Fierce gale-force winds whipped across the blood-colored plain, lifting the grit and sand back into the air in a ceaseless, drifting veil. The sun, barely filtering through the thick haze, returned to its dark red glow. Packs of three-headed wild dogs padded in from the distance with tails dragging behind them, feeding on the corpses of fallen demons. Scales were slowly growing across their bodies.
Their crimson eyes glowed as they competed to devour the corpses, crunching even the bones to fragments before swallowing them down.
Atlant opened his eyes and gazed upon the scene, his voice gentle and cordial: "Shall we enter the Abyss now?"
He was asking about the plan of action for Lucian, Natasha, and Malfurion.
Malfurion was simply cooperating with Lucian to prevent any sudden changes within that might damage the relationship between the Magic Council and the Elven Court, so he offered no answer. His pupils, flecked with threadlike veins of green, turned toward Lucian.
Lucian shook his head. "We'll enter the Abyss tomorrow. Today we'll remain in Nameless Town and see if we can uncover any problems."
He paused and smiled. "Entering the Abyss to investigate is a relatively last resort. We shouldn't make it our target without first conducting a thorough search of the surrounding area. What if the source really is right here? I'd rather not waste time — especially time lost through my own negligence. These things need to be done step by step."
"Very well. Let's focus our efforts on searching Nameless Town and its vicinity for anything unusual," Atlant agreed readily with Lucian's reasoning.
Malfurion naturally had no objections, and Lincel and Ceredin, who had witnessed the might of the "Eternal Blazing Sun," were both rather subdued.
As they flew back toward Nameless Town, Natasha asked through their mental link: "Why do you want to go to the Abyss? There's no need to take that risk… If you're trying to find me an opportunity to fight, waiting in Nameless Town for the demon lords to attack would work just as well."
She believed Lucian wasn't the sort of person who couldn't distinguish priority from urgency, so she was quite puzzled.
"This 'spatial fusion' is rather similar to one of my own ideas. I'd like to study it thoroughly — perhaps I can find something useful," Lucian explained. He glanced back at the Abyssal rift, shook his head, and murmured to himself through the mental link, "'Spatial fusion,' is it…"
Seeing that Lucian had his own purpose, Natasha nodded and said nothing more. Every cell in her body hummed with excitement, craving battle.
………… Nameless Town.
Mason and Fred paced back and forth along the street, surrounded by equally anxious adventurers. Everyone was desperate to leave. None of them wanted to become victims of the Abyss.
"Hey, you — stop right there! You bumped into me!" In that tense atmosphere, a hulking man suddenly roared. His bald head bore a green floral tattoo pattern reminiscent of intertwined branches — one of the totems of the highland barbarians from the southern end of the Dark Mountains.
The young man he had shouted at carried a short bow on his back, his right hand gripping a deep-blue dagger that radiated a faint chill. He raised it with barely controlled emotion: "Shut your mouth, barbarian. This isn't a contest for who can shout loudest, or I won't hesitate to let you taste what freezing feels like."
Thanks to the commotion caused by the "Eternal Blazing Sun" earlier, the narrow street was packed with adventurers, and accidental jostling was inevitable.
"You bastard! You'll apologize to me right now, or I'll make you a nobody!" The barbarian's veins bulged with fury, his two-meter frame rippling with muscle that gleamed with a deep bronze sheen.
Just as the two were about to come to blows, a Sky Knight's right hand transformed into flame and cleaved downward between them, splitting the ground with a charred, blackened fissure.
"Quiet down!" The Sky Knight swept his cold, golden eyes over the two Knight-rank adventurers.
Glancing at the scar on the ground, both the barbarian and the young man took a step back, glared at each other, then turned and stalked off in opposite directions.
Mason, who had witnessed the entire exchange, sighed. "After being sealed off for so long, then going through that demon tide and all those adventurer deaths, everyone's emotions seem to be growing more volatile by the day. The smallest thing could spark bloodshed."
Even he himself felt a similar restless frustration, a need to vent.
Fred drew a quiet breath and was about to criticize the elves for their sluggish efficiency — it had been quite some time since the "Eternal Blazing Sun" and the blockade still hadn't been lifted.
At that moment, he suddenly looked up with a start. Strange changes were unfolding above the town. The blue sky, thick with blood-red dust, seemed to plummet downward without warning — low, oppressive, and dim!
Then half the sky blazed bright, filled with shifting, flickering lights that at times took on a murky, somber quality, like the reflection of a human heart. The other half grew ever darker, ever lower, until the crimson hues drained away entirely, leaving behind only the deepest, most profound darkness — an endless, boundless abyss of black.
And within that darkness, tiny points of light flickered like stars, shimmering in a kaleidoscope of colors, strange and wondrous.
Gazing upon this vast, abyss-like expanse that resembled a starry sky, upon this scene of light and shadow that mirrored the depths of the human heart, Fred slipped into a trance. His soul drifted, senseless, for what felt like an eternity.
He didn't know how long had passed before a cool breeze carrying the scent of blood washed over him. Fred shuddered violently and saw that the sky had long since returned to normal. The drifting dust still veiled the light above — no, not sunlight, but the silver-white glow of moonlight!