Chapter Five: Into the Depths of Night

The Deepest Night—another name for the Nameless Mist.

Since the fall of the Wall of Eternal Night, the Nameless Mist, once confined to the wilds beyond the Four Borders, had surged unchecked into the lands of order, borne by waves of darkness that seemed without end. Fields and pathways became rotten marshes, blossoms and green canopies withered into monstrous husks, and the boundary between the living and the dead warped beneath a palpable, malevolent will. Kin long dead crawled from their graves, murdering their wives, their sons, their infant grandsons—not sparing any living thing reflected in the ghostly blue flames.

The long night was coming.

Even the ancestors who penned that warning, perhaps, never imagined it would one day become prophecy.

The tides of chaos claimed all in their path, and even the eternal sun suspended in the sky could not escape. With the wails of humanity and the howls of fiends echoing, the world lost its light.

The Deepest Night had fallen.

Beyond the reach of the Fireseed, the world was an unchanging darkness.

What, then, dwelled in the darkness? Perhaps curiosity is innate to humankind—Amy was no exception. Yet, even with the blood of order pulsing in his veins, he could not suppress a shiver as he gazed into the near-impenetrable black at the very edge of the Mist Zone. Was it mere illusion, or, as the faint orderlight shimmered through the haze, did something formless and unspeakably hostile watch him from within?

There was no need for pointless risk.

Were he alone, Amy might have answered the call of order in his blood, feeling the heat of his dagger’s dark blade leap in his grasp. But the ancient fire in his veins was countered by a preternatural calm—rare for his years. Staring into the churning malice within the mist, he released his grip on the blade burning at his wrist and faded away, as silently as he had come—now was not the time.

His yearning for the world beyond the Fireseed bordered on obsession, but he was not reckless. The Deepest Night beneath the Nameless Mist was a thousand times more perilous than any Mist Zone rumored to be haunted. Without perfect preparation, venturing there meant courting disaster—if not utter oblivion.

Thus, he chose caution. When he learned from the informant Willy that a traveler had returned from the darkness in the lower quarters, Amy, despite the troubled times, was willing to risk suspicion and discovery to meet this pathbreaker.

He could only hope he would not be disappointed.

Amy awaited the old man’s reply.

“Outside of order, there is nothing else—the forebears wrote as much in their texts,” the aged traveler began in a deep voice. “But the Nameless Mist is not pure chaos. It is an ambiguous thing, mingling both order and chaos. Many mistakenly believe fiends are mindless darkness incarnate, mere vanguards of chaos invading order. But this is profoundly wrong. Fiends are not inherently chaotic. In fact, they are shaped more by order than by chaos. In the Deepest Night, their presence—or absence—can be used to measure how deeply chaos has eroded a place, and how dangerous it truly is.”

A lesson well taken.

Amy did not speak, but nodded and listened—such unremarkable bits of knowledge were priceless treasures in this world shrouded by darkness.

“Of course, that is but one measure. There is another, equally crucial—the color of the darkness.” The old man paused, his gaze lingering on Amy’s face. “You probably think darkness has no color, don’t you? No need to answer. The primordial blackness born of chaos is utterly unlike any earthly color—it is a blackness that bypasses the senses and strikes at instinct. Words cannot well describe how it differs from the black of a starless night, but when you are within it, the blood of order in your veins will react on its own.”

“Boil?” Amy quirked an eyebrow, unable to hold back.

“So you are more favored by order than I thought.” The traveler nodded, his tone meaningful.

Amy shook his head without answering.

The old man was unperturbed, only pursing his withered lips. “No one knows quite when, but among those who wander in darkness, the Deepest Night has come to be divided into two zones—white and black. The white zone is what most imagine the Nameless Mist to be: rampant fiends, fog so thick you cannot see your hand before your face, all-pervading darkness that corrodes everything—a forbidden land for ordinary folk.”

“But the black zone is another matter. Its very existence has overturned many beliefs, and forced us to truly confront the meaning of mindless chaos.” At this, the traveler’s gaze, returned from the darkness, dulled. “There, there are no fiends—”

He broke off, voice sinking lower.

“Because the conditions there are so severe that not even fiends can survive.”

Not even fiends could survive… Out of courtesy and respect, even though Amy had many questions, he did not interrupt, but let the old man sink into his memories. After a long silence, the traveler lifted his head again. “That is why it is called the No Man’s Land, the place closest to chaos. Few who dare the Deepest Night die beset by fiends. Most, like me, lose their way in the impenetrable mist, until chaos begins to warp mind and flesh, and, gambling with fate, plunge into the black zone seeking some breakthrough. But very few ever return alive.”

“What is there?” Amy asked.

“I can’t say.” The traveler, his body bearing clear marks of fiendish transformation, shook his head. “There… memory, perception, even space and time become muddled. Friends at your side may not exist at all. Your memories may be utterly false. The corpse you find one day might be your future self—and, more absurdly, the one who kills your future self might be your own past self.”

“I…” Amy struggled to find words. “I don’t quite understand.”

“Nor do I,” the old man replied, his emerald eyes seeming to flare. “Perhaps it’s not something meant for us to understand. The more you brush against blind, mindless chaos, the more acutely you realize your own blindness and ignorance—the more you grasp the bliss of not knowing.”

The bliss of ignorance… For reasons unclear, though the phrase did not fully resonate, the more Amy pondered it, the more deeply he agreed. He shook his head, refusing to dwell on it further. “Sir Ignati, as someone who has been there yourself, do you have any other impressions?”

“Impressions?” The old man sighed. “Mainly fear, I suppose.”

“Fear…” Amy mused. “That is only natural. In such an environment, who would not feel fear?”

“You are mistaken.” The traveler who had survived the Deepest Night’s most savage jaws regarded him, his fiendish features unreadable. “Any who enter the black zone have made peace with death, weary of senseless slaughter. If it were only the threat of death, it would not evoke the terror that haunts me even now.”

“Then what?” Amy ventured, cautious.

“The collapse of self—of cognition and existence,” the old man answered plainly. “Death may not be so terrible. But when your entire being, your memories, how all others know you, are twisted and broken by some mysterious force, until you become, unwittingly, wholly unrecognizable—even to yourself—then all meaning and value of existence is reduced to nothingness.”

“Complete fiendification?”

It was common knowledge by now that fiendification could change a person’s nature, especially in these waning days of the Fireseed. The effect of the black zone, as the old man described it, might differ in essence, but in form it seemed much the same: the transformation from ‘self’ into ‘not-self.’

“No, it is quite different.” Unexpectedly, the traveler objected. “I have witnessed fiendification many times in the Deepest Night, and I myself am being slowly warped by chaos. My body and mind are changing. But what occurs in the black zone is nothing like that. If not for the memories that return afterward, I would not even know I had become someone else.”

“It sounds frightening,” Amy said, in genuine empathy.

“It is… The blood of order is powerless there. Even a hero who could cut a path through legions of fiends can only shut his eyes and await death.” The old man sighed. “The more you think, the easier you are led astray. It is a place where all human logic and experience fail. Perhaps to do nothing, to think nothing, is the only way to survive a little longer.”

Amy almost wanted to protest, but seeing the old man’s exhaustion, only opened his mouth soundlessly, and refrained.

“Well… that is all I know…”

The old man’s will to speak seemed spent by his recollections. Closing his eyes, he did not open them again for some time.

“Thank you,” the youth said sincerely, rising and bowing slightly. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

His figure vanished into the mist beyond the door.

Only then did Ignati open his eyes once more. In the flickering candlelight, his emerald gaze glimmered, and his withered lips parted—half dream, half whisper: “Ulysses…”

On his fiendish, grotesque face, no hint of emotion could be discerned.