ELARION : The Echo Breaker

CHAPTER 16: No Man's Land

The wind here made no sound.

That was the first thing that pierced Ganda as they crossed the border of the Western Sector. Behind them, far on the eastern horizon, the faint rumble of Aurellian steam engines could still be heard. But ahead, the air pressure changed drastically. Their ears rang, as if they had just dived into extreme water depths.

The sky above was pale gray, the color of an old bruise. No birds flew past. No insects. Even the gravel beneath their feet felt soft. The ground surrendered under the weight of their boots, leaving deep footprints like walking on wet chalk dough.

"This place is... empty," Niko whispered.

The merchant pulled his filthy scarf over his nose. The logistics cart he pulled creaked softly. Every time its wooden wheels crushed a stone, the sound was too loud. Too naked.

Ganda paused for a moment. He looked down, seeing a wild plant on the edge of the path.

The plant was pitch black. Its leaves were stiff and sharp like shards of volcanic glass. Ganda touched it with the tip of his boot. The leaf didn't sway. The leaf snapped with a dry crack, then crumbled into fine black dust that was immediately blown away by the wind. Its life fluid had been sucked dry, leaving a fragile carbon skeleton.

"Do not stop," Sora hissed from behind.

The former Lieutenant was not walking casually. His shoulders were tense. His eyes kept darting wildly, scanning the flat horizon that offered no cover whatsoever. Sora was used to clear front lines. He knew where the enemy was, he knew where his allies were. But this place offered no boundary lines.

This vast plain was a killing zone for anyone caught off guard.

Elara walked beside Ganda. She held an old brass compass. The needle did not point North, but spun lazily, sometimes jerking to the left, then drifting to the right.

"The magnetic field is broken," Elara murmured. She tapped the compass glass with her fingernail, the rhythm fast and nervous. "The earth's plates feel different. Like a chemical burn scar seeping down to the crust's core."

Ganda didn't answer. He was busy fighting nausea.

Since they stepped into this zone, his right hand started acting up. Every step sent a pain signal from his heel, traveling up his shinbone, then exploding in his right shoulder. His damaged nerve fibers now throbbed wildly.

It felt like barbed wire was being pulled slowly inside the flesh of his arm.

There was a low frequency here. Normal human ears like Niko's or Sora's couldn't catch it. But to Ganda, it felt like standing next to a giant electrical generator humming underground.

"We don't need a compass," Ganda said. His voice was hoarse. "Follow this stench."

He pointed toward a gap in the limestone hills ahead.

A slow wind blew from that direction, carrying a strange aroma. It wasn't the smell of a carcass. It was a sweet smell. Pungent. Like peaches rotting inside a closed cabinet for a decade. The smell stuck to the roof of the mouth.

They climbed the small hill. At the peak, Niko suddenly stopped.

"Look! Over there!" Niko exclaimed. "That's a convoy!"

In a small valley behind the hill, in the middle of a path surrounded by limestone cliffs, there were three horse-drawn carriages stopped in a neat line. The horses stood upright. The drivers sat on the driver's benches. Armed guards stood leaning against the sides of the carriages, their spears pointing straight to the sky.

"That's the Kaijin emblem!" Niko said, his eyes shining at the opportunity. "Maybe they are Arok's black market merchants."

Niko was about to step down, but Sora's hand snatched his collar and pulled him back roughly.

"Wait, idiot," Sora growled. "Look at those horses."

Niko squinted. "Why?"

"Their tails," Sora said coldly. "Not moving an inch. No horse stands totally still like a statue."

Ganda felt the throbbing in his hand getting harder. Thump... thump... thump... The rhythm synchronized with the pain in his bones.

"Swords," Ganda ordered briefly. He drew his Dao from his back. "Spread formation."

They descended the hill cautiously. The closer they got to the convoy, the clearer the unnaturalness of the scene before them became.

No sound of breathing. No sound of heartbeats.

Sora moved quickly to the front carriage. He recognized the red dragon emblem carved on the carriage door. His face went pale.

"Unit Eight," Sora's voice choked. "This is General Arok's elite logistics unit. These men are war veterans. They couldn't have been ambushed this easily."

Sora stopped two steps from a black horse leading the line.

"Lieutenant?" Sora called softly.

No answer.

Ganda passed Sora and approached the horse. He touched the horse's thigh with the tip of his sword.

Knock. Knock.

It sounded like knocking on an old tree trunk.

Ganda took another step forward. The visual illusion crumbled.

The horse's skin was no longer flesh. The texture was rough, cracked, and covered in a thick layer of pitch-black moss growing very neatly following the muscle lines. The moss had replaced hair, skin, and meat.

The horse's hooves were not standing on the ground. The hooves had pierced the ground. Thick black roots spread out from the horse's hooves, gripping the limestone rocks, planting the animal into the earth.

"By the Gods..." Sora whispered. His legs went weak seeing the sight.

Sora stared at the carriage driver. The man's face was covered by a cloth mask. In the gap between the mask and the neck, gray spores grew abundantly. The spores fused the man's chin to his chest, then spread to his arms, fusing the flesh of his hands with the leather reins.

Flesh and wood melted into one black mass.

"No signs of a struggle," Sora's voice trembled. "Their swords are still in their scabbards. They... they just transformed."

On the other side of the carriage, Elara crouched in front of the corpse of a guard who had fused with the rear carriage wheel. Half of the guard's face was covered by the wood of the wheel, as if he was slowly being absorbed by the inanimate object.

"Incredible," Elara murmured.

Niko stared at Elara in horror. "Incredible? Elara, that's a corpse! That's a person!"

"Look at its structural integrity," Elara ignored Niko's horror. She pulled out a small knife, scratching the surface of the corpse's arm. No blood. Only black sawdust.

"This parasite doesn't eat its host," Elara explained. Her tone was clinical, but the hand holding the knife trembled slightly. "It performs renovations. It replaces bone calcium with hard cellulose. It fills muscle cavities with root fibers."

Elara stood up, looking at Ganda. "This is not a disease, Ganda. This is architecture. Highly efficient. Nature is rebuilding organic matter into foundations."

SHING!

Sora drew his sword. The sharp metal tip pointed straight at Elara's neck, stopping just one inch from the woman's pale skin.

Elara's breath hitched. Her eyes widened for a moment, her pupils shrinking out of pure instinctual fear. She froze. Her hands gripped the compass so tightly her knuckles turned white. She was scared. Of course she was scared.

But Elara swallowed hard, forcing herself to calm down again.

"Shut your mouth," Sora growled. The former Lieutenant's eyes were red, full of angry tears. "That is Sergeant Kian. He has two children in the Capital. He is not 'architecture'. He is a human. He is my friend!"

"Sora! Don't!" Niko screamed, stifled.

Elara didn't back down. Even though her breaths were short, she looked into Sora's eyes. She used her logic as a shield, the only thing that could protect her from that sword.

"I am stating facts," Elara's voice sounded thin and trembling slightly, but she forced it to remain stable. "Your emotions do not change the fact that he is now wood, Sora."

"I will cut your tongue out before you speak again," Sora's hand trembled. He had just seen his proud unit destroyed, and Elara's cold words were the trigger that detonated his grief.

Ganda stepped in between them. The Dao sword in his right hand moved fast but controlled. He pressed the flat side of his blade against Sora's sword, then pushed it sideways with absolute weight.

The sound of metal clashing against metal rang out loud.

"Enough," Ganda said.

"She insulted the dead!" Sora snapped.

"She explained what killed them," Ganda retorted coldly. He glared at Sora. "Save your anger for the enemy. If you kill our architect, who will help you bring this place down?"

Sora was panting. He glared at Elara with hatred, then sheathed his sword roughly. "Don't let her speak to me."

Sora turned and walked away.

Elara let out a long, trembling breath. Her shoulders slumped. She touched her own neck, making sure her head was still attached to her body.

"Check the cargo," Ganda ordered, breaking the tension. "Take what is edible. Burn the rest."

Niko hesitantly climbed onto the second carriage. He pulled back the tarpaulin cover.

"Wheat!" Niko exclaimed. His voice sounded too cheerful, a desperate attempt to chase away fear. "Sacks of wheat! Still warm!"

Niko tore open one of the sacks. Golden wheat grains spilled out.

"Look at this, Ganda! We're rich! We can survive for a month..."

Niko's laughter died.

His hands stopped moving inside the pile of wheat. He felt something soft and wet at his fingertips.

Slowly, Niko pulled his hand out. Along with his hand, an object was lifted. A pale human hand, severed at the elbow, holding a silver badge shaped like an eagle's eye.

"That... that's the Aurellian emblem," Niko whispered in horror.

"An intruder," Sora hissed from behind, his eyes narrowing sharply. "An Aurellian spy rat. He must have hidden inside the sack to cross the border."

Silence.

Creak.

The index finger of the severed hand bent slowly.

The movement was conscious. The skin on the back of the hand rippled. Something was moving under the dermis, pushing the flesh from the inside.

"Back away!" Ganda shouted.

Niko fell backward.

Ganda lunged forward and thrust his sword right into the center of the back of that hand.

SQUELCH!

Black fluid squirted out. A fat, dark red centipede, the size of a baby's arm, crawled out of the wound hole. Its hundreds of legs moved fast, its jaws snapping and hissing angrily.

Ganda stomped on it until it was crushed. Crack.

"Burn it," Ganda said. His breathing was heavy. "Burn it all."

Ganda jumped down. He wiped the black slime off the sole of his boot. His right hand was now trembling violently. He had to clench it tight so it wouldn't look weak.

Thump... Thump... Thump...

His ears caught it again. Clearer now. The sound came from behind the cliff. A slow, heavy, and wet pumping rhythm.

Every beat sent a shockwave traveling through the bones of Ganda's legs, straight to his crippled right arm. His damaged nerves screamed. Resonance. His bones vibrated matching the frequency of the sound source.

This place was calling the crippled part of him. The part of him that was not human answered the call from deep within the earth.

"The route is over there," Ganda said, pointing to a dark gap in the cliff.

Sora stared at the gap. His face was pale, his anger at Elara replaced by pure fear.

"You're crazy," Sora's voice was hoarse. "We just saw what happened to elite troops here. You want us to go into the source? We'll end up as trees, Ganda."

"Maybe," Ganda answered. Cold sweat ran down his back. The pain in his hand was so intense his vision blurred slightly. "But if we turn back, we die slowly on this plain. Do you want to die as moss, or die holding a sword?"

Sora fell silent. He looked at Sergeant Kian's corpse that had turned to wood.

"Damn you," Sora grumbled. He helped Niko stand up.

Ganda walked first toward the darkness of the cliff.

And behind them, amidst the silence of the dead plain, the finger of the driver fused with the wood moved slightly. Just slightly. As if waving goodbye.