Universe's End

“I’m not sure we can push much further,” Kai Rong said flatly as the group camped around a dimly flickering campfire.

Roxy and Elijah were silent, letting the words sit before Flair quietly spoke up.

“I hate to say it, but I agree,” Flair sighed.

It had been another three months, six months into the full year they had within Oscuro, and things had only gotten tougher. In the short six months, they’d all improved; that was undeniable, but the rate of Oscuro’s progression was becoming too much.

Dark Surges were almost hourly. Tier sevens had stopped existing entirely, and every battle felt like a desperate struggle.

But they were close. To what, none of them were exactly sure, but they could all feel it, an impending sense of something big being nearby.

“We’re close,” Roxy finally said. “A day, maybe two out.”

“A day or two is quite a demand at this point,” Kai Rong countered. “I say this with no malice: Lady Roxy, Sir Elijah, you are becoming liabilities more than assistance. Even without you two, Flair and I are beginning to struggle ourselves.”

Roxy frowned. There was no reasonable way to deny that. Kai Rong and Flair were amongst some of the best, a step out from the realms of folks such as her father and the Founders, or the true transcendent-type fighters, such as Marcie or Uncle ‘Los. Yet even that eventually hit a wall when covering for two tier-sevens. It wasn’t just tier eights; tier eight alpha variants were becoming increasingly common within the packs of monsters they faced off against. With how much of the heavy lifting Kai Rong and Flair were doing, even the rate of ascension energy Roxy was gaining had plateaued; her contributions became more and more minimal, and as a result, so too did the significance of her involvement.

In other words, there would be no free rides in the ascension rat race, something everyone knew.

“I would normally agree with our tier eight patrons,” Elijah answered. “But.”

“But?” Kai Rong asked, somewhat surprised to see Elijah, the usually cautious man, putting out a different opinion.

“But I agree with Lady Roxy. We’re close enough to whatever it is that we’re sensing, that I can’t help but want to see it myself, the capstone to this story, to this tale waiting to be told.”

“And if we all die in the effort?” Kai Rong asked.

“We take it slowly,” Elijah answered. “At the first sign of too much danger, we abandon and begin returning from whence we came, spending the last few months in the shallows of Oscuro.”

“Not like the stuff we picked up will disappoint,” Flair muttered. The sheer volume of exotic materials that they’d gotten their hands on was staggering, bordering on the level of insane, a haul that would be expected from the Lord Founder after returning from some prolonged journey. It wasn’t all high-grade stuff, but even the mundane stuff was exotic in nature.

“Flair is correct; we have no need to search for ever higher-grade resources,” Kai Rong said.

“One day. We employ every precaution,” Roxy said, feeling like a child again, pestering her father for something, rather than the grown woman she was.

Kai Rong frowned before cocking an eyebrow at Flair. Stepping away, the two spoke for several minutes before finally returning.

“Fine,” Kai Rong answered. “But we will be the direct judges of when to return. If at any point things look wrong, we flee. Am I understood?”

Elijah and Roxy shared a look before nodding.

“Perfectly.”

“Good,” Kai Rong sighed. “Then, and to borrow from Flair’s language, you keep on my ass. I repeat, you keep on my ass. Even a few extra feet of separation at this point means death.”

Nodding at their leader, Elijah and Roxy crept closer as Kai Rong turned to Flair.

“Let’s move out. I don’t want to drag this longer than needs be.”

“Roger that,” Flair said, his normal humor dampened. With a snap of his fingers, the fire vanished, as the creeping shadow miasma began to draw nearer. It was a risk they took having the fire, but with Roxy’s empathic pulse, they’d determined there were no monsters close enough to spot the fire.

Moving out, the four crept through the environment. The once scraggy badlands had slowly transformed, becoming increasingly rocky and laden with gnashing cliff faces, as if they were descending deeper into the teeth of some vast monster.

And descending they were; the environment had been gently sloping downward for the last two months, as if ready to drop them off the side of the world.

Moving quietly and with all the stealth they could muster, they’d occasionally stop to hide themselves, as roving warbands of monsters passed by, hundreds strong, each led by several alpha variants. Even if they could best the bands of monsters, the ensuing conflict would guarantee others would find them.

Continuing for hours like that, the looming feeling threatened to explode in Roxy’s mind, and guiding her sight with a flat palm over her eyes, Roxy could see why.

There, in the distance, was a wall of stone made of purple-and-black clay-like sandstone, with a single split in the structure, as if a massive rift or ravine had been slashed through.

“What is that?” Roxy whispered to Kai Rong, who, as a tier eight, had better eyesight than her.

“Uncertain,” Kai Rong answered. “But I believe I see the source of what has been drawing us in.”

“What is it?” Roxy asked.

“Uncertain,” Kai Rong repeated. “For now.”

Having said their share, they continued forward in careful silence. Near enough that Roxy could narrowly make out something at the base of the gorge, she focused her eyesight.

Huh.

A temple-like structure stood at the base, pillars lining the sides, braziers lit with black flames. They were perhaps twenty miles away at this point, but as Roxy really narrowed her eyes, she swore she saw something, a movement that-

“Run!” Kai Rong whispered, her voice never carrying, even as her aura made it damn clear that things had gone to code red in an instant.

Eyes widening, Roxy turned to flee, never bothering to ask for an explanation, but even that was too slow.

In a single instant, something had simply appeared, bearing down on them with an ungodly pressure.

Eyes widening further, Roxy instantly became aware of what it was as the information dumped itself into her mind the instant her interface opened.