Twenty-some days later, the already massive caravan had grown even larger, absorbing smaller merchant trains along the way.
Kaiton Port in the Kingdom of Orjaso was a major harbor—ice-free year-round—and merchants from every corner of the map braved long journeys to reach it. So whenever night fell and the caravan circled its hundreds of wagons for camp, the temporary settlement swelled to the size of a small town.
Men sang. Men danced. Men gathered around crackling bonfires, gulping down harsh liquor and shouting themselves hoarse. Occasionally, fists flew—small disputes that would become tomorrow's road gossip.
As captain of the guard, Haig took his duties seriously. Every night, he patrolled the camp perimeter, his young attendant trailing behind. Not that anyone would dare attack a train this large—but old habits died hard.
The attendant's gaze kept wandering toward the fires, toward the laughter. Finally, he worked up the courage to speak.
"Uncle Haig," he grinned, "we've got over three hundred guards now. Kaiton's just ahead. Do we really need to be this careful?"
Haig didn't turn. Armored as always, firelight flickering across his broad frame, he cut an imposing figure against the night.
"Can't afford to be careless," he said. "Especially with a Wizard in the caravan. If someone were to disturb him..." He trailed off, shaking his head.
He never finished the thought.
A ripple—subtle at first, then overwhelming—erupted from the center of camp. It washed over them like waves from a stone dropped into still water. The hair on Haig's arms stood straight up.
The draft animals tethered to the wagons went berserk. Mules screamed. Horses reared. Their panicked cries cut through the night, silencing every voice, every song, every laugh.
No wind blew. Yet the tall grass at their feet thrashed violently.
Haig's face went pale. He spun and ran toward the camp's heart—toward the young Wizard's carriage.
The luxurious carriage had ceased to exist.
Not broken. Not shattered. Gone. Inch-thick wooden panels had been crushed, ground, pulverized into fine dust. The wreckage—if you could call it that—formed a neat circle of powder where the vehicle had stood.
Raymond stood nearby, clutching his belongings, staring at the mess with a deep frown.
Haig arrived at a dead sprint, skidding to a halt.
"Ah..." Raymond looked up, embarrassed. "Sorry. Small accident."
The eerie pressure radiating from the carriage site slowly faded. By the time Haig reached him, it had vanished entirely.
But the damage was done. Panic rippled through the camp. Haig barked orders at the arriving guards—contain the chaos, calm the merchants, prevent a stampede—and men scattered to obey.
Within the hour, another luxury carriage appeared before Raymond, offered by a different merchant. Haig's expression had shifted again—deeper reverence, sharper fear. Raymond caught the looks on the other guards' faces too. Whatever had just happened, it had cranked their terror up another notch.
He nodded to Haig, climbed into the new carriage, and slammed the door shut.
Through the fogged window, he watched until the camp quieted. Only then did he pull out the mysterious book.
The tenth symbol. Finally memorized.
And the moment it locked into his brain, the book had unleashed a wave of energy—a radiation field so intense it had reduced the carriage to dust.
The chip had warned him. Screamed at him. He'd grabbed his things and fled just in time.
But now, sitting in the replacement carriage, he frowned.
The book had been in his hands when he ran. Yet the center of that radiation pulse hadn't moved with it. It had remained exactly where he'd been sitting.
"One," he commanded silently. "Replay everything from the last hour."
"Task initiated. Beginning retrieval..."
Data streamed across his vision.
Radiation intensity: over one hundred times normal. Source location: not the book itself, but the space between him and the book—where he'd been sitting.
Comparison: the red fruit he'd eaten in the forest. That fruit had contained massive amounts of active compounds. This pulse contained the equivalent of two red fruits' worth of energy.
Because the chip had warned him, he'd escaped quickly. Only about three percent of that energy had penetrated his body before he fled. The rest had slammed into the carriage instead—and the carriage couldn't absorb it. So it had shattered. Disintegrated. Released that pulse that shook the whole camp.
Raymond stared at the book, realization dawning.
That energy—that massive, concentrated burst—was meant for him. Meant to be absorbed. Meant to change him, like the red fruit had, but more. Much more.
And he'd run away from it.
Because the chip, doing its job, had screamed danger.
He couldn't blame the chip. It only knew what it knew. It couldn't distinguish between "harmful radiation" and "beneficial radiation meant specifically for a wizard's apprentice." To the chip, radiation was radiation. Threat was threat.
But Raymond knew now. That pulse had been a gift. An opportunity. And he'd thrown it away.
His jaw tightened. His fists clenched.
And then—
ROOOAR!
The sound that erupted from him wasn't human. It was the call of the most savage predator in the forest—the one whose roar made even Blackmane Bears flee. The one he'd recorded from across a river, thinking it might save his life someday.
It saved nothing tonight.
It shattered the camp instead.
The animals, barely calmed, went utterly insane. Horses snapped their tethers and bolted, trampling tents, waking sleepers with terrified screams. Wagons loaded with goods overturned as panicked livestock dragged them sideways. The tamer beasts simply voided their bowels where they stood, turning the camp into an open sewer.
Bonfires toppled. Men shouted. Women shrieked. Children cried.
And in the center of it all, Raymond sat in his new carriage, breathing hard, regretting nothing.
At the edge of camp, Haig watched the chaos unfold. Firelight flickered across his face, painting it in shades of orange and shadow. His expression was... complicated.
The young attendant stood frozen beside him, mouth open.
"Uncle Haig," he whispered, "what's the Wizard doing?"
Haig watched another wagon overturn. Listened to another wave of screams. Sighed deeply.
"Letting off steam, I'd guess."