One blink and Malik was falling, spat out to the Gate below. His body hurled downward, fire trailing behind him as he slowed his descent and softly landed on the ground. Where fire didn’t burn. ...Where nothing burned. Because everything here was already dead. Malik stood, steam rising off his back as he looked around. Void winds circled above, but the ground was salt flat, dark red, littered with rusted chains and scattered limbs that looked like they’d been here since the beginning of decay. If one knew the meaning of the word, they’d expect this Gate to have the hottest flames, but no, fire wasn’t the problem anymore. Here... it was the Corruption. It seeped from what replaced air. From the ground and the sky. It ate beyond flesh and soul. And it did that by... At first, it was soft. A breath without lungs. Barely there, yet so loud. The voices multiplied. "MUKK... MUUK... MAAKK..." "MAAK’IR... MA’LAK... M’LAKH... MLKH..." They climbed over each other like worms in a carcass. "HE WAS NEVER MALIK." A thousand voices, chanting. "THE BANE OF CORRUPTION?" "THE BEARER OF OUROBOROS?" "THE WIELDER OF SPINE BREAKER?" "THE LIFTER OF THE GATE?" "THE FLIPPER OF ARMIES?" "THE WEAVER OF FATE?" "THE GOLDEN-EYED DEVIL?" "HONORARY SCHOLAR OF NOURZADAH?" "INSTRUCTOR OF THE THREE WHO ROSE?" "THE ONE WHO TRAINED THE GOLDEN GENERATION?" "YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A MAN." Each word struck deeper than the last, until... And not because they stopped, but because they forgot. Because even their mockery faded, even their contempt withered, until all that remained was absence. Of Title... of identity and meaning. A realm that didn’t just reject Malik, it erased him... But, of course, that didn’t work. Malik kept walking as if nothing had even happened. One couldn’t erase a man who planned to erase himself. One couldn’t erase a man who was already promised to someone else. After a few hours of that silence, he found what he was looking for. This time, no Sultan was clutching said scroll. He’d likely been completely erased, even in death. Malik opened it and read. He skipped past his introduction. As well as his struggles and regrets. {This Gate’s obstacle is the ’fog;’ they’re easy to find once you are aware of their existence.} And read what he wanted. {If you, the one reading this, were like me, someone who’d met the True Sultan, you’d know why we call what might at first glance appear to be a simple fog as such. Now, this ’fog’ is worse. Step inside, and you won’t know which way is up. You won’t remember who you are, or why you came, or what your name was. You’ll shatter and fade. It is not the Rite of Continuance, where only your legacy is stolen, but all of who and what you are. Everyone in my expedition is...} Malik ended his little reading session and folded the scroll. He put it back where it once sat and jumped up, scanning his vicinity. There were three ’fogs,’ each the same color, exiting out of holes in the ground. Without further delay, he stepped forth towards the nearest ’fog.’ He materialized directly before its entrance, which was far from still. It slithered, hissed, and twitched. And when he reached it— WheeeiiiisssshhhHHHHRRRYYYAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! A howl of rejection and denial. Almost as if it were afraid... as if his arrival was an offense. As if he were a sickness pressing against its membrane. Malik, caring not for that, stepped forward anyway. The moment he fell into the hole, the ’fog’ convulsed. It whooshed in all directions, swirling and folding in, stabbing from every angle. Again, it stabbed not his flesh, but deeper, his name, the memories no longer shackling him, the fabric of his soul, his very existence. It latched onto nothing. This wasn’t Malik’s first time. He’d gone through something similar. A hole that had never healed. The Edge of the World. Where Malik had walked for millennia. Where time wasn’t a concept, and memory scattered into the void. Maybe this was where that place began. This place wanted to unravel him, but he had already unraveled once. He’d already lost his name once, stood alone, a ’Stranger,’ forgotten, hollow— The fog twisted tighter, shrieking now. It shoved his memories in his face. A crumbling grave without a name. A bloodstained hand holding a smaller one. A voice that never reached him in time. A home, burnt and buried. A question: "Who am I?" But it never got a reply. He had stopped asking himself such questions a long time ago. Back then, he used no Holy Relic, only his mind. It had unknowingly prepared him for this. Anyone else would’ve simply ceased by now, but... Malik didn’t even stutter, and that never changed, even as it got worse. The ’fog’ couldn’t stab into him anymore, having lost completely. It howled one last time and then split. Shattered like brittle glass. And then there was only falling again. That Which Breaks to Pieces. Together? Even worse. But here, in the Fourth? It was turned up to a level that didn’t make sense. Here, the fire wasn’t some color of red; it was white. Nearly blinding, and worse, cold... a cold of absence. A nothingness that burned worse than all that came before it. It burned so deep that in one second of Malik being there... All of his skin peeled off.