"We don’t know where Levi is or what he has used to throw off the Leviathan off his back... for all we know, he might still be getting chased," Mika mentioned. "I know he is your captain, but there are sixteen of us... Do we really need him around to retrieve the Sun Amulet while it’s in front of our faces? Are you that helpless without him?"
Arthur and the girls were unfazed by her words.
"I said, we wait... if you aren’t comfortable waiting for the man who has literally risked his life to rescue the bunch of you, then something is wrong with you," Arthur responded coldly, his arms crossed above his chest.
Just as Mika was about to defend her stance, Tyrese extended his arm in front of her face.
"That’s enough, Mika... if they want to wait, we wait." He glanced at his teammates and ordered, "Spread out and check around for any hidden chambers or such... we can’t leave empty-handed."
His teammates split up and went to examine the walls, the pillars, the statues... anything but the throne, keeping their distance from its area. Soon, Evangeline’s teammates followed suit.
"What kind of shitty A-grade Ancient Site is this... aren’t they supposed to have dozens of corruption-based treasures, such as artifacts at least?" Mika remarked in irritation, not finding anything worth their time.
They had already explored some parts of the city before they headed to the pyramid and opened the flood of the Corrupted... however, they found nothing but the Corrupted and ruins.
They thought it would be different in the pyramid, but so far... not a single room had anything noteworthy. Sure, the treasury had treasures in it, but they never placed faith in it in the first place, understanding that the corrupting atmosphere was enough to give birth to new treasures across eons of it interacting with the environment, lifeforms, and such.
"No," Evangeline said calmly, shaking her head. "There should’ve been something. The readings from SAS Headquarters showed the corruption levels hovering near perfect equilibrium... but now, it’s gone cold."
"You mean the treasures were already taken by someone else exploring the site much earlier than us?" Arthur wondered.
"No one harvested anything. This isn’t depletion... It’s collapse," Evangeline responded as she traced her fingers on the talons of one of the statues.
"Let me explain what should’ve happened... When corruption and life share the same ratio... when neither overwhelms the other, a natural cycle begins. The dead release their memory residue into the soil, and the corruption seeps through it, feeding on the clarity of those memories. It has to be perfect... not too fast, not too slow. Just enough to digest them into stable mnemonic sediment. They call it the Equilibrium Zone."
"Shediment?"
Blake cleared his ears in confusion... like most Daywalkers, all he cared about was farming treasures and getting stronger. As for the inner workings of how such a complicated process worked? He never bothered to waste his time on it.
When Evangeline noticed that a couple of them were ignorant about such crucial information, her eyelids twitched. But she decided to enlighten them instead of mocking them.
"Think of it as memory-rich dust..."
Evangeline said while pulling a container that held a mesmerizing icy-blue plant from her wallet.
"Each particle carries a trace... fear, sorrow, joy, emotions, memories, and most importantly, an affinity to an element or an Aspect... Over many years, those traces intertwine and condense under the corrupting atmosphere. The corruption reshapes them into something coherent that is described as Proto-Treasures. Small dimensional echoes that mark the first signs of memory becoming matter."
Mira frowned. "So, if the balance here was perfect once, where did it go wrong?"
"The equilibrium broke," Evangeline replied simply. "Something changed the ratio. My guess is the dimensional membrane fracturing, allowing a higher quantity of corruption to rise in the atmosphere... Once the ratio slips, the digestion turns erratic. The corruption starts consuming faster than the environment can regenerate memory."
"So the cycle that should’ve created something beautiful and useful... just turned everything empty?" Mira inquired as she gazed at Evangeline’s flower.
"Exactly." Evangeline’s tone softened, "The equilibrium is fragile. It depends on a slow seepage of memory... too quick, and the corruption can’t learn from what it consumes. It becomes gluttonous, erasing instead of evolving. And once that happens, there’s no rebirth, no dimensional treasure... only corruption."
She put the container back inside her wallet and looked around the place, her expression almost mournful.
"This was supposed to be a cradle for relics, items to be remembered by..." she said softly, "But instead, it became a graveyard of forgotten thought... and this throne chamber will soon join the rest of the empire, consumed and becoming part of the Shadow Dimension forever without leaving a trace behind..."
"How do you know?" Mira frowned.
Evangeline pointed behind her, outside the throne chamber. "See how the rest of the pyramid was eaten by the corruption, overtaken fully? That’s where the mnemonic field collapsed. The corruption ate too much, too quickly. It devoured the memory patterns entirely instead of refining them. When that happens, no Proto-Treasures can remain alive, leaving behind nothing but scars."
Mira’s gaze swept the empty throne chamber. "What about this place then? I don’t see any sort of corruption that is deadly to treasures’ creation."
"It’s because of it," Evangeline murmured, her eyes focusing on the slumbering Dawn Phoenix. "It must be the one keeping the corruption at bay, filtering the atmosphere in the throne chamber, even when the door was fully open... anything that slips by gets erased before it can turn into a problem or a treasure."
"But once we get rid of it and claim the Sun Amulet... the throne will have no protector," Nurah finished it for her.
"Well, shit..." Mira cursed under her breath in irritation.
The rest of the Daywalkers also didn’t seem too fond of the idea that they would leave the ancient site empty-handed... especially when they fought to the best of their ability to earn a slot.
But there wasn’t much they could do about it.
A fractured site was too unstable to support anything... especially not a treasure creation process.
"Sir Dominic and the rest of the staff must have figured out the same... but their goal was always the Sun Amulet, not the treasures," Evangeline sighed. "Though it doesn’t really matter... even if they told us, we would have still joined for the sake of them being wrong. After all, no one truly knows anything going on in an Ancient Distorted Site unless they set foot in it."
Hearing this, everyone nodded in agreement... even if Dominic told them that the site was empty, they would have still committed. No one was stupid enough to pass on exploring an A-Grade Ancient Site.
After all, there was still the existence of a treasury, and at the moment, all of them knew that Jasmine was heading towards it.
This didn’t sit right with many of them.
"Alright, I don’t want to be the asshole, but someone has to." Mira’s tone changed to a cold one. "We appreciate rescuing us, we really do... but if it means we are still going outside empty-handed, then what’s the point? We could have saved ourselves by leaving the site through dimensional gates... instead, here we are... helping you claim the Sun Amulet from a freaking World Ender Class Beast while your silent princess is raiding the treasury, and refusing to let us know of its location... You can’t even spare us ten percent of the treasury? How greedy is that?"
This time, even Evangeline’s teammates seemed to side with her... their expressions had turned cold. They had believed Levi’s team saved them out of goodwill and integrity, but now it looked as though the rescue had only been a means to hire them as bodyguards while Levi’s group raided the pyramid under their watch.
If there was any presence of corruption-based treasures, they would have been somewhat satisfied with how things turned out.
But now? Not so much... especially when the treasury and the Sun Amulet were the only treasures in sight, and Levi’s team wanted to claim all of it.
It was too greedy in their eyes.
"Are you forgetting that the only reason you are still here is because of us?" Shia uttered coldly as she gazed at Mira. "If we knew you would be ungrateful, we should have left you on your own... then, let’s see how far your mouth would have gotten you."
Just as Mira was about to respond, Jojo added... her tone wasn’t the nicest.
"I pushed to rescue you because it was the right thing to do... nothing more, nothing less. If you thought we needed your help, then you grossly overestimate your importance to us."
"Again, you can always leave... we don’t need you, we never did."
Arthur reminded them that they wanted to explore the pyramid on their own in the first place... it was they who refused to leave their side. Now, Mira was trying to twist it in their favor? Not happening.
"I don’t know why you guys are surprised." Nurah yawned lazily. "I expected such a reaction... when it comes to riches, nothing truly matters, which is why I didn’t want them around us in the first place."
"Don’t include me with them," Evangeline replied sternly as she gazed at her teammates, forcing them to lower their heads in shame. "Regardless of whether I leave empty-handed or not, the fact still stands... You saved us. That’s all to it."
"Well, if you, Miss Moral, are fine with it, we aren’t..." Mira narrowed her eyes coldly. "Our region has invested too much in us to get in this site, and our government expects some returns. Otherwise, their investment in our progress will be slashed."
"How is that our problem, exactly?" Nurah tilted her head in confusion.
"It became yours the moment you decided you wanted to own every treasure in sight."
Out of nowhere, a foreign low-pitched voice resounded with a frigid tone from behind them... when Arthur and the girls swiftly turned their heads, they were stunned to see Nick standing near the throne, his arm extended in the direction of the slumbering little Phoenix’s neck.
He was wearing a fully black leather outfit with a hooded cape and a pair of sunglasses that hid his face almost entirely... He was part of Tyrese’s team and one of the weirdest ones, rarely interacting with anyone.
One could easily forget his existence from how much he kept to himself... but that wasn’t merely because of his withdrawn nature... it was also a reflection of his craft. He hailed from one of North America’s most infamous assassination lineages, the Nightcloud Lineage, akin to Nurah’s Blackthorn Lineage.
Just like now... while everyone was arguing, he had slipped toward the throne unnoticed, moving so silently it was as if the air itself concealed him.
"Nick... what are you doing?" Tyrese’s expression hardened.
"What we have to... but you don’t have the guts to give such an order," Nick said indifferently. "You’re the captain, and yet... you’re led by your emotions. If you’re fine with returning empty-handed to our families and region, I am not."