CHAPTER 73: CHAPTER: 73, CITY OF HIDDEN GRAVES

Silas walked through the bone-white hollow carved intricately like the minuscule details of a Jade carved by the finest of artists.

Walking for a bit, Silas saw a large entrance about 100 times larger than him in both height and weight. Far away, he could see the border of the entrance carved from something dark and ominous. It was like death itself physically materialized to act as the gate of this silent and ominous city.

A chill shiver ran down his spine, and Silas saw a phenomenon difficult to explain with his own limited experience with high level Transcendent. Truth be told, the ancestor of the Graves family was said to be someone who reached beyond the Mystic rank.

Too bad that even though they had reached such a high level, they were at the end, Mortals. Albeit with a very high lifespan, they were still mortals.

Not only have they, even the so-called Demi-gods had lifespan. Only true divinity could truly remove the restriction of immortality. But even so, death by outside influence would make them perish.

Which is exactly why, every demi-god who wishes to touch upon divinity, would wait and work relentlessly to make sure they have the ability to survive just one attack from an actual god. Which in turn, will give them security that they can survive as gods.

Only the Unknown knows what happened to all the previous gods that is still a mystery to the people of this world to this day.

As the aura of death expanded to surround the entire hollow, a thick deathly energy, cold, in all senses, covered the whole entrance to the City of Graves.

Strange to Silas, he felt the Cold. It was so cold; to the point he could hear, see, sense and even smell the coldness.

But currently, he knew his comprehension of the Death law wasn’t enough to truly feel all those feelings. He could only get a vague feeling. But one thing was sure to him...this is the coldness of Death.

It wasn’t like the lively and full of vitality cold that formed through the freezing of water or air vapor. That coldness could be tolerated and survived with enough preparation. People also enjoy that cold sometimes.

But this...It was completely lifeless, born from the absence of life-force and vitality. Silas could at least say this much with confidence that...It is impossible to endure this cold even if you burn the entire place, you’d still feel cold.

Even if you burn your skin, insides...you’d still feel cold over the burning sensation. Which...would make it worse for anyone unlucky enough to encounter this...

Silas felt dread, the true horror of how many times he could’ve died feeling helpless in the cold. His hand trembled, but he was able to keep his calm.

After all, this cold didn’t truly affect him for some reason. The first time he came here was three days after assimilating with this Layer.

At that time, as soon as he entered and was about to leave the starting hallway to go ahead, a tight alert gripped his heart, stopping him from making any further movement.

’Something’ told him to run away, not a voice, but a ’presence’. He knew he wasn’t strong enough, so he quickly left this place. And heaviness, like an indicator by that ’presence’ to only come back when he was stronger.

The day before, he felt the heaviness leave his chest, indicating that he could return to this place. But he was still skeptical, and weary of any unexpected situation.

But even then, curiosity took over and he was here the next day like any generic main characters. Not that he was one of them, actually, but because of the sheer curiosity as to what might be hidden here to be protected so thoroughly.

As the deathly energy covered the entrance with a thick layer of death, particles moved with the fluid looking barrier, slowly forming something like a human skull, but instead of the regular white bones, the giant skull was made out of grayish bones that Silas thought to be because of the dark energy type of thing from the surroundings.

As the skull fully took shape within the barrier, a deep ancient voice rang in the silent hall filled with coldness.

"Who dares to disturb my rest!?!"

***

Below the Titanic remains of the ancient deity, the forest full of dust sized trees compared to the bones was full of greenery and vitality.

As a wise person said, ’Always try to see from others point of views’. So, instead of comparing them to the skeleton, if we were to compare them with humans, the view would completely change.

At the edge of the Kribus forest, an adventurer team was hunting monsters and collecting herbs and monster remains to complete their daily missions.

The atmosphere was tense since there seemed to appear an unexpectedly powerful monster they were unaware of.

The monster was only at level-45 while their leader, Arnold, is at level-53. But, even he is facing difficulties trying to defeat this monster. The other team members are trying their best to help Arnold from afar while Arnold is holding the monster in a close combat.

He wielded an emerald colored great-sword, made from a special type of wood elemental iron from the Kribus forest.

The most disturbing thing in this situation is nothing else but the appearance of the said monster.

The monster looked like a human with blood red eyes, its neck is longer than its body and the head twisted like a spring looking at the adventurers with a twisted and grotesque smile as if he were looking at his prey.

At the corner, a young girl with pink hair was holding a basic bow aiming at the fearful monster’s head as sweat of fear trickled down her cheek.

She was afraid as this was her first time meeting a monster like this. It looked less like a monster and more like a ghost from a horror tale she heard in childhood.

She was trying to focus so that she could hit one of the monster’s limbs, making it easier for Arnold to fight this horror.

At that moment, she suddenly felt something and looked towards the sky from the treetop, looking at the enormous white world in front of her. She felt something... familiar.

"Joe!!" A shout reached her ears, and she recognized it to be Arnolds. His voice sounded...panicked. She dazedly looked at that way to see the monster rushing at her with a furious look. A single arrow pierced one of its eyes and black blood flowed from the place.

She then looked at her hands, feeling empty since she didn’t even know when she released the arrow from her grip.

Suddenly, realization welled up in her heart as she saw the monster slowly closing in.

’Is this the end?’ she thought.

As anyone else would expect, it isn’t.

Suddenly, a strong gust of wind tore through the nearby greenery, destroying the nearby trees and clearing a way to the sky from the previous thick layer of leaves.

The monster is pushed away by the gust with the large trunks of trees.

Shocked by the scene, Arnold looked over the direction where the wind came from. A look of shock appeared in his face as he saw a woman; heavily injured, holding a big green capsule that was hanging by her side.

"You..."

To be continued...

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Sorry for the delay, My Boards are ahead, so my classes are being extreme. I will update occasionally, but continuing 2 Chapters a day will take time until my exams are finished.