Everyone stared at the long stretch of the black bridge above the sea of fog.
"So we have two choices now... continue across this bridge or go back and face those things," Elliot said while staring at the swarm of insects.
Caius sighed tiredly. "Yes, it seems those insects don’t want to come out here for some reason, but if you look closely you’ll see they’re made of the same material as the walls, which means they’re ridiculously solid."
Kyle intervened. "If what the princess said is true, then it’s not necessary for us to cross all those ruins."
Everyone looked at Kyle when he uttered those last words, some already understanding what he meant.
Like Caius. "So you’re asking us to wait until they open the ruins and enter them, then they’ll find us themselves."
Kyle nodded while Ellen sighed. "But that will take a lot of time, and we’re not even certain it will happen."
Silence fell again.
Until Elliot broke it. "I suggest we explore what’s at the end of the bridge. We might find another path."
In any other situation, Caius would have cursed Elliot immediately when he said that, especially remembering what happened in the laboratory.
But now there wasn’t any real choice.
He felt tempted to try attacking the insects behind the gate, but who knew, they might charge at them the moment he did, so he refrained.
Caius closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Alright, let’s see what’s at the end of this bridge."
Caius looked at Leona. "Leona, keep your ability active in case of anything."
Leona nodded. "I am."
"Then let’s move."
With those words, everyone took their first step forward.
...
Above the bridge floating over the sea of fog, seven people walked toward the unknown.
The only sound there was the echo of their footsteps against the solid surface.
No one spoke.
Two hours had already passed since they began moving.
Behind them, the gate was no longer clear, only the black cliff could still be seen.
All the while, Caius and Leona kept their abilities active to sense anything that might happen.
But the place was eerily quiet, more than a red zone should ever be.
Caius’s perception plunged into the fog, but he felt nothing.
So all they could do was walk in silence.
But this did not last forever.
Because soon they saw something new at the end of the bridge, something emitting a faint light.
The closer they walked, the clearer that thing became.
Until they finally reached a distance that allowed them to see everything clearly.
And what they saw made their eyes widen more than ever before.
Before them, the bridge ended, replaced by the glass ground of the Cradle of Shard.
There was another cliff stretching to the right and left endlessly, but unlike the first, its height did not exceed the bridge’s level... at least in the front.
Because a few hundred meters from the edge overlooking the abyss, another black wall rose toward the sky.
But all of that was insignificant compared to the thing that captured everyone’s gaze.
On the face of the massive wall, an arch of special stones formed in the shape of a gate... the material of the gate was like that in the sacrificial chamber.
Along the arch, many runic letters were carved, indicating that this was not merely a carved piece of stone shaped like an arch.
But no one needed to see the runes to know that.
Because inside the arch... there was light.
Light that distorted the space around it.
Izel opened her mouth. "A... a teleportation gate."
Yes, it was a teleportation gate... and a very ancient one at that.
"How is something like this here?" Leona muttered.
"Perhaps the question... is why is it still working?" Caius replied, a deep sense of unease growing inside him.
Everyone stepped forward, leaving the bridge’s surface.
Then they crossed the hundreds of meters separating the gate from the cliff until they stood before it.
They all stood there, staring at what appeared to be a gate from forgotten ages.
"What do we do, do we go through?" Elliot’s question broke the silence.
Caius looked at him in disbelief. "Do you really want to enter an ancient gate when we don’t even know where it will throw us?"
Suddenly, Talia caught something from the corner of her eye... as if the fog had moved.
She turned and walked toward the cliff’s edge to take a closer look while the others remained before the gate.
Caius sighed as he looked at the symbols on the gate. "No matter what happens, we won’t enter this gate... we’ll go back and stick to what we said earlier."
"Right, that’s the smartest thing we can do," Ellen agreed.
They stared at the gate while Talia reached the edge a few hundred meters away and frowned at the sea of fog. "I’m sure I saw the fog tremble for a moment," she muttered.
Caius turned and noticed Talia had moved away, his expression darkening as he headed toward her.
"Talia, what are you doing there?" Izel also called out to her.
She walked a few meters behind Caius.
"I saw the fog move."
True, she was more than 200 meters away, but for Awakened, that distance was nothing, so her voice was audible to Caius.
Suddenly, Caius froze in place, his eyes widening.
Because using his ability, he felt something he had never experienced before.
The essence in the air began to tremble.
Tremble as if welcoming the arrival of something... something great.
Leona, whose ability was active and who was staring at Talia... saw what was coming.
Something that made her eyes bloodshot and streaks of bloody tears formed on her cheeks.
All she could do in that moment was... scream.
"Taaaliaaa!"
Leona screamed with everything she could muster.
But it was too late.
Because Caius felt it; something distorted and defiled entered the edge of his range.
Merely sensing that small part of it caused Caius’s mind to collapse as drops of blood trickled from his nose.
The fog near where Talia stood trembled and parted, revealing something... a hand larger than mountains.
A black, completely distorted hand moved, its sharp fingertips rising over the cliff’s edge before gripping it with a thunderous sound.
Precisely where Talia was standing.
Talia, upon whom a fingertip fell... one the size of a house.
She turned into nothing but a bloody mist.
No scream, no cry, nothing.
Because all of this happened before anyone could react.
Izel’s knees hit the ground, her eyes wide open.
Caius, who was the closest to it... moved.
He didn’t think, he couldn’t even think.
Essence surged through his body as he turned toward the gate while an indescribable pressure fell upon the world.
The moment he turned, he found Izel behind him.
That girl was on her knees, staring at where Talia had just been, her eyes filled with fear.
A pure, primal fear.
Without thinking or a single word, Caius grabbed her and dashed toward the gate.
It wasn’t far, just a few dozen meters.
A distance Caius once considered insignificant, a distance everyone thought they could cross in an instant.
But now that instant equaled eternity.
Kyle, who was near the gate, headed straight for it and passed through.
Ellen did as well, but her path crossed with Leona, who had frozen in place.
She did not hesitate, grabbing her and throwing both of them into the gate.
All of this happened within thirty hundredths of a second from the moment the finger fell upon Talia.
But in the next fraction, the sea of fog trembled... all of it.
That fog parted, revealing a body that could not be comprehended by the human mind.
With every fraction of a second, Caius and Izel drew closer to the gate, while Elliot stood there staring at them, his mouth moving slowly in Caius’s sight.
Perhaps he was trying to form words.
Those fingers on the edge moved, rising higher over the cliff... revealing the full hand.
A hand capable of crushing cities moved toward the gate.
At the same time, Caius approached the gate further, and only four meters separated him from it.
Elliot, who saw that hand, turned and entered... and at the same moment, Caius leaped with Izel toward the gate.
Their bodies were engulfed in light and vanished, only for that hand to collide with the gate and the cliff in the next moment.
A loud boom flooded the world.
The gate turned to dust, while the wall connecting sky and earth trembled and cracked.
The hand gripped the encircling wall as the full body began rising from beneath the abyss, revealing itself in all its defiled glory.
A colossal body that reached the height of the black wall.
In the next moment, a thunderous scream flooded the world.
A scream that, had Caius and the others heard it, they would have died in that instant.
A scream that spread to every corner of the Cradle of Shard.
Even those attempting to open the ruins’ gate heard it... and felt it; the terrifying presence of a monster at the peak of Rank 7.
Today, for the first time in history, the place where the "Fallen Star Shard" slept was revealed.
And all of this was witnessed by a single person from beneath his cloak.