On the second floor of the tavern, Sara and Lilith struggled to stay calm and patient, while the clamor from below had already subsided entirely.
"Heh, even those muscle-bound adventurers have finally figured out the importance of conserving strength and spirit," Lilith remarked with a faint, sardonic smile.
Sara shook his head, about to warn his sister not to underestimate those adventurers—anyone who could survive for years on the fringes of the Melzer Black Forest and the Dark Mountains without dying must possess a certain level of strength. Among them, there might even be knights of considerable rank. But before he could open his mouth, he froze as the candlelight before him slowly paled, and the surrounding walls seemed to be peeling away their color, gradually revealing darkness beneath.
At the same time, a thin grey haze drifted into view—cold, eerie, and silent. In this monotonous world of black, white, and grey, Sara and Lilith could only feel that same oppressive sameness, even though the rooms beside them and the entire first floor of the tavern below were packed with adventurers.
The wooden table beneath his palm was gradually turning black, and from it seeped what seemed like the stench of decay. Sara's blood ran cold. Without a moment to think, he grabbed his sister's hand and bolted for the door.
"Move! There's something seriously wrong here!"
Every emotion he had been suppressing out of greed—fear, dread, worry—came flooding to the surface. Sara barked urgent instructions to Lilith as they ran.
But even his voice seemed coated in grey fog and the same drab black-and-white pallor, becoming ethereal and blurred. Even Lilith, right beside him, could only stare at him in bewilderment as she followed him down the stairs.
Sara realized how powerless his voice sounded. He threw his head back and roared at the top of his lungs: "Run! There's danger here!"
Lilith finally heard her brother's voice, seemingly arriving from some other world. She nodded as she ran. She was far more cowardly than her brother, and the moment she saw the town undergoing these changes, she wanted nothing more than to leave immediately.
At the same time, the two Magic Apprentices didn't forget their craft—they gripped their spell-casting materials in hand, incantations hovering on their lips, ready to release them the instant danger struck.
Rushing down the staircase, Sara saw that the adventurers had also noticed something was off and were scrambling to shove their way toward the tavern's front door. He pulled his sister toward the back door—an exit the adventurers hadn't thought of yet.
He kicked the wooden door open and the two siblings burst outside. Since not a single sleeping townsman had noticed anything amiss, the hazy streets were eerily quiet, while the encroaching darkness was slowly peeling and shattering outward from Lake Elsino as its epicenter.
Without looking back, Sara and Lilith fled toward Massawa Town, terrified of the grey, freezing silence behind them.
Before long, the two reached the edge of town. Before them stretched the packed-earth road to Massawa Town, along with a few adventurers who had gotten here even faster than they had.
"What on earth happened at Lake Elsino? What went wrong with the Arcane Lock?" Sara and Lilith, slightly relieved, were flooded with countless questions. They turned to steal one last look.
The adventurers who had arrived first shared the same impulse—they had already turned around to gaze toward Lake Elsino.
"Ahhh!" Before Lilith could even look back, her beautiful eyes went wide and she let out a piercing scream.
The exposed skin of those adventurers was rapidly turning ashen, and in some places had already begun to rot. Yet their expressions remained blank, as though they hadn't noticed any changes to their bodies at all.
Sara watched the adventurers' gazes gradually go hollow. He yanked his sister hard and shouted: "Don't look back! Keep running!"
The two siblings fled for their lives, their throats burning with bile, while behind them, from the town of Bonn, rose a chorus of utterly horrifying screams, sobs, and "laughter."
The sensation of passing through a thick curtain washed over them, and their bodies seemed to warm slightly. But they didn't dare stop, fighting back their dizziness as they continued running toward Massawa Town.
…………
When the ordinary darkness peeled away and the grey haze emerged, the silver-robed Grand High Priest Elijah was the first to sense that something was wrong.
"What change has the Arcane Lock undergone?! This is completely different from the revelation the great Lord of Silver White bestowed upon us!"
After a brief moment of shock, Elijah made a decisive command, issuing orders through the crystal ball to the various priests, oracles, and Dark Knights: "Forget those fools preparing the blood ritual to unseal it. This transformation of the Arcane Lock means that one is about to break free! We must activate the Summoning Circle immediately and allow the True God to descend directly!"
Six priests rose into the air above Bonn and Lake Elsino, while on the ground below stood twelve oracles and Dark Knights in corresponding positions. This was the entirety of the Silver White Horn's strength across the entire Vorlite Principality, and it even included several who had hurried here from other nations and from the Dark Mountains upon receiving the divine oracle of the Lord of Silver White.
Elijah flew to a position above Lake Elsino. He watched as the shimmering, serene, beautiful waters froze completely before suddenly disintegrating into countless shards of phantasmal light, illuminating the brilliant starlight cross below and the crimson liquid that writhed as though alive.
And surrounding the bizarre Lake Elsino, there appeared countless "ghosts" resembling skulls trailing pale luminous tails, clearly defined but drifting "vengeful spirits," eternally dark and hideous shadows, and all manner of other specter-type undead. Every one of them raised their heads and screamed. The invisible waves of their combined power overlapped and merged into a single illusory colossus—it wore a long black robe, carried an enormous scythe, and stood with both feet immersed in the crimson liquid. Upon its sunken, skull-like face sat a pair of pale, hollow eyes.
Upon seeing this phantasmal monster, even Elijah—who had come prepared and had already cast numerous divine protections upon himself—couldn't help but shudder, as though his life force were draining away at an alarming rate.
Watching the great cross slowly disintegrating, dyeing the overlapping plane of black, white, and grey with dreamlike starlight, Elijah quickly regained his composure. From somewhere, he produced an enormous pale hand, each of its fingers curled to reveal sharp, inhuman bone spurs that gleamed with a silent, cold, faint light.