When you make your way into the canyon and raise your eyes, the effigy looks like a mountain, the silhouette of a mass among the clouds in constant agitation by the fierce wind of those heights. As you continue to climb and overcome the clouds and winds, the mountain reveals itself as a statue of a being seated in the sky, just at the edge of a bridge destined always to be unfinished, because natural and divine laws dictate that no one ever could or ever will be able to approach The One.

The One's hood and stone cloak are embroidered with lines and curves that represent malleable space and flowing time, always above, never touching or disturbing him. The One needs no eyes because he is omnicient, the world and the whole enters his sockets as the wind does, and from his beard hang cylinders like baseless pillars, explaining the innermost secrets of creation, in hieroglyphs so alien, twisted, and numerous, that many sages spent centuries unable to decipher the meaning of his characters. The sages argued that if a madman had engraved them at random it would have been even easier to make sense of them. The same with the lines that are exposed in the giant book that the statue shows between its cracked fingers... Some scholars claim that it is the history.

History of what?

The history of everything.

The beginning and the end.

The trials of living and dead beings, from the smallest and most fragile to the greatest and most powerful. Again everything is in a language that seems made to never be deciphered. It is not surprising that such a primordial and hermetic entity as the father of all, lost his cult in the course of the aeons. The faithful, who after spending millennia praising and asking for answers to the one who is unique, grew tired of not receiving closure to their doubts and migrated to more communicative divine and infernal cults, including the 11 disciples, the 11 great writers who gave form and life to the passages.

Some scholars claim that The One never existed, and in fact go further by declaring that the divinity was invented by the 11 disciples, who were simply prodigious with the rare gift of the scribe, a gift that, for the sake of the natural order of things, was disappearing from the lineages over the years. Of course, this radical position is frowned upon by the most conservative spheres of the different societies, although it is slowly making its way among the skeptics who look with distrust at the stories inherited from the era of origin and the era of legends.

The psalms of The One were forgotten, and if ever the entity left teachings or warnings to the inhabitants of the passages, these also ended up silenced by the vast remoteness of the ages. But there were still the temples and statues of the creator adding weight to the plans, a solid reminder of a mystical origin that perhaps never was.

Ivy and Camui advance side by side until they reach the edge of the incomplete bridge. The fierce wind ruffles the cloaks of both. Ivy points her staff at the statue's colossal hands, each palm capable of holding a kingdom.

Camui lifts his face and focuses, until he catches a glimpse of the chains dangling from the statue's fingers. The material of the links varies, some chains are of gold and others of a metal so dark that it devours the light, some have been there so long that there is no record to indicate which master blacksmith forged them, and none match in age with the statue that wears them, proving that all the chains were attached long after.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

From each chain hangs a different item. There are hundreds. From the box of Melanicus, who is said to hide a powerful evil capable of destroying the passages; or even the mummy divided into three parts of the chief Alazar, whose orgy of blood lasted a hundred days and a hundred nights, without discriminating between men, women, old men and children, and who was betrayed by his allies when they considered his cruelty an aberration against everything. His corpse was divided into three parts to ensure that he would never return among the dead seeking revenge.

"Hanging from the hands of The One, Camui, lie sealed the elements too powerful or dangerous to the natural order of all things. The elements here are both reminders of caution for current and future generations, and errors that not even my flames would be able to consume" the witch explains.

Camui nods, although his gaze focuses on an object that shines like a small star under the shadow of The One's left index finger. Camui points his finger and asks what the hilt of a broken sword is doing there.

"It is the Cori, the second half of the Mericori" Ivy clarifies. "It was split in two and separated. It is said that its power was capable of turning mountains into pebbles and splitting the seas. The location of the first half is unknown, and historians assume that no chain was able to seal the edge without being cut"

About fifteen minutes later master and apprentice continued their journey through the canyon, but the image of the Cori was burned into Camui's mind.

Camui jumps off the rock seconds before it is pulverized by a whiplash from the Cumulus of Hate. He lands on a half-sunken log, and pulls from its mantle a white wooden statuette. The carved figure is the hilt of a sword with barely a couple of centimeters of edge. The hilt has a double handle, one pointing towards the blade and the other pointing towards the user, with a circular pommel that ascends in straight lines to the double edge.

The boy closes his eyes. He squeezes the statuette in his hand and activates his gift as a sculptor. The wood cracks and disappears into dust between the fingers, and a luminous energy that only he can see envelops his arm.

"It hurts! Turn this pain oooooooff!"

Voices shout and the Cumulo plants itself in front of the boy, making the water in the swamp jump and the half-sunken trunk shudder. Camui opens his eyes and fearlessly faces the jumble of howling faces. The boy's right hand opens and sets his fingers straight.

The Cumulo throws itself at Camui like a wave and devours him, enveloping him in its darkness. Titania gasps and covers her mouth.

It seems the end, but a line appears from the base to the top of the Cumulo, opening it like a coconut, and a stream of hatred in the form of miasma is expelled like a fetid exhalation. More lines emerge and split the Cumulus, silencing the screams from its faces and dropping chunks of black plasma into the swamp. The lines number over a hundred, and the Cumulus explodes in a wave of miasma and air.

Camui remains still on the trunk, his arm straight up pointing to the sky. On his cheek and forehead, and along the arm he uses as a weapon, are patches of corroded and bleeding skin, but the boy remains steadfast despite his wounds.

The remains of the Cumulo recedes and rises five meters above the swamp, melting back into a long, decapitated black snake, its stump bearing the distorted and mingled features of all those whom Titania consumed.

The Cumulo throws himself screaming at Camui. The boy waits with a straight hand. He waits until the Cumulus is close enough. Lowers his arm, then swiftly raises it again....

And slash!