CHAPTER 56: VESTIGES OF AN OLD WORLD (1).

Shock was a bit of an understatement.

The murals had left him drained in more ways than one.

Nero had always been an avid research of the truth of this world.

He had always known the story of the humans and their current state and predicament seemed strange.

As for how or why he has this feeling, it had always been difficult to pin down.

What was even more strange, was the lack of the Divine Will’s interaction between the humans and the Fallen Ones in this case.

Sure, one could argue that the miracles and revelations of the Gryghori were under the directives of the Divinity. However, cause did not always equate to effect.

It required a whole bunch of nuance...

Nero stood at the mouth of the grotto, staring back into the darkness where the faint image of the paintings still glowed as the last lights from the bonfire ebbed away.

’The grotto was most likely a center of worship to the strange Deity. A holy place.’

He grimaced.

Humans had created the gods. Not the other way around.

Such a thought seemed so blasphemous, he was worried the heavens would open up and strike him dead.

The weight of such a weighty realization pressed against his chest, making each breath quite hard to take.

He had spent his entire life in a world built on the premise that divinity descended from above, that the Gryghori were strange beings that had brought with them divine fruits and wisdoms.

And perhaps that could have been the case.

But now, he was sure that the relationship between these Divine Messengers and the humans had been far more complex than anything he had ever heard before.

’If I found this out in a random cave, there’s no way this information hasn’t appeared in the rest of the empire. There should be thousands of remnants of ruined civilizations just like this one. And yet...’

His eyes narrowed.

The truth, it seemed, was far more complicated and damning.

’Could someone be suppressing others from having access to this information?’

If that was the case, what would such a person or organization stand to gain from such a thing?

His face paled as he began to understand the implications of such a thing.

’I cannot think about this now,’ he decided after musing about it for far too long.

He pushed the thoughts away forcibly,

’The immediate goals is to get a proper bearing of my current situation and survive though the night.’

Perhaps when the conditions were much more suitable, he could lose himself in his musings. For now though he was doomed to suffer in silence.

Nero turned away from the grotto and stepped forward to the exit of the grotto.

The transition was so sudden it took his breath away.

After hours in the dim fungal glow of the underground, the sky above struck him with the presence of a physical blow.

Every breath he took filled his lungs with a dreary feeling impossible to shake off. Compared to the inside of the cave, the world was stark and bland.

Just as it always was.

At least, not everything was lacking of color.

He stood at the edge of a massive field of verdant grass, so green it seemed almost unnatural in this corrupted world. The blades swayed in wind he could feel but not see, creating ripples of movement across the landscape like water.

And in the distance, dominating the far horizon, stood a tree.

It was dead.

That was the first thing Nero understood about it.

His breath caught in his throat.

"I—Is that...?!"

Everything about its form screamed death— the bare, twisted branches reaching skyward like skeletal fingers, the trunk so massive it seemed impossible that any living thing could grow so large and then decay.

Nero had thought the godtree in the grotto murals was exaggerated for artistic effect. Looking at this corpse from across an entire field, he understood the artist had been trying to capture reality and failing.

The river emerged from the grotto behind him and curved gracefully around the base of the dead tree, looping behind it in a wide arc before continuing onward. Nero followed its path with his eyes and felt something twist in his stomach.

The river was flowing uphill.

Not dramatically. The slope was gentle, almost imperceptible. But it was undeniably there—the water was climbing toward higher ground, defying every natural law he understood. Following the river’s path with his eyes, he could see it continuing upward, disappearing into mist and distance that must have been Malady’s Garden.

This place, this field, seemed to exist in a strange transitional zone between worlds.

Of course, his mind could have been playing tricks on him all along.

After waiting for a moment, he couldn’t think of anything else.

Nero forced his mind to stop spiraling. He needed rest. He needed food. He needed to recover before pressing forward into whatever horrors awaited.

The field had structures. Small ones, pasted smack dab at the center of the verdant expanse, right under the non-existent shade of the godtree.

Buildings.

This was a settlement.

He began walking toward them. The grass brushed against his thighs, soft and alive in a way that made his skin crawl. This wasn’t natural growth. Nothing here was natural whatsoever.

As he drew closer to the settlement, he realized the buildings were ancient. Weathered by centuries or millennia, their stone walls crumbling at the edges, their roofs caved in or missing entirely. But they retained a certain dignity in their decay.

Nero chose a structure that still had most of its roof intact and moved inside.

The interior was shadowed but dry. Dust covered everything, undisturbed by footsteps or the changes time brought. He set down his satchel and the bundle of Abomination meat he’d been carrying and allowed himself to breathe.

His hands were shaking slightly as he worked. He gathered dried vines from outside—there were plenty of them twisted around the ancient buildings—and used his firestarter to kindle a small fire in the center of the dwelling. The flames caught eagerly, spreading with surprising vigor.

He placed meat on makeshift skewers and held them over the flames, watching as the surface began to char and the interior warmed. The smell was still rancid, still nearly unbearable, but it was better than raw. It was always better than raw.

When the meat was done enough, Nero ate. He forced it down despite his body’s protests, chewing mechanically and swallowing with effort. Each bite replenished him, burning away in his stomach to fuel the Ein Sof that sustained his human form.

When he was finished, he sat by the fire and allowed himself to simply exist for a time. Around him, the ancient settlement remained silent. The shifting shadows cast by the godtree loomed in the distance, a monument to everything that had gone wrong in this world.

The feeling of safety was like succulent ambrosia...

With a heavy feeling over his soul, Nero closed his eyes and fell asleep.