Chapter 28 - The One, True, King (Revised)

Welcome, Challenger. The Fifth Step is yours to overcome.

Lan was shocked awake by the booming voice, sitting up and slamming his head off a coal shovel hanging from a hook on the train's wall. It rang with a low thrum as he clutched his head and curled up in a ball.

The train has much distance to cover, and time is pressing. Deep within the bowels of the earth lies the first giant's throne room. To pass on to the next step, reach her throne room before any other. There is but one way to get there. The Train.

Lan picked himself up and looked at his surroundings. He had managed to crawl into the front of the train before passing out. It was an old-fashioned thing with a glowing furnace for coal and hundreds of knobs and dials for changing... Well, Lan had no idea what they could possibly change.

Weighed down by the weight of your cargo, the journey will be slower than you imagined. But all is not lost. The first giant left many traps behind as she fled the earth, and you need only activate them to slow your opponent's advance.

"Shit, maybe I shouldn't have gotten every single title," Lan murmured, scratching his head. He glanced about the cabin, looking for coal or something to start the train.

The train's fuel can be found deep beneath the earth, swimming through stone like water. They are the first giant's oldest enemy, the Skoliki.

'Is it saying that the fuel is a living creature? Do I need to kill it? Or... how will this work?' He clambered to his feet and poked his head out of the side of the train. His stomach dropped as he looked down into a gaping chasm barely a metre from the side of the train tracks.

'Is that...' When he squinted hard enough into the darkness, he could just about make out another green train on the other side of the chasm. A tiny figure was already running ahead of it towards a cluster of distant tunnels in the rock wall.

"Shit, he's already got a head start!" Lan swore, jumping out of the train and running down the tracks at full pelt. He put every stat point of strength and dexterity to use as he ran, although his legs couldn't help but wobble slightly. The exhaustion from the previous day of fighting was catching up, and now he was starting to regret that he didn't pace himself better.

Just up ahead, he could see a similar cluster of tunnels, and without time to think twice, he barrelled inside. It was dark in the tunnel, and as he travelled along its length, the thing that bothered him most was the smell. It was earthy with a hint of rot or perhaps mould. The ground beneath his feet was slightly damp and a bit slimy, although he couldn't see why that was.

The only light underground had previously come from lanterns hung from the ceiling above the train, but that faint glow didn't extend to these tunnels. He was reminded of the time he chased Archie through a similar tunnel; it had the same suffocating feeling of being buried alive. Lan almost felt like he was running through his own tomb.

Suddenly, his foot hit something and itt shattered like a pane of glass, followed by the tinkle of something crystalline hitting the floor. For a brief, fleeting moment, there was silence. And then something started to screech and wail like a banshee.

Lan hurried back to where the noise was coming from and stomped on what felt like glass until the thing stopped screaming, but by then, it was too late.

When it finally died, he got the notification.

Alert: Killed Lvl: 2 Skoliki - Experience gained.

What remained of the Skoliki was a small crystal that began to glow like a firefly trapped in a diamond. The light it gave off was faint, but it was enough to illuminate the body of the Skoliki.

The creature was halfway emerged from the tunnel floor, its long crystalline body hanging limply from a hole it had burrowed. For all intents and purposes, it was a worm. A massive, fucking worm. However, unlike a regular worm, this one had fins and a mouth so wide and packed with teeth that it was a wonder it could even close the damn thing without shredding itself apart. Now that there was light, Lan could see that the wet, sticky substance on the floor wasn't water but slime of some sort.

From behind him, Lan heard a noise like an angle grinder. It sounded as though something very sharp was rubbing against the rock, and as the sound got closer, he figured out what it was.

In the dim light of the glowing crystal the Skoliki left behind, Lan glimpsed a worm formed from greyish crystal as it burrowed along the ceiling. Its endless supply of razor-sharp teeth allowed it to glide through stone like water. It was spinning its whole body like a drillbit, bursting through the ceiling and down towards Lan in a shower of dust and falling stones.

Lan glanced up at it and reached behind his back for his sickle. His hand found nothing, aimlessly grasping at the empty space where the sickle used to be. 'Shit, did I leave it behind during the fight? I don't remember how I got to the train, so it's possible.'

He didn't actually need the sickly to kill something like this worm. In fact, he was able to swat it aside with a flick of his wrist, sending the creature careening into the tunnel wall, where it shattered into a million pieces. All that remained was a similar glowing crystal to before, if slightly bigger in size.

Alert: Killed Lvl 3 - Skoliki (Experience Gained)

"It looks like the higher the level, the bigger the crystal." Lan went to pick it up, and the crystal suddenly vanished into his hand.

Fuel acquired: 8

"Oh shit, I see how it is," It didn't take a genius to figure out that these worms would drop fuel when he killed them. Now all he needed to do to get his train going, was kill as many of the little things as possible.

He ran down the tunnel in a blur, his feet pounding on the rock. As he moved, he listened intently for the sound the worms gave off. He quickly found another and crushed it with his palm.

Fuel acquired: 16

He was like the grim reaper, if worms even had such a thing. Hounding them down one by one. But he quickly realised that doing it this way was inefficient. 'If I could get them to attack me, that would make this whole process far easier. But what do worms like?... I remember hearing that normal worms come up to the surface when it rains because of the vibrations on the top of the soil. Could I repeat that in here?'

Looking around at the cramped tunnel, he didn't think he would find water or rain anytime soon, but he should be able to replicate the vibrations using mana strings. If he let all 100 mana strings tap the ground independently, he should be able to attract some fuel.

Lan took a deep breath, ignoring the stuffy air and claustrophobic darkness. His skills activated better when he was calm, so he tried to find some semblance of internal peace. He triggered mana string and tens of glowing tentacles made purely from mana stretched out from his hand. Since they were made from pure mana, the strings weren't particularly strong, but they didn't need to be. He just needed them to tap the ground, and that's exactly what he did.

The glowing tentacles started to tap a regular rhythm like rainfall on the tunnel floor and walls, beating out some abstract beat into the rock. Vibrations travelled deep through the earth, disturbing sleeping worms that stirred from their slumber in droves.

Lan first realised that this might not have been a good idea when he heard the sound. Distant at first, the grinding squeal of rock being crushed by countless teeth, and the rumble of the passage was a dead giveaway that he had gone too far. 'Oh fuck, if this many come at once, the tunnel will collapse!'

Realising not a second too soon, Lan sprinted back down the tunnel as the worms exploded from every conceivable nook and cranny. The earth groaned under its own weight, and the tunnel began to sag, narrowing the space Lan had to run in. He was forced to duck and eventually crawl the rest of the way out, barely escaping before the whole thing collapsed behind him.

He whirled around, staring intently at the collapsed tunnel. Just because he had gotten out didn't mean he was safe. The distant rumble and screech of shearing stone continued its relentless march towards him.

Lan cracked his neck. He had plenty of space to work on the train track, which was almost eight metres wide. In the tunnel, he had been constricted by the tight, enclosed space, but out in the open, he could let loose.

"It's been a while since I crushed some bugs," Lan muttered, remembering how countless ant shells collapsed beneath his fist. 'This time won't be any different,' He rolled his shoulders and stretched as the overwhelming sound bore down on him.

He sighed, remembering he no longer had his weapon, "Ah well, it was just a blade. There's no need to get too attached. With my talent, finding something else I can use shouldn't be hard. Let's see, what has the train track got to offer?"

It was a fairly desolate track, diving deep into the earth on a steep slope. Further down the track, Lan could see a huge white building that somewhat resembled a train station if it was only used by royalty. For the most part, the route was bare, save for a few scattered pebbles and the hanging lanterns... Lan peered up at one of the glowing lights.

It looked to be made of some sort of black iron with a ghostly flame flickering in the centre. Each lantern hung from the ceiling by a rope tied to a heavy steel hook driven into the roof every few hundred metres.

Lan grinned, but before he could make his move, the rock wall exploded, and two worms threw themselves recklessly at him. He noticed that their teeth spun so fast their mouth was a jagged blur, and he almost felt like he was getting attacked by a blender.

They were level 4 and 5, respectively, not even worth Lan's time. He kicked one midair, launching its body into the other, where they shattered into shards of greyish glass.

Alert: Killed Lvl 4 - Skoliki (Experience Gained)

Alert: Killed Lvl 5 - Skoliki (Experience Gained)

He quickly ran over and grabbed the glowing crystals they dropped, beaming when he saw how much fuel he had gotten.

Fuel acquired: 16

Fuel acquired: 32

It seemed as though the amount of fuel he could get doubled every time the worm's level increased.

The rumble of grinding rock was almost deafening by this point, and Lan knew he didn't have much time until the horde was upon him. With a grunt, he jumped up and grabbed onto the rope the lantern hung from. In a flash, he had shimmied up to the hook in the ceiling and freed the lantern, dropping back to the floor and wrapping the rope around his palm.

Hanging by his side, the lantern looked like a flaming, medieval flail, but Lan had bigger plans than using it to bash something's head in. Although he would definitely be using it for that as well.

He sent tendrils of mana down the rope, and right as the wall exploded spectacularly, sending shards of rubble in every direction, the lantern flared up.

Lan stoked the flame using his mana as fuel, feeling an inherent connection with the fire thanks to his title. Right as the rock exploded and tens of worms shot out as though fired from a cannon, the lantern suddenly belched a wave of fire onto the incoming swarm of worms.

For the most part, the worms could ignore the flame, owing to their crystalline bodies, which, while fragile, were incredibly resistant to heat and pressure. But what they couldn't ignore was the heavy iron lantern that crashed into their bodies like a wrecking ball.

Shards of glass rained on the floor, and the notifications began to pile up. Lan spun like a ballerina, whirling the lantern around the top of his head in a wide arc that swept up any worms that got close. Whenever a worm tunnelled through the rock from beneath him, he could feel it coming, and all it took was a well-timed stomp to end that threat in the cradle.

He was like a whirling dervish, sweeping up any worms that got too close and revelling in their destruction. Perhaps it was because they were so far from human, or maybe it was because he had no choice. Whatever the reason, Lan felt not a shred of guilt as he mowed them down. In fact, he enjoyed it. It was such a release to just crush an inferior...

Lan suddenly felt sick, he was doing it again, becoming like them.

He stuttered mid-fight, slipping and missing an incoming worm. He scrambled, just barely managing to knock it aside with his elbow before it reached his neck, but it had been close. Another few inches and he would have been respawning

More than once in the past few days, he had faltered. With the turtle, he had felt guilty for killing it while it couldn't defend itself, even promising not to go down the same path of violence as a normal pathfinder. Again, just then, while he revelled in his growing strength and enjoyed crushing inferior enemies, he had felt guilty.

Was that not what the people he hated did? Isn't that how the worst pathfinders acted?

'This can't go on if I die because of a moment's hesitation or a guilty conscious. If I end up failing to destroy the Bridge, how could I live with myself? When did I forget the nightmares?'

When he managed to sleep on the Bridge, which was rare, Lan always had the same dream. Social services were taking him to the orphanage again. He would sit on the end of a bed he had to share with six other children, every one of them a victim of a pathfinder's greed to some degree. Lan couldn't stay there, in that place where they all suffered silently the same way he did. The desolate acceptance of their fares was crushing. The children there didn't even have the will to fight back.

The dream always ended with him leaving the orphanage, weighed down by weight a child should never have to bear.

He walked out onto streets that were grey and washed out, while the people that walked them shuffled like zombies. If he didn't look too close, Lan could almost fool himself into seeing the city as it first appeared when he was a child, a bustling metropolis that never slept and never stopped growing.

Almost...

Ever since the man in white woke him up, and showed him the world as it really was, Lan saw things differently. He saw the sallow faces and hunched backs for what they were. The People in his city did not live.

They survived.

Day by day, they eeked by, bowed under the shadow of their one true king.

"The Bridge..." Lan mumbled, spinning as he dashed two worms against each other in a brilliant explosion of crystals, "When did I forget why I'm really here?"

He pummeled a worm into the ground, feeling its body shatter into countless pieces beneath his relentless fist.

'I came here for a reason, and I can't afford to turn down strength because of my conscience. It might be selfish and cruel, just like the pathfinders I so detest, but... From the beginning, was I any different? My goal is incredibly selfish; I want to destroy something used by trillions across the universe,'

'Perhaps, I am the most selfish of them all...' Lan searched his conscience to see if he cared, but whenever he remembered the hunched backs and lowered heads that did not dare to look up at what towered above them, he realised he didn't.

'I'm going to break it.' He thought, lashing a kick into a worm so hard that it exploded into shimmering dust.

"I. Am. Going. To. Destroy. The. Bridge," He said it out loud, just to see how it felt.

"I'll do it!" He grabbed a worm and threw it at two others; all three exploded in a shower of shattered glass.

He didn't care; Lan truly didn't care. When he thought about it like that, when he put everything in perspective. The guilt Lan would feel for failing to fix the world would be countless times greater than the guilt of killing the turtle. Even the guilt he would feel for becoming what he hated was nothing compared to the self-loathing he would experience if he failed to destroy it.

A worm lunged at him, and he kicked up a rock, sending it straight through the creature's open mouth and out the back of its tail. It died with a muffled screech that only served to spur on the remaining worms, although there weren't many left at this point.

'When did I get so blind? I missed the forest for the trees. If I want to destroy the Bridge, I must become greater than all those that walk its wretched surface. To show empathy to those I trample is one thing, but to let it slow my journey is unacceptable.'

"If I want to become the one above all..." He paused, crushing a worm in his vice grip, "I must do whatever is necessary."

Lan finished off the final worm and smiled. He was smiling, not because he had enjoyed the fight but because it served a purpose.

With every worm he killed and crystal he picked up, Lan was one step closer to his goal. It might be a small step, insignificant even, but forward was forward, no matter how far he travelled.

'I can't suppress this... desire to fight. That would be an insult to those I am fighting for. If anything, I should fight harder, be more ruthless and cunning. Whatever I can do, whatever opportunity I can wrestle from fate, I will take with both hands. Because I am not fighting just for me. My selfishness is that of the people.'

Collecting the crystals was almost therapeutic. There were hundreds of them blanketing the train tracks. It was to the point where he could barely see the ground anymore.

In the distance, he spotted his rival, whoever it was, running back towards the train from the tunnel. Lan smiled. Having spent time with them, he understood a little better what his true feelings towards pathfinders were. He didn't hate them because they were evil. He didn't hate them at all, actually. They were simply selfish, and Lan was the most selfish of them all. It was not with hatred that he would crush them.

He would win because he had to win. It was as simple as that.

As Lan ran back to the train and jumped up into the cabin, he took a deep breath, letting the weight of his own expectations settle on his shoulders. He wasn't doing this because the starving children asked or because his dead parents needed vengeance. Lan was doing this because he had to. The pathfinders weren't to blame. Not all of them anyway, 'Rachel and Morgan seem nice, or as nice as any of the people I've met anyway. It's not that there aren't good people on the Bridge. It's the fact that the bad people, the greedy people, have the abilities of a god and no one to stop them.'

"I will be the one to stop them, no matter how low I have to sink," he knew it now. Recently the tutorial had humanised pathfinders and made him forget what was important.

"Above all else, it must be destroyed. Only then can the innocent live in peace,"

***

Thorn winced. He had heard everything Lan said, and it seemed that the maintenance guy had a point.

Although he wasn't a sentimental person, and didn't care much for the Bridge. He would rather his home not be destroyed. Where else could he live?

After some experimentation, Thorn had learned that he could connect to the boy by using his tombstone. When he did this, Unknown, who he later learned to be named Lan's sensations, were his own. Everything Lan could see, hear and smell, Thorn could feel as well. It was a magnificent experience to feel alive and brush up against death. Now, although only a little, Thorn kind of got it. He almost understood why they would be willing to die over and over again.

This meant that Thorn had been there watching as Lan fought the Kitsune. He had felt every sensation, every overwhelming input as though they were his own.

And after the fight, Thorn discovered something.

When Lan was ported to the next step deep within the mountain, there had been a moment, however brief, where Thorn could have interfered if he wanted.

What stopped him, was a feeling deep in his gut that something was off about all this.

'Why would the Bridge give him powers if he is so intent on destroying it? It doesn't make sense to me...' Thorn thought, having learned from Lan that he should keep his more radical thoughts to himself. He stared out over the graveyard he called home wistfully.

Something didn't line up, and he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. That man didn't seem... trustworthy. And as Thorn thought about it, as he really picked it apart, he figured out why.

'The Bridge doesn't have a consciousness, motives, or goals. It just is. I only exist because I am necessary for the function of the Bridge. The Bridge is not sentient, at least as far as I know. It doesn't make mistakes. The way I see it, the Bridge seems to push people in a certain direction. Whatever talent it helps pathfinders discover within themselves, they always have a catch. The penalty makes them act a certain way, but what is it for?...'

He looked around at the sprawling graveyard that was only growing by the day. If Thorn looked further still, he would find another, and then another, each one bigger than the last.

'Growth, the Bridge wants to grow. It always has.' He frowned, 'But if that's the case, it should never have given the boy access to a talent that can harm it... which means... it didn't do that. Be cause the Bridge doesn't make mistakes.'

The realisation hit Thorn like a tonne of bricks.

'The Bridge would never harm itself, which means his talent shouldn't be able to put this place in serious danger. What his talent does endanger are the people on it. People like that albino,'

Now Thorn just had to figure out how the man in white came to know of such a 'Threat' and what it all meant.

'The question is..." he glanced back at Lan who was holding his hand in the train's glowing furnace, 'What should I do about him?'