Chapter 665: A Song Without a Singer

"That’s just great!"

At that moment, Two planted his paws firmly on the stone and jumped across the huge gap.

"Aaaaaah!"

Noah’s voice echoed through the wind.

Despite being surprised, Alicia immediately kept her balance, and a few seconds later, the wolf landed on the stone platform on the other side of the gap.

The young Frenchman let out a breath.

"Okay... now I understand."

Rindo laughed from One’s back.

"You’ll get used to it."

And the four of them began their journey toward the center.

As they approached the central regions, the appearance of the land gradually changed.

Huge cracks could still be seen everywhere, but larger stone platforms remained in this area.

Huge white roots also extended between the broken walls, and weak streams of golden mana could be seen inside some of them.

As Lian passed one of the roots, he activated [ True Sequence ].

The energy was still moving downward.

Still the same situation.

Over the past few days, he had noticed that parts of the land’s energy were being transferred toward underground structures, but he still did not know their final destination.

Noah pointed toward a half-destroyed tower in the distance.

"Do you think this place used to be a city?"

Lian looked at the structure.

"Maybe."

"Then where did its people go?" Alicia asked.

No one answered.

Around them, only Withered could be seen moving toward the center; creatures that still wore remains of old clothes and armor.

At that moment, a faint sound came from between the distant pillars.

At first, Lian thought that one of the underground structures might be shaking.

But a few moments later, the sound repeated.

A few soft notes, then a deeper chord, and after that, a clear melody that sounded as if someone was carefully playing it.

Music?

He looked at Rindo.

"Do you hear something?"

His friend listened for several seconds.

"Yeah... it sounds like an instrument."

"Wait! You guys hear it too? I thought I was imagining things!" Noah shouted from Two’s back.

"It’s the sound of a guitar." Alicia looked around.

Everyone remained silent for a few moments.

This time, the music became clearer, calm and slow chords, with a sad melody that moved between the sound of the wind and the moving stones.

But the problem was that none of them could tell where the sound was coming from, sometimes the music seemed to come from behind them, and a few minutes later, from between the pillars ahead.

And when they entered a more open area, it seemed that the sound was coming from the center.

Lian examined the surroundings with [ True Sequence ], but he could not find any clear mana flow that he could connect to the music itself.

"Did you see anything?" Rindo asked.

"No."

"Could it be an illusion?"

Lian listened for a moment.

"Maybe, but if it’s an illusion, it looks like all four of us are hearing the same thing."

Noah laughed.

"How wonderful, so it’s a group illusion."

Alicia pointed toward several distant Withered.

"What’s even stranger is that they aren’t reacting at all."

She was right.

The Withered continued moving toward the center without paying attention to their surroundings.

Young Vorhelm gave a faint smile.

"We won’t follow it for now, we should continue on our way."

One started moving again, and Two moved alongside him, but even after they moved away from the pillars, the sound of the guitar did not stop.

On the contrary, the closer they got to the center, the clearer it became.

After some time, the path reached a fairly large stone plain where the group could travel for a while without making repeated jumps.

"By the way, you still haven’t told us how you two found each other." Rindo asked Noah.

The young Frenchman looked at Alicia for a moment.

"Oh, that’s a story of its own."

"Please don’t exaggerate." The girl let out a short sigh.

"Me? Exaggerate?"

Noah placed his hand on his chest.

"It’s really upsetting that you’ve judged my character so quickly."

But finally, he laughed and continued.

"After leaving the base, I traveled through the eastern routes for several hours, eventually, I reached a passage where half of it had collapsed."

He pointed toward her.

"One of the base’s scouting groups that had been sent to distant areas was trapped there, and this respectable lady was fighting three Withered to open an escape route for them."

"The fourth one arrived a little later." Alicia said calmly.

"Exactly, so I went to help her, after those people managed to leave the area, we decided to continue together."

"So you managed to save them?" Rindo asked.

She nodded.

"Most of them got through, one was injured, but he moved with the others, I asked them to return to the Golden Curtain for their safety."

"Anyway, before I arrived, she thought she could save everyone by herself." Noah laughed.

The girl looked at him.

"I didn’t say I could save everyone, I said that as long as there was a way, I would try."

"See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about." The young Frenchman looked at Lian and Rindo with a smile.

"Could you have escaped from that area yourself?" Lian looked at Alicia for a moment.

"Probably."

"But you stayed."

The girl nodded.

"The escape route for those people was still open, we just needed to move the Withered out of the way."

"Not a bad answer." Lian gave a short smile.

"By the way, have you found any other Chosen during these past few days?" At that moment, Noah brought up another subject.

Young Vorhelm looked at him.

"Who do you mean?"

"Anyone, from the other academies, or even those who started traveling alone from the beginning."

Rindo looked at Lian for a moment, and Lian also glanced at him, both of them remembered Roderick.

Their final battle, his insane behavior, and his fall into the huge crack.

But Lian did not intend to tell Noah and the girl they had just met about that incident for now.

"No."

"We haven’t found anyone we could bring with us." Rindo turned his gaze back toward the path ahead.

The young Frenchman let out a short sigh.

"Damn it. I was hoping you’d found at least one more person."

Alicia looked at the surrounding paths for several seconds.

"The others might still be alive, if someone is trapped, we should try to find them."

Rindo agreed with this, but Lian looked at the surrounding cracks.

"We’ll help, just not without checking first."

She looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"If someone is trapped at the bottom of a crack and all four of us go down without checking, we might end up with five people needing rescue instead of one."

"So we make sure the path is safe first." The girl remained silent for a moment and then nodded.

Lian smiled.

"Exactly."

"I thought you would disagree." Alicia looked at him for several seconds.

"With saving others?"

"No, with changing our route for one person."

Lian shrugged.

"If we can help, why wouldn’t we? But we’re not going to get all of us killed just to save one person."

"That’s not what I intend to do either." The English girl nodded.

Rindo took a breath, but before the discussion could continue, a faint sound came from one of the cracks on the right.

Alicia immediately paid attention.

"Wait, maybe someone is trapped down there."

"Let’s see what it is first." Lian walked toward the edge of the crack.

He opened his black wings and flew several meters downward.

On the wall, a level thirty-six Withered was trapped among the white roots.

One of its legs was under a large rock, and every time it tried to free itself, a weak groan came from its throat.

He examined the situation for several seconds, and after making sure there were no humans there, he freed the Withered from this life.

"Was there something down there?" The girl asked after he came back up.

"It was a Withered."

"Oh? Was it trapped?"

"Yeah, but don’t worry, I freed it."

"Really? You saved it?"

"Well... I freed it from this life."

"..."

Alicia fell silent.

After some time, the group entered an area where half-destroyed towers and ancient walls could be seen in the distance.

The sound of the guitar continued, but now it was so clear that they could hear it even while One was taking heavy steps.

Noah raised his head.

"This is really starting to get on my nerves."

"Because you can’t find where it’s coming from?" Rindo laughed.

"Exactly! If someone is really there, they should at least show themselves."

Alicia looked toward the path ahead.

"Maybe no one is actually playing."

The young Frenchman sighed.

"I’d rather it be some crazy musician than something unknown playing music inside our heads."

Lian gave a short laugh, but his gaze remained toward the center, if this is a skill, it’s really interesting, he did not think it was an illusion.

Illusions affected the soul, and his soul was far too powerful for such an illusion to affect him.

Unless this illusion was much more powerful than he thought.

"Lian, can I ask you a question?" At that moment, Alicia turned her attention back to him.

"Go ahead."

"Those Withered that were killed around the place where we met... did you really kill most of them?"

"If you want to count them exactly, yeah."

Alicia nodded.

"Then I guess you really are very strong."

"Thanks for the compliment again." Lian said calmly.

"You’re welcome." She answered calmly, then paused for a moment and finally added.

"....You might even be stronger than my brother."