Azrael woke with a start and found himself in a combat crouch, before he could consciously register what was wrong. One moment passed, two… three. Nothing happened and after five breaths he began to doubt.

The lake and plain were silent, dead silent, giving nothing away. He couldn’t even see far, as a cold thick fog had crept up from the lake, shrouding the world from sight. He shivered, his clothes wet with droplets of water.

Azrael waited another minute, two, then three. Despite the silence and apparent calm, Azrael didn’t lower his daggers. It was happening, whatever it was. He could feel it. The problem was he wasn’t quite sure what it was yet.

Minutes continued to tick by, without any visible change. Thick fog billowed, wet and heavy, obscuring his sight. It left him with a severely limited view of his surrounding and gave his imagination free rein.

Silhouettes, real or imagined, moved amongst the folds of the fog. Their shapes were highlighted by the full moon hidden above, but were never there when he turned to face them. His ears strained to their limit, in the hope to hear the passing of the fleeting shadows.

The tension was palpable, charging the air. Even the very mana around him seemed to react, charging the air further.

A group of bandits, lying in wait, changed into a single hulking form. A giant approached with silent footsteps, only to vanish as the fog thinned for a moment. Beasts took shape, summoned by his imagination. Wolves and foxes made of shadows were replaced by silhouettes of dragons and more fearsome beasts.

Azrael backed up, hoping to find the stone pile. He moved slowly, each step measure, as quietly as possible. He never found it, despite having rested against it when he slept.

Unexpectedly, the tension in the air seemed to snap and the ambient mana momentarily stilled, before, impossibly, shattering. A second later it continued flowing as if nothing ever happened. The change was so sudden that, against his will, Azrael collapsed to the ground, like a marionet who’s strings had just been cut.

Heart hammering, Azrael pushed off the ground again as two blue screens flashed in his vision. He pushed them away. He couldn’t get distracted. Not now. Not when a single mistake could cost him his life.

Azrael knew that the moment had passed. It had happened. But that didn’t mean that the danger was gone. It just meant that he couldn’t sense it.

Eventually though, despite his misgivings, insects began to stir again. They came out from where they had hidden and started up their usual racket, as if their silence was only an illusion. There were less of them though. What once a soft blanket of sounds was now had an intermittent pause every now and again, as if there were less of them to take up their songs.

For almost another half an hour Azrael waited, expecting something to come for him. Nothing came though.

The insects chirped and the fog swirled peacefully.

In the end, Azrael collapsed to the ground, stones digging painfully into his backside.

Had he been wrong?

He looked at the gentle fog in front of him, moonlight filtering through.

Had he imagined it?

Light and shadow played harmlessly amongst the countless droplets of moisture that hung in the sky. For all the swirling patterns that it showed, it revealed nothing.

Resigned, Azrael brought up the dismissed notifications.

Congratulations!

You have stepped into a World Memory: [Mors’ Retirement]

Congratulations!

Due to your skill ‘Void Walker’ you have passed through without any harm.

Congratulations!

Due to keeping calm under pressure you have gained a level in [Calm Mind].

[Calm Mind] (Lv.11) has advanced to [Calm Mind] (Lv.12).

Azrael looked at the notification, his mind shooting in a hundred different directions. Somehow, he still came up blank.

“Sera?”

He felt her presence strengthen, indicating her moving towards his conscious thoughts.

“Yes?”

“What just happened?”

“You just passed into a World Memory. Mor’s Retirement to be exact.”

Azrael released a dagger in favour of running a hand through his hair.

“I know that” He said, irritated “I’m asking about what just happened and where I am now.”

The sudden change in tension had left him feeling off kilter and slightly short on any reasonable emotional responses. He knew that Sera could feel his frustration.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” He said, his voice slightly strained. “Why? Because you actually don’t know, or it’s one of those things you can’t tell me?”

“Because I can’t tell you.”

Azrael’s hand jerked and he plunged a dagger into the ground for lack of better response. Sera was apologetic. He knew she was, but…

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

He didn’t ask for any of this! All he wanted to do was play a game in peace, yet here he was on the other side of the goddamn known world! Players, gods, NPC’s, none of them left him alone, but he’d still thought that the game was fair, that there was something he was doing wrong. The game, it seemed, was just waiting for a chance to screw him over just as much as everyone else.

“Sera. Short and sweet, am I where I was earlier?”

“No.”

“Can I get out?”

“Yes.”

“Can I get out now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is that because you don’t know, or because you… You know what? I don’t care!”

He forcefully shoved Sera out of his consciousness, blocking of any way she had to contact him. With an angry yank he ripped his dagger out of the ground and picked up his other one, before storming off into a direction. Any direction. He didn’t care.

Stones crunched underfoot, while fog continued to obscure his view. A gentle upwards slope prevented him from walking in circles. It was boring and monotonous. Always the same crunch of stone and the same swirling fog.

He’d tried to disperse the fog, but wind magic didn’t work for long as the displaced fog would just roll back again. Fire magic was even more ineffective, the golden light of the blazing flames overpowered the silver light of the full moon, but failed to affect the heavy fog. The conjured flames tinged the surrounding mist gold and provided a bit of warmth, so he kept the flames summoned. For a small flame the mana cost was almost negligible, though not indefinitely sustainable with his current mana pool.

After seemingly trudging for hours on end Azrael paused, dismissing the flames. For the endless journey so far the flickering gold flames had been his only companion. That and the endless grinding of stones underfoot.

Now however, even with his flames dismissed, the fog retained a golden light. The silver light of the moon was nowhere left to be seen.

Azrael rushed forward hopeful and grateful for a break in the monotony. Each step forward bore him up the slope. Each step forward brough him seemingly closer to the light. Then, suddenly, Azrael broke free of the fog.

The bright light of the rising sun blinded him as it reflected off of the tops of endless clouds.

Adjusting to the sudden light Azrael blinked at the sight before him. A cloud sea; a sea of endless clouds stretched out before him in all cardinal directions. Above, the sky, so beautifully bright and blue, welcomed him.

For a moment everything was forgotten, except for the relief of being out of the endless monotony of stone and fog.

Hell wasn’t blazing hot, nor icy cold. It was bleak, monotonous and wet. The thick fog turned to droplets on your clothes, soaking them, weighing you down. The shadows, mocking, twisting, wore at your mind and the endless grating of stones underfoot threatened to tip you past the brink of insanity.

You couldn’t stop though, despite your clothes getting heavier the longer you walked and the grating of rocks, because if you did you would start to freeze. Your body would cool, soaked to the bone and you would start to shiver, start to freeze. And always the hope, the endless hope as you trudged up the slope, that you would break free from the monotony, from the insanity and be free.

And Azrael was free. He had made it, passing through hell and breaking into the sun kissed cloud meadow of heaven.

Azrael was completely free of the fog and enjoying the suns embrace, when he noticed something. The slope had flattened out, leveling itself a few meters above the sea of white clouds. The mountain top peeked out, an island in the endless sea of white, barely fifty meters in either direction. The cloud island plateau housed a tree and a single building – a wooden hut.

The hut was smaller than any of the houses back in his village and looked as if it would be blown away by the slightest gust of wind. A flap of tattered and faded cloth, perhaps once dyed in a magnificent red, served a curtain in the doorway.

A hand reached out, pushing it to the side and an elderly man stepped out, his silver hairs shining in the sunlight. The man’s clothes were as tattered at the curtain in the doorway, and just as faded. It was impossible to discern their original colour.

Seemingly ignoring him Azrael watched the man walk to the side of the house and pick up a stick, barely longer than his own arm. It was only then that he turned to face Azrael. There was no fear in the man’s eyes. In fact, there was nothing that gave away what the man was thinking.

Azrael watched, rooted to his spot as the strange man calmly pointed the stick at Azrael. Then with his free hand the man held up five fingers, before pulling in his thumb and leaving four fingers open. Four became three as the pinky was similarly pulled in.

Azrael took the chance to use [Lord’s Insight] on the man.

Name: Mors (The Silver Sword)

(weakened)

Class: Knight Captain (Lv.25), General (Lv.14). Trainer (Lv. 16)

The last finger came down and the man seemingly vanished from his position. Barely half a second later Azrael felt his legs being swept out from under him and everything went black as his head hit the ground.

The last thing he remembered seeing was a grey-haired face looking down at him and frowning, as if it were disappointed. Then, everything went dark.