Shadow Magus - Chapter 8 Bridge

The airship was very fast and the scenery outside would change every day. They passed great mountains, vast deserts, plains, forests and rivers that seemed to have no end in sight. During these days Freya learned some things, but most importantly she learned of how vast this world truly was. The planet she came from was called earth, although it was not the biggest it was still a planet. Even so the continent she was on was already on the same size as earth. She also learned that there was a continent to the north that was much bigger and was a place where magic was much more prosperous.

‘It seems like there is plenty of things to explore in this world. The only problem is that my life is just to short. Perhaps I should aim at immortality first, so that I got plenty of time on my hands.’ Freya smiled as she made up her mind, she would use whatever method which was required of her to obtain immortality. Afterwards she would start living the life she had always wanted to, but never could.

As she was lost in her own thoughts she suddenly felt the concentration of elemental particles in the air change. She looked outside and noticed that they were approaching a forest that seemed to have no end.

The next moment out of who knows where, she heard a voice that travelled across the entire airship. “We are currently approaching Dark forest academy and will be landing in 10 minutes. Make sure you have packed your thing as anything that is left behind will be confiscated.

As the announcement came to an end everyone from Dark forest academy became excited and rushed to their rooms. Freya also went to her room and finished packing in only two minutes. She went back to find many impatient looking students and a bored looking Logan all waiting for the airship to land.

As time passed everyone could feel how the airship quickly descended and after a while they finally landed. The originally excited students were soon disappointed when reality hit them. It turned out that they still needed to travel for about another week before reaching the academy.

Surprisingly their mode of transportation was shadow wolfs. At first some of the students were scared of the wolfs and needed to gather their courage before walking any closer. However, under Logan’s impatient gaze it did not take them too long.

The Shadow wolfs traveled at a very fast speed, many times faster than a horse and to top it off their presence scared all other beasts making their journey very safe. As they traveled they would often be bored as nothing really happened.

Their biggest problems where back problems. Almost everyone knew how to ride a horse but no one had any experience with wolfs except for Logan. With their lack of experience combined with the great speed of the wolfs everyone felt as if the wolfs were not the ones giving a ride but the other way around. Luckily the wolfs fur was soft even though it was capable of blocking swords.

The only people who were fine where Logan and Freya. Although Freya had no experience, her A.I chip managed to analyze the most appropriate way of siting for her. On the path to the academy the only thing they spotted except for trees was a small village with normal people.

Luckily with Logan leading the way they did not get lost even though every place looked identical to the last with only trees in sight. Like this a week passed with nothing really happening except for the students learning to overcome their fear of the wolfs.

After a week, the trees slowly became sparser and once again the students became excited. Up ahead they saw the light coming through the last couple of trees in sight. Their excitement reached a new peak as they left the last tree behind them. Some even started shouting from joy as they saw nothing not even a tree or a rock.

Everyone was bewildered as they thought their eyes was playing tricks on them. They did not know how to react as the only thing they saw was the sky. Then one of the students pointed far into the distance and shouted “look”.

Everyone looked over but this time everyone faces were filled with shock. What they saw was a giant crater. In the center was an elevated piece of land with a great castle on top, but from this distance it only looked like a dote. The only way to get to the castle was with an ancient looking bridge, as the elevated land was simply too steep. The bridge stretched across a massive area and was over 100 meters high.

It took another five minutes just to gather at the start of the bridge. They had lunch before they finally setting off once again. The bridge was about twenty meters across and occasionally you would see stone status of angels on both sides of the bridge. They looked very life like and emitted a strange aura that made them feel safe. It was very different from the feeling you got when looking over the edge of the bridge. Down below there was only darkness, not even the sun could light up that place. The only thing you could occasionally see were a massive tree, but soon it would be consumed by darkness once more. No matter how good your hearing was you would never hear a single sound from within the darkness. Whenever a student looked down below they would immediately look for the nearest stone statue before they could finally calm down.