The Night ended slowly.
It did not vanish in a flash, nor did it dissipate with any grand declaration. Instead, it peeled itself off the Dying City like an old, stubborn skin that faded away without protest.
The mist that had coked the city for hours began to retreat.
It did not vanish.
It just beca thin.
Pale, smoke-like tendrils coiled back into the cracks of broken buildings and shattered streets. The murky white fog clung a mont longer to shattered rooftops and crumbling spires before it, too, withdrew into silence.
The haunting cries of the night faded until they beca whispers, ghostly murmurs that drifted away like forgotten prayers.
Then, the stars returned.
They were not bright, and they did not shine. They blinked into the sky, one after another. And from the earth below, they looked like red dots in the sky. They were like silent eyes that had been opened in a black colored sky, and we’re just waiting and watching the events that unfolded in the Dying City below.
They did not warm the city. But their arrival ant only one thing...
Day had co.
The world didn’t brighten, but it shifted.
The air changed first. It was first dry and tainted by the dense aura of death. But a few monts later, it ward up as if a slow-burning fire had ignited sowhere beneath the city.
The scent of rust lingered in the streets, and it was mingled with sothing dry and strange, like burnt parchnt. Even the ground seed warr beneath Corey’s boots, and the silence grew deeper, as though the city itself was holding its breath.
’How ominous... I feel watched.’
A light, calm smile appeared on Corey’s lips as he stood on the scorched ground. He took one last look around, and then he removed the veil of illusion he had placed around him when he was choosing his rewards.
He had no lingering regrets about the choices he made for his rewards.
He made them, and if it ca back to bite him?
Then so be it.
But that was for the future.
As for the present?
It was ti.
Now it was ti to face the main source of the corruption of the Dying City.
He took a step forward, and the air shivered in front of him.
Space warped, and then he vanished.
When Corey reappeared, he stood before sothing old.
A place that many would subconsciously ignore because of the aura that was lingering around this place.
Even the souls and spirits of individuals would subconsciously draw the attention of the physical body to another direction.
The world here was silent. Still
But it was not the stillness of peace. No. It was the stillness of finality.
The stillness of death.
There was no motion, and there was no sound. There was no movent of air, and even the ti around where Corey stood was frozen. Most would not be able to perceive it, but he could.
There was only a heavy and hollow presence.
And in front of Corey was the source, the supposed root of the Dying City’s corruption.
To Corey’s surprise, it was not a cathedral. It was not a throne room. It was not a ruined palace or crumbling tower.
It was a well.
A small, stone well that was cracked around the rim. It was overgrown with moss, and was sunken slightly into the dead earth like it had been forgotten by both ti and mory. Its mouth was wide open, and within it was no light.
Corey could not see a bottom. Just pure darkness.
And as Corey stared at the well, the light of surprise still remained in his eyes as he stared at the well.
If he was being honest with himself, he never expected the location to the main source of the corruption to be a well.
He had expected it to be sothing entirely else. Maybe even a grave, but a well never even appeared in his mind.
After the Third Night began to drift away, he had used his Eyes of Omniscience to scan the Dying City. But this ti around, he increased the output to the max, and that was when he saw the well which was at the very center of the Dying City.
Because he had been moving closer to the center throughout the Third Night, he was able to cover the entire center of the Dying City.
And he was still surprised by the presence of the well.
’They poisoned wells with their own blood and called it communion.’
Corey suddenly recalled a sentence he read in one of the books in the Archive, and his eyes could not help but narrow.
Apart from that, Corey could feel a presence, a gaze peering at him from the well. And he knew that whatever was in the depths of the well wanted him to enter.
’Unsurprisingly, I can’t see the depths of the well no matter how much I try. Well... I haven’t tried my best. But it still does not matter.’
’Well. Here goes nothing.’
He took a step forward, and then he fell into the well.
Or at least, that was what was ant to happen.
There was no fall.
No descent.
One mont he was above, and the next, he was sowhere else entirely.
A cavern? A temple? A tomb?
He didn’t know what to call it, but it stretched impossibly wide. The ceiling arched far above and was lost in darkness, yet the space itself was illuminated by a strange crimson glow that ca from veins of black stone that was embedded in the floor.
And at the center of it all was a tree.
A dead tree that familiar to Corey but at the sa ti not familiar to Corey.
It was black, massive, and completely... wrong.
It wasn’t made of bark or wood. It was made of bones, flesh, and dessicated tissue that was knitted together like so mad sculptor who had tried to give death a body and failed halfway.
It had no leaves and no fruit.
It just had long, skeletal branches that stretched upward like crooked hands yearning for a god that had long since abandoned them.
And hanging upside down from one of the branches...
was a corpse.
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