Chapter 15 – The Bottom of the Mountain

My lungs were on fire.

Each breath was a fight, a desperate gasp against an atmosphere that felt utterly alien. It was too thin, too empty, like trying to breathe in a vacuum. The air here didn’t just lack oxygen; it felt heavy, pressing down with a tangible weight that crushed my chest and made my head spin. Every inhale was a sharp, stabbing pain, a reminder that I was a foreign body in a world not meant for me.

Leo had dragged me to the base of this mountain. It wasn’t just a mountain, though. It was a completely different dimension hiding in plain sight. The trees were impossible, their leaves forged from shimmering silver that chimed with a soft, melodic sound whenever the wind stirred. The ground wasn’t dirt and rock but a carpet of dark, spongy moss that pulsed with a faint, internal light, casting eerie shadows that danced and writhed at the edge of my vision.

“Is that the best you can do?”

I looked up, my vision swimming. Leo stood twenty feet ahead on the steep, rocky path. He wasn’t even breathing hard. His posture was relaxed, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched me with an expression of profound boredom. There wasn’t a single drop of sweat on his face. He looked like he’d just gone for a casual stroll in the park, not climbed a vertical death trap.

“I’m trying.”

My voice was a pathetic squeak, a mouse’s protest against a hawk. It was humiliating. I took another step, my legs shaking uncontrollably. They felt like they were made of jelly, completely disconnected from my brain’s commands. The gravity here was a physical bully. It felt like a giant, invisible hand was clamped firmly on my shoulders, trying to smash me into the glowing moss.

“Your world has made you weak.”

He said it with the same emotional investment as someone reading a grocery list. It wasn’t an insult. It was a statement of fact, a clinical diagnosis of a terminal condition. He declared it with a flat, cold finality that was more cutting than any scream. This guy had absolutely zero chill. It was like he was a robot programmed for condescension.

“It’s a festering contagion of the spirit.”

I hated that he was right. I hated it with every burning cell in my body. My body was completely, utterly useless here. Back in my world, I wasn’t an athlete, but I could run for miles if I had to. I could carry groceries, climb stairs, live a normal life. Here, I couldn’t walk fifty feet without my body screaming for a full system shutdown. I stumbled again, my worn-out sneakers sliding on a loose, jagged rock.

My hands shot out to break my fall.

The impact sent a fresh, electrifying wave of pain jolting up my arms. My palms scraped against the sharp edge of a stone, leaving behind streaks of skin and blood. The sting was sharp, but it was nothing compared to the deep, aching exhaustion that had settled into my bones. I was a failure on a cellular level.

“Get up.”

I stayed on my knees, my head hanging low. I was trying to suck in air that simply wasn’t there, each failed attempt making the dizziness worse. My vision was starting to get hazy, the edges blurring into a gray fog. A weird, detached part of my brain thought about just lying down. It would be so easy to just close my eyes and let the weird, pulsing moss swallow me whole. It seemed like a peaceful way to go.

“The Master’s sacred blade chose you.”

His voice cut through the fog of my exhaustion.

“This level of weakness is an insult to his creation.”

That did it. He was talking about the sword. My sword. The one that had pulsed with power in my hand, that had made me feel strong for the first time in my life. The thought of it was a spark in the overwhelming darkness. I remembered the feeling of its weight, the hum of its energy. I remembered the way Kael’s smug, arrogant face had twisted into raw, unfiltered fear. That feeling was real. This weakness was temporary.

I planted my scraped and bleeding hands on the rocky ground.

I pushed myself up. My muscles screamed in protest, a chorus of agony from every fiber of my being. Every instinct screamed at me to quit, to lie down, to just give up. But the image of Leo’s condescending, bored face was a stronger motivator than I ever would have expected. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

He raised a single, unimpressed eyebrow.

The gesture was small, almost unnoticeable, but it was loaded with contempt. It said, Look at this pathetic creature, trying to stand. It made my blood boil, a hot rush of anger that temporarily overrode the pain. I glared back at him, channeling all my frustration into that single look. I hoped my eyes could convey exactly how much I wanted to wipe that smug expression off his face.

I took one shaky step.

Then another.

I stopped thinking about the climb. I stopped thinking about the pain. I focused on a single, repetitive task: putting one foot in front of the other. Left foot. Right foot. I ignored the roaring fire in my chest and the lead weights that had replaced my limbs. The world narrowed down to the next few inches of rocky path in front of me.

The climb became a blur of pain, willpower, and sheer, unadulterated stubbornness. Leo never offered a hand. He never offered a word of encouragement. He just walked ahead, a silent, judging shadow leading me further into this nightmare. Occasionally, he’d toss out some salty, soul-crushing comment about my pathetic “underworld” origins or the inherent corruption of my existence. Each word was a small, sharp jab designed to make me quit.

Each word only made me more determined to keep going.

Hours seemed to crawl by, each minute stretched into an eternity. The landscape began to change, the beautiful silver-leafed trees giving way to gnarled, leafless husks. They looked like skeletal hands clawing at the bruised twilight sky, their bare branches twisted into agonized shapes. The air grew even colder, seeping through my thin, tattered clothes and chilling me to the bone.

Finally, just as I felt the last of my strength give out, Leo stopped.

We had reached a small, flat clearing. It was the first patch of level ground I had seen since we started this insane climb. It felt like an oasis in a desert of vertical pain. I could have kissed the ground, if I had the energy to bend over.

He pointed a thumb over his shoulder toward a small, isolated cabin.

The place looked like it had been carved from a single, ancient tree, the wood dark and weathered. It wasn’t built; it was grown, a natural extension of the forest itself. It was rustic and imposing, with no windows on the wall facing us. A heavy wooden door stood in the center, looking less like an entrance and more like a permanent seal against the outside world.

A weird energy buzzed around the cabin.

It was a thick, palpable pressure in the air, a low hum that made the hairs on my arms stand up and a shiver trace its way down my spine. It felt ancient and powerful, like I was standing in the presence of something far beyond my understanding. This place was not normal, not even by the standards of this crazy mountain.

“You’re not ready to go to the civilized part of the mountain yet.”

I leaned against a nearby rock, my whole body trembling with a violent, uncontrollable exhaustion. I was too tired to even feel insulted by the comment. He was probably right. If this was the uncivilized part, the civilized part would probably just make my head explode. I didn’t have the energy to argue, to feel, or to do anything but try to remain upright.

“But that’s okay.”

Okay? I stared at him, my brain struggling to process the word. This was the first remotely positive thing he’d said since I met him. It was so out of character that it felt like a trap. I waited for the catch, the inevitable follow-up that would crush whatever tiny flicker of hope had just appeared.

“My master, Siegfried, will talk to you.”

The name landed with a physical weight. Siegfried. It didn’t sound like a normal name. It felt like a name from one of the old legends my dad used to read to me, a name belonging to dragon slayers and epic heroes. A new kind of anxiety started to bubble up in my gut, cold and sharp, pushing aside the exhaustion. I unconsciously twisted the hem of my ragged shirt into a tight knot.

Leo took a step back, his eyes scanning me from head to toe one last time.

It was a final inspection. It felt like he was checking to make sure I wouldn’t fall apart or simply disintegrate before his master got here. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod, apparently satisfied that I would remain in one piece for a little while longer.

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

He turned and walked away without another word.

His footsteps made no sound on the rocky ground. He didn’t recede into the distance; he simply vanished. One moment he was there, a solid presence against the dark trees, and the next he was just gone, swallowed completely by the eerie twilight of the forest. It was like he had been a ghost all along.

And then I was alone with the silent, waiting cabin.