Chapter 375: Shadows of the Past

"Stay in human form, like me. Our draconic form will drain our strength too quickly. We don't know how long we'll be trapped here—if we can't find a way out, we'll need to be ready for the long haul."

Sieg, now back in human form, tapped his sister's wing and signaled Noelle to shift back as well.

Mighty as dragons were, they burned through an immense quantity of energy simply by existing in their true forms; even the beat of their colossal hearts devoured reserves at an alarming rate.

Though Sieg didn't look outwardly worried, this world into which they had been deposited, where everything had been consumed, leaving only ash behind, filled him with deep unease.

"Understood, Brother. I can feel the magic in me seeping away. This place is too empty... there's nothing here at all."

Noelle obediently transformed into her human self and joined Sieg in taking an inventory of their supplies. Fortunately, their storage rings had survived the catastrophic fall intact. They still had a plentiful stockpile of weapons, artifacts, and provisions.

"First, let's try to contact Wang Yu and the others. If that fails, we'll attempt something else. Above all, don't waste energy," Sieg cautioned Noelle firmly.

After long consideration, he drew a few materials from his alchemical storage and began laying out a formation upon the ashen soil.

As he activated it, waves of magic rippled outward in a unique pattern. Though the world itself seemed stripped bare, it obeyed the same principles as in other realms; magic and wizardry still functioned here.

"No use," Sieg muttered at last. "I can't reach them. I can't figure out how large this place is, either. It's too vast for this formation to chart its borders."

Sieg sighed. The spell had been crafted for a wide but imprecise scan. If even it had been unable to find the edges of the realm, there wasn't much that more resources would accomplish.

"Sister's mark isn't responding either," Noelle added with a frown. "I can sense you, but not Wang Yu or Avia."

"This does complicate matters..." Sieg kneaded his forehead with his thumbs, forcing aside useless fears to focus on actions he could take immediately. Cold clarity was what they needed.

They had stumbled into a lifeless world, utterly devoid of sustenance. Here, none of their resources could be replenished.

It was, in effect, another kind of dissociation layer. The true dissociation layer annihilated all who entered it in an instant. On the other hand, this place consumed intruders slowly, reducing them to husks over time by relentless attrition. Sieg's task was to stave off that fate.

From his pack, he withdrew a seed from Liaheim, the elven capital. He pressed it into the ashen soil and channeled a spell of growth. Soft green light swathed the seed, coaxing it upward.

Before their eyes it sprouted, broke through the surface... and withered almost at once. Deprived of sustenance, the seed burned through its own reserves and perished.

"As I feared," Sieg murmured, narrowing his eyes. "This ash is mere residue, stripped bare of even the remnants of things burned away. This world is closer to death itself than even the undead plane."

Their future might very well unfold the same way.

Meanwhile, as Wang Yu carried Avia across the sands toward the city on the horizon, Avia analyzed the subterranean desert. Like Wang Yu, she could not wield wizardry here, but her magic remained intact.

"The concentration of magic here is comparable to the surface—perhaps even higher, owing to the desert's peculiarity. Earth and fire mana are abundant, void energy even more so... but I can't draw on it. The void won't respond to my summons."

"That's good news," Wang Yu said with a crooked grin, raising a thumb. "What we need now is a concealment spell. We have no clue whether that city is inhabited, and if it is, whether its people will be friend or foe."

Avia nodded, weaving earth mana into a cloak of shifting sands that draped over them like a mantle. They now seemed part of the desert itself from afar.

The singing in Wang Yu's ears swelled as they drew closer to the city. What had once been tenuous and uncertain was now steady, though faint. Its source remained unknown. By itself, it couldn't prove the presence of residents in the city.

"Wait," he said suddenly, halting. "There's something beneath us."

Wang Yu expanded the power of his Chariot as he lowered Avia from his back, focusing on what lay buried in the sands beneath his feet.

The Chariot's power surged outward. The sands parted like water to reveal a pit five meters deep. What emerged caused Avia's eyes to widen—it was a massive skull, human-shaped but colossal in scale.

"A giant's skull... How could the remains of an extinct race be buried here?!"

Her voice carried both awe and disbelief.

"Looks like this place has been around for ages," Wang Yu replied, rubbing his chin.

How had a giant's remains made its way to this desert that lay beneath the Endless Sea?

The giant seemed to have been dead for quite a while. Even with the Chariot's strength, he sensed no lingering vitality in the bone. It was brittle, no tougher than stone.

"This place keeps getting stranger. Just where are we...?"

They moved on, leaving the skull behind. Questions piled up: the nature of the underground light, so like the sun above yet impossibly constant; the relics half-buried in the sand, remnants of some forgotten age.

But no threats appeared to bar their way. Before long, the city rose before them in full. Judging by the angle of the strange sunlight, it was mid-afternoon.

"There—someone's there. Be on your guard."

Climbing a dune, Wang Yu cast his gaze toward the city gates. The architecture was of a style he had never seen before and bore no resemblance to the kingdoms of any known race. At most, it was the kind of infrastructure he would expect to find in a desert.

And yet everything looked natural. There were all manner of facilities available. The palace rising in splendor at the heart of the city was no work of chance—it clearly required both knowledge and craftsmanship to build.

Within his sight stood several guards, seemingly human in form yet marked by subtle differences. They were posted before the gate in strangely rigid stances. Wang Yu immediately warned the girl behind him.

"Something's wrong," Avia murmured, narrowing her eyes. "These people... they aren't truly here. They're nothing but husks. Shadows, perhaps."

She handed him her Perfect Fractal Lens.

Through its magical sight, Wang Yu saw the truth: though the guards had shape and form and even cast shadows, they were hollow. No trace of magic flowed within them, no disturbance in the air. Even the wind slipped through their bodies without resistance.

"How odd..." Wang Yu halted. They were too far for him to examine with the power of the Chariot.

"Let me have a go."

Without hesitation, Avia summoned a stone golem from the desert floor and sent it charging headlong at the guards.

The crash was deafening. The crude construct slammed into the wall, shattering into rubble. Yet the guards continued to stand in stiff poses. The golem had passed through them as though they were smoke.

"No doubt about it. They're illusions," Wang Yu concluded.

The two of them approached cautiously. As expected, the sentries ignored them entirely, behaving as though Wang Yu and Avia who were the phantoms.

They entered the city without obstruction. A bustling scene unfolded before them.

It was no less vibrant than Aleisterre's capital, the elven metropolis of Liaheim, or even the fabled Skyborne City. Crowds thronged the streets: residents going about their daily lives, vendors and patrons haggling in shops, merchants hawking wares, soldiers marching in formation through the avenues.

The citizens resembled humans, though with curious traits setting them apart. Some were more than a little reminiscent of the Winged. Knights and magicians strode past, clad in familiar regalia. The city seemed altogether full of life—save for one thing. It was utterly silent.

"These people... they're echoes of the past," Avia whispered. "I can't sense the least energy in them, yet they move about as though they're alive. What holds them together?"

She reached out to touch a hunter at his stall, busily stripping the hide from an invisible carcass with an equally invisible blade. Her hand passed straight through him. He gave no sign of noticing.

Wang Yu frowned. "And only living beings have been preserved. The tools they once held are gone. That explains the strange postures of the gate guards. Their weapons must have vanished. But in that case, why do they still have clothes?"

"I... don't know..."

Avia's voice faltered, her expression twisting. Against her will, an absurd image formed in her mind: the entire city wandering about stark naked in a grotesque parody of daily life.

It might have been a ludicrous thought from any other person, but Wang Yu was treating it like a serious inquiry. Unfortunately, no matter how they thought about it, they had no answer to this question.

Abandoning the issue before it consumed their thoughts, they wandered through the city. Since they had no particular destination in mind, Wang Yu proposed that they search for the source of the song he alone could hear.

Since entering the city, the melody had only grown louder. Avia, who heard nothing, nonetheless agreed.

"It should be close. But the sound isn't changing much anymore. Strange..."

𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

They halted in a plaza. The music was clearer here, almost insistent. Yet even Wang Yu's uncanny knightly sense of direction failed him. He simply could not locate its source.

He glanced up. The false sun above was dimming, as if evening were approaching. A thought struck him.

"I haven't tried using the Chariot's power on these people, have I?"

Nearby, phantom citizens strolled idly across the square. Wang Yu stepped forward and extended the Chariot's strength toward a middle-aged man.

To his surprise, he felt contact—a brief resistance—as the man stumbled, colliding with a passing woman. Both fell in a clumsy heap.

The man scrambled up, bewildered, under the woman's furious glare. Neither seemed to understand what had happened.

Nor did Wang Yu and Avia. They stared at one another, unsettled. "If these are just echoes," Wang Yu said slowly, "then what... did I just touch?"