Chapter 184 Moonlight in the Attic and Attribute Feats

It wasn't the sound of footsteps.

Nor was it likely to be any language he had ever heard.

The noise echoing from the end of the street sounded more like hard objects grinding together, or the rhythmic taps and scrapes of carving.

Xia Nan stood in place, carefully listening to the nuances.

He had to admit, in a desolate, dead environment like this where not even a bird's chirp or a dog's bark could be heard, such a sudden noise was enough to make his hair stand on end.

On the other hand, as an adventurer who had experienced several missions, Xia Nan knew very well that in an unfamiliar environment, it was best not to be too curious about strange noises from unknown sources.

Leaving the squad alone to track down a sound's source was absolutely forbidden.

But this was a special situation. Along the way, Xia Nan had found no other useful clues to help him escape besides this noise.

Even his intended destination, the Adventurers' Association—which he had just finished searching—had turned up empty.

The only thing giving him some confidence was that his mobility had recovered, his combat techniques like [Gravity Control] were functioning normally, and he could freely summon his Attribute Panel.

If it were an ordinary person, even ignoring that terrifying Elf with the bizarre strength from earlier, being suddenly teleported to a place like this would have left them in a frantic panic, if not caused them to break down completely.

They would never be able to calmly analyze their situation and search for a way out like he was doing.

A thoughtful gleam flashed in his eyes.

Xia Nan tightened his grip on his sword hilt. He looked toward the end of the street where the sound originated and made his decision.

Maintaining his vigilance, his body stayed tense as he stepped forward.

Rivervale Town was not a large settlement; its total area couldn't even match a single district in Nym.

The area housing the Adventurers' Association sat close to the town's core.

Even so, moving from the Association to the central plaza took Xia Nan tens of minutes, his focus sharp and his guard raised the entire way.

"Clack—tap—"

The strange noises in the air grew clearer.

His dark eyes followed the direction of the sound.

What entered his sight was a dark brown wooden ladder.

There was nothing special about its appearance; in fact, it looked rather crude.

It had no carvings or decorations, built simply from sturdy wooden poles. Looking closely, one could even see the wood grain and the tiny, un-sanded splinters on its surface.

One could easily find a similar ladder in any ordinary household along the street, and it might even look more refined.

But the bizarre thing was that this ladder currently stood abruptly in the air, completely unsupported from any side.

Even its base, which should have been resting on the ground, hovered a few centimeters above the stone bricks of the plaza.

Xia Nan could clearly hear that the clacking and tapping of hard objects was coming from the empty air directly above the ladder.

He furrowed his brows, feeling increasingly uneasy about the strangeness of it all.

Standing right in the center of the plaza, this abrupt and highly conspicuous ladder was like a massive, unlabeled red button sitting on a desk, complete with a sticky note bearing an arrow and the words "Do Not Touch."

Even knowing it was wrong, one couldn't help but stare at it as an inexplicable urge welled up inside.

He stepped lightly forward.

Then he suddenly stopped and took three abrupt steps backward.

Xia Nan exhaled a long breath, almost forcefully tearing his gaze away to look at the buildings around the edges of the plaza.

To be safe, there was no rush. He would treat it as a backup option. It wouldn't be too late to return here after he finished exploring the rest of the town and still found nothing useful.

With that thought in mind, he walked past the ladder and headed toward the other side of the plaza.

An hour passed, maybe two.

He had no idea how much time had actually slipped away.

When Xia Nan returned to the central plaza, that dark brown ladder was still standing quietly in exactly the same spot.

He casually flipped through a thin book he had taken from a bookstore shelf.

Its yellowish-brown cover looked perfectly real, and he could feel the rough texture as his fingertips brushed against it.

Yet the title on the cover was blurry and indistinct, like ink bleeding out in water.

The pages inside were even worse, reduced to abstract, illusory black shadows where not a single word could be read.

Tossing it aside, a look of understanding settled on Xia Nan's face.

This entire circuit around the town confirmed his previous judgment: he was not in the real Rivervale Town, nor was this a perfect replica of reality.

Instead, it was a special Secret Realm constructed primarily from his subjective memories.

Any place in the town he had personally visited was rendered perfectly—down to the texture of every stone brick—even if his memory of it was a bit fuzzy.

But the unknown areas he hadn't explored were left as nothing more than a void of pitch black.

In theory, Xia Nan could even follow the route he had taken before, walking all the way back to Kalanfor, or even Nym.

However, the situation there would likely be no different from Rivervale Town.

Right now, to escape this illusory world, he seemed to have only one choice left.

His deep, dark eyes locked onto the solitary ladder suspended in the air ahead.

If everything in this world originated from his memory... Xia Nan certainly couldn't remember there ever being a ladder like this in the middle of the plaza.

Without hesitation, he walked straight up to it.

He gripped the [Azure Pine] wooden sword in his right hand, ready to exert force at a moment's notice, while his left hand gently grasped a rung on the ladder.

His core tightened, prepared to leap away from the ladder at any second.

Bending his right knee, he raised his thigh and planted the sole of his leather boot firmly onto the rung.

The muscles in his calf flexed, ready to pull his entire body upward.

But the very instant his left toe—the supporting leg carrying his body's weight—left the ground...

The exact same phenomenon that had brought him from the Nym Slums to this Secret Realm occurred once more.

There was zero warning.

The expansive plaza around him vanished in a flash.

Taking its place were multi-layered silk curtains, pulled tight to block out every shred of outside light, and marble walls lined with cold, dim lamps on either side.

It was a small room.

The hands of the clock on the wall were completely still.

Fine stone dust was scattered across the dark teak floor like the first snow. An unfinished plaster statue stood nearby, its exact shape indiscernible, though in the gloom, he could vaguely make out its humanoid limbs.

Triangular files, a round-edged adze, and steel carving knives—highly specialized tools—lay messily pressed against rolls of paint-stained sandpaper. A small tin bucket rested beside them, a paintbrush leaning diagonally inside it.

'A sculptor's studio.'

This was Xia Nan's first impression upon arriving in this room from the Rivervale Town illusion.

He instinctively wanted to step off the ladder and conduct a thorough search.

But the moment the thought arose, before the signal could even travel through his nerves to drive his muscles...

Xia Nan suddenly realized that he had, once again, seemingly lost control over his own body.

It was exactly like when he had faced the blonde Elf earlier.

"Clack, tap, clack..."

The sound of hard objects striking against each other echoed from above once more, as if urging him on.

And his body, trapped by some invisible restraint, seemed to act on instinct as it continued climbing the ladder.

One step, two steps, three steps...

His footsteps against the rungs were like the ticking hands of a clock.

Time inside the room began to flow.

The tightly shut, multi-layered curtains filtered through flickering, shifting glimmers of light.

More and more stone dust gathered on the teak floor, gradually blanketing the entire room like accumulating snow.

On the wooden table, the various carving tools swayed back and forth. With every slight arc they moved, the signs of wear on them deepened.

Scarlet paint was smeared and sketched across the sandpaper, which was then crumpled up, sheet by sheet, and tossed under the table.

The cold lamps flickered violently. Veiled in mottled shadows, the statue transformed silently, its blurry outline turning distinct. Textures representing hair began to grow across it, and while its narrow head had no discernible face, two branch-like protrusions on top sprouted and elongated.

When Xia Nan took his final step upward, everything fell silent.

The finished statue, surrounded by the pale stone dust covering the floor and the bizarrely colored scarlet paint, was draped in a thick white cloth.

Simultaneously, Xia Nan finally reached the top of the ladder and planted his feet on solid ground.

What appeared in his line of sight was a cramped, dimly lit attic.

There were no flames or lamps to light the way; everything before him was cloaked in shadows, hazy and unclear.

The only clear thing was the scraping sound coming from right behind him, only inches away.

He turned around.

Soft moonlight slanted in through the attic's lone small window. Dark green sawdust drifted down gently and slowly, looking as though it would melt into the moonlight.

Blue veins bulged on the back of a pale hand as it exerted force. A thumb pressed firmly against the spine of a carving knife, driving it steadily forward to leave a smooth, natural line on the surface of a wooden carving.

The sliver of moonlight was tiny, just barely enough to illuminate the gradually forming wood carving and the hands working on it.

Like a natural spotlight, it drew Xia Nan's gaze, instinctively focusing his attention on it.

'It's the [Sheep-Deer Figurine].'

Even though it was still unfinished, the strange appearance of a human body with a sheep's head and deer antlers—along with that rustic, natural, remarkably harmonious, and rich otherworldly style—allowed Xia Nan to recognize it at first glance.

'So, all those statues in Nym City... were they all carved by him?' Xia Nan guessed internally, recalling the workshop that had shifted through time as he climbed the ladder.

His eyes subconsciously followed the pale, slender hands up into the moonlight.

To the forearms, the shoulders, the neck... and finally, the cheeks.

The attic was already dark, and because the figure sat with their side and back to him, he could only make out a few blurry, indistinct silhouettes.

Xia Nan strained his eyes, trying hard to clearly see the person's appearance beneath the shroud of shadows.

But the next second, as if sensing his gaze...

The pitch-black figure suddenly turned its head!

Buzz—his mind went blank in an instant, and his consciousness, which had already grown fuzzy during the climb, was immediately scattered.

A ringing sound echoed endlessly inside his skull, and his tangled thoughts were unraveled and thrown straight into the void.

Xia Nan didn't even get a clear look at the figure's face. The moment the dark shadow turned its head, all of his perception was warped and mutated amid countless bizarre and fantastical visions, dissolving into indescribable nothingness.

His perspective magnified infinitely, piercing through the moonlight and sawdust, plunging into the deepest folds of the wooden wall's finest crevices.

Mold spots grew backward in the attic's shadows, twisting into whirlpool-like tree rings that battered and devoured his mind.

Sinking, sinking.

Absurd, illusory fragments of imagery were swept up and wrapped within those rings, dragged out from the deepest recesses of his memory.

A profound shadow gliding through the depths of a pool, a grasshopper twitching its long antennae, the soft calls of a hazy dream...

Xia Nan felt his soul and consciousness being carried away by these long-forgotten, eerie memory fragments, pushed like a rising tide toward some unknown destination.

He had no idea what he was facing, nor was he even aware of his current situation anymore.

Under the invisible, colossal impact, his thoroughly shattered mind made it impossible for him to focus or think.

In this state, all that remained was a living creature's instinct for survival.

He was like a small boat lost in a storm, tossing up and down in the violent waves. Though it seemed the sea would swallow him the very next second, he stubbornly stayed afloat.

He guarded the tiny spark in the deepest part of his soul, the spark that symbolized his "true self."

It might have been a hundred years, or perhaps not even half a second.

His perception of time and space had completely dissipated within his fractured consciousness.

He hadn't fainted, but he couldn't be considered awake either.

Xia Nan merely stood silently in place, enduring the battering of the tide wave after wave, just like a reef on the shore.

He didn't know how much time had passed.

When those fragmented images swept up by the rings sank back into the depths of his memory...

When the relentless ocean waves washing over his consciousness slowly receded...

Everything returned once more to nothingness.

In the profound, lightless dark, only that single, most fragile yet tenacious spark remained, flickering silently.

Whoosh—

What awakened Xia Nan was a sudden gust of cold wind.

Like converging specks of starlight, his shattered consciousness stitched itself back together, coalescing into something even stronger.

The mind that had guarded his soul through the boundless storm had also grown intangibly firmer.

His chest heaved. As he breathed, the air filling his nose smelled faintly foul but exceptionally real.

His skin felt the piercing chill of the night draft, and the howling of the evening breeze from some unknown distance echoed in his ears.

His senses gradually returned.

Xia Nan slowly opened his eyes, a look of bewilderment on his face.

It felt as if he had just woken from a dream.

What entered his vision was not the cramped attic shrouded in shadow, nor the Rivervale Town that oozed illusion from every corner.

Instead, it was the crowded, dilapidated old houses of the Slums. It was the desolate, abandoned clearing scarred by battle. And it was the thick, smooth, pale bear bones lying discarded across that clearing.

Translucent text danced and flashed across his vision.

"Charisma +1"

"Perception +3"

"Feat [Gaze into the Abyss] unlocked."

"..."

Xia Nan stared into the darkness before him.

His face showed neither sorrow nor joy; no emotional fluctuations could be seen.

He just stood there.

After a long time, he finally let out another deep breath.

He slowly raised his head.

His gaze moved past the beast bones on the ground, past the dilapidated houses in front of him, and past the blurred silhouettes of the distant buildings.

Upward.

It rested at the very center of the heavens, upon that flawless, perfect silver moon radiating a soft, clear, and tranquil glow.