Chapter 156: Ancient Statue.

Damien and Hannah rode the undead Therizon beyond the point the goat-headed statue used to be, and went deeper into the Ruins of Humanity. The undead bird moved steadily through the ancient city, its wings occasionally stirring the cold air around them as its talons passed over the frozen ground.

They could finally see more of the ruined city, but the deeper they went, the more desolate their surroundings became.

This part of the city was completely in rubble without a single building in sight, and for some reason thick ice covered the layers upon layers of rubble, creating a frozen hellscape of solemn silence.

Broken pieces of ancient structures were buried beneath the ice, some barely visible while others protruded from the frozen landscape like the remains of something that had been violently torn apart. Whatever had once stood here had been reduced to ruins, and even the passage of time hadn’t been enough to erase the evidence of whatever had happened.

The silence made the place feel even more unsettling. There were no voices, no signs of life, and no movement beyond the occasional shift of snow and ice carried by the cold wind. Even the ancient ruins seemed frozen in place, preserved beneath the thick layers of ice as though the city itself had been trapped at the exact moment of its destruction.

"What do you think happened to these people?" Hannah asked, while trying her hardest to keep her chest from hitting Damien’s back. Damien, on the other hand, kept adjusting himself to accommodate just that.

His movements were subtle enough that he could pretend they were simply for balance, although Hannah was close enough to notice whenever he shifted. Neither of them commented on it, and their attention soon returned to the ruins ahead.

"Not sure myself, but Andrea is convinced a god did it... and somehow our way home is connected to that very deity."

Hannah spent most of her time studying ancient remains and preserved scriptures, the gods in those scriptures were creators, perfect gods that were benevolent and kind, so she found it hard to believe.

Everything she had learned from the ancient materials painted a very different picture from the frozen wasteland surrounding them. The scriptures spoke of gods with qualities that made them almost impossible to associate with an act of destruction on this scale.

Yet the ruins were right in front of her.

"What would make a god do this to their own people?"

Damien wasn’t too keen on answering that one, but for some reason he felt compelled to do so. His gaze remained fixed on the ruins ahead.

"Not all gods are good and kind, some are violent and blood thirsty, and some allow things to be, those are my favourite as far as gods go."

"Hmm, why?"

Damien allowed the cold wind to settle around him. The temperature did little to bother him, but the silence of the ruins made the question feel heavier than it should have. He watched the endless rubble pass beneath them, his eyes following the remains of structures that had long since lost their purpose.

"Because those are the fair and just gods..."

Hannah didn’t quite get it. "Wouldn’t a fair god be equally kind and helpful to everyone, and those who leave humans to their own devices cruel and unthoughtful?"

She looked at Damien as she waited for his answer, but he remained silent. Hannah even thought he wasn’t going to answer her. Then he suddenly said.

"A god that doesn’t interfere with humans wouldn’t have destroyed them so thoroughly."

Hannah went silent, as they approached the only somewhat intact statue in this part of the Ruins of Humanity. The statue was either left alone or too big to completely destroy, although judging from the condition of everything around it, Hannah found it difficult to believe that the ancient people simply chose to leave it standing. Whatever had happened here had destroyed almost everything else in its path.

If it wasn’t sprawled on the ground it would have no doubt towered hundreds of meters beyond the walls of the city. Even lying across the ruined landscape, it was still large enough to make the people standing around it look insignificant.

The statue was that of a man wearing armour and wielding a broken sword. Its features had been worn down by time, but the figure itself remained strangely imposing. Even from the distance they could feel a dreadful fighting intent from the statue, as if the person was alive before them and charging at them with his blade.

Hannah’s expression became increasingly serious as they drew closer. She had spent a considerable amount of time studying the ancient materials scattered throughout the ruins, but none of them had prepared her for something like this. A statue shouldn’t have been capable of making her feel threatened simply by existing, yet the sensation was difficult to ignore.

They’d never felt anything like it since entering the Tower of Mysteries.

Damien could even see faint crimson miasma around the statue, but as he blinked, it quickly vanished as if it was never there. His eyes remained fixed on the statue for a little longer, trying to determine whether what he had seen was actually there in the first place.

He didn’t mention it, but the sight made him even more curious about the strange figure.

Coincidentally, Andrea and her team were before the statue. Well, they were standing in front of a wall that still hadn’t completely fallen, studying what appeared to be ancient murals left behind by the ancient people of the Ruins of Humanity.

The wall was damaged, but enough of it remained for the carvings to still be visible. Andrea and the others were clearly focused on the murals, which explained why none of them had approached the enormous statue despite its presence nearby.

Damien ordered the Therizon to speed up, and soon they were before them.

"Damien, Hannah. You guys might want to see this," Yuri said without even looking back.