Chapter 383: The Missing Civilization

The trip back to Nexus was much quieter than the trip out. Nobody was joking or arguing about who had won the race, and even Lily had stopped talking about the ruin.

She sat in the back of the transport surrounded by holographic screens, with dozens of ancient records floating around her, fragments of maps, symbols, and broken inscriptions recovered from Aegis and the ruin they had just left. Kai sat across from her with Sera beside him, Aren sat opposite them, and Gabriel was near the front.

For almost twenty minutes, Lily hadn’t said a word, which was unusual.

Kai finally looked at her. "You found something."

Lily didn’t answer.

"Lily?" Sera said.

Still nothing, and Aren leaned forward. "That’s usually a bad sign."

Lily finally looked up. "It is."

The vehicle went quiet, and Kai straightened. "What did you find?"

Lily turned one of the records toward them. At first, it looked like the same ancient writing they had already seen, describing the three stages of Destruction, Calamity, and Judgment, but beneath it was a fourth section.

Lily enlarged it. "This record says something survived the Third Judgment."

Gabriel turned around. "What?"

"You’re sure?" Kai asked.

"Yes." Lily brought up another fragment, then a third. "These aren’t from the same record. This last one was found in a completely different archive, and they all mention the same thing. A civilization."

Sera frowned. "What civilization?"

"That’s the problem." Lily enlarged the final section. "There’s no name."

"Then how do we know it’s a civilization?" Kai asked.

"Because of the wording," Lily said, bringing up the translation.

THE THIRD JUDGMENT HAS ENDED.

THE SURVIVORS REMAIN.

THE CIVILIZATION CONTINUES.

Kai’s eyes narrowed. "Continues."

Aren looked confused. "Why is that strange?"

"Because almost every other civilization we’ve found ended," Lily said, pulling up the Aegis records. "Aegis fell. Another civilization was destroyed during the Sixfold Calamity, and another disappeared after the Dragon of Destruction." She looked around the vehicle. "But this one survived."

"The recording in the forest ruin said they survived too," Sera said.

Lily nodded slowly. "It might be the same civilization. And that recording never said where they went either."

Gabriel’s expression turned serious. "Then where are they?"

"That’s what I can’t find." Lily brought up dozens more fragments from different ruins, time periods, and languages. "They all mention the same civilization, and none of them give its name, its location, its rulers, or what happened to it. There aren’t even any ruins."

Aren stared at her. "That’s impossible."

"A civilization that survived should have left something behind," Gabriel said quietly.

"Exactly," Lily said.

Kai looked at the records. "Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. Maybe they didn’t stay here."

The vehicle went silent, and Gabriel slowly turned around.

"If they survived the Third Judgment and then disappeared completely," Kai said, "maybe they didn’t disappear at all."

Sera’s eyes widened slightly. "They left."

"Exactly."

Lily stared at the map of the continent. "But where?"

Nobody answered. Gabriel looked out the window as the modern landscape passed by, cities and roads and forests with ancient ruins scattered between them. Everything they had found so far came from this continent. If the civilization had survived, then maybe it had gone somewhere nobody on Nexus had ever thought to look.

Aren leaned back. "Leaving a continent isn’t simple."

"Not even for them," Lily said, pulling up the ancient transportation records. "Aegis had airships, but nothing we’ve found could carry a whole civilization across an ocean."

"Then how could they leave?"

Lily shook her head. "I don’t know."

Kai thought of the fourth door, the stars behind it, and the countless paths Distortion had shown him. Aegis had been preparing for something beyond survival, not just another monster.

He looked at Lily. "Could the fourth stage have something to do with leaving?"

Lily’s eyes widened. "Maybe." Her fingers flew across the records. "Wait, there’s something."

Everyone leaned in as she brought up a badly damaged fragment with only a few words left.

WHEN JUDGMENT ENDS...

Lily enhanced it, and more words appeared.

...THE PATH OPENS.

"The path," Aren said.

Sera looked at Kai. "Like the door."

Kai nodded slowly. The fourth symbol, the stars, and the missing civilization no longer felt like separate mysteries. They felt connected.

Gabriel rose from her seat. "Can you tell where the fragment came from?"

Lily checked, and then she froze.

Kai noticed. "What?"

"It came from Aegis."

Nobody spoke.

"So Aegis recorded this civilization," Aren said, his expression hardening, "but not where it went."

"I don’t think the record is incomplete," Lily said, enlarging the final section. Beneath the words was a small mark, a circle broken into four sections, three of them dark and one empty. Kai recognized it immediately.

Lily pointed at it. "This isn’t damage." She looked at Gabriel. "Someone removed the information."

Gabriel’s expression turned grim. "Someone?"

Aren stood. "You’re saying someone deliberately erased an entire civilization?"

"I’m saying the evidence looks deliberate."

"Why?" Kai asked.

Lily shook her head. "I don’t know."

Sera crossed her arms. "Maybe they didn’t want anyone to find them."

Kai looked at her. "Why would a civilization erase itself?"

"To hide."

"From what?"

Sera didn’t answer, and the question settled heavily over all of them. A civilization had survived the Third Judgment and then vanished, and its name, its location, its ruins, and its history had not been destroyed. They had been removed.

Kai looked at the map. "How many ancient civilizations do we know about?"

"Dozens," Gabriel said.

"And how many survived the Third Judgment?"

"According to our records?" Gabriel paused. "One."

"And nobody knows what happened to them."

"No."

Kai looked out the window. They were approaching Nexus now, its skyline filling the horizon with airships drifting between the towers and ancient structures rising among the skyscrapers. Civilization had carried on, but beneath it, something much older was waking.

A thought struck him. "If they really left..."

"Then they may have left something behind," Lily finished.

Kai nodded. "A message, a map, a gate. Something."

Aren smiled. "Now that sounds like an expedition."

Sera laughed. "Of course that’s what you took from this."

"What else should I take from it?"

"Maybe that we’re dealing with a civilization that apparently erased itself."

"That’s exactly why I want to find them."

Gabriel looked at him. "You’re not helping."

"I’m an explorer."

"You’re an addict."

"That too."

Lily ignored them, staring at the fourth symbol. "There may be another possibility. What if they didn’t leave the continent in any normal way?" She brought up the image of the fourth door. "The fourth stage isn’t an enemy. It’s a transition."

Kai understood. "Another place."

"Maybe."

"A different continent?"

"Maybe."

"Another world?"

Lily hesitated. "I don’t know."

"Don’t jump that far yet," Gabriel said, her expression serious.

Lily nodded. "But we can’t ignore the possibility."

Kai looked at the stars on the screen. The idea of another world should have sounded ridiculous, but after everything he had seen, it didn’t. Nothing about the System, the Disasters, Bahamut, or the Candidate fit the simple world he had known eight months ago. Now they had evidence that one civilization had survived the very thing that had destroyed every other civilization they knew about, and it hadn’t only survived. It had escaped.

Kai stood. "We need to go back to the Church."

"I agree," Gabriel said.

"We need every record connected to this, and every ruin that mentions the fourth stage."

Lily smiled. "I already started."

Sera looked at her. "Of course you did."

Aren stood too. "And I know where we should start." He pulled up a map and marked a location far from Nexus City. "There’s one ruin I’ve never been inside. Nobody has."

Lily stared at it. "Why?"

Aren’s expression turned unusually serious. "We call it the Silent Gate. There’s a massive stone gate in the middle of the ruins." He zoomed in on an ancient doorway covered in the same broken-circle symbol. "And every time someone approaches it, it opens."

Sera frowned. "That’s not very silent."

Aren smiled faintly. "That’s the problem."

"What happens when it opens?" Kai asked.

Aren’s smile disappeared. "Nothing. No light, no monsters, no energy. Nothing."

"Then why hasn’t anyone gone in?"

"Because nobody can." Aren pointed at the screen. "There’s no space behind the door. It opens onto solid mountain."

Lily stared at it. "A door leading nowhere."

Aren nodded. "Until today."

Kai’s eyes narrowed. "What happened today?"

Aren looked at the fourth symbol on Lily’s screen. "The reports came in while we were still inside the tower. The gate opened, and behind it..." He brought up one last image.

For the first time, Kai saw something that made Distortion react, not with danger or possibility, but with recognition. Beyond the ancient gate was darkness, and inside that darkness was a single point of blue light that looked exactly like the fourth symbol.

"It happened at the same moment the fourth door opened in the tower," Aren said.

Kai stared at the image. The missing civilization might not be missing at all. It might have left, and it might have left a door behind.

Far beneath the continent, something ancient turned again, and this time, seven pillars answered one after another. Across the continent, seven ruins began to glow, and somewhere beyond the ancient gate, something opened its eyes.

The fourth stage had begun.