I pushed all those chaotic thoughts out of my head, postponing them until later, when I could find a quiet space for myself.
Besides, we still had to examine the rest of these ruins.
"Let’s see what’s over there."
I said that while looking toward the area beneath the mural of Arcadia.
There, another entrance had been built into the wall, and just like before, the massive door stood wide open.
Izel hesitated as she looked at the skeletons scattered across the floor.
"Is there really an exit here...? All these people died..."
She didn’t finish her sentence, but I understood what she meant, just as the others did.
I gave the murals one last look, my eyes lingering a little longer on the one depicting the throne and the figure seated upon it.
Then, without hesitation, I walked toward the open doorway as I answered Izel’s pessimism.
"We’ll see."
With every step toward the door, I slowly returned to my usual calm...
But beneath it all, I felt sadness.
Avoiding the bones beneath my feet, I approached the open doorway while Elliot’s voice echoed from behind me, tense... and afraid.
"From what you said, it sounds like humanity once had people at Rank 8, and yet we still ended up like this... And right now we can barely protect ourselves from the dangers of the Lands of Death, let alone anything else."
Ellen hesitated before responding.
"The first King appeared around two centuries ago. Since then, others have begun reaching Rank 7 one after another... And as far as I know, the rate of reaching Rank 7 increases with every generation."
"Even the percentage of Awakened individuals grows every year."
"That means the chances of a Rank 8 being born increase as time passes," Leona added before Izel spoke in a tense voice.
"I don’t understand. Is there a chance that what happened in the past will happen again or something?"
I felt Kyle’s sharp gaze on my back before hearing him speak.
"If what was written there is true, then yes."
I continued walking without looking at him until we reached the open doorway.
Crossing through it, I saw the other side and the final chamber I had sensed within this place.
A wide passage stretched before us, while massive pillars rose along both sides, connecting the ceiling to the floor.
Across their gray surfaces were engraved ancient magical symbols, lines spreading in every direction, connecting together before separating once more, forming a tapestry of orderly pathways.
And beyond them stood the thing that drew all our eyes.
An arch made of dark stone, with magical lines spread across its surface.
"T-That’s a teleportation gate." Ellen’s trembling voice echoed as she stepped forward, and everyone else did the same.
But a quick response came from behind.
"It’s broken."
Kyle stopped in place as he said it, his voice carrying an emotion I couldn’t quite describe.
As though he were watching all his dreams burn before his eyes.
Despite constantly complaining about the pain in her legs, Izel hurried past us and reached the stone arch within moments.
She bent down and picked up a chunk of dark stone before looking at the gate and noticing where it was supposed to fit.
At the same time, the others approached with widened eyes.
"It really is broken," Leona said in shock.
Izel clenched her jaw and let out an angry cry before hurling the stone against the wall with all her strength, producing a loud crash.
"Gghah!... Damn it, after all this... Damn it, damn it, what was I even expecting?"
The stone bounced off the wall and fell harmlessly onto the solid floor.
Ellen stepped forward and picked it up.
"You shouldn’t have thrown it like that."
It seemed she was trying to remain calm, but she failed to hide the lost expression that formed on her face as she held the broken piece.
"What’s the point? It’s broken... broken."
Izel pointed toward the shattered section.
At the same time, Kyle remained frozen in the back, completely motionless.
Elliot approached Ellen, his eyes fixed on the stone in her hand as he tried to remain optimistic.
"There might be a way to repair it."
"Repair an ancient teleportation gate with a group of ignorant amateurs? Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s impossible."
Izel’s angry voice echoed through the chamber.
Leona stared uselessly at the stone arch, as though reality had finally struck her after the effect of my story had faded.
"Was everything we went through for nothing?"
Her voice was quiet and weak, as though all her strength had been stripped away.
At the same time, the initial anger faded from Izel’s face, while Ellen tightened her grip on the stone in her good hand, her eyes fixed on it intensely.
Elliot approached the left side of the arch where the break and many small fragments remained scattered.
He reached down and picked up several tiny shards, some of which slipped between his fingers and fell back to the ground.
"What are we supposed to do now?"
His mutter echoed through the silence that had settled over the chamber as everyone accepted reality.
Whether it was Kyle standing still while staring at the floor with empty eyes, or Izel whose anger had faded and tears had begun gathering at the corners of her eyes, none of them spoke.
Ellen kept her eyes on the broken section in her hand, while Elliot did nothing but stare silently at the scattered fragments on the ground.
Leona looked at the gate with unreadable eyes before turning her head toward me.
As for me, I did nothing except stand there quietly, my eyes fixed on the gate while a warm sensation spread from my wrist.
This was all too expected after the countless corpses we had seen.
And clearly, the others had expected it too.
But seeing something with your own eyes and merely expecting it were two completely different things.
At least they were still calm...
More or less.
Elliot stood up and released the fragments from his hand as a determined expression formed on his face.
"We can’t give up. There has to be another place like this somewhere. Another path, another gate."
"Another place? Stop this damn nonsense."
Kyle’s angry voice echoed louder and louder.
"It took months to reach this place with a map and a clear destination, and now you’re telling us to search the entire planet..."
"If you don’t have anything useful to say, then shut your damn mouth."
It was the first time I had ever seen Kyle lose his composure like this.
He gritted his teeth and clenched his fist before punching the nearby pillar.
"Gghah!..."
But instead of the pillar breaking, his hand was the one that got injured.
Elliot remained silent and didn’t answer.
Meanwhile, Leona continued staring at me before speaking.
"Caius..."
She only said my name, but everyone looked at me.
"Is there anything else written there... any way to return, or—"
I stepped forward and snatched the large fragment from Ellen’s hand, startling her and making her eyes widen.
"W-What are you doing?"
I looked at the stone and the lines engraved upon it, the missing patterns that completed the gate.
Izel stared at me, tears already gathered in her eyes, as I walked past her and stopped in front of the broken gate.
I knew repairing this thing was impossible for us...
Even if we brought the greatest experts in the Empire, success wouldn’t be guaranteed.
Yet without hesitation, I placed the fragment back into the frame.
Even though gaps remained where several smaller shards were missing, I didn’t care.
Of course, I couldn’t make the gate work like this...
At least not with my own power.
Perhaps because I had been immersed in the murals and the writings earlier, along with the strange feeling I had experienced, I hadn’t noticed the mark on the underside of my wrist burning.
The mark left behind by the Key of Dimensions had finally responded again.
And with it, my connection to the Relic returned.
Alongside it was another power, dormant as though it required the proper conditions to awaken.
I didn’t understand what it was exactly...
It felt as though it had always been there, yet I had never sensed it.
So the moment I placed the missing fragment back into position, a faint glow emerged from my wrist and flowed into the stone, spreading through the engraved pathways.
I didn’t need to turn around to know the looks the others were giving me.
So I didn’t.
The glow continued passing through my hand, flowing into the gate’s frame and then into its center.
The chamber grew brighter as space itself distorted and trembled within the dark arch.
Eventually, I pulled my hand away from the gate.
The fragment remained attached, while ethereal light filled my vision.
"H-How?"
I turned toward the source of the voice and saw everyone staring at me with open mouths and wide eyes.
Normally, I would’ve mocked them in a situation like this.
But not today.
I raised my hand, revealing the mark beneath my wrist.
"A powerful Relic."
I answered briefly, letting their eyes shift between me and the gate in stunned silence.
But there wasn’t time for this.
So I calmly pointed toward the glowing gate.
"No time for questions or shock. We need to move before it shuts down."
The first to close her mouth was Ellen.
She nodded and stepped forward decisively, helping the others recover from their daze.
Kyle ignored his bleeding hand and hurried toward the light.
Leona followed Ellen without hesitation, while Izel wiped her face, brushing away the tears that had nearly fallen.
Elliot stepped forward as well, still stunned by what he was seeing, but urgency pushed him through.
One after another, they passed through the gate and disappeared into the white radiance.
I remained behind for a moment.
After one final glance at my wrist, and then at the doorway on the other side, I stepped into the light of the teleportation gate as it began to weaken.
The light swallowed the world from my sight.
My stomach twisted slightly as a strange yet familiar sensation washed over me.
I didn’t know exactly where this gate would take us.
Neither did the others.
Yet everyone passed through without the slightest hesitation.
Perhaps because it was our only path forward and there were no other options.
Or perhaps because we were certain it would lead us to Aetherion, at the very least.
And now, after nearly five months since we had been cast onto Earth, we were returning to our world...
The homeland where all five of them had been born.
And also the world of the First Humans.
My homeland?
Engulfed in the blinding light, countless thoughts surfaced, and my mind became chaotic once more.
Whether it was the ancient history I had read, the realization that I could understand an ancient language, or the way I had activated the gate and the mark that had only just begun working again.
All of it formed a mess I didn’t know how to unravel.
Yet among all those thoughts, one sentence repeated endlessly.
"For humanity."
I opened my hand and stared at the glowing mark on my wrist.
After who knew how long, the light finally began to fade.
And what appeared before me was something I never expected to see.
A luxurious room.
A large bed.
And an open window through which the night breeze slipped inside, causing the curtains to sway gently.
Outside, the blue moon was visible.
My senses spread through the area as I realized where I was and felt the others nearby.
As well as something forming and moving toward my neck.
Without hesitation, I raised my hand and caught what looked like a blade made of pure blue light.
At the same moment, a beautiful voice slipped into my ears.
"Who are you?"
...
[End of Volume Two: The Ancient Earth]
At last, this volume has come to an end.
I know the release pace has been slow, making it feel as though it would last forever, even for me.
I tried to improve that, but I had many responsibilities that kept my thoughts scattered even when I sat down to write.
I’ll try to improve this and release more than seven Chapters per week.