Once the walls cooled down enough for him to touch, Leo resumed his climbing efforts, as he pushed his hands against the scorched surface and began hoisting himself up the vertical shaft once more.
His fingers found hold in the scorched rock grooves that were still warm but no longer searing, as he dragged himself upward inch by inch, feeling his back muscles work after quite a few days.
Ten feet.
Twenty.
Forty.
His muscles and bones ached due to the movement, but the climb was manageable now— no longer a death sentence, as after drinking the stamina potion, he felt his energy levels hold steady throughout the ascent.
Finally, at around a hundred feet, his hand touched a rough ledge jutting out from the wall, and just past it was a narrow tunnel that branched out horizontally, with a ceiling no higher than four feet tall.
Leo pulled himself into that passageway, with a low grunt, elbows scraping against the floor, chest dragging across the stone, as he began crawling into the tunnel on all fours, his torch clenched between his teeth while the tunnel stretched on endlessly ahead of him.
'I hope this is not another dead end,' Leo thought internally, as he continued to crawl, hoping that his efforts did not end up for naught at the end.
However, while he only prayed that it wasn't a dead end, or a tunnel leading him to his death, he could never have expected what it actually led to.
As after he crawled for about 200 meters, he actually encountered a metal looking grate that blocked him from going any further.
*CLANK*
The grate shook as he probed it with his hands wondering if it were an optical illusion, but it was not.
*Ting*
*Ting*
He reached forward again, brushing his fingers across the rough, rusted grate that was definitely set into the stone around it and was unmistakably artificial.
'What? A metal grate? Down here?' Leo thought, as his heart skipped a beat.
Because a grate meant that someone sentient had built this.
Which meant that a human, or one of the humanoid species had been where he was, and they were lucid enough to actually set up production factories and build stuff.
'The hell? Could I be dreaming?' Leo wondered, as he slapped himself just to make sure he wasn't dreaming, however, this was no joke.
The grate was definitely real.
'But just who could live in a tainted world like this?' Leo wondered, as he flashed the torchlight at the joints of the grate and inspected the craftsmanship.
The bars of the grate were thick, but old.
Rust flaked off at the slightest touch, and they looked to be hand made instead of machine cut, as the size of each grate wasn't perfectly even, and the edges seemed to be hand shaped rather than machine cut.
Leo didn't wait anymore after he made that assessment, as he pulled out one of his daggers and wedged it between the rusted joints, wrenching them apart with slow, careful jerks until the metal gave way with a reluctant snap.
*TAK*
He kicked the loosened bars aside, then dropped through the gap—
—as he found himself standing in something that made his breath catch.
A room.
An actual room.
Not stone. Not dirt. But smooth, tiled floor.
Faded murals lining the walls.
A broken desk in one corner, books scattered around it like dried leaves.
And a massive, cracked mural painted across the far wall— depicting a sun that he had never seen shining in this world, and a painting of twelve beasts standing in a semi circle under that sun.
Leo's eyes widened, as he realized that this wasn't a random cave or a survival hovel.
This… was a conclave.
A chamber of knowledge.
A relic left behind by some race who had lived here for long.
However what Leo could not understand was how?
How did a race even survive inside the time-stilled world?
As everything about this world made civilization impossible.
And yet, despite his doubts, what stretched before him was still something very real.
"Whoa… this is interesting," Leo mused as he flashed his torch towards the painting on the wall once more, taking a better look at the twelve beasts painted up there.
The paint was old, cracked and dry, but the imagery still held, probably because of some special painting technique that was created for the very purpose of standing the test of time.
On the right most side, the first beast was a massive, horned serpent, coiled around a broken mountain, its scales painted in alternating black and white strokes, its eyes narrow slits of venomous green that seemed to glare at any observer even now, with twin fangs dripping a liquid depicted in a streak of gold.
The second was a silver stag, antlers sprawling outward like branches of a dead tree, each tip carved with arcane markings, its body glowing faintly as if the painter had somehow captured luminescence in pigment.
The third was an ape, hulking, arms disproportionate to its frame, with flames erupting from its back and shoulders like wings. Its eyes burned red, and its knuckles were bloodied as if mid-battle.
The fourth was a thin, almost skeletal bird—its wings torn, yet it still soared across the sky, beak open in a silent scream. Its feathers were painted with razor-thin strokes that shimmered slightly under the torchlight, as if alive with static.
The fifth was a wolf, midnight blue, crouched low with teeth bared and eight tails fanned behind it like a storm. Its gaze was fixed ahead, sharp and intelligent, while its fur looked unnaturally well-preserved compared to the others.
The sixth beast resembled a humanoid lizard that stood on two legs, its body clad in stone armor, and its head covered in a crude helmet with glowing orange eyes that shone through.
The seventh was an owl—its wings spread wide and eyes impossibly round, each feather tipped with silver and gold. It perched on a broken obelisk, with its head tilted sideways as if analyzing the viewer.
As the longer Leo looked towards it, the more unsettled he felt.
The eighth beast was a spider. Gigantic. Painted in shadow. Its body was rendered in a shade so dark that even with firelight, it absorbed more light than it reflected, and Leo could almost feel the chill of it watching. Its legs spanned half the mural, and around it, other figures lay wrapped in silk.
The ninth was an ox, massive and peaceful-looking, with skin made of smooth marble and horns curved like the moon. It stood amidst ruins, untouched, its eyes closed as if meditating.
The tenth was a flying lion, wings aflame, tearing through the skies with a trail of white smoke behind it. Its paws were embedded into what looked like a storm cloud, its roar frozen in time as if splitting the heavens.
The eleventh was a beast Leo couldn't name—a shifting, formless creature made of overlapping rings and spines. It had too many limbs, too many eyes, and yet no consistent shape, as though the artist had painted chaos itself.
As the aura that beast gave off was not just wild— but maddening.
And finally the twelfth…
The twelfth made him stop breathing for a moment.
It was a dragon.
Not the kind from bedtime stories or story books.
But a crimson beast, majestic and terrifying, with wings curled inward like a cloak, horns arching back from its skull, and fire curling from its mouth as if frozen mid-roar.
Its eyes were closed, its claws folded inward, but the mere presence of its form radiated a dormant power.
Unlike the others, the dragon's gaze wasn't turned toward the viewer.
It was looking at the sun.
The only one among the twelve.
Leo stepped back, his mind racing, as he could feel it in his gut, that this mural was more than just a random painting.
It was a warning.
Or a prophecy.
And for the first time in his life, he felt an intense urge to uncover the secret behind it.