Pxan was angry with himself again if that was the right word at this point. He was a few hundred meters from the sun rays when he discovered that the area near it was totally sealed off. It was made of hard, black stone that couldn’t be climbed and, more importantly, burned like the inside of a furnace. Ropes burned, hands got scalded, even metal yielded to the temperature.

To be so close to his destination and yet...realize to be so far from it. He sat near the river as he did many times before and looked around. There he had a nice hut, some tools and more importantly peace. Was he ready to renounce all of this for a life made of hurrying and orders? There he was free, free to climb or not. Free to work or not. He could lay for a week in the grass and no one would come over to his apartment and denounce him for being weird and not going to work. Isolation was sometimes atrocious and gave him great pains, but wasn’t this a small price to pay for peace? Wasn’t it worth it in the end?

Pxan didn’t know the answer nor he wanted to explore those thoughts to their conclusion, he already knew them, somewhere in the back of his mind. If anything went fine he would have to face at least a pair of demons and inquisitors when he woke up, he didn’t even remember how to hold a gun. A more probable scenario was that he was in a lab right now, probably Terence lab. He would have put him in a glass case and kept him alive in hopes that he woke up...oh what I am thinking, he would have done horrible experiments on him and was keeping him alive only because some substances were still in process. Damn!

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He lay on the ground for a few days, time there made no sense. There was no sun and no moon, no dimming light or shining rays, well except one, but that didn’t change. Was pushing through that last obstacle really worth it? Maybe, just as if his body adapted to climbing walls it would adapt to isolation, maybe even give him a few imaginary friends...if it didn’t happen already.

He walked through the temple, trying to decipher some hidden meaning in those faces or anything that might help him when he noticed something strange. The black egg wasn’t exactly an egg. It was similar indeed, but not exact. This was strange, all forms in the temple were perfect, the angle precise, the measurements to the millimetre. Yet his main object wasn’t perfect. He looked at it for a few hours before realizing what that represented.

Once the realization hit he looked at the temple in a new light. Those faces, those columns, the darkness, the demons, the expressions… it all made sense now.

More importantly, he knew that it wasn’t his destiny to remain there. With a few jumps, he climbed the first wall, using his system or ropes evitate the sharp plants and arrived again at the burning rocks. They burned yes, but the pain wasn’t unbearable. He prepared himself a few gloves that quickly burned, the pain in his flesh was atrocious, even granted his regenerator abilities it would take him days if not weeks to regenerate. With a few quick jumps, he arrived at a soft and cold area where the light shone directly. It was there finally, only for him to pass. It was the right thing to do. It was what he had to do.

He walked through the light and abandoned the temple and egg behind.