During that time, Nogryl was carried far away by a large white horse; he was lying over its back as the armored man rode through the old forest road. He could not recall how long the journey lasted, nor where his mysterious savior brought him.

  "Who are you?“ He said with what little energy he had, and a couple of seconds later, the man answered,

  "Aryon Smite." And as soon as he heard that, Nogryl's confusion seemed to go away, as he drifted back into unconsciousness.

  Unknown time passed again, and he was awakened by the horse stopping, and Aryon Smite took him off the horseback and carried him on his shoulders. He could see that he was deep in the forest, and in front of him, a large stone temple, It looked much like the churches of Xorael, but it seemed old and abandoned, reclaimed by the nature as the roots and vines embraced its ancient stone walls.

  Aryon pushed the large wooden doors open, and the light of the sun lit the darkness of the hall. A smell of dust could be felt in the air as the grand paladin carried him behind the altar and down the ancient stone stairs that led into the darkness.

  After descending the stairs, he saw a large cold room beneath the temple. The extinguished torches were lit with a single move of the paladin's hand, and in the middle of the room there was a round stone well, filled to the top with limpid water, and Nogryl was placed inside.

  A couple of seconds after he was submerged, his wound started to glow, and the armored man walked around the well, holding a book in one hand while citing the unknown language and throwing petals into the water with the other hand.

  The petals were made of the gold that was glowing on its own in near absence of light, and as soon as they touched the water, they dissipated in it, forming concentric glowing waves in its calm surface, and Nogryl's mind slowly drifted into a trance.

  He found himself in a church in Lindenrow that burned not long ago, standing alone before the large statue of Xorael, and as he approached it, the statue started weeping blood from its eyes. Nogryl approached the statue, placed his hand on the cold stone as the blood poured down, and soon enough, it morphed into a black hairy monstrosity with a gaping maw, dashing towards him and growling. He ran through the gate into the streets, but instead of the village, he saw the empty void outside, and far in the distance, he saw the black mountain covered in mist; it was clearly

  Mount Nal'Gorah that he saw in his vivid dream. And in the skies above the mountain, he saw the enormous pale face with empty eyes, shattered like a mask, and its cracks filled with black nothingness, covering the majority of the skies.

  He observed the face in the heavens, and he could hear the whispers in the wind that got stronger and louder, and the face turned towards him and roared his name in a deep, lumbering, distorted scream:

  "Nogryl!" In that very instant, the surge of dread ran through his bones, and he woke up in the well, as pitch-black blood rushed from his wounds, filling the pool and staining it black, sizzling and boiling into dark smoke that quickly formed into the shape of a strange creature, about five times larger than the ordinary human. Its shape was not clear, as it resembled a vaguely humanlike cloud of darkness and smoke, and its eyes could be seen glowing behind the smoke.

  "Be gone, demon!“ The paladin yelled, and the glowing cage formed around the apparition that manifested in front of the men. The specter screamed and wailed as the paladin cast the spell of binding on it.

  "The world of men will crumble and fall!“ It screeched in agony as Aryon Smite unsheathed his sword with a golden glow and charged at the fiend bound by the light.

  After a long leap, he perforated it with his blade, and the beast screamed and quickly disappeared, banished back to the underworld as Aryon fell on his feet.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "Was this thing inside of me all the time?“ Norgyl asked.

  "It's far more complicated than that; this apparition is but a messenger of the one who took hold of you.“ The grand paladin responded and sheathed his sword, and in that moment Nogryl looked back at his wound and realized that his scar lost its black color and now looked like an ordinary scar.

  From what he learned from Sir Collin back in his earlier days, he knew that Aryon Smite was over sixty years old, but he did not seem to be that way.

  "You fight well for an old man,“ Nogryl said and laughed, and the grand paladin turned towards him and removed his helmet, revealing the face of a young man seemingly in his middle thirties, with golden hair and eyes.

  "Things are not always as they seem" he said and placed his helmet back on his head. Norgyl was confused, but there were much more important things that he had on his mind.

  "So the curse that everyone was talking about, is it gone now?“

  "We are yet to know“ The paladin replied. Aryon Smite was clearly not a man of many words; in fact, it was hard to believe that he was a man at all and not just a walking armor filled with light and holy magic, because that would be the easiest way to describe his cold and colorless personality and the way he was bearing himself.

  "I placed your armor on the horse before we escaped. It's in one of the sacks; your sword is there too. You should be fine by now; the power of light is extremely potent in its healing abilities. The man said, and Nogryl nodded and stood up, following the paladin upstairs towards the temple's main hall.

  "This place looks very strange; it looks like a church, but it does not look like it's still in use." Norgyl commented as he kept his pace with the knight. In that moment, Aryon stopped in place to cast a spell that conjured a sphere of light in front of him, and with a slow wave of his hand, he sent it flying towards the ceiling of the temple. As it approached the walls, a countless number of pieces of glass reflected its light through a layer of dust that collected on them, and it revealed a large mosaic that covered the entirety of once sacred place. The mosaic depicted the golden hall with a large round table in the middle, and around the table sat the entire pantheon of gods, with Xorael in the focal point of the ancient work of art, and on each side of the temple, there was a depiction of a star with many points, on one side, the golden star, and on the other, the one that shone blue.

  On the very top of the ceiling there was a depiction of a sun, and on the floor, a depiction of two moons. But among the gods that Nogryl worshipped before, there sat a pale god with long dark hair and a young face resembling the face that he earlier saw in the skies in his nightmare.

  And beside him sat a large horned god with a red-hot, glowing armor that covered his robust body. The dark-haired god was clearly Aroseth, the Rebel god, and beside him, Naldir, the god of fire and the underworld.

  Nogryl felt uncanny after witnessing such depictions among the gods that his people worshiped, and as he stared at the pale face of the god that sat beside Xorael, the visions flashed before his eyes and he could hear the sound of the ringing screams.

  "Ugh... Stop!“ He yelled as his booming voice echoed through the empty hall, and suddenly everything returned to normal as the silence prevailed.

  "This temple was built before the war of the gods, when even the most pious people worshiped what they now shun as the unholy.“ The grand paladin proclaimed before he left through the large wooden gate, and so did Nogryl.

  "Prepare for a long journey; we are riding to The Great City of Ventrius, the capital of the Kingdom, for that is where your destiny awaits.“ The paladin stated, and both of the men embarked on a journey that would last for days.