Chapter 196: Denial(22)

The ruins gradually thinned, their shapes dissolving into lower silhouettes half-swallowed by mist. What remained felt less like a city and more like the memory of one. Stone paths narrowed, winding between collapsed walls that leaned inward, forming corridors that funneled him forward whether he wanted to go that way or not.

He noticed the ground changing beneath his feet. The smooth stone gave way to layered slabs, each one slightly raised, as if stacked over centuries. Water had pooled in the grooves between them, reflecting the bluish glow above. When he stepped into one of those shallow pools, ripples spread out slowly, unnaturally slow, lingering longer than they should have before fading.

He passed a line of pillars next. Most had fallen, snapped near their bases, but a few still stood, crooked and scarred. They were carved with shallow reliefs, figures caught mid-motion. Some looked like they were pulling something unseen, others braced as if resisting an overwhelming force. None of the faces had survived. They were worn smooth, erased completely, as if identity itself had been a flaw that time corrected.

The farther he went, the quieter it became. The distant hum deepened, no longer blending with his heartbeat but pressing against it. Each breath felt heavier, like the air itself resisted being moved. He became more aware of his own presence, the sound of his boots, the faint scrape of fabric when he shifted. Everything else felt like it was holding still, watching.

Then the ruins opened up.

The mist thinned ahead, pulled aside by something vast. Aether slowed without realizing it, his steps growing shorter as the shape emerged from the haze. At first, he thought it was a cliff, a sheer wall rising impossibly high. But as more of it revealed itself, the truth settled in.

It was a spire.

Not a tower in the way cities built them, but something monolithic, a single, colossal structure rising straight from the stone below. Its surface was smooth in places and deeply scarred in others, carved with long vertical grooves that ran endlessly upward until they vanished into the glow above. It looked less constructed and more summoned, dragged into existence by sheer will.

Ruins clustered around its base, smaller structures crushed beneath its presence, as if the spire had claimed the ground by force. Some buildings had been bent around it, their walls warped outward, frozen in the moment they failed to resist.

Aether stood at the edge of the open space, staring up. The scale of it made his chest tighten. No matter how long he looked, he could not find the top. The light around it bent strangely, curving along its surface, making it seem taller than it should have been possible for anything to stand.

At its base, an opening yawned wide. Not a door, not an arch, just a hollow carved directly into the stone. Darkness pooled inside it, deeper and denser than the surrounding mist. The hum he had been hearing resonated from within, stronger now, vibrating faintly through the ground.

The shadows around him stirred again, more restless than before, stretching subtly toward the spire as if drawn by gravity.

Aether exhaled slowly.

So this was it.

This was what was left of the many ruins that he passed along the way; whether this place was dangerous or just abandoned, he could only go inside and see.

After all, he had a theory that this might just be where the others are hiding.

He took another step forward, the dull thud of it swallowed instantly by the spire’s looming silence.

He also saw a ladder.

…

…

After climbing the ladder, Aether stepped into a narrow stone hallway. The walls were close and uneven, carved directly from the surrounding rock. Water had seeped into the stone over time, leaving dark stains and patches of moisture along the surface. The air was cool and damp, and each breath carried a faint salty smell.

The floor was flat but worn smooth, as if many feet had passed through here long ago. His steps sounded dull, the noise fading quickly instead of echoing. Light was faint, coming from small cracks above and behind him, just enough to see where he was going.

The hallway didn’t last long before it opened into a wider section. From there, three paths split away in different directions.

To his left, a stone bridge extended outward. It was narrow and simple, made from the same dark stone as the rest of the ruins. The bridge crossed an open space filled with mist, the bottom hidden completely from view. The surface was smooth and slightly damp, and the edges were rounded from age. He couldn’t see what waited on the other side, only the faint outline of stone disappearing into the haze.

To his right, a door was set into the wall. It was solid and rectangular, fitted tightly into the stone around it. Unlike most of the ruins, it showed little damage. There were no large cracks, and the surface looked cleaner, as if it had been protected from the elements. The stone around the doorway was also in better condition, suggesting it had been used more than the other paths.

Straight ahead, the hallway continued for several steps before splitting into two small rooms. The first room was empty. Its floor was cracked, and pieces of stone lay scattered near the walls. There were no markings, no objects, nothing that stood out.

The second room was similar in size but not empty. A low stone table stood near the center. Its surface was flat and worn smooth, marked with shallow lines that had almost faded away. The stone around it was slightly warmer than the rest of the hallway, though the reason wasn’t clear.

Aether stood still for a moment, looking at each path in turn. The bridge, the door, and the hallway all led deeper into the ruins. There were no signs, no clear answers.

He tightened his grip and prepared to move, knowing that whichever path he chose would take him farther in.

’Well, there is only one path that i dont know where it leads me to… I would be stupid to pick it.’

He had picked it, the left path, the one with the bridge, and the only one of the three where he had no idea where it led.

And while normally, he wouldn’t choose it, a man, he wasn’t one to make irrational decisions, even more in times like this, where he could easily be killed. But, the two others didn’t seem to be abandoned, there sign of some people living in them. And I mean, he had been walking for a whole while, I mean… two days really.

He had slept in a ruin last time, so maybe if this place wasn’t used by the ground he wanted to find, he could at least sleep in it, since he didn’t think any monsters could climb up the ladder and get him.

Aether stepped on the bridge, feeling how much rougher the wind was here. He put his hand out, trying to not to be pushed by it. His every step was slow, being sure he didn’t fall.

After all, he hasn’t had a good experience with falling recently…

Slowly, he saw the structure attached to the bridge, round and built like a tower. Parts of it were smooth, while other sections were chipped and uneven, showing where time had taken its toll.

Pipes ran along the structure, thick and rigid. disappearing into the walls and rising higher up. Some of them were broken, while others remained intact.

The bridge beneath his feet remained steady as he moved closer. This place felt more contained than the open ruins behind him. Built tighter. More deliberate.

Made him think even more that the group was hiding inside.

As Aether stepped inside, he tried to look around and see if someone was inside, but then he felt something hit him in the head, and he slowly blacked out.

…

…

When he awoke, he was tied up to a chair, with five men standing near him, trying to see if he was alive from the hit.

“Looks like the kid didn’t die. Sad.”

Sad? What did they mean by sad? Did they actually want to kill him? But why, because he had found their hideout, well, sorry to tell them, but it wasn’t what he had to find, all you had to do was walk far away, it wasn’t hidden at all.

The rope that he was bound by was somehow made out of electricity by what he could see and feel, since every time he moved, he felt a sting in his chest that made him stop.

Was it some sort of power? He didn’t know what the power system was in this world, since not even books created by the Codex shared the same system as them, so instead of having affinites, they had something else.

One of the men stepped forward, kneeling in front of him.

“Now, little guy, what are you doing here and what do you want with us?”

…

Aether grinned.

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