After a few more stops, we reached the cloud level. By then, I had discovered that for some odd reason, even if I got the physical structure theoretically right, my hair did not turn black. It got only darker, until it was very dark burgundy red. To compensate for that, I grew some dark stubble around my chin. I aimed for a heroic look like Viggo Mortensen had in his role of Aragorn, but the dark red colour gave me somewhat sinister appearance instead. At least, Eala had stopped flinching when she saw my eyes, and seemed to have much fun observing my cosmetic procedures. She still had to provide the mirror, though.

---

We had decided to have another stop after getting above the clouds. As I had estimated, we had reached the height of over three kilometers. While Eala guaranteed that elves did not need to adapt to lowered oxygen levels or other elevation-related changes, she lost a significant amount of stamina from being tossed around while on my back. She was not like me, who did not feel any difficulty when performing hundreds of five-meter high jumps. Well, she was still impressive. An ordinary human from Earth would have likely gotten organ damages from such transportation method.

I used the free time during the rest to ask Eala about the things I had discovered inside the pyramid. She told me that no, by the time they had come, the city had been abandoned long ago, and no living humans were seen. About the information that had direct connection to me like vol'iez or shagor, she did not know anything.

However, the Words, Edicts, Laws, Powers and Authorities, after I had managed to explain her their meaning in English, Eala had something to tell. Slowly, carefully choosing the words, she explained her understanding of the matter.

---

Generally it is believed that words have power of their own. Especially words that carrн a sense of strong, unified concepts across different tribes, nations, cultures and even races. Water, Earth, Light, Fire, Life, Death, Food, Blood and such were extremely widespread, stable and powerful. For example, dominating majority of Clann Taistealai had a strong affinity with the idea of Water. That way, even while they innately could manipulate the existing water as if it was a part of their body, because of them additionally being associated with the Word of Water, they were also able to create it. Eala also reasoned, that the Words were embedded into the “invisible part of us, that makes us Us”, which I interpreted as “soul”. And the Words had different strength and affinity - usually souls had very faint connection to a Word, as an extremely large number of different souls had a connection to the same one at the same time.

Elves generally did not care much about the concept of Words, although they were aware of it. Due to their long lives and generally same, average affinity to a specific Word, rarely appeared somebody with an extreme power or a different Word. And in case of elves, differently from many other races, they were never born without the Power of the Word. For example, for humans it was quite ordinary to be born without a connection to the Word.

But according to Eala, as the soul’s connection to the Word became stronger, the person could utilize more and more of the concept behind the idea of the Word. And at the highest stage, the person could assimilate the Word and become able to bend the very idea that gave the power to the Word. Different tribes and nations called such phenomenon differently, but she guessed that was what the rest of the terms represented.

As we discussed and compared the writings in the journals I had found, after a while we managed to form the following ranking of the connection to the Words: Word

Surprisingly, Eala quickly found nuances in the texts that I read and translated for her, which helped a lot in finding subtle meanings hidden between the lines. Eala confessed, that while she had always liked reading and looking through the foreign texts they discovered, in their group the researcher used to be the elf with the blue hair. She had been much older than Eala, and had known much more things about the world. Eala, on the other hand, had always been forced to train martial prowess due to her position in the clan.

According to our findings, we could make the conjecture that I also possessed some sort of connection to some Word. The problem was, we had no idea which one it was. Eala suggested that it might be some weapon or Blood, due to my combat ability and the poleaxe. I retorted, that it could well be the result of my unusual body composition. One thing was certain - my connection to the Word could not be weak. Otherwise, I would have been unable to oppose a strong mage without any prior training.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Now having more things to think about, we continued our way up the pyramid.

---

After another six hundred or so steps we could finally see the last stretch of the pyramid above us. We had covered approximately two thirds of the distance, and the pyramid’s sides were slowly coming together. Eala had to take a nap in between in addition to other rest stops, so I estimated it took us around one and half days to get that far.

Beneath us, visible between random wisps of clouds stretched the land. No signs of a civilization, just green forests, rivers, lakes, some larger bodies of water, and random stretches of grasslands.

And as far as I could see, it was definitely flat as board. Not even a hint of the curvature a planet was supposed to have. What was disturbing, was the horizon that was blocked by a row of mountains, stretching infinitely across the field of view far off the distance. But somehow, I felt that they were just a bit shorter than the top of the pyramid we were on. I felt a weird urge to see beyond them, and was slightly annoyed due to having to wait for Eala to catch her breath.

At least we had her toilet breaks sorted out. Initially, Eala was fidgeting and feeling embarrassed as hell. I did not care much about that, considering that it was a natural process and everything, but some female behaviour traits were clearly shared between races, species and times. My suggestion to use magic to send some fertilizer down towards the jungle below was met with approval. Now she simply informed me about her intentions, and I turned around while she made the full use of her water manipulation. However, I might have failed to draw her attention to the fact that now, due to the structure of the pyramid and our position, her return gifts to the nature did not reach the ground and the intended herbal recipients.

---

And then, we reached the top. The height that I estimated to be over nine kilometers, made it higher than Mount Everest and placed our position straight into so-called “death zone”. But surprisingly, it was still quite warm and Eala had no trouble breathing either. Well, considering the fact that there were clouds below us, there had to be a change in temperature in the atmosphere to cause the condensation. Perhaps only the pyramid had some sort of protection field, creating a habitable environment? The wind had picked up, though, turning from the occasional light breeze into a constant and annoying flow.

And as I had suspected, the pyramid did not end with a sharp point. Instead, there was a flat top approximately one hundred meters across, just like ziggurats used to have. Ziggurats were not supposed to reach the scope of Himalayas, though, unless we were facing the Tower of Babel now. There was also a proper human-sized stairway leading down opposite from the side we came up from. In the middle of the top was a sixteen-sided building, fifty or so meters wide. Or rather, used to be. Now its shape could be determined only by observing the lower areas that had preserved the original form. The top of the building, which was at least over twelve meters high, was scorched by the flames of unknown intensity, melting the rock that vitrified into a solid mass. That also sealed the stone doors which could be recognized on four sides of the building. And high up on the side which was scorched the worst, there was visible a deep breach that led inside.

The initial disappointment about the sealed doors was swept away as I realized that it had been inside that building that I woke up in this world. And I knew well that there was nothing of interest inside now. However, where did the spear disappear, the one that had pierced the mage that dragged me here and thus allowed me to escape his grasp? If I was correct, then all these signs of high temperature and everything had been caused by the spear, but when I tried to touch it, it disappeared. Magic missiles, that was something to be wary of. Seeing no other clues, I shrugged and turned to look around at the world.

I moved around the top of the pyramid to have a good look around. I saw four other pyramids away in the distance, forming a giant cross together with the one we were on. And each one was equally enormous. And with pyramids evenly spread out, the world was surrounded by a mountain range without any gaps.

And what shocked even me, and made my mind tremble even without the adrenaline, was beyond them. Mountains were really lower than pyramid as I had expected and now I could see what was there. What I did not expect, however, was that there was the End of the World. With capital letters. So capital, that they called out to be underlined and bold.

Behind the mountains I could see only blackness. Even sky, clear above me, disappeared and became black beyond the mountains. I should have expected that, with the world being flat and all, but one thing is to speculate and guess, but seeing it was a completely different matter. It was like the hypothetical edge of the universe - theoretically it exists, but the mind is not equipped with the function to perceive it directly. Weaker minds collapse, and strong minds are shaken.

However, Eala, whom I had almost forgotten about, calmly looked at the blackness. She seemed to think a bit, then she turned to me and said: “It is much closer now. We not have much time.”