For days and months, Fath continued to walk westwards, fighting against the occasional hollow corpse here and there. The march seemed to be endless, the scenery did not change once.  The length did not bother him as much, but the desire to meet more beings grew with every step he took.

He wanted to meet new faces. Faces he could appreciate, not like those things he met back at the village. The ones he wanted to see should be filled with the same kind of ambition he felt because climbing the Tower was the most important thing to do in this realm.

That was the whole purpose of them being there. The Tower was the place for them to gain what they wanted, be it power, knowledge, freedom or regaining what was once lost. At least Fath thought that it was like that. If this Tower was built by the Gods, getting to the top should certainly result in them gaining anything imaginable.

With these thoughts in his mind, he walked. It went for as long that he forgot how much time had passed since he entered the Lost Kingdom from its borders by the lands beyond. The never changing ash Fath was surrounded by was something he expected to accompany until the very end.

This was the reason why it was even more surprising for him when he finally noticed some change in the environment. The amount of the ash that had flooded the lands was reducing the more he continued his pathway and the most important change of all was the mountains.

The mountains were getting smaller!

The mountains that trapped him for so long inside of this pathway were losing their might!

One step after another, each of them filling him with newfound power carried him through the passage, while the height of the mountains was getting visibly smaller. Soon, what were once imposing mountains, were now small hills. Fath wondered what he could find when he crossed those hills but he shuddered at the mere thought of this action. Something inside of him told him that doing so would be a most unfortunate mistake.

Fath did not concern himself much with what lay behind these hills, he was instead fascinated with a new sight that greeted him immediately after everything around him had turned to even, flat ground.

It was bigger than what he had seen all those months ago. If the buildings made out of burnt wood were considered to form a village together, then what would he call the insanely high wall and the big buildings in front of him?

Was it just a bigger village, or was it a town? Perhaps it was even a city?

He was excited, a new city would mean a lot of new faces he could meet!

The buildings he saw were massive when compared to the burnt ones in the village. The more he looked at them, the more he pitied the poor souls of those creatures. They must have been focused on just the tree when they had the whole forest in front of them.

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Seeing these changes with his own eyes showed him that the way he thought was correct. Only by getting closer and then finally climbing the Tower may one achieve greatness. Reducing yourself to nothing more than a waste of space was only calling for trouble. He felt better with justifying his actions, while he went towards the huge entrance gates of the settlement that he decided to call a big town.

There was an eerie silence and no one came to greet him. Not that he expected it anyways but he thought that there might be a chance of that happening. Bigger settlements meant more beings, right?

He placed left hand on the gate and what little he could feel on his skin told him that the wood that this door was made of had a smooth surface, it seemed so...full of life.

Fath knew that for opening the gate his mark on the right palm was necessary but even so he wanted to know what the gate felt like. After rubbing the surface for a bit longer, he decided that he had done this for long enough so he nonchalantly placed his mark on it.

For a short moment nothing happened, but then he felt his mark emit a single, strong pulse to which the gate reacted. Even though Fath knew that his mark was the key to the town he had not known what it was going to do. Whatever this pulse was, it was different than what the mark had done thus far. 

This single pulse sucked out energy out of him, instead of filling it with him like it would normally do.

He got anxious as soon as he felt it happening. In order to not lose any more of his energy, he tried to remove his palm but it would not budge at all. So he could only helplessly continue to watch on and hope that this was not something that would last for a long time.

The gate, after a certain point, stopped to suck him dry. He removed his palm as soon as he was able to and stepped back a bit to fully see the gate without needing to look up anymore.

Veins started to pop out near the place his mark was on and they continued to expand until they reached the outmost reaches. The gate was black in color and the veins emitted an orange glow. Then the ground started to shake as those massive gates swung back just enough to let him pass through.

Fath passed through and the gate closed behind him.

The big town was had buildings made out of stone inside of it.

"Ah, a newcomer." A rumbling voice came from above him.

Fath got scared by the sudden appearance of a new being and this time it was truly different than what he had seen so far: It was completely made out of stone, it had the beak of a bird, the mane of a lion, the muscular arms of man, legs that could have well been the ones of a goat and finally the wings and a tail that were actually only considered the possession of dragons.

"Your appearance is not something we had awaited but it is sure a welcome one, Extinguished One." Its rumbling voice was so deep that he felt his bones shake.

The being left him no time to talk back and continued: "Though a welcome surprise, I must unfortunately tell you that your arrival is quite untimely. You see, the time of pilgrimage has not arrived yet, the gates to this town are currently closed." 

The atmosphere suddenly got colder, there was menace in the tone of the stone creature's voice.

"We would love to be your hosts during your stay but we need to prepare for the pilgrimage. So be a good extinguished and stay still for a moment, it won't hurt. I promise you."

Fath, who was already alerted did not need any more than that. He turned around and tried to run away, only to find himself getting punched on his neck. He heard a loud crack and soon lost consciousness.

The only thing he felt during this short moment was that it had fucking hurt.