Chapter 159: A Shift Of Fate
Ding!
—
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║UNIQUE REWARD!║
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[Old Cane]
[Holy Relic Description: The only cane capable of carrying the Sultan's weight.]
—
Still standing before the graves, Malik was stunned.
Though he wasn't told why he had gotten this reward, he could easily guess that it was because of his arrival here. The reading of Xerxes's final words.
Almost immediately, he called upon the cane.
And well, his smile turned even softer.
One would expect a cane for a Sultan to be covered in gold and the like, but... This one looked no different than some old tree branch.
Rather, it was even worse, barely held together.
It was the cane of his guardian, Mahdi.
The cane that held Malik when he dragged Mahdi's body through the desert, the same cane that held him when he was a Sultan, barely able to stand.
...when Corruption was devouring him.
Its ability was a very simple one.
With it equipped, Malik could never fall.
No matter what, he would remain standing tall.
That was Old Cane.
'Thank you, Father.'
Malik let out a sigh and walked forth.
It was time to see what nearly all Sultans were so desperate for.
Much like the expeditions in the East, his own had expeditions as well, and much like them, none had succeeded.
They were trying to reach Hell's bottommost layer.
Corruption was believed to originate from here.
It was what forever haunted Devil's Maw.
That was why Malik held such respect for the Sultans that were buried behind him.
Xerxes especially.
Hero among kings.
That was the meaning of Xerxes' name.
Most of Devil's Maw knew of this man.
His most wanted wish was achieved.
It was unquestionable.
Nearly every history book in the last three hundred years spoke of him.
He was the first of the Sultans to invade the North and expand their rule.
The beginning of what most of them knew as the unification of South and North.
An event that made the Sultanate so strong that in the later years, as more and more Sultans expanded, the West and East bowed their heads.
Sure, they didn't exactly become a single nation under one banner, but the Sultan of each time and era was Lord for all:
South, North, West, and East.
That was Xerxes' most well-known achievement, all due to how impressive it was, but, for all its glamour, it didn't even come close to those words Malik read.
Those words belonged to a humble man.
A man like Malik.
Indeed, he was a Sultan, his 'lessons' complete.
And damn, what a Sultan he was.
...
Malik began walking next to a nothingness so vast, so deep, it made the sky look like a crack in the wall.
It held a gravity so absolute that it pulled in existence itself.
Yet, he only felt glimpses of that pull.
He was not its target.
Above him was nothing, but behind and below him was a whirlpool of white.
It was burnt cold.
Frozen plasma.
Solidified flame.
Compressed suffering.
Malik stared at the ground, his body trembling.
The cold wasn't the cause; no, shear strain was.
Now, as he began his trek, only did it begin.
A pressure trying to... implode him.
Black Tears welled in the corners of his eyes.
They dripped down his cheek, hissing as they hit the white beneath him... a burning Corruption.
He didn't wipe them, preferring to move instead.
Move into the cold.
Yes, cold.
The Seventh Gate of Hell was so very cold.
But honestly, that word didn't even come close.
This... this was something beyond temperature.
A cold so intense that it stripped the concept of "heat" right out of the Laws of existence.
Still, Malik walked, his burning boots cracking the frozen fire beneath him, sending tremors that echoed into the nothingness.
Reality warped with every step.
He was alone here.
Alone in the endless, pale wasteland of Zamhareer.
The Frozen Chamber of Hell.
He walked.
For how long?
Time forgot to tick.
There was no such thing here.
Days. Weeks. Months. Years. Tens. Hundreds.
Footsteps continued to carve into the frost-fire behind him. A trail of hoofprints that glowed...
Then immediately froze into the ground.
They were scars on the face of Hell itself.
Malik never stopped.
Never paused or spoke.
His body was more of a... concept now than flesh.
His Black Tears had ceased, becoming rivers that trailed behind him. And then, finally, many years after he'd reached the six hundred mark...
He saw a silhouette.
A tiny something that stood on the horizon.
It was a familiar tree, turned sapling.
What were once mountain-sized roots, plunging deep into the frozen fires of Zamhareer, became no bigger than his hand.
What was once a trunk so wide, he couldn't even begin to see the other side, became no wider than his thigh.
Its branches that once split sky—or what little sky this place dared to have—were now no taller than he was.
But, of course, it wasn't all different.
The appearance was the same one he knew.
Its leaves were like scythes with fruits that weren't fruits but screaming, writhing, mutilated heads with opening mouths that bit, gnashed, wept, and laughed.
It was the very core of damnation itself.
Malik stood there for a very long moment.
He was completely silent.
It was almost as if he couldn't process it.
Oh, but he did; he knew exactly what was before him.
A Zaqqūm.
Or at least what remained of it after his last visit.
After he succeeded in reaching this place, he had done something the entire world, yes, even those outside Devil's Maw, knew and despised him for.
It was what Malik first heard upon his return.
The act that kicked off the Demon waves.
"Spine Splitter."
Malik's piercing of Devil Maw's Zaqqum.
The leaving of his only sword in its roots.
Disconnecting it from the True Zaqqum.
Stopping the Corruption of Devil's Maw and inviting the wrath of the Origin of Corruption upon the entire world as they knew it, forever changing it.
A shift of Fate.