The Purple Commander’s retreat from Kux lasted an entire night. With visibility poor during the night, Yvette had opted to sleep, only to awaken the next morning to find Kux had become a ghost town, devoid of life.

Silently, she returned to the frostbitten ruins of the city where the Pale Mother Nest once stood, arriving at the massive pit that marked its former location.

Standing at the edge of the pit, she summoned a beam of illuminating magic like a flashlight, peering into the details revealed in the depths.

At first glance, the pit appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary hole, its walls displaying layers of modern backfill mixed with steel reinforcement, pipes, and various remnants. The middle was composed of alluvial layers made up of sand, clay, and gravel, and deeper still began to reveal grayish-white limestone, likely indicating the base rock layer.

However, as her light penetrated deeper into the velocity, what came into view was not the usual bedrock.

Instead, she saw smooth, reflective metal walls, clearly rusted in places, resembling tiles tightly affixed to the side walls of the pit, extending further inward.

Yvette’s surprise grew. In the maps and related materials she had copied of the Origin Civilization, Kux was just a beautiful little snowy city—economically underdeveloped, akin to a large rural-urban fringe area. The only standout feature was its impressive tourism sector, making it one of the trending cities in the New Eden Confederation.

In such a place that resembled a small, rural location during the offseason, what could possibly lie at the city center’s depths that was a buried, sealed-off metal tunnel leading underground?

Moreover, this tunnel was so vast that even a giant aberration like a Mountain Whale could easily emerge from it.

After a few moments of astonishment, Yvette quickly dismissed the possibility of it being an air raid shelter, as conventional shelters wouldn’t construct such a large linear tunnel.

This looked more like an entrance to an aircraft facility from some military base. When active, the tunnel could open, allowing warplanes, spacecraft, or magical machines to fly out in quick succession to support the battlefield.

After observing for a bit longer, Yvette made up her mind. She leapt into the inky darkness below.

Traversing a distance of roughly one to two hundred meters, she entered a vast underground space. Numerous load-bearing pillars towered like colossal towers, supporting the ceiling. The floor, made of alloy, appeared somewhat aged, creaking underfoot and echoing crisp sounds in the darkness that spread out into the distance.

Yvette released a more potent illumination spell, casting light around her like a golden sun, restoring brilliance to this huge metallic tomb that had been sealed for hundreds of years.

However, after illuminating the surroundings and floating up to survey the area, she didn’t discover much of note.

Perhaps the Purple Commander had processed this area before leaving, for she found no remnants of written information or useful items. The entire base was vast yet empty.

It felt similar to an open-world game, with a large map but devoid of any explorative setups; after rummaging around for a while, Yvette genuinely couldn’t discern which faction the base belonged to.

Two hours later, after finishing her inspection of the vast underground cavern without any fruitful discoveries, Yvette resurfaced.

She speculated that the Purple Commander had chosen this location not only because it was spacious enough for the Pale Mother Nest to stretch itself but also because it concealed other important secrets. Perhaps he had cleared away any evidence of those secrets before leaving.

This had to be a relic from the time before the end, so if she ever had the chance to enter another dream state, she would certainly seek out information on it.

…

By the time she left Kux, it was nearly noon.

The radiant spring sunlight poured like molten syrup over the meadows, and the distant snow-capped mountains cast jagged shadows against the blue sky. The black basalt on the mountainsides looked twisted, with remnants of ice that had not yet melted from last winter lingering in the crevices.

Having informed everyone that she would be departing that afternoon, Yvette’s pace slowed a bit as she gazed at the fluffy white cotton-like clouds floating in the distance.

Those were the sheep raised by the kingdom’s shepherds, primarily for Dugrabi’s sustenance.

However, likely due to attachments formed during their time together, the shepherd in the village was the only one displaying any signs of happiness at the news of their impending departure. Perhaps he believed his sheep would finally be able to live safely.

Standing on a black rock ridge, Yvette watched the sheep grazing for a while, suddenly pondering the role of wild animals, particularly herbivores, in the ecological chain of the End World.

After all, aberrations would consume each other mercilessly until eventually, only a high-tier aberration would remain, leading to a decline in their numbers and a concentration of aberrant factors. Moreover, aberrations could not breed, and the only way to increase their kind was through the infection of various wild animals.

Thus, if the wild animal population of a region dwindled, the number of low-tier aberrations would soon dwindle as well. In that interim, the wild animals would take the opportunity to reproduce, resulting in a subsequent rise in low-tier aberrations.

While insects were part of that model, their small size and low intake of aberrant factors meant it was considerably more challenging for them to transform into aberrations. Furthermore, once transformed, they typically ended up serving as nutrient sources for other aberrations. Of course, this held true here in the snowy regions; in the south, the prevalence of insect aberrations might be stronger…

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That category could arguably belong to a separate group known as the Gods, given their differing levels of intelligence; they truly existed outside of the norm.

Lost in these not-so-romantic and poetic thoughts on the ecological chain, Yvette observed the distant grazing sheep, her mind wandering until a shadow lurking below caught her attention.

That figure was…

Abella?

Yvette’s eyes widened in surprise as she recognized the fifth-stage lord who had once shattered a magical combat automaton with a single strike. Now, she crouched behind a big rock, her gaze fixated on a nearby sheep with a predatory glare, reminiscent of a waiting leopard.

However, compared to the last time she had been released, Abella looked considerably worse. Her elegant black backless gown had been reduced to mere strips of cloth that barely covered her black armor underneath. Her formerly fair skin appeared muddy and blemished, with only one high-heeled shoe still intact—she seemed to be clinging onto it with all her might.

Yvette couldn’t help but express her surprise. After all, Abella was a fifth-stage aberration, one with human-level intelligence. Even if she had lost most of her aberrant factors, there was no way she should have fallen into such a state.

How had she become so wild? Was her survival ability really that concerning?

After hesitating for a moment, Yvette chose not to interfere immediately; after all, Abella was hunting. If she approached now, she might scare away the prey.

She continued to stand at her elevated position, watching as a sheep approached the stone behind which Abella lay in ambush.

This seemed like a good sign; under normal circumstances, a hunter would have a smooth experience with this situation. However, to her disbelief, she soon witnessed Abella leap forward. Despite catching the sheep, the struggling animal managed to shake her off.

The scene took a tragic turn as the lead sheep, seizing the opportunity, charged at Abella, butted right into her waist, sending her tumbling to the ground on the grassy slope. Even after getting back up, she was chased away by the lead sheep, completely devoid of any means to counterattack…

Yvette silently lowered her gaze, thinking to herself that this was absolutely horrifying.