It was early morning when Lenore and I managed to get back to the others, the first rays of the sun just hitting the canopy high above. It would easily take an hour, maybe two, for those rays to filter down to the gloomy shrubs near the ground and that twilight was something we had to use.

A quick tug on our connection called Sigmir and the others from their underground shelter, all of them looking somewhat rough and tired, the night not terribly restful due to the constant pressure generated from the elven attempts to locate us.

From what Lenore and I had felt during our flight, we had managed to shift the elven attention northward, but just how much of it would remain in the vicinity, we didn’t know. We had to keep moving, to slip the forming net, or things would only worse and worse, as the elves managed to seal off the area. Sure, it was an incredibly massive area, spanning tens of thousands of square kilometres of forest, but we were dealing with an entire civilisation, one that was symbiotically integrated into the forest.

With few words spoken, we began our run, Lenore retreating into her Hallow to catch up on some sleep, while I had to keep moving for both of us, keeping up with the others despite my exhaustion.

There were a few moments when I felt as if darkness was creeping into the corner of my eyes, my head drooping for a second before I woke back up and all the while, my legs kept pushing me forward, one step after the other, never stopping, never resting. Without Sigmir, I would have fallen countless times, the rough terrain tripping me and yet, despite her repeated offers to carry me, I refused, stubbornly carrying on.

Finally, after an hour of rushing through the forest, Ylva was the one to break the stalemate between Sigmir and me, by shifting her size to that of a small horse and threatening to carry me by the scruff of my neck. Given just how sensitive the feathers I had grown in that area were, I relented at that point, giving up my dignity and pride and tying myself to her back, letting me get carried like a bag of luggage.

Lying on her bag was surprisingly restful, given that there was no saddle, no blanket, nothing to keep her bony spine from poking me but her fur. Or maybe it was that very fur that helped me and made me comfortable, the scent so very similar to Sigmir’s, easily lulling me into a sense of comfort and security. I didn’t fall asleep, but I felt my mind start drifting, memories of the night flooding into the forefront of my mind and my lips twisted into a grin.

Those flames, the flames of Nidhogg, their appearance was burned into my brain. How could they not be, flames that didn’t disgust me, flames that had nothing to do with fire, heat or the sun? No, these flames were different, there was nothing disgusting about them, in fact, they were some of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

What was fire, what could it do? It devoured, it ripped apart the fuel, taking away the energy inherent in the material and spilling it into the atmosphere, leaving nothing but the wasted ashes after it was done consuming.

And these flames, they were just like fire, but they didn’t just spill the energy they ripped out of their fuel, no, they weren’t that wasteful, they kept the energy and devoured it for later use, a perfect, sustained embodiment of the rune of Devouring.

But weren’t they just as much an embodiment of Blood Magic, the concept of ripping energy from a medium, leaving it nothing but a shrivelled husk, while some of the fuel remained behind, the miasma, or ashes, of the process?

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Theories sprang up in my mind, as I tried to truly connect the two disparate concepts, scouring the runes i knew and looking for spaces where they might fit. Could there be some greater whole, a greater puzzle where these runes fit together to form a greater picture? One that unified Darkness and Blood, maybe with Death mixed in, too?

For a long time, I had been trying to form the complete picture of my Ice-Runes, ever since I realised that some parts of Stillness, Hard Ice, Eternal Moonlight, Cold and other runes shared some similarities, parts where it looked like they could fit together, akin to pieces of a puzzle. I had never managed, maybe due to limited time and the simple fact that I had often been distracted by other, more immediate, ideas that I wanted to investigate, leaving my Ice-Rune Mastery to largely stagnate but now, when realising that there might be a greater image between Blood- and Darkness-Magic, those old ideas came back to the forefront of my mind.

But how to make them a reality? I simply didn’t know, but those flames, they might be a clue to guide me. According to my understanding, they combined aspects of different types of magic, so wouldn’t a clue to my Ice-Runes be to combine different types of runes, to form that greater whole?

To combine the Cold with Hard Ice, possibly receiving Eternal Ice? But Eternal Ice wasn’t just colder than Hard Ice, thinking back, it wasn’t feeling really cold at all. When handling the Eternal Ice I had found beneath the glacier, I had concluded that it was more akin to a solid form of Ice Astral Power, making it cold to the touch but not to the air around it.

Discarding the idea to try analysing things from that direction, I focused back on the flames I had seen and suddenly, a grin appeared on my face. At the end of the day, weren’t my runic formations at their core combinations of different runes, working together to form a greater whole? The connecting patterns I had learned from the dwarves allowed me to decrease the waste, decreasing the need to brute force the flow of Astral Power with my skill in Rune Magic.

So, if there were patterns that allowed to combine different runes into a more efficient whole, wouldn’t that mean that all runes could possibly be connected? And if runes were visual representations of a greater concept, allowing me to focus my mind on that concept and form it with my will, wouldn’t that greater whole be a visual representation of all magic?

The idea made my mind tremble, a rune, for lack of a better word, that represented all magic, something far more complete and complex than the simple Dark-rune that I had thus far understood as Magic. Bringing that rune to the forefront of my mind, I tried to dissect it, trying to see if I might manage to find that greater truth within the simple rune.

The rune took shape within my mind, and the moment I tried to focus deeply on it, stinging pain shot through my mind, as the rune shattered. Countless smaller fragments were scattered through the darkness behind my closed eyes, my mind completely empty.

Lenore’s concerned voice shook me out of the stupor I had been in and I realised that only the vines I had used to tie myself to Ylva’s back had stopped me from tumbling down.

“I felt that one,” Lenore complained and a quick glance at the three bars that represented my condition showed that I had managed to deal massive damage to myself, half my HP, all my Astral Power and three-quarters of my Stamina simply gone.

“As did I,” I admitted, my mental voice shaken and a little hoarse.

“What did you do?” she asked, curiosity strong in her voice. For a moment, I considered showing her the rune and telling her to focus on it, but the mischievous idea instantly faded, it would be an incredibly vicious prank. Who knew if Lenore would even be able to do what I had done, or if she was, what the results would be? It had almost killed me, so I should tread carefully.

Instead, I gave her a simple, verbal explanation, carefully making sure to seal the memories of the event within my mind. There was no telling what i had stumbled upon, it most certainly was incredible but at the same time, it was utterly useless. The dichotomy made me chuckle softly as I cursed the lack of time. How could I find the time to try comprehending that fascinating discovery when I only had so little time remaining and those incredible flames and all the rest?

There was so much to do, so much to discover, but I only had so little time. And I needed that time to somehow get the status and ability to keep Sigmir by my side, even after this Mundus ended. I couldn’t waste my time on things that didn’t allow me that.