The Path of Ruin

Chapter 70: A Strange Cave

As Kael slowly opened his eyes, the first thing he felt was that he was on a bed. Then he saw the ceiling above him and paused.

'Ah...'

His eyes narrowed as he remembered what had happened in the Heart of the Guardian. He got out of bed as fast as he could and checked his room.

It was a normal one. It wasn't like he was in a dungeon or anything... so Amar had really trusted him.

'They even left clothes, huh...'

He picked up the clothes next to his bed and changed first. His body felt strangely good. The pain in his mind was gone.

But the Guardian's words were still in his mind. And he had to tell the others quickly.

With these thoughts in mind, he quickly finished his work and went out of his room.

What he found was not an empty corridor and the fresh air of the town.

On the contrary... it was someone quite familiar.

"Oh, you're awake."

Scher, the mastermind of their group, and Matthew, who was nothing but a mystery in his eyes at this point.

"I'm awake... but you guys don't look so good."

Scher and Matthew looked at each other after Kael's words. Then they both sighed slightly.

"You didn't sleep much. Only about six hours. But a lot happened in those hours..."

Kael couldn't help frowning. Whatever had happened... it certainly hadn't been pleasant.

"Like what, for example?"

"The townspeople... are going mad much faster. The dungeon is almost full at this point."

*******

After Kael woke up, it didn't take long for the team to assemble. Pecera, Baroch, Scher, Matthew, Kael, and finally Amar.

Yes. Amar became part of the group. He had asked for it himself, to be more helpful to the group.

"Briefly... The plant, seen as the guardian of the town, told you the words illness, madness, death, deception, enemy, outside, eon, and dungeon..."

Kael nodded with Scher's words. And Scher then fell into thought.

"I think the words deception, enemy, and outside tell us a lot."

Pecera suddenly jumped in, arms crossed over her chest and a serious expression on her face.

"It's like it's trying to tell us that the situation in the town is a deception and that the real enemy is out there."

Matthew gave her a very quick reply.

"Maybe, but we shouldn't ignore other words. Death, for example. We've never yet encountered a situation where the insane have died, and the dungeon might have something important to do with eon."

The Guardian had actually used quite clear words.

But still, confusing things prevented them from acting immediately.

"I think we should send someone to investigate outside." Find exclusive stories on mvl

Amar was usually a quiet man, but when he voiced his opinion, the whole group instantly focused on him.

"If the guard emphasized the outside, then at least two people can go out to scan the town to investigate the situation. Let's assign one person to search the dungeon. Another stays in the mansion to keep the situation under control, while the last two neutralize the insane in the town and send them to the dungeon."

And... it made a lot of sense. At least the group offered no arguments against the idea and decided to go ahead with it.

Baroch and Matthew were the two to go out. Scher was the one who was going to stay in the mansion as he was not very capable of fighting. Pecera and Amar would roam around the town, keeping the insane under control. Lastly, Kael would stay in the dungeon.

"The situation is getting worse. And it's likely to keep worsening rather than improving. So let's hurry. Meet back here in four hours."

And then, they were gone.

*******

The dungeon was as usual. The insane people usually laughed rhythmically where they stood, never taking Kael seriously.

And this was also to Kael's advantage. He could observe them more easily. That's why he didn't complain.

'I can't see any trace, though...'

Kael replayed the Guardian's words in his mind. It had formed the word eon before the dungeon. So... what he should have been looking for in the dungeon was definitely eon-related.

'There was a sudden flow of eon into their brains before they became insane.'

Kael approached one of the dungeons. One of the newly insane kept trying to get his head between the bars, but he couldn't.

Kael fearlessly stood right in front of the man, getting close to his face. He focused on the his brain as he activated his eon sense as much as he could.

'Here...'

He could sense the presence of a small unnatural amount of eon in the man's brain.

But Scher and his group had long been aware of this eon.

'We haven't found a way to get it out of their brains... but why did it get into the brain in the first place? Where did this eon come from...?'

They had no idea.

'The amounts are almost the same. The density is the same. There's no real difference between them...'

Somehow, he felt like he was looking in the wrong place. Like... like he was missing something much bigger.

*******

"Did you find anything?"

Before Matthew and Baroch began their search outside the town, they had set a point where they would meet every hour. It was barely an hour into their search. Now, they were giving each other their first report.

"No. I want to check the woods on the other side of town, actually... because I'm almost certain there's nothing here."

Baroch thought a little about what Matthew had said. Then he sighed, not overly concerned.

"I didn't find anything either, but I don't want to leave this place yet. There are a few other important places I haven't fully explored."

"Then I'll go the other way."

"All right."

And just like that, after only a few minutes, he found himself in the forest he had mentioned.

"Now... Now..."

He curled his lips up slightly. He closed his eyes, then closed all his senses except one... just as Kael always did.

But... the result he got was very different from what Kael usually got.

The area where he could sense eon was much larger. The sense itself, meanwhile, was much sharper.

Matthew waited like this for several seconds, looking for a sign.

And... he found it.

His eyes opened slowly, the smile on his face widened.

"Interesting."

He turned to his left, moving slowly through the trees. Unlike Kael, his eon sense was one that he could keep constantly on, much more effectively. And with the benefit of that, as he got closer to his target, he didn't need to turn off all his senses to sense it.

After a few minutes, the color of the trees and leaves around him slowly began to change. It was a rather minimal change, easy to miss. But Matthew didn't.

'Their colors are fading...'

He lowered his eyes to the ground, dug a little with his foot, and uprooted some grass.

The grass was suffering from the same condition as the trees.

The only problem was... there was no 'natural' reason for them to be like that.

And strangely enough, he could feel that the eon around him was much different than usual.

Much more... dense.

And, strangely enough, rotten.

Matthew kept moving forward. Every few tens of steps he took, the greenery around him grew paler. After a few minutes, he finally found something that interested him.

"A cave, huh..."

In front of him was a cave with a fairly exposed entrance. It was big enough for a person to pass through easily.

He could feel the presence of that rotten eon from every part of the entrance.

He stepped into the cave, every sense alert. The presence of eon all around enveloped him, but he didn't care. He just walked deeper into the cave.

The light had completely disappeared after a few seconds. The sunlight could not reach the point where he was now. But he continued on, not needing to create any source of light.

Finally, much deeper into the cave, his eye caught a tiny glimmer.

It was like... the tiny glow of a flame spreading a little light around it.

Matthew's expression grew serious with each step he took. He got closer and closer to the flame... and then he realized that the cave, which had sloped downwards until now, was flattening out. Moreover... the source of the flame he saw was a torch hanging on the wall.

And not only that. There was a corridor straight ahead of him. A corridor flanked by torches... and at the end of the corridor, a huge cave room.

Matthew made the decision to proceed to the room without hesitation and crossed the corridor at his usual slow pace.

The room... was quite dark. However, there were lots of torches around, so the dim light made it possible to see a few things.

And... the first thing Matthew saw was a large vine in the very center of the room with a figure kneeling in front of it.

The figure was holding his hand on the vine.

No, they squeezed it as hard as they could, actually.

"I wasn't expecting a visitor..."

'Oh, a woman...'

Matthew put his usual smile on his face and answered her in a sarcastic tone.

"I didn't expect to find a cave like this in the middle of the forest either, to be honest..."

He turned his eyes to the vine she was holding tightly.

"And also didn't expect to see someone treat something that a whole town considers its guardian in such a way..."

The woman's head moved slightly. She looked at her hand holding the vine, then threw it aside.

"You should never have come here. Your death will be for interfering with my plans."

Matthew widened his smile gently.

But before he was allowed to say a word, he suddenly found a rampaging animal before his eyes.

There was no way he could physically react. The animal, or creature, had appeared in front of him so quickly that he couldn't even recognize when it had arrived.

But he didn't need to...

He only needed to see it once.

A blue glow suddenly appeared around him, then something long materialized in front of his body... and sliced through the creature that had come so close to wounding him.

As the animal's bisected corpse slumped to the ground, the blue-colored... sword... that had formed in front of Matthew slowly floated to his side, pointing its tip at the woman.

"Oh, you're a follower?"

The woman raised her hand in surprise, pointing it at Matthew. And then... slowly, many shadows emerged from the darkness of the room. Each one looking just like the animals Matthew had sliced in half.

Matthew sighed lightly.

"You're going to be a bit of a pain, huh?"

With those words, a blue glow appeared around him again, just as before. His eyes were fixed confidently on the woman as two more transparent, blue-colored swords materialized.

After a short moment... all the animals surrounding him jumped on him with a tremendous speed.