Dex and Lumia walked in the abyss of absolute whiteness for hours. Or so it seemed to them. In this isolated dimension, time had no physical measure to rely on. There was no sun moving across the sky to mark the time, no shadows lengthening or shortening, and no feeling of hunger or thirst to impose a biological rhythm, thanks to the purity of the surrounding mana that slowly nourished their cells.
They felt their way very carefully, step by step, like two blind people walking on the edge of a knife. Tension enveloped their every move; the fear of the moss carpet suddenly ending and falling into a bottomless abyss haunted them, mixed with the dread of possibly colliding with a silent, mythical beast lurking in this fog, a beast emitting no heat or sound. Dex walked half a step ahead, using his body, enhanced by an invisible mana shield, as a minesweeper, while Lumia stayed close to him, her celestial energy ready to detonate in a split second.
Suddenly, amidst this continuous emptiness that almost numbed their senses, Dex stopped abruptly.
His right hand, which only hours ago had been full of deep gashes and blistering burns, but was now as smooth and strong as polished steel thanks to his (D+) rank, struck something physical. Something solid, freezing cold, with a rough, architectural texture, impossibly regular to be the work of random nature.
Dex held his breath, slowly running his fingers over the surface he had struck. This texture wasn't ordinary tree bark, nor the surface of volcanic rock. He felt straight lines, precise curves, and very ancient, sunken engravings, engravings pulsing with a kind of old magic that made his fingers tingle slightly.
"Look, Lumia..." Dex whispered, narrowing his eyes as he tried to pierce the few meters of fog ahead of him.
Lumia approached, illuminating her hand with a faint silver light to reveal what they had found. The scene before them defied human logic and engineering. It wasn't just a wall or a statue. Before them was a giant staircase. Or, to be more precise, they stood at the base of an "epic chain of hanging stairs."
The load-bearing pillars of the staircase were made of unnaturally thick, sturdy fibrous ropes, equal in girth to the trunks of ancient pine trees. These ropes were woven with mythical brilliance from living plant threads, radiating a faint, continuous silver glow, as if they had caught starlight and kneaded it into their fibers. As for the steps themselves, they weren't mere ordinary wooden planks; they were crafted from massive blocks of "Black Ebony" wood, as hard as iron, each step wide enough for a horse-drawn carriage to pass, engraved with complex talismans to prevent slipping and stabilize mana.
The hanging staircase extended upwards at a sharp angle, piercing the dense white fog clouds, swallowing all its upper steps until it completely vanished from sight into the hidden sky.
Dex took a step back, tilting his head as far up as it would go, trying to pierce the fog with his vision, which glowed with a faint flame thanks to his core.
"We are under something far more massive than we could have imagined," Dex said, his voice carrying a mix of awe and dread. "This staircase isn't floating in the air on its own."
Without further hesitation, and with renewed energy that refused to stay at the bottom, Dex placed his foot on the first black ebony step, and they began to climb. It was no ordinary climb; every step required effort, not because of its height, but because of the majestic aura that pressed down on them the higher they ascended.
And when they had traversed hundreds of steps in a silent ascent, the terrifying and astounding truth began to unfold before them, piece by piece.
This mighty staircase was not suspended in the forest's air; it was anchored by wooden spikes the size of giant spears into a very tall, solid wall. As they got closer and touched it, they realized it wasn't a stone wall; it was a tree trunk. But it was a trunk more massive than anything they had seen or read about in legends, thousands of times larger than the dark oaks in the "Danger Zone."
They were climbing the "World Tree" itself.
The diameter of this tree's trunk alone was so colossal that it seemed like the entire horizontal expanse of a small city. There was no curvature visible to the naked eye from their position; it was like a continental wall stretching endlessly to the left and right. The great bark was covered in layers of glowing white moss, providing the only light in this gloom and revealing grooves in the trunk as deep as mountain valleys.
With every meter they climbed on the ebony staircase, bypassing the layers of the sanctuary's magical atmosphere, the thick white fog began to clear, its density gradually thinning. Gray and gold hues began to creep into their vision. Then, at a certain altitude, the staircase ended.
They reached a wide, flat ledge. The moment they stepped onto it, the fog entirely dissipated from their eye level, revealing the features of the "Hidden Village" attached to one of the branches of the World Tree.
"My God... look at that architecture..." Dex whispered in absolute stun, stopping in his tracks, unable to process the scene.
Upon the lower branches of the World Tree, branches so flat and wide they rivaled the main streets of imperial capitals in the human world, wooden houses and structures were built with astounding precision and breathtaking beauty. These weren't just primitive huts of forest dwellers; they were highly complex architectural masterpieces.
The houses organically harmonized with the shape of the tree, as if they had sprouted from the wood itself rather than being built upon it. The roofs overlapped in the shape of giant leaves, made of unfading green and gold materials, and the walls were adorned with intricate geometric patterns mimicking the paths of the stars. These wooden palaces were connected to each other via a complex and beautiful network of suspension bridges, made of glowing silver ropes and highly durable pure silk, as if it were a mythical village built to be inhabited by giant, elegant humanoid birds (Elves).
The silver bridges swayed gently with the cold, pure high-altitude breeze blowing in these heights. But, despite all this beauty and grandeur... something was wrong. Something chilling.
There was no movement.
Dex and Lumia stood watching, using their heightened senses to fathom the depths of the village sprawling before them. No sound of children playing in the wide wooden squares. No smell of food or smoke rising from the elegantly carved chimneys. No patrols of Elven guards, not even the movement of birds between the structures.
The houses were perfect, clean, and intact, but they were empty. Only a majestic, heavy, and deadly silence enveloped this fortress suspended in the sky. They had found the home of the Elves and the location of the "Holy Nectar," but the village was a celestial ghost town, mysteriously abandoned by its inhabitants, leaving behind a riddle waiting to be solved.