(Time-Stilled World, Perimeter of Castle Bravo, Leo's POV)
Leo had never experienced the pressure that the soul of a god exerted on its surroundings—at least not until he began to approach the blackened walls of Castle Bravo, and felt, for the first time, the world itself beginning to reject his presence.
It started gradually, like a shifting weight pressing against his skin, but the deeper he moved into the tainted zone surrounding the castle, the more the air thickened, growing heavier with every breath, as though each lungful he inhaled was being filtered through liquid stone before reaching his bloodstream.
'It's truly suffocating,' Leo thought, as he slowed his pace, his eyes narrowing in quiet caution.
Because the closer he drew to Castle Bravo, the more he realized that breathing was no longer a reflex, but rather a burden that needed conscious effort from his mind to be sustained.
It appeared as though, even in death, even sealed in slumber, the soul of Zharnok cast a pressure so deep and absolute that it made his knees tremble from sheer biological revolt.
As once again, he was reminded of just how tiny and insignificant he was compared to the strongest beings in this universe, when he felt his body drenched in sweat from head to toe, just from the effort of walking under the Castle's suppressive aura.
At around the one-kilometer mark, something shifted.
The wind, which had been a constant companion this high into the mountain range, suddenly vanished, cut off as though the world beyond that point had no place for motion.
In its place came a silence that didn't feel natural, one that didn't settle, but hovered—pressing in against his ears, against his thoughts, against his sense of balance, as at that point, he suddenly stopped walking…..
He stopped, not because he saw anything move, nor because he sensed a trap.
But because every fiber of his being, the very instincts that had carried him through blood, poison, betrayal, and fights all his life, were all telling him the same thing now.
'Cross that wall to enter Castle Bravo… and you die'
Castle Bravo wasn't a ruin.
It was a warning carved into stone, and the fact that it still stood untouched, despite being surrounded by a corrupted landscape that had devoured everything else in sight, only proved the point further.
The wall that encircled the castle rose at least sixty feet high, built from a dark, vein-laced mineral that pulsed faintly under the world's colourless gray sky.
At its center stood a massive gate, tall enough to let a behemoth pass through without ducking, yet sealed shut with two massive chains, and a warning sign that translated to–
"Danger! Do Not Open".
Leo stood about thirty meters from the entrance, covered in sweat from head to toe, one hand resting near the hilt of his dagger out of habit, as he saw that danger sign and immediately decided to not make any rash decisions.
"No…" he muttered under his breath, letting the word drift between his teeth like a breath of caution, as instead of stepping forward, he stepped back, then back again, as he repeated the process until he pulled back about a hundred meters from the entrance.
There was no reason for him to charge into the Castle just yet.
As after some rough calculations, and based on his brief conversation with the Captain… he knew that the next emergency evacuation flight wasn't going to come for about another 42 days.
Which meant that he had a lot of time to carefully plan and execute his robbery, without needing to rush headfirst into anything.
"Rodova Military Academy, Stealth-Assassination and Planning Class, rule for survival number one.
Never enter a dangerous mission area without proper scouting and information!" Leo muttered to himself, as he remembered the teachings of his Rodova professors, and began to look around for a vantage point from where he could scout the insides of Castle Bravo without risking an entry.
It wasn't easy…. However, after walking across the perimeter of the 'Dead Zone' surrounding the castle where no tree grew, he found one particularly tall, aged blackwood tree with branches wide and thick enough to support his weight.
He then climbed that tree with minimal effort, choosing a perch about seventy feet off the ground, from where he could see beyond the castle wall and into most of the courtyard within.
Once there, he began creating a make-shift platform, turning the perch into his scouting camp for the next few hours.
He did so, by securing a few ropes around the branches, to make a platform out of ropes, and then laid flat on it before pulling out binoculars out of his storage ring, as he began to scan every inch of the abandoned castle in front.
What he saw inside was pretty much what he expected out of an abandoned castle.
No movement.
No guards.
Just a quiet courtyard filled with broken tiles, fractured archways, and faded banners, that looked from a time long gone.
It looked empty and harmless, but Leo trusted his instincts more than his eyes, and since his instincts told him that there was more danger than what met the eye, he waited patiently and continued to observe the castle without moving.
Castle Bravo wasn't just a single structure.
It was an entire complex, divided into distinct sectors, with the central fortress dominating the heart of the space.
That building—taller than the rest, perhaps five stories high—was constructed from a darker mineral than the outer walls, almost obsidian-like, with countless runes etched across its surface in a script that pulsed faintly with tainted mana.
'That has to be where Zharnok's soul is sealed…' Leo thought, shifting slightly as the pressure of the building alone made it difficult to hold the binoculars steady whenever he tried to focus on its inscriptions.
It was like his mind rejected the idea of directly looking at it, as the moment his gaze lingered on that building for too long, his temples began to ache and his thoughts started to fray, as though an invisible force was quietly scraping against the edges of his awareness.
So instead, he looked away, lowering his view to the auxiliary structures that flanked the courtyard.
Of which, there were five.
The largest sat off to the eastern quadrant, its wide archways and crumbled towers suggesting it might have once served as the barracks or a training hall.
Time hadn't been kind to that building, as half the roof had collapsed inward, and thick vines of corrupted mana-veins coiled through its walls like veins through old flesh.
Nothing moved within, but Leo could tell… it wasn't safe.
As he could feel a powerful aura resting within.
To the north lay two narrow buildings, symmetrical and tall, almost like watchtowers, though no light or signal fire burned at their peaks.
They looked inert—dead husks waiting for a command that hadn't come in three thousand years.
But it was the smallest building, tucked in the far west behind a row of skeletal trees, that caught Leo's attention most.
A squat, square structure.
No towers.
No battlements.
Just thick, runic plating and a stone platform extending outwards like a ramp.
'That has to be it… that's the teleportation gate–' Leo thought, as he had seen that structure before in diagrams.
Four pillar slots for mana conduits.
A central dial, currently half-buried in dust.
And a collapsed crystalline arc jutting sideways like a shattered rib.
He zoomed in further, trying to make out the markings on the stone base.
Half the glyphs were unreadable from this distance, but the orientation was unmistakable—this was a teleportation portal.
*Sigh*
Leo leaned back slightly, pulling the binoculars away as he exhaled.
42 days.
That was the window.
Forty-two days to fix that gate, plan a robbery, and time it to perfection… before the next rescue plane made its scheduled visit.