{Inside The Projection}
Malik wasn't worried.
He didn't give a damn about food.
Monsters? Please. Bandits? Pleeeeeeeeease.
Getting lost? Not a chance—all he had to do was stare at the sky-splitting wall up ahead, the northern edge of the world, and he'd be fine.
That's where the Well of Eternity waited. That's where he was headed.
And so, there was only one thing that mattered.
His first few steps beyond the city, the snow punched him right in the knees. By the tenth, it clawed up to his thighs. Malik was gone by the twelfth. Vanished, reappearing a fair distance ahead, a gold shadow skipping through white.
His Devil's Footsteps remained incredible even here, but still, the snow fought back, not giving him an easy time.
The first day had Malik constantly flicker through the landscape. His heavy coat whipping behind him, his boots snapping the crusted surface of the snow, he'd be gone every other moment, only to blink back into existence, sometimes ahead, sometimes to the side, avoiding whatever obstacle on his path.
By nightfall, the Frozen Wall remained a painting on the horizon.
Right, it seemed no closer. Not even a single foot closer.
Malik's breath came in slow, visible puffs as he looked up, admiring the silver light of the Twelve Moons, a light he could never wish to attain.
When the second day came around, heavy wind came to play.
It howled through the open plains down from the north.
The wind didn't just freeze Malik's skin—it bit and screamed in his ears, damned ghosts of every poor bastard who'd died out here before him.
His steps grew slower, flickers shorter. Fifty meters. Thirty meters. Twenty. Ten.
His boots dragged, as if the snow reached up with invisible hands to yank him under.
Still, Malik didn't seem to care or mind.
He kept on going. Going. And going.
By noon, the horizon rippled.
He noticed a shape—a blur of movement some distance before him.
Bandits? ...No. Wolves. Big, white, beautiful monsters with eyes bluer than anything he'd ever seen and ridiculously big teeth, with canines made to punch through bone.
They circled, slunk low to the ground, their breath curling like smoke.
Malik didn't stop, casually walking towards them.
The first of the wolves lunged—he easily ducked under it.
The second went for his throat, and Malik vanished, reappearing behind it, hand brushing its fur... patting it?
His simple touch caused the monster to explode in a fiery blaze.
The pack immediately paused at that, realizing that they had picked the wrong prey.
Calmly stepping back from the blood and gore, Malik's golden eyes landed on the pack's leader, a wolf much bigger than the rest, stronger, perhaps even a Ṭāghiya, a rank he might find challenging.
The leader glanced at its dead kin and then took its leave.
Malik stared at them for a moment, watching them go.
Getting its Aether core might be beneficial for him now, even if he wasn't going to use the other batshit insane method, but he didn't find it in him to kill them all.
It was a mistake he'd made before, and yet he'd still do it again.
This lesson was one he refused to learn.
In any case, the second day was nearly over, but still...
The wall didn't seem to get closer.
On the third day, his knees buckled.
It wasn't exhaustion—Malik couldn't get exhausted, not anyway—it was the weight. The sheer, bone-breaking weight of cold pressing into his bones, sinking past skin and muscle, past his ribs and into his core.
His Devil's Footsteps faltered even further.
By now, his clothes were a frozen shell.
His skin cracked when he moved.
But still, and again, he didn't stop.
He kept going, and the snow—the damn snow—it got deeper.
Waist-deep. Then chest-deep. Then over his neck.
He was swimming in snow.
Sometimes he vanished only to sink into white and clawed back up, a shape barely human.
Somehow, the fourth day was even worse, and it was for a simple reason. A simple cause.
He could no longer see the Frozen Wall.
This storm was a heavy one, drowning him in snow.
Malik didn't bother to use his eyes... he knew better.
He focused on walking instead, boots barely tapping the snow, keeping him up.
One step after another. Blink forward. Ten meters. Blink. Five. Blink. Two. Blink. One.
He couldn't say, but he was sure the Wall was laughing at him from the horizon.
The fifth day eventually arrived, and the storm began to clear.
It was still barely visible, but he didn't seem to mind.
Walking remained his number one priority.
Not even the frozen statues of unlucky Magi could distract him.
Those began to populate the path before and around him, most remaining fully intact.
At first, he thought them bandits, but their... poses quickly taught him otherwise.
Sixth day—the world cracked.
Malik's legs had finally given out.
He didn't fall. His knees didn't buckle. No, he remained straight, but he dropped. Straight down. Fully buried in snow, teeth bared in a silent snarl.
Taking that as a moment of rest, he breathed for a few seconds, and then dug himself out, fingers black.
Once upon the surface, he. Kept. Going.
As night neared, his Devil's Footsteps barely flashed its gold.
Every activation of the ability felt like dragging his soul through a swamp of spikes.
He was forced to switch things up and circulate his Aether instead.
This was it. The one week Cyrus assumed he'd take if he fought everything on the way.
Perhaps he overestimated Malik... or perhaps he didn't know of his condition.
Either way, he wasn't so wrong.
Apparently, Malik had reached his destination.
On the seventh morning, he suddenly found the Frozen Wall before him.
All jagged ice, reaching up into the clouds, rimmed with frostbite blue.
He stared at the anomaly for so long, he almost missed what he came for.
Trudging over a ridge, legs shaking, chest burning, he stopped.
There, at the Wall's base, sat the Well of Eternity.
A dome of pure white ice.
Lights of rainbow danced above its surface, thin rays bending and warping, making the air shimmer.
Malik stood there, one boot in the snow, one arm hanging limp, breath slow and cold.
He didn't smile. He didn't sigh.
Then, for the first time in seven days, his lips moved, barely more than a breath of sound.
And as the Shams fully rose behind him, casting gold across the plains of white, he took one step forward.
There was no going back now.