Marching Towards Doomsday.

"Marching towards doomsday."

That was what the ranger from the Changqing Mountains often said. When setting up camp before sunset each day, he would gaze at the crimson streak stretching across the horizon and sigh with this "rather romantic saying," as he himself put it – the greatest courage and most extreme romance in the face of impending doom.

But neither courage nor romance could halt the march of death. The ranger fell a kilometer short of the crossroads, a poisoned arrow piercing his chest in a cruel irony – a master of the bow killed by an arrow.

The necromancer dealt with the ambushers, two mangled corpses that had been lying in wait. They launched their insidious attack as the party drew near. The undead's lack of breath and heartbeat evaded the ranger’s detection, and the wind masked their foul stench, leading to another unfortunate accident, like so many partings along the way.

The armored warrior arrived at the edge of the campsite and sat down on a dry tree stump, silently gazing at the twilight.

The unsettling crimson streak stretched across the sky, plunging into the sunset like a bloody gash about to tear the world asunder. Blood seemed to surge within the crimson, concealing and brewing countless phantasms beyond mortal comprehension, coldly watching this world swiftly succumbing to destruction.

Footsteps approached. The necromancer sat down beside him, silently gazing at the bloody streak in the twilight with the warrior.

Silence lingered for a while before the warrior's deep voice emerged from within his helmet: "Those two attackers from today..."

"Were the hunter siblings... among the first to die," the necromancer's voice came from within his black hood, sounding as somber as a dead man. "They caught up to us. The dead need no rest, so they are faster than we are."

"We buried them ourselves in the forest outside the Kingdom Gate. You even performed the Requiem Rite – why would the dead you appeased rise again?"

"Many things have risen along the way. Do you see that crimson streak in the sky? The point where the red light first appeared... it has already doubled in size since the Seer made his prediction. It is a wound, tearing our world open. The land beneath our feet and the sky above are decaying because of this wound, and... the rot is spreading faster and faster."

"The transition between life and death is beginning to differ from what I know."

The necromancer spoke quietly, with the same lack of emotion as always, his words simply "stating the facts" with a cold sorrow.

Not everyone could accept his way of speaking. If the shield knight were still here, he would surely have launched into a lengthy lecture and admonishment.

But the warrior turned to look. Only the lonely figure of the Templar Knight sat by the campfire, while the short, thin figure of the pyromancer huddled in the shadows of the firelight. There was no one else in the camp. The shield knight, who always argued with the necromancer and loved to lecture his teammates, was gone – he had fallen in the wilderness outside the Sandstone Fortress, his cause of death still unknown.

"Others may 'catch up' later," the necromancer seemed uncomfortable with the silence and changed the subject awkwardly after a few seconds. "Most likely, people from our former party."

"Why? Just because those hunter siblings caught up today?"

"Because they still remember the mission to march towards doomsday – but no longer remember us," the necromancer said softly. "We did not properly dispose of their bodies before the influence of that red light expanded."

The warrior was silent for a moment: "...What would be considered proper disposal?"

"Cremation. Burn them completely with Evil Spirit Fire, then smash all the larger bones. If possible, soak the skull in acid and bury it deep."

"Okay, I understand."

The next day, the necromancer died.

He was found collapsed at the edge of the camp, his heart stolen by some force in the darkness, leaving only a horrifying cavity in his chest. Yet, strangely,

he wore a strange smile on his face as he died, as if... he was relieved to be rid of this heavy mission ahead of time.

The warrior, the Templar Knight, and the pyromancer held a "funeral" for the necromancer – they completely burned the necromancer's body with Evil Spirit Fire, smashed all the remaining bones they could find, and then buried the fragments of his skull in a jar filled with acid, at the campsite.

Now, only three remained.

As the black smoke from the burning bones rose, the warrior once again gazed into the distance at the crimson streak that seemed to be cutting through the world. The pyromancer came to his side, and after a long silence, the small woman finally asked the question that no one had dared to ask.

"Should we keep going?"

The warrior turned back and looked at the Groska woman with the red hair.

He remembered what she looked like when they first set out – she was confident then, her eyes full of vigor, her words full of pride. As the "Chosen One" selected by the kingdom and appointed by the Seer, she was more convinced than anyone of her own power and destined greatness.

But now, she was asking this question.

"Of course, we have to keep going," the warrior said in a muffled voice, his heavy mask hiding his expression, only his determined tone could be heard. "We must save our kingdom and stop the spreading doomsday."

"Can marching towards doomsday really stop doomsday itself? At the end of that crimson streak, is there really an enemy waiting to be defeated by us? Once we defeat it, will the problem be solved? Just like the Seer said?"

"The Seer has never been wrong," the warrior said stubbornly.

After a moment of confrontation, the pyromancer nodded: "I understand." Three days later, as the party crossed an unnamed forest, the Groska woman fell on a clearing by the river.

There were no enemies, no traps. She was burned by her own flames – uncontrolled magical energy suddenly surged from her body, instantly tearing her apart and burning her to ashes like countless living evil spirits. Her screams were short, and her pain probably lasted only a moment.

The good news was that the uncontrolled flames burned everything completely, so there was no need to handle her body any further – not even a bone fragment larger than a fingernail could be found in the ashes.

Now, only two people remained in the party.

The Templar Knight, who was even more taciturn than the dead mage and who had become increasingly silent as the journey continued, and the warrior himself, who was always clad in heavy armor.

After entering the wilderness completely, they continued to move in a straight line, without worrying about getting lost, because the crimson streak of doomsday always guided them forward.

How long would this trek last? Where exactly was its end? And what would be waiting there... for those who marched towards doomsday to face their own destiny?

In the eyes of the constantly marching warrior, the world illuminated by the red light was becoming... a little stranger every day.

The times of sunrise and sunset had changed significantly, and they were shifting in a certain direction every day. Now the sunset was no longer due west, but had shifted visibly northward.

The sky was gradually being dyed a strange purplish-red color, and bizarre light and shadows could occasionally be seen floating deep within the clouds. Sometimes, those light and shadows even seemed to have living things passing through them.

The distant mountains seemed to be distorting, and the once-straight cliffs now looked like damp planks, gradually bending and curling, while the more distant horizon was rising, as if the entire earth... was undergoing slight deformation.

Or perhaps, it was the observer's own eyes that were playing tricks.

And along with these many visible phenomena, invisible changes were also taking place –

The magical energy between heaven and earth was undergoing strange changes. The magic that was once difficult to perceive was now as active as a rushing river. Mages once complained that it was difficult to gather arcane energy in the air outside the civilized world, but now, even the morning wind seemed to be carrying a strong magical energy – these energies would stimulate the surface of metal armor, producing small glows and discharges, and when accumulated to a certain extent, they would "pop."

The warrior felt that these changes might be signs that the journey was about to reach its end – they were close enough to the place where the red light fell, although it still looked so far away, but hope... seemed to be just around the corner.

But before an unnamed river, the Templar Knight stopped.

The tall, taciturn woman took off her helmet and said suddenly, "Let's stop here."

The warrior looked calmly at his last companion: "Why?" "Aren't you surprised?"

"I just want to know why," the warrior said in his usual stubborn tone.

The Templar Knight was silent for a moment, then took out a broken ruby from her bosom and placed it on the grass next to her.

"The kingdom is destroyed," she said. "Fire and magma surged up from the depths of the earth, covering the entire kingdom in an hour. The Seer's soul held on until the very last moment, confirming the end of everything."

Listening to this terrible news, the warrior still stood quietly in place, calmly watching the Templar Knight's eyes.

"This journey is meaningless," the Templar Knight continued. "It was meaningless from the very beginning."

"The Seer deceived us," the warrior said slowly.

"No, the Seer deceived those who stayed in the kingdom," the Templar Knight said softly. "To make those who stayed behind believe that the kingdom had sent out its most elite team to solve this anomaly, just like a hundred years ago, we sealed the Eliphas who awakened from the ground, just like seven hundred years ago, we ended the reign of the frost giants – the world would be saved by warriors, and if one warrior was not enough, then an army of warriors would be formed."

"...The Seer does not make mistakes."

"Yes, just as you said, the Seer does not make mistakes – so, he was the first to know how doomsday would come."

As the Templar Knight spoke, she pointed to the ground next to her. "Sit down, we've been walking for a long time."

But the warrior did not move.

The Templar Knight didn't care. Her silence along the way was finally over, and in this last peaceful twilight, she smiled gently: "You, and many of us, understood all this halfway through the journey."

"Perhaps only that red-haired Groska woman really believed in that great destiny – it was not until death caught up with her that she understood a little."

"It would have been better if she hadn't understood," the Templar Knight shook her head gently, and then was surprised to see the warrior take another step forward. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to keep walking forward." "Why?"

"Aren't you curious? After realizing that this expedition is meaningless, why do I still keep walking? Don't you want to know the reason?"

The Templar Knight just looked at him quietly.

"I want to... at least figure out what that is," the warrior looked at the crimson streak in the twilight and said softly, "The kingdom has been destroyed, and perhaps the entire civilized world has been destroyed, but I still want to keep walking... to know, what exactly is gradually killing the sky and the earth."

The Templar Knight quietly looked at this last companion. She was silent for a long time, and finally sighed deeply.

"You can't reach it."

The warrior turned back: "What?"

"That red light is not falling on the earth."

Beneath the warrior's mask, a surprised expression finally appeared on his face.

"When the Seer's soul left the earth, he persisted for a full hour. In that one hour, he saw a broader picture from a very high place – our world is a sphere floating in the endless void, and that light... is more massive than the earth beneath our feet, and more distant than the distant sky."

As the Templar Knight spoke, she reached out and picked up the broken ruby on the grass.

"He told me at the end that the astrologers' theories are correct, that the relationship between the stars and the earth is just as the scholars described, that they are all stars floating in a vast space... My friend, the crimson streak that you are pursuing is splitting not the earth but 'everything'."

"The only thing that cannot be explained is why we on earth can always see that light appearing in a specific direction – even if the earth beneath our feet rotates and operates like other stars, that light seems to be directly imprinted in front of our eyes, traversing the sky from east to west, so that we have always believed that it is falling on the earth..."

"This is the Seer's last confusion, and perhaps, it will also become the last confusion left to this world."

The warrior's body froze, and for some reason, a sense of inexplicable trembling... was gradually spreading throughout his body.

In this way, a long, long time ago, in a very, very far place, in the last peaceful twilight, a person finally understood what the world beneath his feet looked like. Before the end of the world.

"Rest," the Templar Knight's voice was very soft. Before that crimson streak, which was constantly spreading and expanding, covered the sky, this woman, whose impression was always too tough and cold, spoke to someone gently for the first time, "It's all over."

It's all over.

When everything is over, what should be done?

The warrior was silent for a moment, then silently drew the longsword from his waist.

He had planned to use this longsword to defeat the powerful enemy at the place where the red light fell, just like the great heroes in legends.

But now, it seemed that this sword was too short to reach the stars, let alone fate.

He and his civilization had not had time to prepare for fate – the abruptly extinguished lights did not know where the wind came from.

He raised this sharp blade, made of the best materials and highest craftsmanship in the kingdom, high, and then used all his strength to throw it violently into the sky –

At the last moment when the longsword left his hand, whether it was an illusion or not, he seemed to hear a voice coming from the wind –

"Who are you? Where are you from?"

The warrior did not know where this voice came from, nor did he know if it had really appeared. In this brief and eternal moment, what appeared in his mind was a sentence that a former companion often muttered in his ear –

"We are marching towards doomsday."