"What are you trying to do?!"
"I'm going to move this Nail to the Nameless Ruins."
"Are you out of your mind?! Even if that... that blue rock giant can move—"
"It's called the Colossus, thank you."
"Th-Then even if the Colossus can move—"
"It can move, thank you."
Victor Wang had long practiced splitting his consciousness, and now, performing simple dual control came naturally. His secondary consciousness entered the Colossus to coordinate with his primary one's elemental manipulation. With great effort, he raised the Colossus's hand and made it take a single heavy step forward, preparing to lift the Celestial Nail with its massive body.
"Calm down, just calm down! I get it now, it moves! But the Nameless Ruins are way over there, and the Glowing Narrows are hundreds of meters above it in elevation! How are you going to get up there? You think you can climb mountains with that stiff stride?"
"As long as I reach the Glowing Narrows, one gust of wind will be enough to carry it up."
Victor Wang ignored Zhiqiong's warnings. He made the Colossus hoist the Celestial Nail onto its right shoulder. Even with the assistance of geo constructs, controlling a being of that size burned through mental energy at a frightening rate. By his estimate, he could only maintain full movement for about three minutes.
Three minutes... let's see how far we can get.
"The crystal's glowing!" Zhiqiong shouted before the Colossus even started moving. "That's not good, right? Please, just put it down!"
The Celestial Nail was glowing—reacting to the elemental power flowing from the Colossus. Victor Wang frowned. Staying in such close contact with it would drain his energy so quickly that even a minute might be too much.
"Maybe you should put it down?" Zhiqiong offered him a final chance to reconsider.
"Fine. It's not really dangerous, but since you pleaded for it... I'll let it off the hook."
The Celestial Nail was set back onto the ground and slowly returned to its floating state.
His plan to purify the Nameless Ruins had failed. Victor Wang dismissed the Colossus—which, truth be told, was little more than an impressively handsome pile of rocks—and sighed, frustration and melancholy flickering in his eyes. "Guess I'll take another look around..."
Now, only the Nameless Ruins emitted Abyssal reactions. Nowhere else in The Chasm did. Why?
Victor Wang retraced his steps carefully, keeping close to the cliff walls and scanning every corner that wasn't part of the Nameless Ruins. The result didn't change. He only noticed that more Hilichurls seemed to be wandering toward the ruins.
Either The Chasm held no relics of Khaenri'ah at all—or the relic was hidden within the Nameless Ruins.
With that conclusion, he returned there once more. From a distance, he could see the same purple-black hills formed from hardened sludge, endlessly exuding a dense Abyssal aura. Yet aside from that... there were no other traces of the Abyss.
Although the black calamity had once struck here, and there was likely a passage connected to Khaenri'ah somewhere, the relics had supposedly been placed by the "Sinner" after that war. Perhaps they had found this area too unstable and chose not to store anything here.
"This whole effort... let's just call it a good deed, then."
Meanwhile, in the city hanging upside down in the sky, the Abyss Order's purification device had long since been deployed. It was operating at a carefully balanced output, luring Hilichurls from The Chasm and even nearby regions toward it.
This stage... had been handed over to the Abyss Order.
Three days later, Lumine returned to the Exploration Team.
"So here's what happened," she explained. "Under the protection of the Millelith, mining has resumed in the upper layers of The Chasm. That's good news, of course. But recently, the miners have been running into something very strange—"
"No matter the time of day or how many people are around, whether they're resting in tents or eating meals, they keep seeing Hilichurls—glassy-eyed, dazed, acting completely abnormal—walking past the camps. They ignore the miners entirely, just trudging deeper into The Chasm. And the weirdest part? So many have gone down... but none have come back up!"
Paimon's voice was animated as she told the story, though she'd been terrified herself when she first heard it. But when she looked around, only Clitopho seemed even slightly disturbed.
"You guys... aren't scared?"
The others exchanged glances and shook their heads.
Seeing this, Clitopho also shook his head. "Not scared—just curious. Where do those Hilichurls go after they descend? Will we encounter them ourselves...?"
"Right?! That's the problem! What's their goal, what happens to them afterward, are they building up to some kind of disaster? Once the miners heard about it, they couldn't focus on work anymore. So they asked us to investigate."
After thoroughly explaining the situation, Paimon added, "We already know roughly where those Hilichurls are heading. We just came to check in on everyone first—seeing you all safe puts our minds at ease."
"Where are they going?" Zhiqiong asked. "I'm curious. Can I come along and take a look?"
"Uh... I don't think that's a good idea. It's the Nameless Ruins. That place..."
"I'm curious too. Can I come along?"
"Of course you can, Victor. No time to waste—let's move."
Leaving a disappointed Zhiqiong behind, Victor Wang slipped into Lumine and Paimon's expedition team.
Elsewhere, Dainsleif—while pursuing an Abyss Herald through a teleportation gate—had been mistakenly transported to an important Abyss node within the Nameless Ruins.
After so long, Victor Wang, Lumine, and Dainsleif met again.
The air was heavy—mostly because Victor Wang and Lumine's presence seemed to form an unspoken alliance against Dainsleif.
Victor Wang still held a grudge over being mistaken for an Abyss operative back at the Gothic Tavern, when Dainsleif had attacked him on sight—almost killing him right as he opened the door.
To break the tension, Dainsleif was the first to speak. "It's true that I stopped the Abyss Order from stealing the remains of the Overlord of the Vortex. And... there's nothing about you in their internal records. I may have truly wronged you. If an apology can resolve that misunderstanding, then I don't mind offering one—just as I don't regret taking certain... excessive measures back then."
He had said before that he would investigate the truth. It seemed he truly had.
"...Alright, let's call it even. There's no reason for us to be enemies," Victor Wang said—and silently added, and I'll cancel that funeral service I'd scheduled for you, too.
Dainsleif nodded and turned to Lumine.
Lumine's doubts stemmed from what Aether had said during the incident with the Defiled Statue: that Dainsleif was once the Captain of Khaenri'ah's Royal Guard—the "Twilight Sword." She asked him about it directly.
Dainsleif answered, "I did not mean to hide it. That title once shone in the glory of Khaenri'ah... but now, it's more like a mockery—a curse. As the captain who witnessed his own nation's fall, I have every reason not to speak that name again."
"Then... about my brother. What happened between you two?"
"We were travelers. Our journey was one of endless pain and ceaseless search for destiny. But... we did not reach the same end."
"Before you ask anything else," Dainsleif added, his tone firm, "I should warn you—warn both of you. If my theory about the Abyss's teleportation network is correct, and I happened to be sent here, then that means the Abyss Order considers this place important enough to establish a node. For all we know... the Abyss itself is watching us right now."