Before setting off, Cain whispered an incantation.
"Light Strides."
The spell lightened his weight to a whisper, making his boots barely graze the ground. Each step became more efficient, avoiding unnecessary noise and friction.
As he traversed the uneven ground, thick roots and gnarled vines stretched across the path. Beneath it all, something was hidden.
It was a dragon. Or at least, it had been once.
Greenery coiled around its neck and wings, the shackles marking its eternal rest.
Its head, long and skeletal, rested atop the rusted remains of a tank turret. The barrel protruded like a snout, dripping with ivy and bristling with thorns.
Flowers sprouted from cracked plating, their petals swaying gently in the breeze.
Cain walked the perimeter, his hand brushing against the cool, moss-covered metal.
Both the tank and the dragon had long since surrendered to time.
Birds even nested in the dragon's empty eye sockets. Their chirping stood in stark contrast to what the beast must have been in its prime.
Ghosts of ancient battles still lingered in its shadow, but the dragon no longer roared, and the tank no longer rolled.
Cain lingered for a moment before stepping back and continuing down the path.
'The fighting must've been too fierce for anyone to stick around and salvage the dragon corpse.'
The path was narrow and precarious, bordered by deceivingly soft rocks that threatened to make him fall at his ankles with every step.
He descended the winding trail carved into the lush green ridge, his boots gliding softly across the dew-drenched grass.
The mist hung low, whispering through the slopes like pale phantoms, swirling around his legs before dissipating into the thin mountain air.
As he reached the base of the slope, the fog began to clear, revealing something obscured by time and neglect.
A pagoda stood in silence, or what was left of it.
Its spire had collapsed ages ago, leaving behind a crumbled crown of stone that pointed skyward like broken fingers.
Wild plants had overtaken the ruin, climbing its cracked walls and framing its splintered wooden windows.
The stone, once a shimmering white, had grounded down to shades of pewter at the edges where gusts and torrents had clawed away its resilience.
Cain halted, wanting to give the site a proper inspection.
The sacred structure was now a forgotten shell, a skeletal monument to its faded glory.
He knew the origins of these structures. He wasn't one to be fooled by their once-sacred appearance.
'Floating war pagodas of the cultivators...'
These wielders of qi had ridden them into battle against the floating castles of the gods and the metal fortresses of men.
Cain touched the walls that once throbbed with violence, studying the runes etched for both obliteration and defense.
Though it now lay dormant, he wondered if the artifact's spirit could still be stirred awake.
With magicule-charged fingers, he brushed the rough stone, probing for any trace of spirit or even a faint signal from the tower.
'Nothing? I guess fortuitous encounters aren't for everyone.'
Stepping back, he followed what appeared to be the faint contours of footsteps.
In his mind, he could almost see the jade-armored warriors marching in disciplined lines, ready to unleash their flying swords in perfect formation.
Before moving on, he shot the inscription with a magic missile, disintegrating it into dust.
'Still nothing, huh? I guess I'll leave it at that.'
He recalled the map Colt had given him. Cain didn't trust the man one bit, but he hadn't exactly had a choice about stepping into his domain.
Cross-checking it with the one he got from the Roosevelt Fortress, the routes somehow matched.
After trudging through rough terrain, Cain reached the tunnel. Its damp, musky maw and pitch-dark interior made it clear that this place wasn't for the faint of heart.
'An eye spell should be fine, right?'
He didn't dare cast a light, not because he feared the dark, but because something about this place demanded silence and secrecy.
'Night Vision.'
Cain's eyesight adjusted, and he caught the faint gleam of symbols and carvings etched deep into the walls.
Some were just scribbles, nonsense like Mary Love Jake, while others were numbers, scratched in deep and desperate, their meaning lost.
'Why do I have a feeling of being watched?'
A dozen minutes felt like hours and Cain's breath caught in his throat, he had been trained to be brave, but also to fear the unknown.
Just when he thought the path would never end, the tunnel opened up.
Stretching out before him was a graveyard of giants.
"Wow."
Rows upon rows of skulls, each fading into dust with time, their gazes still fixed on the clearing's heart, where something once stood, or perhaps still did.
Vegetation and roots clung to the towering bones, some shattered and hollow, others long reclaimed by nature's grasp.
But as Cain moved closer, the remains grew more resilient. Amethyst shards jutted from fractured limbs. The bones shimmered like polished gems, with slivers of crystallized flesh still clinging to a few.
Their teeth were clenched, crystalline eyes stared out, locked in expressions of eternal fury, an expression frozen in indignation, refusing to accept the battle was lost.
Cain could almost hear their final roars still echoing through the cavern, shouts of defiance turned to silence.
And then, he saw it, not a ruin nor a relic.
A man.
Frozen in time at the very heart of the graveyard, standing where titans had fallen.
He neither moved nor breathed.
Yet something about him made the air feel heavier and denser, as if time itself bent around his presence.
His face carried no fear, only the will to drag everything down with him.
Pure lavender quartz-like veins laced his body, threading through the where blood should have ran, solidifying his stance.
His right hand was frozen mid-cast. Unlike the giants around him, his form hadn't changed. It was as if he were still alive.
Cain approached with quiet respect. Some heroes never return home. Some choose to make their stand.
With a bow, he uttered a sincere prayer.
"May the spirit of our fellow men bless you in your next journey."
This was no mere man. He had stood against giants, making sure the others lived to tell the tale.
'But the war with the giants had grown lukewarm in recent years.'
Cain wondered what this man would say if he were still alive.
As he stepped closer, Cain's eyes caught a glint of metal pinned to the warrior's chest.
It was a badge, smooth and polished despite the decay surrounding it.
Unmistakably, it was the logo of the Syndicate.
Half skull, grinning in eternal irony. Half human, bearing the solemn pride of humanity.
Cain's gaze trailed to the warrior's hidden hand. One finger pointed, stiff and sure, toward an inconspicuous patch of earth.
That was no accident. It was a marker, a secret trail to one of the Syndicate's black markets.