A fierce gale swept across the blood-colored plain, lifting grit and sand back into the air in a vast, drifting curtain that blotted out the sun, turning its rays from pale to a deep, dull red once more. Packs of three-headed wild dogs dragged their tails in from the distance, feeding on the corpses of dead demons, scales slowly creeping across their bodies.
Their eyes burned crimson as they competed to devour the carcasses, crunching bones and swallowing them whole.
Atalante opened his eyes and, surveying the scene, spoke in a soft, amiable tone: "Are we heading into the Abyss right now?"
He was asking about the plans of Lucian, Natasha, and Malfurion.
Malfurion was simply cooperating with Lucian, guarding against unexpected developments inside that might damage relations between the Magic Parliament and the Elven race, so he offered no reply. His pupils, shot through with faint traces of green, turned toward Lucian.
Lucian shook his head. "We'll enter the Abyss tomorrow. Today we stay in the Nameless Town and see if we can find anything amiss."
He paused and smiled. "Investigating the Abyss is a relatively last resort. We shouldn't make it our target before we've conducted a thorough search of the surrounding area. What if the source truly lies here? I don't want to waste time — especially not through my own carelessness. These things need to be done one step at a time."
"Very well. Let's devote the coming time to searching for anything unusual in the Nameless Town and its environs," Atalante said, clearly in agreement with Lucian's reasoning.
Malfurion, naturally, had no objections. Lancerel and Selyndra, who had witnessed the power of the "Eternal Blazing Sun," were both notably subdued.
As they flew back toward the 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 were trying to find me combat opportunities, waiting in the Nameless Town for the Demon Lords to attack would be perfectly fine."
She trusted that Lucian was not the sort of person who failed to weigh priorities, so she was quite puzzled.
"This 'spatial fusion' bears a strong resemblance to one of my theories," Lucian explained. "I'd like to study it thoroughly — I may be able to find something useful." He glanced back at the Abyss rift and shook his head, murmuring to himself through the mental link, "'Spatial fusion,' hmm…"
Natasha saw that Lucian had his own reasons, so she nodded and said nothing more. Every cell in her body thrummed with excitement, hungry for battle.
…………
The Nameless Town.
Mason and Ferid paced back and forth along the street, surrounded by adventurers who were equally restless and anxious. Every one of them was desperate to leave. None wanted to become a sacrifice to the Abyss.
"Hey, kid — stop! You bumped into me!" In the thick of that tense atmosphere, a hulking man suddenly roared. His bald head bore a green tattoo of intertwined branches and leaves — one of the totems of the savages from the southern highlands of the Dark Mountains.
The young man he had shouted at carried a short bow on his back and gripped a dagger in his right hand that radiated an eerie, ice-blue chill. With his emotions teetering, he raised it defiantly. "Shut your mouth, savage. This isn't a contest for who can shout loudest, or I won't mind letting you taste what freezing really feels like."
Because of the commotion caused moments ago by the "Eternal Blazing Sun," the narrow street was packed shoulder to shoulder with adventurers. Bumping into one another was inevitable.
"Filth! You will apologize to me, or I'll make you one of the nameless!" The savage's veins bulged with fury. On his two-meter frame, knot after knot of muscle swelled, gleaming with a deep, burnished 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 fissure.
"Settle down!" The Sky Knight's cold, golden eyes swept over the two knight-rank adventurers.
Glancing at the scar on the ground, both the savage and the young man stepped back a pace, glared at each other one final time, and stalked off in opposite directions.
Mason, who had witnessed the whole exchange, sighed. "Locked down for so long, on top of the demon tide and all those adventurer deaths — people's tempers are getting shorter and more frayed by the day. Even the smallest spark could set off bloodshed."
Even he himself felt a similar restlessness and frustration welling up, begging for release.
Ferid drew a quiet breath, intending to criticize the elves' sluggish efficiency — the "Eternal Blazing Sun" had gone off ages ago and the blockade still hadn't been lifted.
At that moment, a sudden premonition made him look up. Above the town, a bizarre transformation was underway. The sky, blanketed in blood-colored dust, seemed to have "dropped" — sinking low, oppressive, dim!
Then, the sky split in two. One half blazed bright, threaded through with shifting ribbons of light that flickered between murky darkness and something uncannily like the workings of the human heart. The other half grew ever dimmer, ever lower, until the blood-color drained away entirely, leaving only the deepest, heaviest black — an endless, boundless darkness!
And within that darkness, points of light glimmered like stars, multicolored, kaleidoscopic, wondrous and strange.
Gazing upon the vast Abyss stretching out like a starry sky, gazing upon that interplay of light and dark so uncannily like the human soul, Ferid sank into a trance. His spirit drifted, unable to register anything else.
He did not know how long he stood there. A cool breeze laden with the scent of blood brushed past, and Ferid shuddered violently. He looked up to find the sky had long since returned to normal — the drifting dust still veiled the sun's light. No, not sunlight. It was the silver-white glow of the moon!