Hearing this, the girls went quiet... they tried their best to imagine themselves in Levi’s position, but every time, it ended with them losing their sanity.
Even Nurah admitted to herself that if she was given a choice between her childhood and Levi’s, she would pick hers... it was tough under her mother’s tutelage, but she was still living amongst humans.
Meanwhile, Levi had finally arrived at the third and last underground floor of the temple... it was nothing like the previous floors.
’What the...’
Levi’s brows knitted at the sight of a massive hall packed to the brim with the Corrupted... however, he already knew about this. What caught his attention were the murals painted at the far end of the hall.
It depicted a gigantic phoenix, engulfed in flames, its wings stretched wide across the mural’s span... From above, tiny droplets of fire rained down like sparks, but each flame in the painting showed Ashori below... some burning alive, others running in terror, some falling to their knees in despair, and some were praying in the direction of the Phoenix.
The artistry was brutal and straight to the point, as if it wanted to brand the image forever into the mind of anyone who looked at it... The final image of the Ashori citizens getting taken out by their own guardian.
Soon, Levi’s breath hitched briefly after spotting a sun-shaped amulet hung around the Dawn Phoenix’s neck.
The mural made it clear: this amulet was no ornament, but the source of the ashfall plague... a curse wrapped in sunlight, mistaken for divinity.
The ash that fell in the painting drifted almost three-dimensionally, painted so clearly it looked as though it might slip off the wall into the temple air.
Levi’s focus soon changed to the bottom of the mural... while the citizens were running away, a single humanoid Phoenix stood upright, donned in royal robes and a crown. He was holding a staff in the sky, casting an illuminating beam in the Dawn Phoenix’s direction.
But, it had never reached... mostly implying the emperor’s final desperate stand for his people was not enough.
’If the Dawn Phoenix shouldn’t by nature seek the extinction of its own kind, and the emperor seen trying his best to stop it, then...’ Levi frowned as he analyzed the mural from a different perspective than what was shown, ’Is the Sun-Amulet the true villain? Is it the carrier of the Ashfall plague as seen in the mural? Did it contaminate the Dawn Phoenix’s mind or something? But, we were told it is a natural dimensional flower. Why is the phoenix wearing it around its neck like an artifact? What’s true or false? Just what happened in that era?’
Many thoughts coursed through his mind, leaving him to feel like he was thrown in a spiral of confusion... At first, Levi had the assumption that the Emperor might be the hidden villain and decided to rebel against the Dawn Phoenix for more authority and control.
After all, although both Beasts and Trueborn descended from the same ancestor, a World Ender Class Beast was almost always taken as the one with the highest level of authority in any bloodline.
Whether it was a guardian or a protector, its strength alone was enough to level the entire empire if it wanted... since strength was king across all timelines, the emperor could do nothing but be an ’acting’ emperor.
Sure, his orders and rules were respected and answered, but once the Dawn Phoenix made an order, everyone would heed it, akin to a decree from their deity... the emperor included.
But, the content of the mural told a different story... the same story they were given outside the site, but with an unmentioned twist.
The Sun Amulet.
’If the mural content is real, then I might have been mistaken about my first assumption.’ Levi’s expression turned solemn, ’The Radian doesn’t want the Sun Amulet because of its history, but maybe because it is an empire-destroying weapon...’
Soon, Levi shook his head, focusing on his part of the plan to get rid of the Corrupted once and for all... he knew it wasn’t the time to seek answers when his friends were trapped on the staircase between two waves of Corrupted.
He swiftly cast the same illusion and walked amidst them until he arrived at the wall with the massive, slightly worn-out mural. Being this close, his harmonic spine showed him at last the exact details he wanted of the hidden chamber behind the mural.
His jaw tightened at the sight of skeletons filling the secret chamber instead of treasures... some slumped against the walls, others stretched across the floor, piled on top of each other as though they had all died reaching for the same thing.
Small frames, large frames... children, adults, elders.
No corruption, no gold, no weapons, no offerings, no treasures... Just bone upon bone.
In the center of it all sat a mud vase, sealed shut, its surface cracked but still whole... Unlike everything else, it seemed untouched by time, almost deliberately preserved.
Levi concentrated his auditable vision on the vase. At first, it was nothing more than a lump of clay. Then, as his concentration deepened, he caught a glimpse of what’s inside.
A single scroll rested within... Its parchment was smooth, its edges slightly damaged, but it was still entire... it was surrounded by decay, yet it remained alive.
He didn’t know if the skeletons were guarding it or someone had written in it after the despair set in... Whatever was written inside the scroll had outlasted all of them, and Levi wanted to retrieve it, understanding that the truth of the empire’s collapse might very well be hidden within.
If it were possible to read it using his Harmonic Spine, he would have... but the scroll was rolled so tightly, the words appeared jumbled up together each time he concentrated on it.
Although no treasures were in sight, the scroll was the treasure in Levi’s eyes... it might be the clue they needed to find the Sun Amulet and the rest of the treasures.
No further ado, he raised his hand and made an okay sign, knowing that Jasmine and Jojo should be able to see it.
"It’s the sign... he is ready." Shia nodded at Jasmine and the others.
Everyone swiftly got into position, awaiting Levi’s next move.
Meanwhile, on the bottom floor, Levi returned to the first step of the staircase and gazed at the stationary Corrupted... then, without an ounce of hesitation, he clapped his hands once.
Clap!
The clap rolled across the floor like thunder, echoing again and again until the illusion shattered in the Corrupted’s minds, jolting them awake.
Grrrr...
At first, they were confused, but the moment their crimson eyes landed on Levi, he appeared as a delicious snack of illuminating sunlight... a snack their Shadowlife seeds had been starved from for eons!
Grrrrrr!!!
Almost instantly, their hunger ripped them from their purposeless lives, driving them to surge toward Levi like camels stumbling upon an oasis after weeks in the desert.
Levi swiftly sprinted across the staircase until he arrived on the second floor. Without stopping for a second, he used his aetheric grasp to lift himself above the ground and fly in the direction of the next staircase.
Grrrrr!!
The Corrupted on the second underground floor swiftly gave chase as well, adding more numbers to the horde of the Corrupted... However, since their sizes were too big, the staircase and the wide-open door could support only one Corrupted at a time.
This caused chaos amidst the horde, each Corrupted wanting to be the first to taste sunlight and feed their starving seeds!
However, once Levi arrived at the first floor... he didn’t head to the staircase straightaway, knowing that if he did, his plan wouldn’t work.
’I need all the Corrupted to exit the third floor.’
He thought as he flew to the roof of the first floor, causing the Corrupted to spread their wings and fly after him.
Whoosh! Whoosh!...
The Corrupted chased after Levi as he weaved between the pillars, using them defensively to avoid reaching out to his other abilities.
Meanwhile, the Corrupted didn’t care about the dimension’s stability, but unfortunately for them, they had been starved for too long to have any solar energy stored within their seeds.
Without solar energy, they couldn’t utilize any of their abilities, leaving them to keep trying to catch Levi with their talons.
Thud! Thud!
But he was as slippery as slime... one Corrupted lashed out with its long, razor-black talons, only to crash into a pillar as Levi dove beneath it. Yet before he could draw a breath, three more were already lunging at him from different directions.
No time for analyzing, Levi let his instincts guide him... he tapped into his aetheric grasp and waved his hand, controlling one of the three Corrupted to act as his meat shield!
Krrrrr!!
The two other Corrupted talons pierced through the stomach of one of theirs... yet, they didn’t even bat an eye at its painful scream... they swiftly pulled them out and restarted the chase with the others.
As Levi was trying his absolute best to avoid getting murdered by a flock of corrupted Phoenixes, the noise and the tremors were bound to awaken the slumbering Corrupted on the ground floor.
Grrrr!! Grrrr!!
Arthur and the girls were standing right at the door of the staircase, truly putting them between a rock and a hard place... However, Levi had predicted as much and told them what to do.
"Finally, I can talk normally... The Last Bulwark, one wall!"
Arthur shouted with a wide grin as he gazed at the awakened Corrupted horde rushing in their direction.
A Vermillion wall manifested from the ground up and sealed shut the staircase door completely.
Thud! Thud!
The Corrupted horde started smashing their bodies on the Vermillion wall, but they did nothing but make it shimmer nonstop.
"How’s Levi doing?"
Arthur checked with Jojo again as he could hear the loud noise coming from down the stairs, but he could do nothing but stay here.
"He is moving too fast for me to see him clearly."