Endless Debt

After leaving the Black Prison, Bologue wandered aimlessly through the streets, indifferent to the surrounding clamor, as his gaze fell upon nothing but unfamiliar sights.

Sixty years were enough to change so many things, not only Bologue himself but also the land he once fought for.

The scorched earth was gone, replaced by the steel jungle of Oubos, where everything Bologue once knew had disappeared with the city's expansion. He trudged forward in confusion until he reached the edge of the Great Rift, gazing into the deep darkness below.

Bologue had pondered more than once about the true origins of the Great Rift.

Perhaps it was forged by some kind of weapon, but Bologue knew that humanity's current arsenal couldn't possibly create such terrifying changes in terrain. Later, as a Condenser, he learned of the secrets of this Extraordinary World, and a different possibility came to mind.

In the Fall of the Holy City, it wasn't just ordinary soldiers like him fighting, but also those exalted beings bearing Glory. If it was a war between Seekers of Glory, then twisting the land into this shape wasn't out of the question.

And then...

A beam of light.

A dazzling light pierces the sky and earth.

From the Pillar of Royal Authority in the Kagader Empire, to the end of the Rhine River, starting at the Free Port and ending at the Wind Source Highlands, no matter where one stood, lifting their head would reveal that light splitting the heavens and earth.

Light, Great Rift, ash, King Solomon's death, Fall of the Holy City...

Bologue faintly felt he'd captured something, those clues dispersing in the wind. As he randomly reached out, he was about to grasp them all, piecing together a forgotten truth.

"Ashes? Why is there ash here?" Aimou asked at that moment.

The ash here was alarmingly abundant, nearly filling every corner and completely burying the black rock. Looking ahead, the hazy gray continuously stretched into the darkness, as if the bottom of the Great Rift was entirely covered in ash.

Carrying Aimou on his back, Bologue stood straight, discarding his wilderness survival mindset. Vigilant, his gaze was stern.

"Ash... the product of material combustion," Bologue murmured to himself, "What exactly is burning to create such a large amount of ash?"

With a flick of his folding knife, he scattered some ash into the air, where it fragmented into countless fine particles and lightly fell.

Bologue took a step forward, stepping completely into the world of ash, where it piled high, concealing all the rock. Meanwhile, the surrounding temperature continued to rise, unable to be pierced even by winter's chill.

"Stay sharp, Aimou. This place is not as simple as we thought," Bologue whispered to Aimou.

To everyone living in Oubos, the Great Rift was a nearby enigma, perhaps too close for people to avoid discussing it daily as they lived within it.

Qiushang Town, Wandering Crossroads, Mine...

Too close, so close that the mystery and folklore of the Great Rift became idle chatter during tea and meals, its mystique and reverence faded to merely a topic for entertainment.

But this change only affected people's attitudes toward the Great Rift, not its essence. No matter how people viewed it, it remained here silently, embracing everything thrown into it.

The Great Rift was the most mysterious and uncanny presence in Oubos, far surpassing all other mysteries.

Whether it was the current disputes or secret wars, everything traced back to the Fall of the Holy City sixty-six years ago. The Great Rift appeared after that fall, and after that light.

Bologue was convinced there was a direct connection between them, and this connection, the deliberately hidden secret, might be buried in this deep darkness, at the end of these endless ashes.

Stopping his steps, the ash beneath Bologue's feet was quite soft, as if just recently accumulated. He bent down, vigorously clearing away the ash, soon encountering a slightly harder layer.

Who knows how long these existed, with the ash consolidating into a layer of gray-white ash, like dry, decayed tree bark, which crumbled under the blow of the folding knife.

After breaking, there was another layer, and then layer upon layer.

"Have you found anything?" Aimou inquired.

Bologue gazed at the pit he had dug out and the layers of fractured ashes, pondering for a moment before he spoke.

"The outer layer of ash is quite loose, but further down it solidifies. It seems it formed from prolonged compression."

Bologue picked up the folding knife, and the glow of the Alchemy Matrix faintly lit up.

In the Ether vacuum, the Ether within himself was extremely precious, used sparingly, but in pursuit of the truth, Bologue summoned the swarm of serpents onto the folding knife, then stabbed downward into the ash layers.

The folding knife penetrated completely into the ash layers, and the serpents continued their descent, burrowing through layer upon layer. After several meters, the hardened obstruction disappeared, the serpents' movements quickened, seemingly breaking through the solid mass, then reaching the limits of Secret Energy release.

Bologue was preparing to recall the serpents, but just then, a mutation occurred.

Through the swarm of snakes, Bologue could sense the faint unrest coming from below, as if something else were swiftly moving through the ashes, approaching the snakes. Suddenly, in Bologue's perception, a snake disappeared, along with the etheric reaction Bologue had left on it, as if swallowed by some monstrous predator.

Before Bologue could react or make a judgment, a wave of intense madness crashed through the thick layer of ashes, striking at Bologue's mind.

In an instant, Bologue's vision was plunged into darkness, and in a moment he heard it.

A cacophony of voices, raspy cries, wails... a deluge of sound battered his eardrums, leaving bloodied traces upon them.

Then came the unbelievably insane and bizarre hallucinations, flashing and cycling before his eyes like a cursed kaleidoscope, reflecting the sinister into shattered fragments.

Pillars of jagged spines intertwined, webs of scarlet flesh spreading, a massive heart exposed and beating forcefully, pumping tidal waves of blood outward, while at the end of the darkness, gaping mouths of crimson opened like hungry fledglings, emitting shrill wails.

Intense pain erupted in Bologue's mind, and he lost control of his body, staggering backwards as if drained of all bones.

"Damn it..."

Bologue gritted his teeth, resisting fiercely, with his steadfast will maintaining a sliver of clarity amidst the madness.

He could distinctly perceive that the snakes were dying one after another, devoured by an even more terrifying predator. Bologue used the last bit of his strength to call back the remaining snake and then collapsed heavily.

The malevolent force attempted to continue its intrusion into Bologue, but with the snake's return, the connection between them was severed, and the force could only roar angrily, grudgingly locked back into darkness, granting Bologue a brief respite.

Bologue crawled up from the ground, gasping for breath, and only after a while did he recover. The silver-scaled snake crawled on his arm, silent, its azure eyes filled with gravity, as if it had discovered some astonishing secret.

Buried beneath the ashes here.

"What's wrong?"

Aimou couldn't comprehend Bologue's feelings, but she also noticed the unusualness in Bologue's actions.

Bologue took deep breaths repeatedly, not mentioning the madness he felt. His connection with the Devil was deeply rooted, causing him to perceive inexplicable things at peculiar times.

Bologue had begun to grow accustomed to his heart racing sporadically, maintaining his composure, he murmured.

"It's not right below..."

As the snakes penetrated through the hard ash layers, their movement quickened, Bologue originally thought the ground below consisted of soft soil, but recalling the terrain of hard rocks, Bologue felt that rather than soil, it was more like... ashes.

Ashes not yet compressed and solidified into ash layers.

This doesn't make sense. The internal parts should be compressed into hard ash layers, so why is the interior soft while the exterior is hard?

Bologue said this as he touched the snake on his arm, his fingertips feeling a sharp burning sensation, and he immediately withdrew his hand from the heat.

The little snake slowly lifted its head, and after a few seconds of pause, Bologue reached out again, feeling a significantly lower temperature, now warm.

"What the hell is this place,"

Bologue realized what was going on and couldn't help but curse out loud.

"What happened?"

Aimou's voice was somewhat anxious. She had been asking since earlier, but Bologue hadn't responded to her, focusing only on his own assessments.

"The outer ash layers here are hard, but the internal ashes are extremely soft. This is unreasonable, but when I retrieved the snakes, I found they carried high temperatures with them, which means..."

Bologue said to Aimou.

"It means that something is burning beneath these ash layers, continuously emitting high temperatures, driving away the cold, and transforming into ashes as well, filling the interior, while being compressed to the outermost layers to form the current ash layers." Aimou continued for Bologue.

"That's right," Bologue swallowed, "I wasn't able to explore that thing. The limit range of my secret energy is ten meters."

Bologue's gaze fell on the ashen earth beneath his feet, where the burning thing was located. Its exact depth unknown, core temperature uncertain; then Bologue slowly lifted his gaze, looking into the depths of this rift.

"Something is burning below this Great Rift. I don't know how vast it is or how long it has been burning..."

Bologue's words were like a curse, with chaotic hallucinations flashing repeatedly before him.

Scarlet, bizarre, frenzied, forever hungry, never satisfied...