"Fuck this..."
Izel’s voice spread and slipped into my ears while the sound of falling stones echoed as they carried more debris downward.
I looked to the side to see that the rock she had stepped on had collapsed and fallen into the abyss below us.
Izel looked in my direction, or more precisely at the person in front of me. "Stop messing around, Elliot, and make this sturdier."
"She’s kinda right, I’m sure falling from here won’t be pleasant." I added, agreeing with Izel.
Ahead of me, Elliot kept sighing nonstop.
He stared into the void before him as though he was considering throwing himself off for a moment.
But in the next moment, a flat black stone emerged from the wall, and he stepped onto it while climbing upward before speaking in a voice lacking patience. "You know, it’s not my fault these rocks are fragile."
Another stone appeared from the wall above the previous one as he climbed onto it, then another and another, forming stairs leading us upward.
Looking toward the other side, a blurry image of the shore and blue waters could still be seen. Because of our tremendous height, it wasn’t clear enough for my eyes.
And here this hero was creating fragile stairs for five people walking behind him.
Maybe he had a hidden desire to get rid of us... who knows.
"Can’t you compress them and make them harder?" Kyle asked calmly while Elliot glanced backward.
"Even you too... It’s possible, but it’ll take longer to make each one, and it’ll consume more essence."
I shook my head. What exaggerated excuses. "Just say you’re lazy and don’t want to do it."
He gritted his teeth as he quickly turned around. "Lazy... the hell... I’m the one..."
Before he could finish speaking, one of the steps shattered beneath his foot, causing him to lose his balance and nearly fall if he hadn’t thrust his hand into the wall and caught himself at the last moment.
Elliot stared downward while his breathing quickened, and I raised an eyebrow at him. "See."
He shook his head in annoyance as he turned back toward the path again while the step rebuilt itself. "Just stop bothering me and let me focus."
I shook my head while silently walking behind him.
Honestly, I had no desire to fall down there, so I let him handle his work.
We continued climbing along those sharp mountains while the summit became closer and closer, and at the same time the ground grew so distant that the water was no longer visible.
And in the end, we finally reached the summit.
Elliot climbed up first and stood on the flat sturdy ground, followed by me and then the others behind.
When Leona stepped onto the safe surface, she released a long breath full of relief. "Haaa... that was nerve wracking."
"It wouldn’t have been if someone took his work seriously." Izel added.
But Elliot remained silent. Maybe he was storing all this up for one day so he could release it all at once.
Even after we reached this surface, the slopes still rose ahead of us, but we didn’t need to climb the highest point because there were clear paths between the massive rocks allowing passage through them.
So we simply walked through them.
After nearly half an hour of walking, the end of it appeared before us, and we stood overlooking the other side.
And let me say this.
It was shocking.
"Fuck, what is this?" I muttered unconsciously.
Down there and as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but destruction and ash.
The farther I looked, the more the land sloped downward until it disappeared from my sight and faded away.
I could spot massive things moving here and there, proving this place wasn’t completely devoid of life.
"What caused all this destruction?" Leona’s voice echoed while a thought came to my mind.
"The same thing that shattered the moon."
And made the earth rotate slowly.
For a while we stood there staring silently before I turned my head toward Kyle. "Do you see anything unusual in the distance?"
He shook his head. "No."
I looked downward. Looks like it was time to climb down now.
"Then come on, Elliot, move and do your job."
...
The wind struck my face while carrying dust toward us as we walked against it.
Days had already passed while we remained within this endless gray emptiness.
There were no plants here or anything with color other than black and gray.
Well, except the monsters.
Even the atmosphere here was extremely hot, as though we were inside an oven. The only water we encountered were hot rivers filled with sulfur.
Even lava could be seen here and there the farther down we descended.
From what we had seen during the previous days, it seemed all of Europe had been erased and turned into this.
Thinking about it, I remembered the professor saying that the first Great creature descended in Europe, which was lost shortly afterward.
But this didn’t seem like something Rank 7 could do... unless it dedicated itself to that and moved from place to place turning things into dust.
And obviously, it didn’t do that.
So it was more likely that whatever broke the moon was what caused this, whether intentionally or not.
The others walked beside me, each hiding their heads beneath cloth and wrapping it around their faces to protect themselves from all this dust.
The ground beneath our feet was soft, causing every step to sink downward and scatter even more dust into the air.
I quickened my steps slightly as essence flowed through my body, then at a certain point I stabbed my sword into the ground before me.
In the next moment, a sharp painful scream echoed out while dust burst upward together with the creature hiding beneath it.
That thing rose upward, causing my sword to sink deeper into it, then in the next moment I moved my hand and the sword passed through its body, splitting it into two.
The monster fell lifelessly before me. It looked almost human, with shriveled colorless skin and empty hollow eyes.
The moment the first one fell before me, I stepped to the side while slashing through the air, and at the same time another one rose from there, causing my sword to meet its neck and separate it from its body.
Several more rose a few meters away, only for metallic blades to pierce directly through their heads and send them back to sleep once more... forever.
Without stopping, more and more rose from beneath the ash only to die, whether by swords cutting them apart, blades and arrows piercing their bodies, or even flames burning them painfully.
In the end, the screams disappeared, announcing the death of all those things, and while we stood there for some time, a loud cry echoed from the sky.
A familiar yet unfamiliar cry at the same time.
It resembled the sound of gathered crows, but louder, harsher, and more distorted.
I raised my head to see birds flying above us in circles while filling the sky with their hungry cries.
"What strange birds." Elliot spoke from behind the cloth covering his mouth, making his voice sound muffled.
Izel dusted herself off. "I don’t know, but I feel like they’re laughing at us for some reason."
Maybe they actually were.
While I was looking toward the sky, Kyle’s calm dry voice echoed out. "Something is coming from far away."
I frowned as I turned my head in the direction he was looking, but there was nothing I could see.
"What do you see?" I asked, knowing Kyle was using his ability.
He narrowed his eyes slightly as he answered. "A massive cloud of dust across the horizon."
When he said that, the silhouette of a dust cloud began appearing on the horizon from the direction we were heading toward.
"What’s the problem with that? This isn’t new."
It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.
Kyle shook his head while focusing his gaze. "No, it’s not just dust, there are many monsters within it."
I frowned. "What do they look like?"
"Many short legs, sharp claws, and huge jaws... each one seems roughly our size."
Honestly, I didn’t understand much from that description, but it didn’t really matter because something else was more important right now.
"So how long will it take them to reach us at their speed?"
Kyle gave me a tense look. "A few minutes."
Great, a swarm of thousands of monsters blocking our path now.
Going back wasn’t an option, while running sideways might not get us out of their path in time.
I turned my head toward Elliot while pointing at the ground. "Dig us a place to hide while they pass."
Without hesitation or delay, Elliot stomped the ground hard, causing sand and dust to scatter away and reveal a layer of solid rock beneath.
Then in the next moment, the ground opened and sank beneath our feet before closing above us once more.
We remained in darkness for a few seconds before Elliot ignited light in his hand.
"So we’ll wait for them to pass then."
I shrugged. "What else do you think?"
We remained there in silence, and it only took a few minutes before I sensed dozens of souls, then hundreds, entering the range of my senses and filling it.
The ground around us trembled as those things approached above us.
The others remained silent in tension, but for me it wasn’t frightening.
We just had to wait and they’d pass peacefully, like every swarm we had encountered before.
But in the next moment, my relaxed expression fell. "Fuck."
"What?" I looked toward Leona who had asked.
"They’re digging toward us."