“Ow—ow—ow, that hurt like hell! What the heck was that? No eyes in your head, tripping your young master like that?!” Vinny hit the floor with his teeth bared, not even sure what had just snagged his foot, grousing as he went down. Still, he’d knocked over a pile of stuff and somehow hadn’t triggered any mechanisms. Lucky.

“Ah—hey, huh? What is this? A bone fell out?!” Vinny stared at the black, flake-like thing that had dropped in front of him from who knew where, eyes widening.

He picked it up. It was a plaque carved from some unknown material, a single line of text etched into it in obscure, unreadable script, with delicate celestial symbols worked around the edge.

What is this thing??

That script was everywhere in the Marsmo secret realm. Obviously it was Marsmo writing—but what it said, Vinny had no idea. The Marsmo writing system didn’t belong to the Tyrelis continent’s scripts, and it wasn’t anything like any modern human language. Forget shared roots—there was no way to even guess.

Isatia might be able to read it, but to Vinny it was complete gibberish.

“Also... this has to be something from the secret realm, right?” Vinny remembered the notice posted at the palace gate telling them to avoid moving things inside the royal palace. The Marsmo realm was unstable; they could trigger mechanisms.

Well, he’d moved ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) it—and nothing seemed to have happened... right?

Vinny glanced around. The room stayed dead still and silent. No sign of anything activating.

Makes sense. If this room really had a trap, would it let him mull things over for this long? The ceiling would have dropped and smashed him into Vanessa on the spot.

“What kind of plaque is this?” Vinny turned it over and over, getting nowhere. He was hesitating—put it back and leave it alone?—when a thunderous boom sounded from outside.

“Rumble—rumble—rumble!!” The noise yanked his attention away. He looked at the plaque in his hand, then decided to keep it on him and hand it over to Isatia for inspection later.

Stowing it away, Vinny bolted out of the room and ran toward the source of the sound.

That came from Isatia’s side of the search area, didn’t it? Did something happen over there?

Still, she was a Fated Heroine. He didn’t need to panic. People like that had destiny’s favor watching over them.

By the time he reached the right side of the palace and saw Isatia’s back, Aesphyra had already arrived.

Both of them stood where they were, staring at something. Vinny had no idea what had happened, but judging from the look of things Isatia hadn’t run into danger—and going by that boom, Aesphyra must have rushed here the second she heard it.

Vinny was slightly out of breath. He was about to ask about that crash that sounded like some massive structure collapsing when he noticed what exactly Isatia and Aesphyra were looking at.

The moment he turned the corner, the sunlight outside stabbed his eyes.

He shaded them and followed their gaze—then his brows climbed in shock, and the urge to ask died in his throat.

The gold-and-crimson carpet ran straight ahead—and ended abruptly. Beyond, a vast gorge yawned open, the sun hanging high above it.

Was this... an exit??

Vinny blinked. The palace looked colossal. They’d reached an exit this fast??

No. If it was an exit, why wasn’t there a way out? Was it just some kind of viewing platform? If so, that was way too sloppy.

He looked down at the gold-crimson carpet at his feet, which extended toward the “exit.” The carpet and the flooring beneath it had both been sheared off.

It didn’t look like a deliberately built balcony. It looked like this section of the palace had been sliced away—ripped clean by some unspeakable force.

Vinny, incredulous, stepped up beside Isatia and Aesphyra and looked down. A bottomless abyss of yellow sand stared back. No way an exit would be built here.

Yeah, not a great place to stand. One gust and you’d eat a mouthful of grit.

With sandstorms this fierce, no wonder so much sand had piled up inside the palace. No ruler would be brainless enough to open a hole in their palace in a place like this. That would be a daily irritation session, right??

If it wasn’t intentional, then something caused it.

And the structure...?

Vinny’s expression grew strange.

Judging from the size of the sand pit, it didn’t look natural at all. And a subterranean palace this massive had been cut off so abruptly? Definitely not normal.

Is it possible this gigantic sandy abyss used to be part of the palace—and later, under the influence of some vast, unimaginable force, the Marsmo royal palace was destroyed—no, destroyed isn’t the right word—simply erased.

But that would be staggering. If everything beneath this, now a deep desert chasm, had once been part of the palace, then the Marsmo royal palace was truly enormous. A world-class wonder.

What kind of power could wipe the Marsmo palace off the map??

And was this really a place the Marsmo people had once lived? If so, who annihilated the Marsmo civilization—and who stuffed all of it wholesale into a secret realm?

What did the Marsmo do before they vanished??

A thought flashed through Vinny’s mind. He’d heard of something like this before—somewhere.

Ugh—his brain itched. Where had he heard something similar? He thought so, but... why couldn’t he recall?

He scratched his head in agony, even yanking out a few hairs, and still came up empty.

The other two had no bandwidth to care. They stared in silence at the abyss and the palace ruin shaved flat as if by a giant spoon. Their faces were grave.

Right—what was that boom just now, anyway?

Vinny glanced toward the palace’s sheared edge. A few stones still clung there, not yet shoved into the yellow-sand abyss.

Looked like debris had been blocking the way and Isatia had blasted it open with magic.

Now, Isatia watched the scene before her for a long time, lost in thought. Her violet eyes kept flashing with strange light, brightening and dimming.

Suddenly, she stepped to the brink, gaze wavering as if searching for something.

Vinny shot Aesphyra a look—question in his eyes—but Aesphyra was also somewhere else mentally. She didn’t look back at him, sunk deep in thought.

What is this supposed to be? Both of you standing there, striking a pose—what does that even mean??

Sigh. Never party up with a bunch of riddle-speakers, or this is what you get. No clue what they’re doing, and no one explains anything.

So what exactly is going on... right now??

Vinny thumped his own head. He should have gotten it already. This scene felt familiar, like he’d heard it somewhere.

But where? His train of thought derailed right there. He couldn’t get it back.

It always happened like this. He felt like he was about to piece it together from the clues—and at the crucial moment, unless someone put the screws to him, his brain just... stalled.

Feels like... not enough CPU.

And just as Vinny was stuck grinding it out alone, he suddenly saw Isatia do something shocking.

She summoned her Spirit Soul. Three opulent golden spears appeared like loyal guards, fitting together beneath her feet to form something like a platform.

Isatia jumped up, landed on it, and—without a word to Aesphyra or Vinny—flew down into the yellow-sand abyss.

“What the—?!” Vinny froze, then sprinted to the broken edge to look. The abyss was even bigger than they’d thought. Isatia’s figure shrank with distance, and then it was like the sands swallowed her whole.

Against the enormous waterfall of flowing sand, their figures were microscopic.

“Wait—what is she even doing?” Vinny finally managed.

“Vinny, wait here,” Aesphyra said after a beat. She drew her sacred sword; the main gem in the crossguard shifted to wind-blue. A gale wrapped around her. Wind gripped her feet, lifted her from the ground, and she glided downward.

If Isatia was relying on Spirit Soul mastery, then Aesphyra was pure statline—forcing it with her overwhelming affinity and control over all elements, conjuring wind magic strong enough to buoy her for flight.

Pressure slammed onto Vinny all at once. He stared, dumbstruck, as both women took off.

“Oh, you too, huh?” he couldn’t help snarking at the two silhouettes dwindling away from him.

Great. You two can fly. What about me? Just leave me here?

Fine. With those two’s skill and fate, they weren’t going to run into danger. And they had Tokens as lifelines.

Looked like all he had to do was wait up here?

Vinny let out a long sigh.

Of course the cool set pieces were reserved for the protagonists. He had nothing—so he’d better not try to play cool. What if something went wrong?

So Vinny watched from the sheared edge as their figures turned to black dots, farther and farther, smaller and smaller, and then—

Gone?!

Vinny’s eyes went wide. He rubbed them hard.

Was he seeing things? It felt like they’d been sucked into a sandstorm.

“Isatia! Aesphyra! What happened? Come back up first!” Vinny shouted down in a hurry.

But come on—at that distance, with a sandstorm howling, how could they possibly hear him?

No response.

A chill pricked him. There might be a massive quicksand whirlpool under that yellow sand. By the time you noticed it, it was too late—it would drag you in.

“Damn it.” Vinny swore.

So where were they now? Eliminated and sent back?

Come on—what was he supposed to do now?

Both of those long legs in black stockings were gone, and they’d left this slacker standing here alone??

“What is even up with this place? Isn’t this a royal palace? Why is there a giant quicksand whirlpool under it? It’s like someone scooped a huge spoonful out of a cake.”

“The Marsmo civilization is weird too—vanishing for no reason. Isn’t this just like that...?” Vinny froze, a bolt of lightning cracking through his skull.

Oh. He remembered!

This scene—

Wasn’t it just like that hidden history Isatia told him about—the Old Tyrelis Empire wiped out overnight?

Both vanished without explanation, leaving a blank gap in the record no one could account for.

So what destroyed the Old Tyrelis Empire?

Ah—right, Isatia hadn’t gotten that far before she left.

Yeah. If that’s the case, it explains why Isatia and Aesphyra looked like they “got it instantly,” while he just felt a vague familiarity and had no clue.

Aesphyra and Isatia obviously knew. Aesphyra, as a descendant of the Old Tyrelis imperial line, would have been taught the real history by the Galathus family; as for Isatia, her ancestors were among the people involved.

They both knew this history inside and out.

And from what Vinny knew of Aesphyra, she would never do anything she wasn’t confident about. Which meant she knew a lot here—enough to dare to descend into that man-eating hell of yellow sand.

Vinny stood at the edge and peered down into the bottomless quicksand maw, like the mouth of some deep-sea behemoth. His guts shrank.

The spark of curiosity that had just flared up... snuffed out.

T-this was too terrifying. What kind of thing created an environment this hostile? He had thalassophobia and megalophobia, okay??

Vinny didn’t know if the thing that annihilated the Old Tyrelis Empire and the Marsmo civilization was the same.

If it was, then per Isatia, there was one of those sitting right now in Carillian Academy—stored inside the Order Spire.

As Vinny hesitated, maybe because the sandstorm was too fierce, the ground under his feet gave a crisp crack. Before he could react, the whole section of the edge broke away.

“My dear great-granny—aaah?!” Still mid-thought, Vinny didn’t even have time to decide—his balance vanished, the world tilted, and when he looked down, his hair practically stood on end.