Chapter 60: Moon City

Chapter 60: Moon City

In the Forsaken Land of the Gods, during a night when lightning appeared at very low frequency.

Several human-like creatures cautiously approached a ball of flesh that had six legs and more than a dozen eyes.

They wore beast skins or simple garments whose original material could no longer be identified. By the illumination of a few lanterns, they moved through the deep, boundless darkness, their expressions extremely grave.

On some of their faces grew ten or twenty fleshy tumors. Some had two eyes almost squeezed together. Some had no nose at all; in its place was a black hole.

After a difficult fight, they resolved the monster relatively smoothly. Then they split into two groups: one keeping watch on the surroundings, the other harvesting the spoils.

During this process, the man whose face was covered in many tumors suddenly stopped while dissecting the monster’s corpse and collecting the edible parts.

“Adal, what is it?” the noseless woman asked in confusion.

The man called Adal slowly withdrew his right hand, revealing an item he had found on the monster.

It was a stone-carved amulet covered in many traces of corrosion.

“This is…” The man whose two eyes were nearly squeezed together seemed to understand the reason, but hesitated and did not finish.

Adal looked around and said, “Xin, Rus, this is something I gave my father when I was young.

“On the day I came of age, he felt he could no longer control himself. He chose to leave the city-state on his own and enter the depths of darkness…”

Xin and Rus fell silent at once. Both could understand Adal’s feelings.

In Moon City, this was something that happened often.

Because they lacked sufficiently safe food, they could only pick the fruits of mutated plants and gather the flesh of monsters to maintain survival.

This caused toxins and madness to accumulate in their bodies. Once their physical condition declined, they either died quickly or gradually lost control.

To avoid affecting those around them or causing destruction within the city-state, the latter, after sensing that something was wrong with their condition, would often arrange everything in advance. They would take a torch and a small amount of food, leave the defensive perimeter, and walk alone into the never-dispersing darkness, never to return.

Every resident of Moon City could imagine what their fate would be: either they would be killed by monsters, or they would become monsters. There was no other possibility.

After seven or eight seconds of silence, the noseless woman Xin hesitantly said to Adal, “Perhaps this was the monster that killed your father.”

“It was wearing a belt made of beast hide…” Adal’s voice gradually lowered. He raised the bone dagger in his hand and stabbed down with force, cutting out a piece of flesh that looked relatively normal.

In the silence, the members of the hunting team skillfully finished collecting their harvest. Then Rus, whose eyes were nearly squeezed together, suddenly spoke in a low voice.

“Among newborn children, there are more and more deformities…”

The cost of accumulating toxins and madness generation after generation was far more than a simple decline in average lifespan. Even people whose physical condition still remained normal would gradually show certain mutations—just like Adal, whose face had grown quite a few tumors.

Similarly, the accumulated toxins and madness might be passed down to descendants, causing deformed people to appear. Rus and Xin of the hunting team were examples of this.

Their lives were even shorter, and they were more likely to lose control and mutate.

Everyone present understood what the increasing number of deformed infants meant: perhaps, in no more than two or three generations, the residents of Moon City would lose control before their bodies fully matured and before they could produce a new generation.

In that case, even without external attack, Moon City would rapidly be destroyed, leaving behind only stone buildings and wall paintings as proof that they had once existed.

“I hope the High Priest and the others can find a new direction…” Adal lifted his lantern and stood. His answer sounded unusually powerless.

Over the past two or three thousand years, it was not that Moon City had never searched for a way to escape their current situation. They had sent exploration team after exploration team into the depths of darkness. Some returned after suffering severe setbacks, gaining nothing. Some never sent back any news at all, vanishing into the boundless darkness.

In addition, some distance east of Moon City was a stretch of grayish-white fog that covered both sky and earth.

Like an invisible barrier, it not only cut off sight, but also prevented any living being from passing through.

The residents of Moon City had once believed this was where hope lay. They had believed that the land shrouded by grayish-white fog was a normal country, and that on the other side of the grayish-white fog was earth untouched by the curse.

Again and again, they tried to enter that grayish-white fog, but every attempt failed.

They dug long tunnels, hoping to pass underground where no invisible barrier existed. But the region beneath the earth was likewise covered in grayish-white fog.

They found ways to gain the ability to fly, attempting to cross from high above. But no matter how high they went, they could not see the top of the grayish-white fog, until they were struck by lightning.

They mobilized the strength of all demigods and sealed artifacts, attacking the target again and again. Over two or three thousand years, day after day, they accumulated their efforts, yet they failed to wear down even the slightest trace of that invisible barrier…

Hearing Captain Adal’s words, the members of the hunting team felt both despair and sorrow, as though they were slowly sliding down at the edge of the Abyss, unable to save themselves.

Those with deformities already belonged to a type whose emotions were harder to control. At that moment, more or less all of them felt something suppressed inside their hearts, something that wanted to burst out.

In Moon City, two or three hundred years ago, those with deformities could not become Beyonders or join hunting teams. They could only do gathering work. But as manpower grew increasingly strained, the High Priest and the other leaders had loosened the restrictions.

“Let’s go. This little food is not enough.” Adal looked around. Carrying the lantern, he headed deeper into the darkness.

They did not risk extinguishing their flames and letting monsters surge out of the darkness, because those monsters might very well be ones they could not handle.

In the suffocating silence, the members of Moon City’s hunting team could not help feeling that the darkness had no end.

It was exactly like Moon City’s current situation: forever unable to find hope, while the lanterns in their hands had less and less time left to burn.

When that final trace of light vanished, they would be swallowed completely by the darkness, without a sound.

As they walked, a trace of dim yellow suddenly reflected in Adal’s eyes.

It was a spark of firelight—a firelight that did not belong to the hunting team!

That firelight immediately shone into the eyes of every member of the hunting team, occupying their pupils entirely.

Adal, Xin, Rus, and the others could not restrain themselves from widening their eyes. Intense astonishment surged inside their hearts.

In their entire lives, in the historical records of Moon City after the Cataclysm, there had never once been firelight from another place!

True, quite a few monsters possessed flame or Sun-domain powers, but before launching an attack, they always lurked inside the darkness without revealing even the slightest glow.

And now, a trace of firelight had appeared deep inside the darkness!

Adal, Xin, Rus, and the others trembled faintly. For a time, countless thoughts surged through them, but none could become an answer.

They quickly recalled the arrangements for this hunt and confirmed that no Moon City resident could possibly appear nearby.

If that firelight did not belong to Moon City, where had it come from?

The entire hunting team slowed their steps. They were shocked, stunned, and curious, yet also fearful, worried, and panicked.

They had discovered some destroyed city-states before, and they knew any abnormality in the darkness could be fatal.

“…On guard!” Adal finally recovered and gave the order.

The hunting team immediately spread out into battle formation, waiting for that dim yellow firelight to approach.

At this moment, time seemed to freeze. Every second was so slow. Finally, after that firelight grew larger, it illuminated a human figure.

A person… only one person… The members of Moon City’s hunting team all held their breath at the same time.

They seemed, perhaps, maybe, about to see an outsider!

After two or three thousand years, finally, another person had set foot upon this land.

This abandoned world no longer held only them.

Yet as to who could cross the endless darkness and reach this place, Adal and the others had not a shred of experience. They had no way to guess.

As the firelight grew larger and clearer, the hunting team gradually made out that figure.

He was a slender young man with black hair and brown eyes, his expression cold and stern. He was not deformed, nor did he show any sign of mutation.

He wore a strange hat, strange clothing, and carried a lantern made from a special material. Step by step, he walked out from the depths of darkness.

The light from his lantern was brighter than all the hunting team’s lanterns combined, causing the surrounding gloom to rapidly retreat.

Before long, that light shone upon Adal, Xin, Rus, and the others.

The figure stopped. Looking at Moon City’s hunting team, he spoke in a low voice:

“Where do you come from?”

He speaks Jotun… His eyes are clear. He can communicate… Adal opened his mouth, then stopped the instinctive impulse to answer.

He asked instead, “Who are you?”

The figure carrying the glass lantern answered calmly:

“Gehrman Sparrow.”

After more than half a year of wandering and travel, after overcoming one difficulty after another, Klein’s spiritual intuition finally told him that he was about to arrive at his destination.

And he had also encountered the first living people during this “journey” through the Forsaken Land of the Gods.

“Where do you come from?” Adal maintained his guard and pressed the question again.

Klein’s gaze swept across their faces. His tone did not change.

“I come from the City of Silver.

“And from outside the cursed land.”

Hearing that answer, every member of the hunting team fell into a daze, wondering whether they had yearned for it too much and had therefore begun hallucinating.

…

Autumn of the year 1351, Backlund amid the smoke and flames of war.

Ever since Feynapotter declared war on Loen as well, the war that had been deadlocked for some time finally lost its balance. Loen and its allies—Lenburg, Masin, and Segar—had lost a great deal of territory, with only the final defensive lines still putting up bitter resistance, tottering on the brink.

After seeing the long line outside a food distribution point through the carriage window, Audrey slowly withdrew her gaze and said to her personal maid, Annie, “Go to Saint Samuel Cathedral…”