Underground castle.

Edric and the slime stepped inside the castle.

It was so vast and majestic that a whole city could fit in the inside of it and it was illuminated by blue flames that shone brightly like street lights, this sight was something that no one had seen for thousands of years.

It was made of a white, reflective material. And There were armors that moved by using essence, there was a lot of empty space in the castle.

In the middle of it there was a throne that had a skeleton chained to it, and there was also a thick book in a pedestal.

(This isn't a castle... it's a prison. ) Thought Edric.

He remembered the distance he had to walk in order to get here, and the fact that there wasn't an obvious way to open the door of the castle, but the biggest clue was inside here.

The moving armors didn't react when they entered and only observed the skeleton chained to the throne.

Edric took the slime's hand and started walking to the pedestal with the book in it.

He walked for five minutes and then he picked up the book and opened it.

[What's That book about?] Asked the slime, curious.

[this book is about the history of the world] Replied Edric.

[Hmm, really? Can you please tell me about it when you finish reading, please?]

[Yeah, I'll do it.]

Edric smiled at the slime and then he continued reading.

-Three hours later-

The book talked about an empire.

The world of the book had just one continent and it was controlled by this empire.

It was simply called the empire and it had great technology.

The emperor of the empire lived for centuries, and he loved the empire like it was his own child.

The empire flourished and continued to advance.

The emperor supported new technologies and advancements.

He started working with essence, making new technologies and improving the lifes of his citizens, but he would soon know the consequences of his actions.

The environment started changing.

First, the wildlife started becoming more aggressive and dangerous. growing in size between generations.

The empire quickly developed countermeasures against the beasts, but they started developing even more quickly.

Soon, cities started to fall. And the emperor had no option but to develop a new weapon to kill the beasts.

But this was also a mistake.

The empire developed 3 bombshells, They used compressed essence alongside a highly volatile substance to create a beam that killed everything in a radius of one hundred kilometers for the first two bombs, and the last one in a radius of ten thousand kilometers.

They created underground bunkers to protect their citizens and fired the three bombs in the empire's cities.

After the detonation, they resurfaced and everything seemed fine in the first year.

But after that, the problems continued.

The continent started separating at an alarming speed, with the detonation points as the center of this, and essence started accumulating in the empire's capital until it became impossible for normal humans to live there.

Soon, beasts more horrific than anything before started appearing, and humanity fleed to the underground.

Around 98% of humanity died.

The emperor then decided to enclose himself in this place.

Out of his own hate and disgust.

The book was the emperor's diary, and it narrated everything that he experienced.

His love for the empire, the joy he felt while improving it and what he felt after he saw it fall, His griefs, struggles and eventual defeat.

If Edric was a normal human being, he would have been quite moved by this, although he wasn't.

He decided to not tell the slime about that part of the book, and instead just tell it about the empire's good days.

He looked at the slime, and then he started walking towards the skeleton.