It's gone?
Complete darkness?
Faced with the sudden change, Derrick's first reaction wasn't fear. Instead, he clasped his hands together and pressed them against his lips.
Waves of quite bright light surged out from his body, dispersing the deep darkness around him and illuminating every corner of the basement.
In the environment Derrick lived in, the night was the most terrifying existence. Whenever they left the City of Silver, they had to maintain a state of constant illumination. Even if the light was briefly lost, the interval could not exceed five seconds.
When Derrick first joined the exploration team and lacked experience, he nearly made such a fatal mistake. Fortunately, the "Chief" was standing not far away.
The light pulsed slowly and continuously. Derrick raised his right hand, which held the "Axe of Hurricane," and cautiously surveyed his surroundings.
He noticed that besides Heim and Joshua, who should have followed him into the basement, having disappeared, the large dark stains on the stone slabs and walls had inexplicably turned blood-red and looked dripping wet, as if freshly splashed on.
This made Derrick, who had thoroughly read the exploration manual and calmed down, think of a possibility: the problem wasn't with Joshua and Heim, but with himself!
"I just approached that altar and silently recited those three names... Normally, even angels require the accurate and complete format of their honorable names to receive 'prayers' from others reciting or copying them. Moreover, it's said there are range restrictions... I wonder if Angel-Kings share this requirement.
"Hmm, one of those three names is the key to unlocking the altar's hidden power. Did silently reciting it in the Giant language, which can influence nature, trigger the problem? No, that's wrong. It has to be spoken aloud to be effective. Even if these are the true names of Angel-Kings, there were no problems before..." Derrick was puzzled and somewhat uneasy. He turned around and returned to the altar, back to the stone table.
He was astonished to see that the text and symbols on the stone table were much clearer and more complete than before, as if the ritual's presiding officer had just finished carving them.
There were three types of text. One was the Giant script, one was the Dragon script, and one Derrick didn't recognize. However, he suspected it was the Ancient Hermes language that Mr. Hanged Man and Miss Justice talked about. During recent Tarot Club gatherings, he had learned a few words that were very close to the script on the stone table.
The content expressed by the Giant script and the Dragon script was highly consistent. Both were repeating those three names and their corresponding titles: "Angel of Fate," Ouroboros; "Red Angel," Medici; "Dark Angel," Salsilier.
Following the titles and names was a phrase very familiar to Derrick: "Rose Redemption"!
Was Salsilier truly an Angel-King called the Dark Angel, and Him along with the Angel of Fate and the Red Angel were the founders of the Rose Redemption? I wonder what Mr. Fool knows about Him... He must know a lot... The Ancient Hermes script probably means the same thing... In Afternoon Town, whose residents had already converted to the faith in the "Lord of All Creation," some were secretly worshipping the three Angel-Kings beside the Lord... Thinking of this, Derrick suddenly felt a chill on his back, as if he had touched the edge of the truth behind the Creator abandoning this land.
He raised his head again. The walls and floor were still blood-red, and Heim and Joshua were still nowhere to be seen.
"Silently reciting again won't work. Maybe it never worked in the first place..." Derrick took a breath, picked up the "Axe of Hurricane," and cautiously moved towards the basement entrance, hoping to find the root of the problem and confirm what exactly was wrong.
One step, two steps, three steps. Like a giant candle, he drifted back to the upper hall.
The shadows here were thick, the atmosphere dim and quiet. The rotting chairs and remaining stone tables stood silently, unchanged from before.
Derrick still couldn't find Joshua or Heim, so he walked nervously towards the window, to see if he could meet any other exploration team members.
Pat, pat... Amidst the faint footsteps, he approached the hole where the window frame should have been, leaned forward, and looked outside.
Countless gray buildings were packed tightly together, some tall, some low, stepping upwards like a staircase.
The lightning in the sky was infrequent. Candlelight flickered in many windows, yellow and swaying, burning without extinguishing.
"This..." Derrick couldn't help but swallow his saliva. He felt as if Afternoon Town had never suffered a great catastrophe, and its residents were still living peacefully.
....
Carrying a beast-hide lantern, Heim easily passed through the basement entrance without stooping. He said amusingly to the Joshua beside him: "This house definitely belongs to humans, but their family must have 'Giant' bloodline. They would be about my height. Tsk, in that ruined city we visited two expeditions ago, we had to bow our heads just to enter the main gate!"
'Giant' bloodline doesn't specifically mean having the blood of giants, but rather represents the physical characteristics produced by consuming potions of that pathway and passed on to descendants. Being tall was one of the main manifestations.
Joshua looked up at Heim, snorting: "That's you. I don't need that."
"But you'll probably advance soon, and when you do, you won't be much shorter than me," Heim said with a smile, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Derrick, who was approaching the altar, to prevent any accidents.
Joshua thought for a moment and said: "Actually, I've always been curious. The Chief is a Sequence 4 'Demon Hunter'. He should be as tall as an ordinary giant, three or four meters. Why does he look perfectly normal, just half a head taller than me?"
Heim subconsciously looked around and said: "Rumor has it that the Chief has a Giant Form."
"Giant Form? Does all his clothes tear when he turns into a giant?" Joshua asked with a laugh.
"Unless his clothes and pants are mystical items," Heim said, sharing a laugh with Joshua.
They were about to share this joke with Derrick, but when they turned to look, they realized the young man was gone!
Derrick, who was supposed to be in front of the altar, was gone!