A pale hand reached for Haylock’s face from the corner of his eye, but when he spun to face the creature, nothing was there save the swaying mountain brush and valley winding beneath him. Ignoring another shadow that was creeping from the other side of his vision, Haylock listened to the sound of distant weapons fire and the roaring of Yabanchi swelling through the mountain valleys like a wind of death and ill omen. Paused in his ascent up the slopes of one of the bigger hills and felt a chill run through him that was not entirely from the cold. The others had not stopped and Tellaz called back from the front of the column.

“Haylock, what’s the matter?”

Haylock gestured to the giant dishes of the Delos array and replied, “My friends are back there.”

Tellaz’s expression was unreadable underneath the stormtrooper helmet, but Haylock was able to easily read his body language from years of not seeing the faces of others for months at a time. While Tellaz slumped, somewhat sympathetic, Haylock’s master snapped his fingers and rasped.

“There is no time for looking back now, your path is altogether different from theirs.”

“But, maybe there’s something we can do,” Haylock gestured, but he felt powerless as the sounds of gunfire increased, now tinged with men screaming. “They might die back there.”

“They will surely die if you do not continue on with your calling. Hesitation now would be fatal.”

Tellaz spoke up, “Lord Schultz is different from the traitor commissars you’re used to, Haylock. He’s not just going to leave them defenseless, they have heavy weapon systems set up there.”

“Right,” Haylock nodded and continued marching with the other nine stormtroopers and his master. As they walked, another hand reached for Haylock, this time his master’s and not an imaginary shade, and rested on his shoulder.

“Do you still see them?”

Haylock saw no point in lying to the only person who might understand what he was going through. “Yes.”

“Ah, this is good. Your mind has been expanded, even if only the barest fraction, to witness the powers that be.”

“They keep trying to touch my face.”

“Do they speak to you?”

“No.”

“Then ignore them. If they do speak to you, heed not their words and tell me immediately.”

“Yes, Master.”

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Haylock was already regretting his experience with the jump portal. Every night since his master had partially lowered the shields around the jumpship’s main portal, Haylock had seen shadows moving without physical forms to shape them and pale things lingering in the corner of his eye. Not to mention that the experience of being exposed to the void itself had been harrowing.

Sitting in front of the portal as his master lowered the shields, Haylock had stared into the empty space for hours. At first, as it was happening, the only thing he had noticed was the ache in his legs from sitting cross-legged for so long, but then he had noticed something. In between the portal pylons, just hanging in the air was a shimmer, a crack. He had been told to look out for something like this, so Haylock had swelled his lungs with as much mana as he could draw and forced the pressure to go up his head and to his eyes while he focused on the crack in the air.

The result had almost cost him his life.

Haylock had fallen into an endless ocean of black and humid heat. Beneath the pallid waters, whose only waves were generated by the thrashing of his arms, something had grabbed his head and tried ripping it off. In a confusing mash of feelings and sensation, Haylock had pulled away from the thing beneath the silent sea, and crashed backwards onto the cold deck of the jump ship. In the microsecond between those realities, the ocean floor had lit up and Haylock had seen what was grasping for his life, given shape and form in the angles between.

The memory of so many eyes, hands, and teeth spun in his head now, but the reward for risking his life had been worth the effort. Since then the flow and emanation of mana between the flow of living beings and the elements around them had been revealed to him. Where before he had been a drowning swimmer in an invisible sea, an ignorant beast of the plain, he was now more cognizant of the weaves of different mana, thicker than oil, but lighter than air.

A drab of mana, so oily it almost seemed like it was running down the hill and over their feet was coming from near the top of the hill. Tellaz and the other stormtroopers obviously could not see it, since they walked through it like nothing was there, but Haylock started hopping from foot to foot to avoid it.

“What are you doing?” Haylock’s master asked.

“This mana, it’s nothing like I’ve seen before!” The edge of Haylock’s foot touched the black mana and he instantly felt something in the back of his throat. Sweetness, mingled with an electric sensation that numbed up and down his body. He wanted more of it, to just dig his hands in the dirt and shovel it into his mouth if he could, but discipline caught the reins of his impulse and he stepped back instead. The desire was still there, but it quickly faded and left Haylock panting like he’d just wrestled a Screamer.

“Heh, I’m impressed.” Haylock’s head snapped at the rare slip of laughter from his master.

“What is it?”

Haylock’s master laughed again, twice in one week was unheard of, let alone a day!

“You should be familiar with it, given your profession. It is death mana.”

Haylock gave the oozing mana a hard look and shook his head. “No, not like this.”

“You’ve only just had your eyes opened like a babe breaching the womb, do not dismiss this new reality that you’ve stepped into.”

“Yes, master.”

“Eh, 'yes, master'. Foolish oaf. If a little death mana almost turns you into jelly, imagine what meeting the tomb lord will do to you.” The armored man, still nameless even after training for so long with Haylock, clenched a fist and waved it under Haylock’s face. “Do you remember your instructions?”

“Yes. Let you and the others breach the tomb and secure the tomb guardian. Count to three hundred after you leave my sight, go inside, and enter the inner chamber.”

“And then?”

“And then speak my name out loud,” Haylock whispered, “Karahata.”

“See to it that you do exactly that or the consequences will be…dire.”