on the spirals.

Each was different:

 • The wind spiral swirled outward in curves, smooth and sharp.

 • The water spiral shimmered faintly, as if moisture clung to the stone itself.

 • The stone spiral pulsed a deep brown-red—solid, unmoving.

 • And the fire spiral—the one Torian instinctively recognized—was cracked, nearly fractured through its center.

As if someone had once tried to carve it out completely.

Torian ran his fingers along the crack.

There were marks—tiny chisels, smoothed over by time. Scorch patterns surrounding it. The other three spirals were pristine.

"Someone tried to erase it," he murmured.

"Like the fire didn't belong."

He looked up at the sky—still dull, unmoving, blank of sound.

Skarn walked a slow circle around the obelisk. His claws clicked softly on the glass ground. Every now and then, he stopped, staring at the surrounding cliffs.

He knew.

Something was still here.

Watching.

Waiting.

Torian returned his gaze to the obelisk base.

There were inscriptions etched beneath the spirals.

Not in a language he knew—but something deeper. Older. Each letter was carved not just into the stone, but into layers of it, angled and warped as if the message was meant to be read in motion, not stillness.

He stepped side to side.

And the message slowly assembled itself.

Four spirals.

Four laws.

And a final phrase that chilled him:

"One was broken. So she broke the bearer."

Torian stepped back.

His jaw clenched.

He didn't know who "she" was.

But he was beginning to understand what this place was.

"This isn't just a graveyard for fire," he muttered.

"It's a punishment."

Suddenly, the glass ground beneath him began to ripple—a slow vibration, spreading outward in perfect circles from where he stood.

Skarn immediately turned, wings twitching.

The sky flickered.

Then it changed.

Not slowly.

Not subtly.

It shattered.

Like a dome of mirrored glass overhead, the sky cracked in hundreds of lines—and from those fractures spilled light and movement.

Shapes began to descend.

Not creatures.

Reflections.

Of Torian.

Of Skarn.

But wrong.

Distorted.

Twisted.

They walked unnaturally. Faces stretched. Arms bent the wrong way. One Skarn reflection crawled on backward limbs, each paw leaving behind a smear of light.

Torian stepped back.

They were forming a circle.

He counted—six, no, twelve of them.

All closing in.

"I get it," Torian growled. "No flame. No power."

"You want to know if I'm still a threat without it."

He cracked his neck.

"Let's find out."

They came at once.

No hesitation.

Perfectly coordinated.

Torian launched into motion—his body, not his flame, becoming his weapon.

He ducked the first strike, grabbed a twisted reflection by the throat, and slammed it into the next. They shattered like hollow crystal—but every broken one spawned two more, crawling from the shards.

Skarn fought beside him, fangs flashing, claws carving mirrored flesh—but it was like fighting echoes. They didn't bleed. They didn't die.

They multiplied.

For every one they struck down, two more rose.

Torian's knuckles were bleeding again. His breath came sharp. His spiral pulsed weakly—no fire to lend strength, only his training, his resolve, and the rage that had once driven him through a world of warlords and gods.

He kicked a copy backward, spun, drove an elbow into another's jaw.

Skarn was surrounded now—his real skin scored by slashes of jagged glass.

They couldn't win like this.

They had to break the source.

Torian's eyes snapped to the obelisk.

Still pulsing.

Still humming.

He ran toward it.

The swarm followed.

Skarn roared and barreled into their path, slamming his body into the crowd to hold them off.

Torian reached the obelisk and drove his hand against the cracked fire spiral—

Nothing.

Then again, harder.

He focused on every memory.

Every moment of pain. Every trial. Every scream.

Every time he'd thought the flame would kill him and he took it anyway.

"You didn't give me this," he hissed. "I earned it."

And he drove his fist into the stone.

The crack burst open.

Not outward—but inward.

Like a vacuum.

All the reflected creatures froze.

Then one by one, they shattered in unison.

The entire sky above folded inward—like glass being sucked into itself.

And the valley went still.

Completely still.

Torian dropped to one knee.

His palm smoked slightly. Not from heat.

From defiance.

The obelisk no longer pulsed.

It had been silenced.

Skarn limped toward him—injured, bleeding, but alive.

Torian met his eyes.

"Whatever built this place… it wasn't made for us."

"But we're still here."

Skarn blinked slowly.

And for the first time in hours—

There was real wind.

The sun broke through at last.

Not fully, not cleanly—but in jagged shafts that pierced the mirrored cliffs as if fighting to reach them. The glass around the valley had begun to fracture. Cracks spidered across the terrain in widening veins of pale white, and when Torian pressed his boot into the floor, it groaned beneath him.

The valley was no longer holding them in.

It was breaking.

Finally.

Letting go.

Torian and Skarn stood at the center, silent.

The remnants of the glass reflections lay in heaps of fine dust. The obelisk—once humming with ancient defiance—was now inert. The spiral symbols remained, but even the cracked fire spiral no longer pulsed.

Still, something had changed.

Torian reached down to the stone once more, pressing his hand against the fractured symbol of fire.

And this time…

His own spiral responded.

A slow, rising warmth.

Small.

Subtle.

But real.

"You feel that?" he asked softly.

Skarn tilted his head and exhaled, ears lifting for the first time in hours.

Torian took a step back and held out his palm.

He focused.

Not to burn.

But just to feel.

A single flicker of flame sparked to life. Small. Orange. It danced like a firefly in his hand, casting no heat, offering no power.

But it stayed.

And that was enough.

"It's coming back," Torian whispered.

"The valley couldn't hold it forever."

He closed his fist.

The flame vanished, but not with death.

With choice.

They turned toward the far side of the valley.

The mirrored walls had split, revealing a narrow passageway beyond—hidden before, shielded by the bending light. The trees that lay ahead shimmered not with crystal, but with a strange deep violet hue. Unlike the reflective valley behind them, the forest before them absorbed light.

Its branches were thick, leafless, and twisted in spiraling arcs.

And in the sky above it: a faint shimmer, not of sun or stars, but something older. A glow that pulsed with distant magic.

Skarn stepped forward, but Torian held him back.

He crouched at the edge of the break, brushing his fingers over the ground.

It wasn't glass anymore.

It was earth.

Damp. Heavy. Familiar.

They'd made it out.

"The Purple Forest," he murmured.

Skarn growled faintly.

"If the valley was built to stop fire… then that place might be where it all began."

He looked over his shoulder at the shattered valley—at the fragments of mirrored creatures, the broken sky, and the obelisk still standing with its spirals etched in silence.

"They tried to bury it. The memory. The flame."

"But they didn't finish the job."

Skarn's tail twitched.

Torian smiled.

"They should've hit harder."

They stepped forward together—man and beast.

Crossing the threshold from mirrored death into living myth.

The first trees of the purple forest closed in around them, vast and shifting. The light dimmed. The ground softened. And the air tasted of old magic—wild, untamed, and powerful.

The spiral in Torian's chest pulsed once more.

And for the first time since landing on this world…

It didn't feel alone.

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