Chapter 1951: Already Too Late
Chapter 1951: Already Too Late
As soon as they arrived, the cold wind rolled across the desolate plain with a voice like a grinding stone.
It dominated the desolate plain—a keening whistle that filled the ears and emptied the mind. The West Cavity stretched out before them in a monotony of grey flat earth. And the silence beneath the wind felt less like a peace and more like danger unseen.
Davina’s breath came in shallow pants.
She could feel and taste the blood in the air, which was not what she had wanted to be greeted with the moment she set foot on the West Cavity. Not the fresh, coppery tang of a wound still weeping, but something drier.
A scent that had lingered long enough to become part of the atmosphere.
"I... I don’t like this," She muttered silently, and then she caught something a mile ahead.
Pillars. More than ten of them; rising from the flat stone in gentle, curving arcs. From how their gleams moved, it seemed these pillars were made of glass or at least something close to it. And this light was not an external product, but an internal luminescence.
Each pillar reached perhaps ten feet high, and their surfaces were smooth as frozen water.
And from the curve of each pillar, suspended by a thread of the same crystalline material, hung a rock.
A dull, utterly normal and somewhat out-of-place rock against the strange beauty of the structures that held them.
Davina’s eyes narrowed. She turned toward Rex to say something but stopped when she saw his features had gone grim. The shift was subtle but evident; a tightening around the jaw and the clear darkening of his gaze.
Something had closed behind his eyes.
After what she witnessed earlier, her guard rose instinctively.
She was wary of which side of Rex might be taking over right now.
She hadn’t known him for that long, and it showed.
Even now, as his crimson eyes stared ahead, she had no idea what he was thinking.
Rex clicked his tongue in displeasure and turned around out of nowhere. He didn’t utter a single word and dashed away—leaving Davina behind without an explanation as his figure shrank against the dark-steel grey waste as if the pillars had told him everything he needed to know, and the rest was for Davina to discover.
"Did he realize something?" Davina’s glowing eyes watched him go further away. "Why didn’t he say anything? It’s not like I can read his mind. Oh, wait... I mean I probably can, but that’s if he allows me to."
Based on where he was going, he should be heading back to the center of the Cavity.
She didn’t know what Rex had realized, but it should be tied to these pillars.
For a second, she hesitated; the wind whistled through the glass arcs, creating a low, mournful note as if it was beckoning for Davina to come. Considering that Rex hadn’t warned him about these pillars, it should be fine to check.
Frankly, she was curious as to what was happening.
Davina stepped forward, deciding to approach the pillars that were neatly placed in a straight horizontal line.
She arrived at the nearest pillar and watched its surface ripple with that strange, internal light. Slowly, she reached for the dangling rock, expecting something to happen. As this rock contained energy, there was no wrong in being cautious.
Of course, she trusted Rex.
And she knew that he could see what most couldn’t.
If he knew that these rocks were dangerous, or perhaps a trap, then he would surely tell her about it—as opposed to leaving without a word. But still, she had to be sure. As soon as her fingers brushed the rock, feather-light, she pulled back quickly as it fell.
It struck the ground with a dry, heavy sound, and the scent of iron bloomed immediately.
Sharper now.
Davina frowned and knelt; she poked the rock several times, expecting more reaction, but she found it absolutely did nothing. Just like a regular rock, it only wobbled. But then she got this inclination to use her life energy to poke it.
And she did.
She channeled life energy into her fingertip and touched the rock’s surface.
Like scorched dry branches that were touched lightly, the outer layer crumbled instantly. Beneath it, she caught a gemstone that shimmered with a lustrous bright green. An emerald. Faceted, polished—and at its center there was a starburst of crimson that seemed to pulse with a faint, residual warmth.
Despite the beautiful gem, Davina’s brows furrowed as this was the source of the iron scent.
It came from the stone; from the crimson hue to be exact.
Confused as to what it was, she moved to the next pillar and did the same thing with the rock. Another emerald was trapped within, and it also had the crimson stain at the center. The third pillar. The fourth. Each one yielded the same gemstones, though the red at their centers varied.
Some had a faint blush, while others had vivid scarlet that seemed almost liquid.
But each one has the same scent.
Davina was about to reach the fifth and stopped.
Her hand hung in the air, contemplating what could possibly make Rex’s face turn grim at the sight of these pillars, and then she slowly stepped back. She looked over the pillars again, the emeralds she got— and then the stench of iron.
It was only then that her breath turned cold.
Rex and Davina came straight to the West Cavity in order to search—for the enforcers that had already been stationed here. Vadyn said that the enforcers would help them sweep the Cavity in search for any potential threat.
And since Rex left without saying a word, it can only mean one thing.
"These... These are the enforcers?" Davina muttered in silent shock.
Now she realized that these pillars were not naturally formed. Not mere decorations. Each part of the pillars—the crystalline threads, the rocks, and the emeralds was arranged with such deliberate precision because someone had done this.
Someone wanted to display this to whoever walked this path.
A killing design left behind for someone to find.
And the emeralds; they weren’t emeralds but what remained of the enforcers that were sent here.
Davina sucked in a cold breath and stared at the pillars again. She gritted her teeth and swiped her hand horizontally, cutting the rocks with her life energy, and more emeralds dropped. But there was one gem that caught her eye.
It wasn’t an emerald, as it was red.
She approached it and realized that it was a ruby.
"What’s the meaning of this...?" She wandered aloud as she picked up the ruby and inspected it.
On the other hand, Rex was returning to the central part of the Cavity, hoping to find a town like the one he first arrived in the God Realm in order to find people in charge. He wanted to check whether the damage was already done or not.
He completely forgot that he came with Davina.
Considering how dire the situation was, he couldn’t afford to split his focus.
If he failed in doing this assignment, then he wouldn’t get the Permit he needed—as well as the location of the Cluster Custodian. High Lord Rashal only promised the Permit, but he was hoping to use the big success of this assignment to also ask to meet a Cluster Custodian.
Because of that, he really needed this to go well, or else he’d lose this big chance.
Gaining another opportunity to reach Kaiser quickly like this would be even more difficult later.
Especially since he didn’t know how High Lord Rashal would react if the Cavity was attacked.
For Rex, this opportunity was the best he could ever ask for, and he would do whatever needs to be done to make sure that it would be fulfilled. His eyes swept the periphery in a blur as he ran with speed that was as fast as lightning.
Scanning for anything on the horizon.
Did the Demigod that they intercepted fail to deliver the message? Is that even possible?
Vadyn thought that he was being paranoid as she trusted her enforcers to do a task as easily as stopping a mere Demigod from delivering a message. Everything was handled perfectly—but the pillars Rex saw earlier made it clear that things aren’t as perfect as she thought.
And those pillars made him seriously doubt that the enforcers succeeded.
That the message was intercepted.
He doesn’t believe that nothing had happened.
Soon, Rex neared a big town and immediately saw soldiers moving in a rush. He wasted no time and caught one of them, gripping the soldier by his pauldron and stopping him mid-track. "What’s going on? Where are they going?"
Angered, the soldier wanted to curse, but the words were stuck in his throat.
He caught sight of his pauldron, which was divine-rank equipment, was crushed by Rex’s grip.
Just that alone told him that Rex was not someone he should mess with.
That he should answer the question.
"A soldier from a Pale Defender came to inform that they have a situation."
"What situation?"
"I don’t know exactly, but it sounded really bad. And it has something to do with the Pale Defender."
Rex nodded his head—and immediately followed the flow of the crowd. He followed them through the meadows and eventually stumbled upon a citadel made of black stone. All soldiers that were guarding this citadel were a legion of skeletons covered in brass-plated armor.
He scanned the citadel with the System, and found the Pale Defender on the top floor.
And this Pale Defender was dead.
Ignoring the shouts that were telling him to stop—Rex leaped onto the top floor, breaking through the wall like it was nothing. He landed in a chamber and immediately swept his gaze around. Sitting behind a table was the Pale Defender.
An individual draped in the same brass armor, but his eyes were wrong; replaced by two red gems.
Rex approached the Pale Defender to inspect his corpse.
But as soon as he touched the red gems, their red color rapidly glowed with brilliant light.
An individual draped in the same brass armor as the others, but his eyes were wrong. Instead of eyeballs, two red gems were embedded in his eye sockets. Rex approached the fallen Pale Defender and leaned in to inspect the corpse.
His fingers brushed one of the gems, and a brilliant light erupted from within.
It was a crimson glow that flared to life with rapid, hungry intensity.
Rex’s instincts screamed at the sight.
He burst through the hole in the wall that he made and saw that there were a few soldiers that were trying to climb the citadel to get to him. "Get back!" He roared loudly, drawing the attention of every single soldier in the area. "Get away now!"
Blitz—!
Instinctively, he used the Black Field Orko spell, turning the ground in the area black.
He used the lightning tentacles to wrap around the soldiers and flung them away to safety.
And in the next instant, the world broke.
CRASH—!
A thunderclap detonated behind him, so loud it became a physical force. The citadel imploded—not collapsed, but burst outward from within. A massive cluster of red crystals punched through stone and steel, shattering walls, floors, and ceilings in a single, violent bloom.
Debris flew in every direction, a hailstorm of broken masonry and twisted metal.
The red crystals kept growing, piercing through the citadel at impossible angles; their surfaces gleamed like fresh blood in the pale light.
Rex landed hard, skidding across the ground, and spun to face the ruin.
His frown carved deep lines into his face.
Before his mind could wrap around what he was seeing, another thunderclap rolled across the distance. Then a third. A fifth. A tenth. The sound kept coming, a rolling, percussive rhythm of destruction that echoed from every direction. His head turned, and his jaw tightened.
Citadels in the distance were experiencing the same thing.
Each one erupted with the same invasive red crystals. Each one crumbled from the inside out.
He could do nothing as the Cavity was ransacked.