The Hated Hero and His Sigils of Ancient Power

Immanuel did not forget that he was not in the actual world. But he rushed towards the direction where his wife's laughter came from anyway.

Everything in here must be a message from the ancestral spirits themselves!

He had to slow down on occasion, particularly when his cheeks tightened with the urge to weep and when he needed to wipe away the buildup of tears in his eyes, both detrimental to his ability to see his surroundings.

Immanuel Maier knew it would take him time to reach the gates, so he had been running at his fastest to get there sooner. However, even after a while of running, it was as if he never progressed; the structure remained as far as it was from where he started.

So if that fight with The Hunter was for the Manhole Sigil, then this encounter must be for the Reach Sigil, isn't it?

He turned back, noticing the familiar landmarks he passed—a lightpost with its upper half fallen down, a tavern without any people despite its doors being wide open, as well as a few stalls devoid of goods.

Indeed, there is something off about the manor.

Immanuel paced from one side of the cobblestone road to the other, and back again, and again, and again. He was deep in thought.

If running towards it is no use, then there must be something pulling that place away so it's always as far as from where I started. Considering the many unlikely things that had happened to him in that world so far, starting with the ground feeling like a cushion the exact moment he landed, he entertained the possibility.

Immanuel leapt forward and climbed a pile of crates that stood against a house and accessed the structure's roof. With the next house ahead blocking his vision, he stood beneath the edge of its roof, jumped, and grasped it with both hands. But with nothing to support him from below, his legs flailed. He tried to reach for the wall, first swinging one leg, then the other.

When either foot failed to touch the wall, he swung his body forward and back, building momentum. Every forward swing brought his feet closer and closer to the wall until, at last, the soles of his shoes touched the brick surface. He used friction to keep his feet in position as he inched them upwards.

I've wasted a lot of time on this, it looks like. The change of mind came with letting his feet dangle in midair once again and feeling his chest with one hand to acknowledge the sigil.

With his shadow form being as light as a sheet, Immanuel vaulted over to the roof with one hand, landing on it without even the slightest sound.

Should have taken on this form before I climbed up the pile of crates. From there, he had a good view of half of the manor, including some of its towers and a part of the pearl-shaded gates. No one stood guard.

Half was not enough for Immanuel. Whatever's pulling that manor has to be somewhere to its left and right borders.

There was a lower-rising roof to the right of his position, and, crossing another street, a house, taller than the one he was on, rose.

The view from the roof of that taller house—Immanuel saw when he reached it in two heartbeats while in shadow form—was an almost unobstructed wide view of the manor. Nothing hinted to anything, magical or otherwise, that pulled the manor away when he moved towards it, and at that point, he reverted to his human form and sat cross-legged on the roof. I need some time to think about every single strange thing I've encountered and experienced…

Starting with the moment he landed in that world.

In time, Immanuel considered something The Hunter had said in their encounter.

… will a hole into existence…

… it is your fear that wills a trap into existence…

"Someone or something is willing the manor to move away from me at every step I make, making sure I would only be looking at it from a far distance." Immanuel stood, legs bent as he primed them to rush forward.

"If so, then my will to reach it must be stronger!" He dashed forward. At the high-rising roof's edge, he leapt, sailing over two roofs before descending towards a third. He readied a free hand over his chest, acknowledging the sigil when he was just a hair's length above the third roof. He landed without any impact, having assumed shadow form.

Fixing his gaze on the manor as he moved proved to him that the will of the place was stronger than his rage and desire to know the truth about his wife and the Grand Baron's alleged relationship.

While in shadow form, Immanuel crawled faster and leapt farther forward when he needed to, at one point sailing over five roofs before descending on the sixth.

"Whoa," Immanuel remarked to himself, impressed at what he had just done. But the high of making that long jump did not last long—new houses appeared from out of thin air at the ends of the rows of houses, across of which stood the pearly gates of the manor.

As he landed on the sixth roof without making any sound, Immanuel realized that no matter how fast he went, the manor would still be as far as it was when he entered the area through that mysterious portal. He stood and reverted to human form to re-strategize.

"That was the fastest I could go. Yet it's not enough," he lamented, eyes fixed on the banner that featured the Grand Baron's coat of arms. He again heard Leanne's laugh from the manor's direction, but this time, he merely chuckled.

"You laugh because I could not figure it out fast enough. When I get to the manor, I don't think any of you'll be laughing for long," Immanuel said of the timing of his wife's laugh. This must be the ancestral collective communicating with me, not my wife. But I've got to get to the manor. I think that, besides testing me, the ancestors are trying to tell me something too.

Immanuel brought his mind back to a single word: Will.

He first tried to overpower the will of the place with his own in hopes of preventing the manor from moving. But it did not suffice.

He brought to mind the sigil he'd get when he passed this test. He willed the manifestation of its power in the palm of his hand despite not having passed the test yet.

It's worth a try.

It was the only solution he could think of at the moment. But like the last one he tried, it didn't work. Nothing appeared on his palm.

Instead, a faint light caught Immanuel's attention. It turned out to be a scroll—one that glowed as it floated in front of him.

Immanuel reached for it. As his hand was about to touch the scroll, it unrolled on its own and revealed… nothing. Not even a stroke of ink.

"What the…"

A quill materialized and wrote the message intended for Immanuel at unbelievable speed and without any changes to its ink's consistency.

The collective of ancestor spirits has decided to grant you a hint.

Look to where you started from.

I hope that motivates you enough to reach the place you need to be.

Good luck.

The earth rumbled, as though a sign of a punishment in response to his audacity to call for a power he had yet to earn. From the distance behind Immanuel, beasts of every size and form imaginable and possible rushed towards Immanuel's direction. And judging from the menacing glare and hiss of a gigantic snake-like creature with two sets of humanoid arms, they were all coming for him, just as the message implied.

"I am so fucked." Immanuel assumed shadow form and rushed towards the manor. The scroll was no longer there.

He moved on all fours at great speed, perhaps faster than last time. Fear was driving him forward. As with the previous attempt at rushing towards the manor, the will of the place overpowered Immanuel's—houses continued appearing at the ends of the streets and the Grand Baron's residence remained as distant as it was from his starting point.

But unlike with the previous attempt, monsters of every kind imaginable were catching up to Immanuel. With their limbs, they tore down structures they passed. Tremors created by their combined mass and movement sent weak structures crumbling, removing them before they became inconveniences.

With his shadow form weighing as light as a feather and the speed at which it moved along surfaces, Immanuel was unbothered—for the most part—by the presence of the monsters. A house he was about to land on crumbled due to the tremors. He landed on debris and slithered over them without losing speed, even dodging a massive foot that was about to crush him.

"TOOM!" came the impact of the massive foot that would have crushed Immanuel had he not moved fast enough.

That foot's instant death had it got me!

Behind him, the stomps of the gigantic monsters were growing louder. A few others stomped as loud as the monster that was an immediate threat to Immanuel just moments ago. Each stomp produced a boom that was both deafening and felt crushing.

Those booms feel heavier on my body than even that explosion that nearly killed me early in my military career.

He climbed up a wall and crawled along another row of roofs. Houses still materialized at the ends of streets; not even the gates were within reach.

Ballistae emerged from the manor walls. There were no crew manning each of them, and yet they launched bolts at the same time unprompted.

"Fuck! You're all taking things too far!"

Massive bolts glowed as red as fire as they soared high up. Not long after, they made their descent towards Immanuel and the monsters rushing in pursuit.

The harsh heat and light from an incoming projectile forced Immanuel to hop off the line of roofs and swerve towards another row of houses, nearly getting swiped by a massive creature's claws in the process.

What kind of projectiles are those?

The answer came in half a heartbeat. The projectile Immanuel dodged, as well as a number of others, blew up, enveloping everything around them in bright flashes of light, blankets of fire, and deafening booms.

Black blobs and droplets rose from Immanuel's boiling, evaporating shadow form.

Shit, looks like I'm dying here!

But he lay just about a hundred paces away from the unguarded gates of the manor, between thick smoke clouds and fire and undisturbed blue sky.

"I can't… give up. I can't…" he wheezed.

His flesh was a chaos of red and black, like badly done steak. Movement felt hellish, and despite massive effort, he only moved his hand an inch towards his chest.

"Mouse… help me…"

His mana stirred within him like a violent whirlpool. Immanuel was once again a shadow.

Black blobs and droplets rose as he moved forward, bringing himself one pace closer to the gate with every stretch of an arm. "Answers… Leanne…" he hissed, his rage overpowering the will of the place at long last.

"Open wide… Varden…" one hand grasped a metal bar of the gate. He grasped another with his opposite hand as he thought to climb it.

A familiar female figure in white appeared at one of the manor's many windows.

"Leanne!" Immanuel reached out. But the figure merely stood still. He ascended the bars of the gate. At the top, he reached out to the figure once again and called out to her.

Immanuel's raised burnt hand glowed purple. Could it be?!

A black tendril shot out of his palm towards the window where the figure stood expressionless. It hit the window frame, stuck to it, and tensed.

The tension pulled Immanuel towards the woman, who kept looking at him without a hint of emotion even as he darted to the window.

Halfway there, a hand, perhaps a male's, lay on her shoulder. She turned to the other person, smiled, and let out a laugh.

It was the same laugh Immanuel heard on the way there.

The scene left Immanuel speechless for a while. Just as he had processed what was happening, the entire scene froze. The tendril stopped pulling him forward, and his current position became a solid surface he stepped on.

Everything around him—from the people to the inferno before the manor—cracked and shattered into thousands of tiny colored glass-like pieces.

Out of instinct, Immanuel crouched and shielded his eyes with his arms. But none of the pieces hurt him, even despite his entire body being burnt and hurting.

The colored crystalline pieces floated aimlessly against an immaculate white space, whose border neither started nor ended.

Wow.

The sight brought Immanuel to a euphoric, trance-like state, broken by the presence of something glowing in front of him—another floating scroll. He reached out to it, expecting it to unroll once his hand was close to touching it.

True enough, it unrolled on its own before Immanuel could reach it. A quill materialized and wrote:

Congratulations, Immanuel Maier!

You passed the test and have earned the right to the Reach Sigil.

You may begin using this sigil and the Manhole sigil along with the Mouse Sigil by the start of your next test.

For now, enjoy the mesmerizing display before you. And while you do, have a drink—a healing potion brewed by none other than…

"It's Mistrerion's true name again," Immanuel assumed. A bunch of lines and dots danced in the place of the final word of the message.