"Do you know what this place is?" Arran asked, his eyes fixed on the shattered city before them.
"I do," Snowcloud said. "This is Uvar, one of the largest cities of the Eidaran Empire — or at least, it used to be. It was home to millions before it fell." A wry smile appeared on her face. "I knew it had fallen, but I never expected this."
Arran could hear some shock in her voice, and he understood well how she felt. Although he had never heard of the city before today, just the sight of a city so grand being destroyed and abandoned was almost incomprehensible.
The crumbling city walls looked like they had once been dozens of feet tall, and beyond them, Arran could see towers rising up from the city, continuing for miles in the distance. Yet the towers, too, were broken and crumbling — giant remnants of what must once have been colossal palaces and castles.
Briefly, Arran felt a sense of sadness at not being able to see the city before it was destroyed. Even in its current ruined state, he could see that it would once have been a breathtaking sight, rather than the shocking scene of devastation that now lay in front of him.
They approached the city slowly. Even if it looked abandoned, the sheer size of the ruins emanated danger, almost as if some sliver of the terrifying power that had ruined the city was still present.
About half a mile from the city, Arran suddenly stopped in his tracks.
"Can you feel that?" he asked, frowning in bafflement. "It's as if the city is completely devoid of Natural Essence. I can't Sense anything from it."
Natural Essence was present in everything, and ever since he had learned to use his Sense, he had found that he could feel it wherever he went, like a soft but ever-present buzz in the background.
Yet here, he unexpectedly felt like there was a complete absence of Natural Essence in the direction of the city, as if the city somehow resembled a giant void in the world.
"I began to feel something a few miles ago," Snowcloud said, a troubled look on her face. "But I didn't realize what it was. This… I don't know what could have caused it."
"Should we continue?"
The absence of Natural Essence was strange enough that it worried Arran, even if he didn't know what was responsible. And although he saw no obvious signs of danger, that didn't mean there wasn't any.
"We have to," Snowcloud said. "This city is one of the places where I hoped we might find spirit crystals. At the center of the city, there should be a temple, where the Eidaran priests kept spirit crystals and other magical items. If we search it, we might be fortunate enough to find one they left behind."
She paused to think for a moment, then continued, "We could travel to one of the other cities, but I have no idea what happened to those. Searching these ruins may well be the least dangerous choice we have."
After a moment, Arran nodded in agreement. While the ruined city filled him with a sense of foreboding, the fact that it seemed to be completely abandoned should make things easier.
Once more, they started toward the city, approaching it slowly and cautiously. Even if there were no obvious signs of enemies, the crumbling ruins were enough to inspire a feeling of danger in both of them.
Then, about a hundred paces from the city walls, something suddenly struck Arran — an attack that instantly flooded his Sense, filling it with a wild maelstrom of chaotic Essence so strong it not only blinded his Sense but overpowered his other senses as well.
The attack hit him before he could respond, and the moment it touched him, he was completely overwhelmed.
It was like being tossed into a spinning room filled with blinding lights and thundering sounds, and the chaos almost left him unable to think. He fell to his knees as he tried to resist it, desperate to regain his senses as he feared the attack would soon be followed by a second more deadly one.
Yet although Arran failed to regain control, no second attack came. Instead, the cacophony of Essence merely continued to assault him relentlessly, not letting up even the slightest bit as it battered both his mind and his senses.
It was beyond anything he thought a mage should be able to produce — an attack this powerful should drain even a strong mage's Essence rapidly. Yet somehow, the onslaught continued unabated, neither increasing nor decreasing in power.
Whoever his attacker was, it had to be an astonishingly powerful mage who was not concerned with defeating Arran, instead choosing to torture him endlessly for some reason Arran did not understand.
After what seemed like hours, however, he slowly began to regain some semblance of clarity.
The assault on his mind did not grow any weaker as time went on, but his ability to resist it gradually grew stronger. Even if he could not turn off his Sense, he was slowly becoming accustomed to the torrent of chaos that was bearing down on him, barely succeeding in tuning it out.
Finally, he opened his eyes, then slowly got to his feet and balanced himself. Even that took a massive amount of effort, but when he did, he did not see the enemy he expected to find. Instead, he was still standing in the grass a hundred paces from the city walls, with nobody there but Arran and Snowcloud.
He took a glance at Snowcloud, and saw that she was lying on the ground, her body stiff and unmoving. He grabbed her arm, then quickly moved backward as he dragged her along, away from the city.
In just a few steps, the chaos assaulting his Sense vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. It was as if a veil of chaos had been lifted from him, and it took him some moments to process the sudden silence around him.
Snowcloud, meanwhile, had begun to groan in discomfort, her body now moving again even if she had not fully regained consciousness just yet. Although he wanted to help her, there was nothing he could do but wait, so he sat down on the ground beside her.
After a few minutes, Snowcloud opened her eyes, and Arran breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed she had not been permanently affected.
She was silent for a few moments, then finally said, "That was terrible."
"It was," Arran agreed. "But do you have any idea what it was?"
"I do, but… give me a moment." Snowcloud slowly sat up, and for several minutes, she sat still, recovering from the ordeal.
Finally, after a deep breath, she spoke again. "There's a formation around the city. When we crossed it, we were exposed to that storm of Essence."
"A formation did this?" Arran asked, astounded at the idea of a formation having such a devastating effect.
Snowcloud shook her head. "The Essence we felt inside… I think it's the residue of the battle that destroyed the city. Unless I'm mistaken, a formation was placed around the city to contain it."
Understanding dawned in Arran's eyes. "That's why we couldn't feel any Natural Essence coming from the city?"
"I think so," she replied. "When we crossed the formation, we were suddenly exposed to the full force of the battle's backlash."
"But it looks like you were affected even more than I was," Arran said. "Any idea why?"
A thoughtful expression appeared on Snowcloud's face. "It might be because my Sense is stronger than yours, and I've had it far longer, so I rely on it more than you do."
Arran scratched his chin, several ideas already forming in his head. "So it affects stronger mages more than weaker ones?"
"I think so," Snowcloud said.
"Then I'll have to go back inside."
"What?!" Snowcloud looked at Arran as if he'd gone insane.