Chapter 299: The Road of Darkness

The group pressed on.

With Phanetium reinforcing the Light Mirror, everything had changed.

The sanctuary moved with them now, its boundary following their path while the hammer pushed the Miasma back from the ground around them.

It wasn’t enough to cleanse the whole region, but it gave them something they hadn’t had since entering it.

Room to breathe.

Luna rode at the front on Melo’s back, holding the compass carefully in both hands. The needle pointed straight ahead.

"Still that direction?" Arthur asked.

Luna glanced down. "Still."

"Has it changed at all?"

"No."

Arthur looked ahead. "That’s convenient."

"Don’t say that," Sun said, walking beside him.

Arthur glanced at him. "Why?"

"Every time you call something convenient, something terrible happens."

Arthur thought about it. "...That’s actually true."

Sun sighed. "Exactly."

Mithra laughed from behind them. "At least you’re learning."

"I’m learning plenty."

"Like not touching dangerous artifacts?"

Arthur looked away, and Mithra narrowed her eyes. "Arthur."

"I learned that sometimes touching dangerous artifacts is necessary."

Sun groaned. "That’s not what she said."

Vedas laughed, and Arthur glanced at him. "Don’t encourage them."

"I’m not."

"You are."

"I didn’t say anything."

"Your face did."

Vedas laughed again.

The road beneath them began to change, so slowly that it was barely noticeable at first. The ground grew flatter, and small stones appeared in deliberate lines that soon became slabs.

"Wait," Athena said, and everyone slowed as she crouched and brushed away the dirt. A stone road lay hidden underneath.

Arthur looked down at it. "This was built."

"Definitely," Athena said.

Luna checked the compass. The needle pointed straight down the road. "So we’re going the right way."

Arthur stepped onto the stone, and it groaned under his weight, but nothing happened. He looked back. "Seems safe."

"Don’t," Sun said immediately.

Arthur laughed. "I’m just walking."

"That’s how it always starts."

The road stretched deeper into the Darkness Region, and the structures along it grew older the farther they went. First came broken pillars, then walls, then enormous stone arches covered in symbols none of them recognized. Some had fallen so long ago that trees had grown right through them, while others were still standing despite the cracks running across them.

Athena stopped several times to study the carvings. "This architecture is different."

"From the ruins?" Mithra asked.

Athena nodded. "Much older."

Arthur looked up at the massive arch ahead. "How much older?"

"I don’t know." Athena touched one of the carvings. "But whoever built this understood the region completely differently."

Sun looked around. "So this place was here before the civilization we know about?"

"Possibly."

Arthur’s eyes brightened. "Then we’re getting closer."

Athena looked at him. "To what?"

Arthur smiled. "The answer."

Sun sighed. "Of course."

Eventually, the road passed beneath a gigantic stone gate, and on the other side was what looked like another sanctuary. The Miasma was thinner there, and the ground was strangely clear. Ancient structures stood in a ring around the road, almost as if they had been built to protect anyone traveling through.

Luna checked the compass, and the needle held steady. "The road leads through here."

Arthur looked around. "So this was another safe zone."

"Maybe," Athena said.

"But why would anyone need a road through the Darkness Region?" Arthur asked.

No one had an answer, and the question followed them as they kept walking.

The farther they went, the stranger the structures became. Statues began to appear, huge figures carved from black stone standing along both sides of the road. Some held weapons and some held mirrors, and some had their faces completely erased.

Mithra looked up at one. "These are enormous."

Kong climbed onto Sun’s head for a better view, and Sun sighed. "Why do you always use me as a platform?"

Kong ignored him.

Arthur laughed. "He likes the view."

Sun looked up at the monkey. "At least buy me dinner first."

Kong squeaked. Mithra laughed, and even Athena smiled.

Then Arthur stopped, and everyone noticed.

"What?" Vedas asked.

Arthur was looking at the road. The stone beneath their feet had changed. It wasn’t gray anymore, and it wasn’t stained. It was black, completely black, as if it had been carved from something that swallowed the light around it.

Luna’s expression changed. "The compass..."

The needle was trembling.

Arthur looked at her. "What happened?"

Luna tightened her grip. "It’s reacting."

The needle spun wildly, then snapped back to point straight ahead, and Luna’s face went pale. "It’s stronger."

Arthur looked around. The Miasma was thickening. The purple mist wasn’t drifting lazily through the trees anymore. It crawled along the ground, wrapped around the ancient statues, and filled every gap between the trees, until even the expanded Light Mirror began to flicker.

Sun reached for his weapon. "That’s not good."

"No," Luna said quietly. "It’s not."

Phanetium began to glow. Golden-white light burst from the hammer, and the Miasma recoiled violently.

Arthur looked down at it. "It’s reacting to something."

Vedas was staring straight ahead. "Something’s there."

A massive silhouette loomed through the purple fog. At first, Arthur thought it was another ruin. Then they got closer, and closer.

The structure rose far above the forest, its walls completely black. No trees grew near it, and the Miasma never touched it. Instead, the purple fog swirled around it in enormous currents.

Luna slowly lowered her compass, her eyes wide. "I know that symbol."

Arthur looked at the entrance. A symbol had been carved into it, a circular design made of five interconnected lines with a mirror at its center.

"The Darkness Mirror," Luna said quietly.

Everyone froze.

Sun stared at the structure. "That’s the Mirror?"

Luna nodded. "I’ve never seen it with my own eyes before."

Arthur stepped forward, and the closer he got, the brighter Phanetium grew. Its golden light pulsed, and the Darkness around the structure seemed to react to it.

Arthur narrowed his eyes. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it.

The Miasma was moving. Not randomly. It was flowing.

He activated Reality Sight, and the world changed. The purple fog became lines. Thousands of them. Millions.

Arthur stared.

The Miasma wasn’t coming out of the structure, and it wasn’t leaking from the Darkness Mirror.

It was being pulled toward it.

Every stream of Miasma in the region was slowly drifting in the same direction, gathering and building around the black structure as if something inside was calling it.

Vedas noticed his expression. "Arthur?"

Arthur didn’t answer right away. He kept watching the Miasma pour inward.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet.

"The Mirror isn’t trapped inside the Miasma." He stared at the black structure. "The Miasma is gathering around it."