Above them, the city in the Duskwight Lands continued to burn. But not a single root dared cross the invisible boundary surrounding the newly revealed entrance.
The staircase felt endless.
Step after step, the outside light vanished completely, devoured by the dark. There were no torches, no runes etched into the walls, no trace of any ancient lighting system.
Just a small sphere of light floating ahead of them. Conjured shyly by Lily with a flick of her wand.
It hovered about a meter off the ground, casting a soft glow that revealed walls carved with almost surgical precision. Not the work of a primitive tribe. Nor that of a mere Soulmancer.
This was... something else.
The deeper they went, the more Lily felt the world above slipping away.
The screams. The explosions. The rumble of the roots.
All of it dulled. Then vanished.
Not gradually.
Abruptly. As if someone had shut an invisible door between two separate realities.
Lily shivered.
"You felt that too...?"
Tim nodded slightly.
"We just crossed a boundary."
His voice sounded different down here. Sharper. More isolated.
Soon, even the air changed. And not long after, they finally reached the bottom of the stairs.
What unfolded before them stole the breath straight from Lily’s lungs.
An immense underground space stretched out ahead, structured like an ancient building buried beneath the continent. Slender columns. Walls engraved with cosmic motifs. A vaulted ceiling inlaid with translucent crystals radiating a pale glow, like a frozen sky trapped in stone.
The architecture carried a strange harmony—severe, yet elegant. Intellectual.
But beyond the mythic grandeur of the place, the first thing that truly seized their attention was the imposing monument standing at the entrance.
A statue.
It rose at the center of a circular vestibule, isolated as though the space itself had been designed around it. Chryselephantine. Or something close to it.
Pale ivory skin. Liquid gold drapery cascading in soft folds along a slender frame. And yet the materials felt neither fully organic nor entirely metallic—refined beyond anything known on the continent.
The statue depicted a young monk.
Ageless face. Balanced, delicate features. Its expression was... unsettling.
Both deeply scholarly and infinitely serene. Yet beneath that serenity lay something else.
Strength. Quiet bravery.
The certainty of a being who had never needed to raise his voice for the world to listen.
Even after tens of thousands of years, a presence lingered. An intangible yet inextinguishable will, exerting invisible—but undeniable—pressure on the two teenagers.
Standing before it felt like facing a massive celestial body compressed into human form.
Lily slowed without realizing it.
"It’s..."
She didn’t finish.
The Lumyst surrounding the statue was unreal in its purity.
Clear. Dense. Stable. More refined than the purest Lumyst water. This was a more fundamental energy. Something on an entirely different tier.
Tim didn’t step too close. Instinctively. He knew.
There was a distance to respect.
They remained several meters away.
And yet—
Simply by observing the statue, they felt their internal state react.
Their Lumyst cores vibrated. A gentle, steady accumulation. Not a violent influx—an alignment.
As if their very energy structure were being recalibrated, purified with every passing second beneath that unmoving gaze.
Lily inhaled slowly. She felt... lighter. Clearer-headed.
"It’s like he’s actually looking at us..." she murmured.
Tim inclined his head slightly.
"Klayr."
The name echoed through the silent chamber. The continent had formed upon his corpse, and during their wanderings the two teens had almost accidentally uncovered the truth of his origin.
And here...
This might have been where he had lived. Thought. Forged. Transcended.