At least an hour had passed before Kael began to move again. The pounding in his head had faded, and the ache in his muscles had nearly vanished. Even the wound on his thigh had begun to close.
All of it was thanks to the perfect cellular structure that every Luminaire gained upon awakening.
Kael reached down, untied the strip of his coat from his leg, and tossed it aside. The cloth drifted through the still air before landing soft on the ground.
'I'm starting to understand how this downward pull works.'
It had taken effort and clarity to piece it together, but his understanding had deepened.
The pull could indeed be visualized as a downward force, though that description was technically inaccurate. While it behaved like gravity, it functioned more like a targeted pressure, an invisible hand that sought out souls. It pressed on whatever carried a soul within it, anchoring it to the ground.
Anything without a soul, stone, water, trees, was ignored entirely. That explained the flowing river, the falling branches, the way the leaves rustled with the vibrations. The pull did not act upon matter, it acted upon existence itself.
'That also explains why I was able to move.'
Kael's gaze shifted to the fallen trunk resting above him. After the tree had crashed down, it had shielded him from the invisible ceiling where the downward pull had begun its descent.
'The force probably applies to the mountain troll as well, but its raw strength alone must be enough to move freely.'
His eyes hardened as he looked around. Everything nearby now felt like a death trap. The only reason he was still alive was pure luck, and nothing more. The troll's strike had toppled the tree that ended up saving him.
'Still… while my theory explains most of it, it doesn't explain why I was pulled down even while wearing clothes.'
He reached for a nearby stick and tied the torn strip of his coat, the same one he had used to bind his leg, onto it. Then, removing his coat entirely, he wrapped it around his arm and slowly extended it beyond the trunk's cover.
To his surprise, the arm did not slam to the ground.
He narrowed his eyes. The result was unexpected, and the uncertainty made him uneasy. There was still much about the force he did not understand, and that made him wary.
He pulled the coat over his head like someone shielding themselves from the rain and took a deep breath before stepping out from beneath the tree's cover. A moment passed in silence before he finally allowed himself to exhale.
'Seems like it's working.'
He moved toward the river and dipped the cloth-tied stick into the water, waving it back and forth a few times before pulling it out again. After a short glance at the makeshift torch, he turned and began walking upstream.
'I need to find where the water is coming from…'
He leapt over a fallen trunk, the wet bark slick beneath his boots.
Based on simple reasoning, the river had to originate from an opening somewhere, and with some luck, it might be large enough for him to rest inside, safe from the downward pull.
'It shouldn't be possible for the river to stretch this far.'
The further he walked, the colder his expression became.
When he had fallen into the hollow mountain, he had done so in a straight line, keeping track of the mountain wall beside him as he descended. If everything had worked as expected, he should have landed only a few dozen meters from the wall. Yet he had already walked more than a kilometer upstream, and still the river stretched on without end.
The space around him was eerie. There was grass, trees, and stone like any other forest, yet every leaf stood perfectly still and each blade of grass pointed upright, untouched by even the faintest breeze.
If not for the constant murmur of the river, the silence would have been suffocating.
After walking for nearly an hour, Kael's steps slowed, then stopped entirely. He scanned the area before settling on a tree with a dense, dark crown that seemed thicker than the rest.
He approached it and extended his bare hand into the open space before him.
"Safe… safe… safe…"
He whispered the word under his breath each time his fingers met nothing but still air. Then, moving slowly, he shifted his hand from one spot to another, testing the air beneath the canopy, tracing the invisible boundary where the leaves shielded him from the sky.
Now and then his hand would reach an open space, thereafter he had to fight with his entire body not to succumb to the force and pull back his hand.
After a while, Kael had drawn an uneven circle into the dirt beneath the crown, and sat down leaning against the trunk.
'This will have to do for now. '
He had wanted to reach the end of the river, but with a torn leg, walking had become a struggle.
Under no circumstances would he allow himself to reach such an exhausted state that he couldn't defend himself.
Reaching into his inner pocket, he pulled out another mindstone and crushed it in his hand.
'I had to use thirty mindstones just to reach three hundred thousand Thoughts again…'
He looked down at his empty hand.
'It doesn't matter. I can always get more.'
He closed the pouch inside his coat and fastened it shut.
"Resources mean nothing if they aren't spent when it matters."
Leaning back against the tree, he closed his eyes.
While using mindstones to keep his Thought reserves from plummeting might seem excessive, in truth, it was worthwhile. Every mote he owned wouldn't sell for anything less than two hundred mindstones, so using a few to replenish his Thoughts was a crude but effective solution.
He folded his hands over his stomach.
Even if the solution was as simple as destroying one of his motes to let his soul heal and start replenishing Thoughts naturally, it wasn't something he could afford right now.
With the tension between Valthorne and Farkath teetering on the edge of open war, and with him caught near the center, Kael had gained too many powerful enemies, each one eager for his throat.
After what Kael could only assume was three hours, he was jolted awake by a sudden warmth running down his leg. His eyes snapped open, and his hand shot instinctively toward the source. The moment he touched it, his palm was coated in the same warmth.
'The wound opened again?'
He stared at it in disbelief.
That should not be possible. He had made sure the wound was clean, free of anything that could cause infection. And as a Luminaire, his very cells operated at the peak of efficiency. His wounds should have been closing at an unnatural pace, not reopening.
The cut had been deep, yes, but reopening on its own defied reason.
He moved the torn fabric of his pants aside to get a clear view of the wound.
"It's open."
The words left his lips almost as a whisper.
He let his head fall back against the tree trunk.
'Is this caused by the environment, or is it something else?'
He knew his understanding of the hollow mountain was shallow compared to other spaces, so naturally, that was where his thoughts went first.
'The downward pull itself shouldn't be the problem… right?' His mind turned. 'No, it can't be. The bruises and torn muscles caused by the pull healed at a normal pace.'
His gaze drifted upward toward the tree crown.
Out of all the injuries he had sustained, only one had been caused by an external object piercing his skin.
'Could it be the trees themselves?'
At first glance, the trees seemed normal, but the more he thought about it, the more uncertain he became.
How could they sustain such lush crowns in a place that hadn't seen sunlight for perhaps millions of years?
How could they survive on the luminescent water flowing through the river?
None of it felt natural.
Kael leaned closer to inspect the trunk. The bark was a dark brown, like that of a conifer, yet the tree bore leaves instead of needles. Its branches twisted in strange, sharp angles, unlike the gentle curves found in normal trees. The shapes looked unnatural, almost forced, as if the tree had grown under some unseen pressure that bent nature's laws out of shape.
Kael tore a strip from his coat and wrapped it tightly around the wound before rising to his feet.
In that same moment, a colossal stone coffin materialized behind him. Its heavy lid began to shift, opening slowy and inevitably.
Kael snapped his fingers, and the golden rod appeared beside him. It shot forward, piercing clean through the tree trunk before curving sharply and striking again.
The rod wove through the wood like a serpent until the tree let out a low groan and began to fall, splinters bursting outward in every direction.
Kael flicked his finger again, and the rod buried itself deep within the trunk, dragging the massive tree toward the open coffin.
As the trunk disappeared inside, Kael dismissed his motes and reached for a fallen branch, using it as a crude crutch.
Without looking back, he began to limp upstream, following the river's faint glow.
The pain had grown worse.