Chapter 479: The Hollow Kingdom

"I think this is an interesting find," Aether said while chuckling with Lilith.

Many people have tried to create their own kingdoms, and for good reason: being King is quite appealing to the naked eye, but most times, these plans don’t get far.

Never to this stage.

This place they had entered was a whole Kingdom, but not one he had seen before; it had shops, its own statues of people he had no idea of, and because of some abandoned newspaper, he also learned that this Kingdom also had some sort of god they worshiped.

There was only one problem.

A pretty big one.

The kingdom was hollow... without any sign of human life, it was as if it had been abandoned a long time ago, but if that was the case, then how was the kingdom so well kept? It didn’t seem like the people had left it, or rather.

...

Not long ago.

’But what reason would they have to suddenly leave? I mean, from what I’m seeing, there’s nothing wrong, nothing at all. So then why would anyone run away?

Every single shop was hollow, with no human inside, but that wasn’t the weird part; rather, the fact that most seemed untouched, in the sense that it didn’t seem as if their owner had packed for their leave.

But why would he ever leave stuff behind that he might use? No one did that; at least, he hasn’t met someone to do this before.

...

’Something isn’t right. All of this can’t happen naturally, so it’s either because of a human or some kind of monster. The problem is that we don’t know what it looks like, nor how strong it is.’

But while they had no clues, there was one that was pretty evident. At the end of the city, there was the royal palace, where the royal family of this kingdom lived...

Among everything in this place, it was the most important place, and the one that had the biggest chance of being meaningful.

But...

It was risky, after all; going inside that place meant that they had nowhere to run while inside, and they had no idea what the layout inside was, so getting away from whatever was inside was going to be tough.

The only thing they could do was fight if there really was something there. Which... could be a death wish depending on the strength of it, and they had no idea how to know without actually facing it and seeing it themselves.

The only thing they knew was that it was able to get rid of everyone inside the village; how exactly, that was another question they had to find the answer to.

"Do you think we should go inside that palace?" Aether asked, crossing his arms.

Hearing his question, Lilith, to Aether’s surprise, shook his head, denying the idea. "Not at all; we have no reason to do such a thing. We’re here to find people. If they aren’t around here, I doubt they are going to be there, so we would just be wasting our time... time when more die."

Lilith was right, and Aether knew it. After all, if there really were some more readers, why would they be inside the palace, out of all places in the village? While it was the most important structure, it had no meaning; the shops were more important since you could take some things from them.

But at the same time, the more he thought about it, what if there really was somebody inside... no, rather, he just wanted to go inside the palace; his curiosity was too much, but he also had to convince Lilith.

"But what if there were some Readers that got captured and brought to the castle, in a dungeon where they are suffering right now... You know it’s very much possible... just imagine how agonizing it must be for them."

Lilith clenched his fists, not saying a word, but he knew just how much of an effect his words had on him. "I guess... a small stop won’t be that bad."

...

...

The palace was in no way small, but at the same time, if he really thought about it, it was the smallest he had been in. Nothing wrong with small castles, but still, if you were to make one, at least make it gigantic; that way you have something to show off with.

Size matters a lot, at least in this scenario.

Entering its stone walls, Aether was surprised to see the pure darkness inside of it. There was no way to see without Eden. Lilith had wanted to leave, saying that it was way too dark to navigate, but he didn’t.

So he grabbed his hand and dragged him forward into the darkness.

Walking through it, he finally found a small space where multiple roads opened up; there were some stairs that went up, another corridor that he peeked at, and another open area where even more rooms were. ’What kind of palace layout is this? It’s stupid.’

But the most important thing about this room was not any of what he had mentioned so far, but rather the stairs that went down. The basement.

Helping Lilith, they slowly walked down for a long while, as the stairs seemed unending. But there was an ending, one that led to a very interesting room. It was just a normal room... that is, if you kept out the human figure just eating away at some human remains on the floor.

It slowly turned its head towards them.

Its body was... weird; its skin was fused with armor, and it almost seemed as if its body had rejected the armor while it was merging. It was tall, really tall, and its limbs were also really big. But more importantly.

There was a big crown on its head...

...

"Well, shit," Aether said, grabbing Lilith and dashing to the stairs, as the monster dropped the remains it was eating to follow them.