Awareness returned, and it did not come alone. Pain. So much pain. Oak was fucked up beyond belief.

+ 20 Souls

+ 20 Fuel

At least this entire shitshow had not been for naught.

"Still breathing," he whispered, and spat out a tooth. It clinked on the stone floor, rolling to a stop against a snapped chair leg.

Oak found himself sitting against the podium at the center of the atrium. At the center of the destruction. The place had seen better days. All around him lay the corpses of the bonemen, some still burning, others hacked to pieces. Heads and limbs scattered among the blood and offal. Broken chairs, fallen tables, splintered desks.

Somewhere in the chaos, there had to be an undisturbed piece of furniture still standing, but for the life of him, he could not see it.

He felt much like his surroundings looked. His head throbbed with pain, wounds covered his body, and his ankle ached something fierce. Groaning, Oak dragged up the right leg of his trousers and surveyed the damage. The ankle was twisted to shit, swollen like a pit fighter's face after a bad loss. He let go of the leg and leaned against the podium, eyes closed.

Fuck me.

Fresh blood still trickled from open wounds, flowing over dried, flaking patches of older stains covering his skin and his clothes. All the exhilaration of killing the chimera and exceeding his own mortal limitations was long gone.

Oak opened his tired eyes, and looked at his legs again. Could he even walk with that ankle? He would soon find out.

Something white and gleaming caught his attention among all the blood and filth. It was sticking out of his thigh. He plucked it out of his flesh and brought it close to his face. It was a single clawed finger. Oak flipped it around in his hand, staring at it. He laughed. It was so absurd. All of it. A leviathan and a chimera. Folds in space. Abominations of bone. To get so bloody close, and to be denied at the final stretch.

Waking up with a finger sticking out of his leg was nothing special in comparison.

Getting upright was a difficult task, but Oak just about managed it. He grit his teeth, and limped to the dais across the aftermath of the battle, one careful step after another. Every time he put weight on his right leg, he gasped, trying not to squeal in pain. Running was out of the question for the foreseeable future.

It was a fool's errand, but he had to make sure. Ur-Namma could have been wrong. He dragged himself up on the dais, cold sweat mixing with the gore of his enemies, and the warm blood oozing from his own clotting wounds. The truth of him was on display, but there was no one alive to witness it. A hurt man. A man who hurt.

He hobbled to the spot where the fold had been. Where Ur-Namma and Geezer had vanished into thin air.

There had been no hope left, and still a twinge of disappointment stabbed at Oak's heart when nothing happened. The elf had not been mistaken about the timing. The fold had indeed collapsed. He let out a deep sigh, hoping that Ur-Namma and Geezer were safe and sound. The possibility that the fold had dumped them hundreds of feet high on the outer surface of the sphere was unthinkable, but it existed all the same. For all he knew, they might have dropped to their deaths shortly after hopping through the fold.

Oak shook his head, shaking away the depressing thoughts. They were a distraction, one he could not afford in his current condition. There was nothing he could do to help his friends from inside the city, which meant he had to get to the other fold in space Ur-Namma had pointed out to him on their way to the courthouse.

A spot in the air about five feet past the top of a church's bell tower, high on the slope of the sphere.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

It was not all bad. At least he knew where to go, and he was traveling light. Unlike he had feared on the way here, he would not need to drag Ur-Namma and Geezer up the slope. Just his own heavy self. That was his saving grace, because climbing with a twisted ankle was going to suck.

Better get moving. I have a long way to go, and there is no telling when the other fold will collapse. Hell, it could have collapsed already. I won't be none the wiser until I try to jump through it and go splat on the street below.

Huffing and puffing, Oak lowered himself down from the dais with exaggerated care. He already had a fucked up leg, and he did not feel the need to make it worse. Moving with the speed and grace of a geriatric cripple, he shifted through the carnage until he found all of his blades and headed out of the atrium door.

No matter what, a man could not leave the tools of his trade behind.

***

The streets of Ma'aseh Merkavah were quiet. Tranquil.

From alley to alley and sidestreet to sidestreet, Oak limped towards the beginnings of the slope, and the church high above. The mists of the City of God followed in his wake, and no monster assailed him on his journey. The mist swirled around faded signs and abandoned carts blocking parts of the road. It whorled up the sides of wooden, many-colored apartment buildings, hugging them like a loving parent, forming faces with expressions filled with anticipation.

Distant laughter and the muddled sound of whispers beyond the edge of hearing filled the air.

The city around him felt almost giddy with excitement. Like it wanted to see him make the attempt, struggle up the slope, and break himself upon its cobbles when he inevitably lost his grip and fell. The uneven stones felt like the teeth of some great beast under Oak's worn down boots, waiting with bated breath to chew him up and swallow him down. They longed to taste his blood.

Sweat dripped down Oak's back, irritating his many wounds. He hobbled onwards as fast as he was able, caught between the terror of being too late once again, and the fear of overexerting himself before the climb. Both mistakes would lead to his doom. He avoided putting weight on his right leg as much as he could, leaning against walls whenever possible.

Every limping step, a struggle. Another opportunity to quit, lay down, and accept death. He felt like a man walking to his own funeral.

"Just focus on the next one," Oak muttered to himself. "Always the next one. It is the most important step of your life. The most important step in the world."

He could not help cackling. Sometimes, a pain digged at you so harshly, you could either laugh or cry. Oak had no choice but to laugh. If he didn't, he would squeal like a stuck pig every time he had to put weight on his right leg.

The alley opened into a wider main road, and Oak lifted his gaze. He could see his destination, now that there were no walls or roofs on the way. A rectangle of a building, and a spike jutting out from it. The harsh lines of the church made of gray, uncompromising stone and black metal looked imposing.

The knowledge of what he had to accomplish to reach the tip of that bell-tower, hanging horizontally over an empty drop, did not help matters.

Oak could not lie to himself. Not now, and not ever. The Butcher had cured him of that fault. He was terrified. If he could choose between the climb ahead of him, and giving the fight with the wolf-chimera another go, he would choose the chimera in a heartbeat.

Heights and trees did not mix well. His roots wanted to dig deep into the earth, not dangle above ground.

Like a nightmare unfolding towards its inevitable conclusion, his legs took him up the road. Slowly, the stone under his feet morphed into a slope that went on and on as far as the eye could see, until he was looking at the streets and buildings hanging right above him. Ma'aseh Merkavah, a city twisted into a sphere.

Oak felt the empty space that a front tooth had left behind with his tongue, and stared at the slope of stone, wood, and concrete in front of him. He did not need a mirror to tell there was a resigned look on his face. The feeling of impending doom deep in his gut told the story better than any looking glass.

It's funny. I lost a tooth to some fuckers covered in the bloody things. You would think abominations like that would have enough teeth, but it seems even walking crimes against Creation can be greedy twats.

"Now you are just stalling," Oak said to himself, and it was true. He was focusing on irrelevant things, delaying the inevitable. "Nothing for it. One foot in front of the other."

He limped on, and with every moment that passed, the sensation of being watched grew. Soon he was leaning against the slope, and using his hands just as much as his legs, bloody fingers digging into crevices, searching for handholds. In no time at all, he was past the point of no return. There was no way to climb back down in his condition. He would have to finish what he started, or die trying.

Up the he went, and the mists of Ma'aseh Merkavah followed.

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