Chapter 16: Echoes of a forgotten time
The first step into Eldranor felt like passing through a soap bubble: the almost ethereal resistance of the barrier broke around Ethan, and he felt the dense mana on the other side wrap around every cell of his body.
When he opened his eyes, the sight that unfolded before him wasn’t a surprise, but it still took his breath away.
Eldranor wasn’t a ruined kingdom. Ethan already knew this thanks to the novel: the forgotten realm remained preserved, as if it had been built just yesterday. Towers of white marble shimmered under a gentle light that hung between shades of blue and silver, giving the sky an almost dreamlike appearance, divided between day and night. Wide polished stone roads crossed plazas and hanging gardens, adorned with ancient inscriptions glowing in an ethereal blue.
Everything there overflowed with mana.
Eldranor was a kingdom frozen in time, not destroyed, but sealed. A perfect reliquary of a lost era.
And then he saw them: the guardians.
Golems.
Hundreds of them, sculpted from a gleaming white material, with lines of blue mana running beneath their surfaces like luminous veins. Some were colossal, resembling armored knights. Others, more delicate, looked almost human, with serene features and precise movements.
Ethan watched as they patrolled ancient routes, completely ignoring his presence. He knew, thanks to the novel, that they wouldn’t attack unless they sensed a real threat. Their role was to watch, maintain order, and protect the secrets sleeping beneath the marble.
He took a deep breath, letting the grandeur of the place sink in. A kingdom born in an era when gods still walked among mortals, and where divine energy was as common as air.
Ethan walked with steady steps through the streets, the sound echoing softly against the white marble walls. At each corner, he observed the imposing sentinel golems, all white as snow, their bluish lines pulsing slowly, as if breathing pure mana.