Both the desiccated corpse and the half-face vanished, leaving only a single old boot sitting alone in the middle of the altar. At the same time, as if having fulfilled its final duty, the altar lost all its luster in the blink of an eye. A few of the thinner bones even inexplicably caught fire and burned to ash in an instant. Whether the remaining thick bone fragments or the dark crimson stains, all began to fissure, crumbling into a pile of debris within a few breaths.
In the end, only that boot remained intact, lying lopsided amidst the heap of rubbish.
The ancient castle, originally so still, suddenly shuddered like a person shivering from the cold.
Luge looked at the handsome youth.
"Our world is gone, and the father I relied upon has disappeared, just like this castle," said the youth, who had recovered his composure after lunging at empty air. "It seemed sturdy, yet collapse takes only a moment. Because we are rootless, drifting things, surplus in this world. The peace gained when weak, the beauty maintained—all of it is unimaginably fragile. Just like our world... many people never realized that it was actually just a very, very large refuge."
Luge had heard the succubus mention the history of their planar world before.
"I truly envy you, wizard. You can choose your own path and live the life you desire..."
At this moment, the handsome youth showed unreserved envy toward the disheveled, patchy-furred little kobold before him.
"I can still hold out for a while, enough for you to leave unhurriedly. I just never expected that, in the end, my corpse would get to make one last, distant journey across the planes."
With that, the youth began stepping toward the exit. The ethereal form moved just like a real person; though his footsteps made no sound, he climbed upward one step at a time.
"I want to go outside and see what the Abyss looks like too. I've been here for more than three hundred years," the handsome youth paused on the stairs and looked back. "Rest assured, Mr. Wizard. In these precious final moments, I won't let myself descend into hysterical madness. Maintaining the Iron Family's last shred of dignity until my final moment in this world is the only thing left that I can do."
Having said this, the youth continued upward.
"Though the choice you made wasn't entirely wrong, either."
A voice drifted down from the stairs, but when Luge looked again, the youth's figure was nowhere to be seen.
Luge was in no hurry to leave.
Seeing that he was the only one left, he immediately tried opening his spatial door, even seeking out a wall—a habit from long ago—to help focus his visualization.
The spatial door, absent for days, successfully appeared once more. He didn't tear up, but he was still quite thrilled. The sense of security that came with securing his retreat was beyond words. At the same time, the greatest gain for an inexperienced fellow like him was learning that a spatial door could actually be suppressed by formidable beings—suppressed to the point where it could barely be opened.
He bounded up the stone steps in a few swift strides. With his worries gone, his thoughts naturally grew lively.
Sprinting at full tilt, he returned to the library and looked at the rows of bookshelves, his eyes gleaming. As long as a text was written in Abyssal rather than some obscure minor language of that planar world, he would consider pocketing it. The books here were clearly shielded by some kind of preservation; picking one up at random and flipping through it, he found it remarkably well preserved.
After an initial thorough search, he quickly changed his strategy and began weaving between several shelves across different sections to conduct spot checks. Although his Abyssal bedroom space was large, he couldn't collect everything indiscriminately. Many of the books were pretentious, overly pedantic works on noble etiquette; to him, they weren't even as worthwhile as the shelf of bizarre tales he had collected earlier.
What he truly wanted, naturally, were books on supernatural knowledge. To him, those were priceless treasures, especially since they were genuine, authentic goods from an otherworldly realm.
Luge darted about, spot-checking volumes. He had even stowed half a shelf of books on architecture, yet of the knowledge of the supernatural he had imagined broadening his horizons with, he didn't see a single volume.
A feeling of palpitation struck him, and his Light of Spirituality flickered.
He knew he couldn't afford to be greedy any longer. One had to keep reasonable expectations for what a noble of a planar world would keep in their public library.
And so he dug his heels in and bolted toward the treasury said to exist in every high noble's home. While there was bound to be a secret little vault elsewhere holding their most precious treasures, the main treasury—used to reward retainers and let those of merit take their pick—was just as enticing.
After running a few paces, he recalled the map, abruptly came to a halt, and spun around to charge toward the castle's main gates.
That map had been drawn by the succubus scholar. If nothing had gone wrong, she had surely already struck and picked out the finest items.
Panting heavily, Luge arrived before the main gates of the ancient castle.
The black shroud outside was slowly thinning, and the castle began to tremble.
"I knew you were still alive," Luge said.
"Don't get any ideas about my haul," the succubus said, stepping out from the nearby shadows. "This is the compensation I earned over three hundred years."
She actually had a bundle strapped to her back, showing that the storage ring on her finger was already full.
"From now on, I'll have to survive in the Abyss. I'll never get an opportunity like this again."
She sounded full of regret, but she kept her distance from Luge the entire time. Once she had backed away, she stared unblinkingly at the fading black shroud outside, through which the lifeless sky of the Abyss would soon be visible.
Rumble!
The ancient castle began to shake violently.
Luge watched her, deciding that if danger arose, he could offer some help as appropriate—such as shouldering part of her luggage.
He deeply agreed with what she said; once he returned to the Earth Cave, such opportunities would indeed be rare.
Suddenly, the black shroud rippled, and Old Butler Izel's face could actually be seen upon it, looking utterly furious.
"Stop forcing yourself to hold on!" a shout rang out from the distance. The handsome youth had become much more solid, standing in the castle's small courtyard. "I know you're already exhausted. The castle's remaining source energy has already been used up by me. Rest, Uncle Izel. I've exerted all my power. Now you can surely see me and hear me, even if you don't wish to see me."
The black shroud that had covered the castle for three hundred years, keeping it from the light of day while shielding it all the while, happened to display unsustainable tremors at that very moment.
The entire castle began to sway, and massive stone blocks began collapsing and plunging downward.
The young master was still shouting something to Old Butler Izel. Nothing happening around him could interrupt him; even when his voice was completely drowned out by the noise, he never stopped speaking.
As for the succubus, she had cleverly bolted outside at the first opportunity, her slender tail flicking beneath her robes.
Luge glanced back and followed closely behind. His mindset remained remarkably calm; he was even carrying a book on architectural aesthetics in his hand.
"Haha! I'm finally out! The Abyss!" Escaping the perimeter of the ancient castle, the succubus scholar cried out loudly, not looking back even once. "This is the Abyss, the place where our ancestors were born, the place our ancestors fled from!"
Luge looked back toward the castle's location. It had stood over a cracked chasm, plugged directly into it like a wine cork. Now that it was collapsing, it was filling the fissure back up, as if the original earth were simply being returned to its place.
He also spotted that immovable spatial rift. Originally located inside the young master's room, now that the castle had crumbled away like a crisp biscuit, it was freed from the room's enclosure.
"The commotion here will soon attract some nasty things. Let's get out of here first,"
the succubus scholar said, turning her head while still keeping a cautious distance from Luge.
Luge, however, did not move.
"I'm leaving," he said.
"How boring."
She took a step forward, but suddenly collapsed.
"Ugh—"
She hurriedly took out a bottle of silver potion and poured it into her mouth, letting out strange sounds.
Luge did not act rashly. He could see that her cracked palms began to heal after drinking the potion, but immediately fractured once more, tiny fissures spreading across her entire hands in no time.
He glanced down at the book in his own hand. With a gentle brush of his fingers, the thick tome dissolved into flying ash.
This was not the ravages of time, nor the curse of the Abyss, nor some flaw from improper storage; it seemed tied to the destruction of that world.
"Are you all right?"
Luge stepped forward to support her.
The succubus scholar was now clawing her way toward the ruins of the castle with all her might.
Seeing this, he scooped her up and sprinted back toward the ruins.
Her symptoms eased slightly, but it was merely a temporary relief, and the slowed rate of cracking soon began to accelerate once more. He took out some dragon blood, but she didn't even look at it.
Without a word, she simply lay there, staring blankly up at the sky.
"Just go... Soon demons you can't handle might show up... All the good stuff is in here..."
Hearing this, Luge looked into the distance. When he looked back, the succubus had already shattered into pieces, leaving only a ring that flew toward him in an arc.
He opened his palm and caught the ring, but before he could even get a firm grip, it too dispersed with the wind.
Chapter 62