Vir crossed the Ash Boundary not really knowing what to expect. On the one hand, the Ashen Realm was a place full of mythological beasts and terror. It was the stuff of bedtime stories and campfire tales. It didn’t feel real.

On the other hand, Vir had good reason to believe it was ripe with Ash Prana. More than he’d ever experienced in his life. When put together, delusions began to form in his head. Of him wielding prana like the greatest Mejai. Of fighting beasts with Balar Ranks that had far too many zeroes.

A living god.

He wasn’t sure when the idea really took root. Perhaps it was back at Daha, when he’d first learned the names Prana Swarm, Mahakurma, and Wyrm. Or maybe it was when the idea of entering the realm became more than just a delusion.

For a moment, Vir couldn’t understand what he was looking at. A thick haze blanketed the air, almost pitch-black. It was like a fog bank of death had rolled in, reducing visibility.

No. Not death. Ash!

The electrifying realization sent shivers down his body. The prana was so dense, it resembled a thick cloud. When he looked closer, he noticed prana of all colors present in far more abundance than they were in the human realm.

But dominating them all, by far, was Ash prana. It soaked the air, giving it a heaviness that couldn’t be put into words. Perhaps those delusions wouldn’t be delusions at all.

Vir turned and noticed the Boundary was missing. The mesmerizing wall that pierced the sky was nowhere to be seen. There was only ash. Endless fields of ash.

His boots sunk into the soft material, coming up to his knees. The ash was everywhere, blanketing the ground, covering the jagged black mountains that loomed in the distance, and falling from the dark thundercloud skies high above. He couldn’t tell whether it was day or night, but such concepts held no meaning in this place.

“Ashen power! Ah, how I have missed you!” Cirayus bellowed, raising all four of his arms to the sky. “Now, as I was about to say before you recklessly rushed inside, expect pain. A great deal of it.”

Vir had half a second to take in those words before the pressure pummeled him, as if Cirayus had just activated Balancer of Scales at its maximum setting.

No, worse. He couldn’t breathe.

Vir’s knees buckled. He put a hand down to stabilize himself but found that it, too, sank deep into the ash, coming away blackened with soot. To make matters worse, small ash particulates entered his lungs, triggering a violent coughing fit.

“Breathe, lad. Just breathe,” Cirayus said. “Focus inward.”

Despite willing himself to do exactly that, Vir found the task nearly impossible. It took all his willpower to suck in even a mouthful of air, but when he did, the ash entered his mouth, triggering another fit.

Mustering every ounce of willpower he had, he retrieved a cloth and tied it around his nose and mouth.

Breathing became even more difficult, but the mask at least blocked most of the ash.

Great. One debilitating problem down. Only a handful more to go.

His delusions of grandeur steadily slipped away like a dream that never had a hope of ever coming true. At this rate, he wouldn’t even get the chance to fight Ash Beasts in glorious combat. He’d succumb to the very air. That wasn’t just tragic… it was pathetic.

Vir didn’t understand what ailed him. And lacking that knowledge, he had no hope of finding a cure. Was this the prana poisoning everyone talked about? Or was it something else?

In a fleeting moment between the throbs of pain and his other afflictions, Vir noticed Cirayus hadn’t sunk into the Ash, but rather stood on top. Vir had expected the giant to sink to his waist, given his weight.

Ah, right. Balancer, he thought, gasping for air. Each breath came heavy and slow and brought in only the tiniest amount of air.

Cirayus… wasn’t looking at Vir. In fact, the giant’s back was turned to him, his attention occupied with a swarm of black creatures that encircled them.

Scorpions! These were unlike any he’d ever seen. The one he’d plucked out of Maiya’s hair during their trip to Saran had been the size of a finger. These spanned easily two paces across, and there were dozens of them.

We’re doomed, Vir thought. Not even a minute after they’d entered, Ash Beasts had come to consume them. To say nothing of the fact that Vir was slowly dying of unknown causes.

If I’d come here alone… He gulped. It would’ve been a pitiful, miserable end.

He threw a concerned glance at Cirayus.

Vir shook off that thought. Cirayus was beyond powerful. While Vir floundered on the ground merely existing in the Ash, Cirayus had crossed the entire realm. He didn’t have the luxury of worrying about his guardian; if he didn’t come up with a way out of his predicament, he wouldn’t be worrying about anyone, ever.

“Control yourself, lad! It’s the prana. It’s trying to get inside you! Focus on that!”

Kinda hard to focus when you’re suffocating. It wasn’t just the drowning sensation, either. Pain wracked his entire body, like something was dissecting him with a million blades. The torment nearly robbed him of his consciousness.

Then again, he was no stranger to pain and hardship. Vir fell into himself, shoving the pain into a dark corner of his mind. Through sheer willpower, he forced himself to think. To analyze.

With the barest hint of blood circulation, Prana Vision activated, surprising him how little prana was required. He turned it inward… and immediately discovered that Cirayus was right.

Prana was rushing into his body at an alarming pace. Worming its way inside. The skill he’d developed to prevent prana from leaking out was now working to his disadvantage, pulling prana in at an alarming rate. His blood wasn’t merely supersaturated… it was hypersaturated, and with every moment that passed, more and more of it filled him.

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I’m going to burst at this rate.

Vir immediately canceled the technique he’d dubbed ‘Light Touch’, which held his prana inside his body.

The pressure subsided, but it was as if he’d closed the water tap to an ocean that weighed down on him. It was progress, but the ocean was still there, crushing him.

Thinking quickly, he attempted something he’d never done—never been able to do—in the past. He actively purged prana from his body.

When he’d rid his body of prana against the Prana Swarm at Daha, he’d simply canceled Light Touch and let the low Ash prana density in the air do its thing, sucking him dry.

Here, he had to actively push the prana out of his body. Learning new prana manipulation techniques like Parai’s channeling pattern ordinarily took him hours, if not days, but times were desperate.

Wait, Parai’s technique? That might work!

He had no evidence to support his harebrained idea, though it certainly made sense. Prana Channeling boosted his vitality by pulling prana from the ground quicker than normal. If he reversed it…

Vir activated the ability, but he did it backwards, flowing prana in the opposite direction the ability usually called for.

It wasn’t easy. The pattern had grown into something like muscle memory for him, and changing it up took significant mental effort.

But he did it. And it worked.

Instead of improving his vitality, he felt even weaker than before, but sure enough, the rate at which prana entered his bloodstream slowed, then stopped, and finally began to purge.

Purge! That’s it!

Vir fired Prana Blade blindly, accidentally lopping off the head of an unfortunate scorpion. The power surprised him, but the scorpion had been a full five paces away.

Unfortunately, he lacked the time to dwell on that feat. His body had had enough of being deprived of air, and darkness crept in at the edge of his vision.

Vir didn’t allow it. He cycled Parai’s technique faster. First only in his back, then within his arms and legs as well. All while firing Prana Blades as fast as he could. There was no mistaking it; the ability had more than doubled in range.

It occurred to him that Leap, High Jump, and Dance would likely have the same effect, helping to purge prana, but he’d only ever activated those with ground prana, and never with the prana in his own body. There had never been enough to do so.

Vir couldn’t risk accidentally drawing in more from the ground, so he forewent trying to activate them with just the prana in his body. For now.

Slowly, agonizingly, his breaths grew deeper, sucking in more and more air until the darkness abated and he regained his senses long enough to look around.

What he saw made him laugh, though he instantly regretted it when it turned into a hacking cough.

Cirayus sat on the ash, watching Vir in the middle of a field of scorpion corpses. There was something off about the scene, though. Vir searched outward, looking farther and farther away, until he found the source.

“No grakking way,” he whispered.

The ash had compacted a full pace wherever Cirayus had used Balancer. Except, its domain of influence was so large, Vir hadn’t spotted where its influence ended.

That has to be over a hundred paces in diameter!

Vir felt like he’d become an ant in the Ash. Cirayus seemed to have had the opposite transformation.

Turning Prana Vision to the giant, Vir was unsurprised to find the Life, Earth, and Fire prana had all grown far denser and continued to do so even now. The total prana inside the giant’s body was incomparable to before.

Compared to him, Vir felt stunted. He’d blocked out that very prana that desired to rush into him. Prana that would have strengthened him. Doing so had saved his life, but it also meant he received none of the strengthening benefits of the dense atmospheric prana.

Back at Brij, he’d been weak and prana-starved. The moment he’d learned to keep it from leaking out, his vitality and endurance had soared. He had more energy, and he could run miles without resting. With this much prana around, he could scarcely imagine the feats he’d be able to achieve.

He didn’t need to imagine. One look at the demon beside him showed him. In the Human Realm, Cirayus had been an apex warrior. Strong, skillful, but still mortal. Now? It was as though he’d turned into a demigod.

“You seem better now,” the giant said.

Vir nodded. “No thanks to you,” he said in a voice that was harsher than he’d intended. “I mean, you could’ve given me a tip or two.”

“And who was the one who let their hormones get to their head? Who was it who rushed headlong into the Ash, hmm?”

Vir averted his eyes. “Not the smartest move, admittedly.”

“Lad, everyone deals with the weight of the prana in the Ash differently. For most, it is merely an uncomfortable experience. I’ve never seen someone have such a violent reaction. I’m afraid nothing I said would’ve helped.”

True enough. Vir had had to rely on his ability to purge prana from his body, as well as Parai’s technique—which Cirayus didn’t even know about.

“Are you better now?” the four-armed demon asked, rising to his feet. “We’d best get a move on. The Abyssal Flats are no place to linger.”

“You…” Vir coughed. “You know where we are?”

“Aye, I recognize it. 'Tis both a lucky and tragic place to wind up. Lucky, because we are somewhat nearby to some items I stashed before exiting this realm. Items we absolutely need if we are to make it across.”

“What’s tragic about it?”

“It is as far as we can be from all known Ash Gates. We have a long journey ahead of us, I’m afraid. A long and arduous journey.”

Vir tried to stand but found his legs buckling from under him. It wasn’t that his weight was greater here, at least he didn’t think it was. Rather, the prana in his body was out of balance. By struggling to purge the prana from him, he’d overcompensated and burned away too much.

And yet, if he broke his concentration for even a moment, the prana would rush into his body, triggering a thousand needles of pain and suffocation all over again.

It was like someone was trying to inflate his blood, filling it to capacity, then stretching it until it burst.

Vir shuddered. If such a thing ever happened, he would surely die.

Taking a moment to center himself, he worked Parai’s Reverse technique, tuning it to allow just enough prana in to feel normal. It wasn’t too difficult—so long as he was sitting down, concentrating on it. But the movement he tried to get up, the lapse in concentration sent prana pouring into his body again.

Over the next half hour, Vir stumbled and lurched, until Cirayus called out more dangerous threats approaching. Scavengers, hungry to gorge themselves on the feast of dead scorpions that ringed the place, circled high above.

Cirayus picked Vir up gently, hoisting him onto his shoulder.

“It is alright. You survived the initial few minutes. The rest is merely a matter of time, and we'll have plenty of that later. More than plenty.”

There was something about Cirayus’ tone that piqued Vir’s interest. Like the giant was leading him on.

“What do you mean? Didn’t you just say we didn’t have enough time? Isn’t that why you wanted us to enter right away?”

“Aye. It’s just that time in this place does not progress at the same rate as the other realms. It is something only those of us who’ve spent a great deal of it inside are aware of.”

“You mean time progresses more slowly here?”

Cirayus stroked his beard. “Not quite. Time is... fluid, here. One day in the Ash is closer to one week outside where we currently are. But as we venture deeper, the opposite becomes true. Deeper into the Ash, one week here is more like one day outside, though it is hard to measure. As I said, we have plenty of time to achieve our goal.”

“Our goal. You mean making it to the other side, right?”

The giant smiled evilly. “Oh no. That was never our goal, young Vir. Our goal is to forge you. To temper you. To hone you into a walking force of devastation so powerful that when we emerge, the denizens in the demon realm won’t dare resist.”

Vir shivered. There was a fanaticism behind Cirayus’ words that made him uncomfortable. That, more than the Ash itself, scared him. It terrified him.

What does he mean? What’s that supposed to mean?