A symbol of silence, darkness flooded every nook and cranny of the ruins that had never seen sunlight before.
For millennia, no living creature had set foot inside the long perished ruins that were buried deep underground in vast darkness and silence. As days and years elapsed, time had seemingly flitted by in an instant. Even its currents, which had swallowed endless glorious eras of civilization in its wake, had also found it an arduous task to leave a trace on the surface.
It was easy for heroes to age and be forgotten. Only inanimate objects could resist the corrosion of time and be passed down from one generation to the next.
However, the passing of time had brought with it changes; The mixture of fresh blood and soil formerly used in burial had long since disappeared without a trace. Every glorious achievement and heroes’ epics were gradually forgotten by the people around the world, turning into thin layers of sediments buried deep below ground.
And thus, the present day came by after the passing of unknown years. The soil and sand laying dormant underground witnessed light once more as the ruins were roused from their slumber.
“Clack, clack, clack…” A flame wavered in the ocean of darkness, like a tiny boat in the open sea. This was accompanied by urgent footsteps reverberating through the silence. They infused a sense of vitality into the underground ruins, which had experienced countless ages of stifling solitude and darkness.
“…Hey.” Lin eventually chose to speak up after her brain had rehearsed the confounding situation countless times in silence.
“Mhm?” Distracted, Ji Bai gave a non-committal reply. He had been hastening forward on the path illuminated by the torch in Lin’s hands without rest when he heard her call out to him from his arms.
“Don’t tell anyone about earlier.” It seemed that she had gathered an enormous amount of courage to say these words, as her usually taciturn, emotionless and heartless poker face carried traces of blush symbolizing her humiliation and anger at this moment.
With her head hanging downwards, her voice gradually grew softer as she reached the last few words of her sentence and resembled the cry of a mosquito.
Recalling her outlandish conduct and bearing that were completely unbefitting of her image, Lin fell into complete despair. When she thought about how the image of a hysterical person throwing a tantrum was actually her all along, she felt her vision blacking out and an urge to off herself by banging her head against a wall.
To make it even worse, there was a spectator beside her who had watched it all unfold. The thought of solving her problems through death did truly cross her mind in her fit of humiliation and anger. However, it was impossible for that to come to fruition due to Ji Bai’s obstruction.
His reassurance was concise, straight to the point and extremely touching in every sense of the word. “If you wish to take the easy way out, there’s a wall right there. So stop knocking your head against mine, alright?”
Lin was moved right there and then.
“Shut up! You saw it… You definitely saw it, right! I’ll kill myself after biting you to death!”
Feeling the effectiveness of his reassurance, Ji Bai decided to strike while the iron was hot. In a moment of desperation, he continued his persuasion, this time in physical form. This served to touch her heart even further, as she began to calm down with her head against Ji Bai’s shoulders. And thus, things returned to silence once more.
As someone who had always tailored her words, bearings and actions according to the standards of a noble lady, Lin began to recall the grand soap opera earlier whose protagonist role she had assumed and played perfectly. The word ‘complex’ couldn’t adequately describe the feelings she was experiencing at the moment. If she had to give an analogy, it would be similar to someone dropping the seasonings inside the kitchen cabinet all onto the floor. Amidst the bitter, sour and salty smell, one could also pick up traces of an …inexplicable sensation, right??
“I’m not bored enough for that.” Ji Bai replied without turning towards her. He was currently placing all his energy into fleeing and had no spare time to debate the woman in his embrace, even though he was truly frightened from her mental breakdown earlier.
Lin recovered her previous calmness after hearing Ji Bai’s definite answer and no longer said a word. Having grown somewhat accustomed to being princess-carried by him, she calmly focused on her job of holding the torch in her hand.
Due to the series of events caused by the awkward situation earlier, her attention had been split. As a result, she had only now realized that she had lost one of her shoes in her hurry. In addition, her sealed regenerative abilities meant that the sprain of her ankle wouldn’t heal anytime soon. It seemed her situation couldn’t get any worse.
This perplexed her profoundly. Ever since she became a member of the moon knights, she had experienced the baptism of battles, both large and small. As a veteran, she had never encountered a situation where her magic supply had been completely exhausted. The exhaustion of her magic supply in the previous battle had hit her without warning, especially when she only had the chance to cast a few [spells]. After ruminating on it and eliminating various possibilities, she eventually attributed the cause to be the strange flames spat out by the griffin.
She could still feel a faint pain coming from her burnt off wings even now. The flames, which became inextinguishable once ignited, seemed to be capable of completely exhausting the [magic] inside their victim’s body.
‘If it had struck a human, they would most likely…’
As she reached that conclusion, Lin subconsciously shot a glance at the man wearing an iron helmet next to her. He was completely oblivious to her gaze and wholeheartedly concentrated on hurrying down the path ahead of them.
‘When it comes to crucial moments, he’s surprisingly quite reliable.’
‘It doesn’t feel bad to be carried by someone and be without a care in the world… He clearly could have left me behind and run off on his own earlier. Is that what it means to be cared about?’
Lin was slightly dazed before shaking her head with a self-deprecating smile.
‘I’ve truly become childish and naive. To think I’d actually go and trust someone… Even my close relatives will abandon me in this world, so why should I expect anything from a complete stranger from another race??’
Lin’s somewhat softened expression turned cold once more as she reached this conclusion.
The only kin worthy of her protection, her little sister, had already been buried under a sea of fire. To Lin, this cold, emotionless world no longer held anyone worthy of her trust.
It was at this moment that the wind caused by their movement gradually weakened and her fluttering hair fell downwards.
Lin shot a glance at the road ahead; She could sense light, along with an indistinct warmth. Both of which didn’t come from the torch held in her hand.
A narrow and natural stone path stretched as far as their eyes could see. Seemingly bumpy and unkempt, it led to a karst cave.
Ji Bai slowed his steps and entered the narrow cave, which was only wide enough for two to walk shoulder to shoulder.
A few stone candles were placed neatly on both sides, with speckles of flames burning on them, seemingly welcoming a long-awaited guest.
Ji Bai stopped his steps and observed the brightly lit cave.
Stone candles made of unknown materials, the shape of the cave, as well as the faint engraving marks eroded by the wind on both sides; The traces bore on them made it extremely obvious that they had been artificially created.
From its appearance, there was no doubt that this was indeed an underground ruin. However, there was no way to distinguish its age, as the transition between epochs had severely limited all information available. Any knowledge about the continent during the 2nd epoch became as rare as the feathers of a phoenix or the horns of a unicorn, to the point of it being virtually non-existent. This fact rang especially true for the first epoch; It only existed in mythology, with zero documents or ruins to prove its existence.
But those didn’t matter to Ji Bai. He wasn’t an archaeologist to begin with, and there was no need for him to hurt his brains over such questions. What stirred his interest was the fact that these stone candles had actually been burning for so long without extinguishing. This made him extremely curious about the sort of material these mystical candles were made of.
But it was clear that this wasn’t the right time to worry about these questions.
And that was because Ji Bai had heard a faint reverberation sound coming from the cave’s entrance behind him…
“Roar…!!” As if urging him to hurry up, a powerful sound reached him through the crevice, causing a series of echoes.