Kuon rubbed his eyes and looked again.
The darkness was gone.
No…
not gone.
It was as though it had never existed in the first place.
Had he hallucinated the whole thing?
Had he merely been daydreaming?
Kuon let out a weary sigh.
“Maybe I should get some sleep…” This time, the interior of the iron fortress was clearly visible, though much of it remained shrouded in shadow, illuminated only by pale moonlight pouring through countless collapsed sections of the walls.
Kuon studied the silent structure from outside.
Eventually, curiosity…
or perhaps desire…
compelled him to step inside.
The insidious pressure that had weighed upon his mind had long since vanished which gave him a sense of relief.
Stepping through the entrance, the fortress looked much as he had expected.
Massive sections of iron walls lay scattered across the ground, while fragments of reinforced metallic stone littered the floor, each as weathered and cracked as the next.
The Great Hall itself was…absolutely colossal.
Its vast expanse resembled an open arena far more than a gathering hall.
From every side, grand staircases rose toward…
nothing.
The upper floors had long since collapsed, their shattered remains spilling across the hall in a tide of rubble.
Kuon’s contrasting eyes drifted across the ruined hall.
The fortress looked as though it had been torn straight from the pages of a horror webtoon, resembling one of those massive abandoned castles that haunted his imagination.
Yet even then, the fortress appeared far more imposing than all of them combined.
Frankly, it was exhilarating.
As Kuon looked deeper into the Great Hall, he suddenly came to a halt.
His gaze settled on a massive object standing on the opposite side of the hall.
Drawn by curiosity, he cautiously approached it.
‘What the hell…’ It was a gigantic circular cage enclosed by thick metal bars.
The bars were immaculate.
Not a single trace of rust marred their surface, unlike the reinforced metal that formed the iron fortress.
Yet what was even stranger was the fact that the cage was…
floating.
It hovered several meters above the ground, leaving an opening just large enough for a small figure to slip beneath it.
Kuon approached the cage with a look of bewildered awe.
As he peered through the bars, his gaze caught the countless runes etched into the steel.
His eyes widened.
‘Wait…
don’t tell me…’ Kuon gritted his teeth.
“An…
an artifact…” Indeed, the massive iron cage before him was an artifact.
Every steel bar was engraved with sacred runes written in an unfamiliar language.
Runes were enchantments created by Diviners and Ability Users who specialized in enchantment.
The practice itself was known as Runic Enchantment.
Runic Enchantments were divided into two categories: Organic and Inorganic.
Inorganic runes could only be activated by the person who had painstakingly carved them, as only the creator truly understood their intricate structure.
Organic runes, however, were vastly more sophisticated.
Unlike their inorganic counterparts, they were rarely ever completely dormant.
Any Ability User capable of channeling Ability Fuel through them could awaken their power.
Sacred artifacts were all powered by Organic Runic Enchantments, a discipline more commonly known as Runic Sorcery.
And the colossal cage standing before Kuon was one such sacred artifact.
Kuon stared at the imposing metal cage, his expression fixed in utter bewilderment.
From the handful of webtoons he had read, he understood what artifacts were and what they could do.
Never in his life had he imagined he would stand before a genuine one however.
Granted, even real dough was regarded as an artifact by the Ruined.
But this…
This was an actual artifact.
Not a cheap imitation.
Not a prop.
The real deal.
Even among the highest classes of citizenship such as the Sovereigns or even the Archbloods, this cage would be considered immensely valuable.
As Kuon stepped closer, admiring the runes etched into the pristine steel with fascinated curiosity, he suddenly froze.
His eyes narrowed.
Two of the bars bore bloody handprints, as though someone had once been imprisoned within the cage and desperately tried to claw their way out.
The blood had long since dried, yet the stains remained, forever preserving that final, desperate struggle for freedom.
Needless to say, it was deeply unsettling.
‘Poor fellow…’ Kuon let out a quiet sigh and peered deeper into the cage.
Strangely enough, there was no floor inside.
Instead, a bottomless pit yawned beneath it, swallowing all light as it plunged into darkness.
That must’ve been where the prisoner had been thrown…and where they had desperately tried to climb out.
‘…’ Gripping the bars tightly, Kuon leaned forward, straining to glimpse the pit’s depths.
What he saw however…made his stomach lurch.
His eyes widened in terror.
“God…” At the bottom of the lightless pit lay a half-rotted corpse.
Its flesh had long since decayed, leaving behind a grotesquely mangled skeleton with strips of rotten meat still clinging to its bones.
Thousands of ant-like insects crawled through the remains, devouring them from within.
Yet the skeleton itself was…
wrong.
It was nearly twice the size of a human’s.
And its skull…
Kuon couldn’t even tell what he was looking at.
Three empty eye sockets stared back at him.The third rested in the middle of its forehead, making it look similar to an Urban than a human.
Kuon tried to step back but found himself not wanting to anymore.
He just stared at the grotesque corpse shrouded in darkness, a myriad of questions assaulting his mind.
Was it an Urban?
But that makes no sense.
Why would the corpse of an Urban be laying here?
What was an Urban doing here in the first place?
And if so…
Just what kind of horror managed to kill it in such a brutal manner?
Was it still here?
His mind overflowed with a deep sense of dread.
The corpse…
It was so horrific.
It was so disgusting.
It was so abnormal.
And it was so…so…
‘So beautiful…’