6. The first scenario

Time passed inside the House without time but if we talked about time here a bit more… confusing. Time is stagnant thus resulting in a weird phenomenon where living things still get older while other objects remain the same. The laws of physics can't be explained in this distorted space.

Adela realized this after staying inside this space for a long time. Her hair still got longer and she also found that she didn't need to eat or drink after she signed that contract. Still, she couldn't get to any conclusions yet because the way time works here defied anything she had learned before.

In this time, she also became familiar with the man in black armor, Veilhem. As for the good first impression back then, Adela found that he was somewhat easy to chat with. However, she also felt a little strange as he usually spacing out and mumbled something inaudible. He often sounded desperate and hollow.

"I wonder why you are here in the first place?" Adela asked Veilhem while the two were sitting on the lean chairs.

After a while, he calmly replied with a hollow smile, "I will not answer that question for the time being."

"Errh, no fun." Adela pouted and decided not to chase the matter. To be particular, she was curious still but she was not the type of person who would pry into others's secrets.

While they both resting in front of the house, Adela saw the panel opened up in front of her face.

[First scenario: Where time collapse]

A single line, nothing more, nothing left. She was baffled by this because Adela herself wasn't informed about the so-called 'hero' these employers said. Who is considered a hero?

When she was about to protest, the line on the panel changed again.

[The coordinates have been set in advance, please prepare yourself.]

[You could take the Knight with you along the journey. Do your best to survive. Finally, I wish you good luck.]

[Beginning to transfer in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…]

Suddenly, a light engulfed both of them and they disappeared on the spot.

——————

Somewhere in the Caldric City.

There was a boy sitting in the corner of the slum, catching his breath. His name is Han and he had gone through deep sh*t lately. His face was distorted in pain as blood oozed from the open wound on his head. Looking at his sorry appearance, most of the people wouldn't have recognized that he was once a son of the administrator.

However, despite being in such a sorry state, Han's eyes still shone in the heat of revenge. The burning rage filled his heart as he dragged his feet in the dead of the night.

The place he was in now is not properly organized and some could even call it a slum where the darkest and deepest face of humanity took part. But Han knew this place had another name, The City of Sins.

Everything you had done here would not be investigated. As to why the Caldric City didn't do anything about it was that it benefited the city more than it could harm.

The City of Sins and the Caldric City were the two sides of the same coin. While on the surface it worked as a defense point to humankind, the underground was a place for trading illegally and attracting more people, making the city more prosperous than ever, especially in this damn world. It was a win-win situation.

The world had been in turmoil since an unknown scholar discovered the altar of a cosmos creature and its corpse in an ancient ruin buried under the ground. The entrance of the ruin was blocked by what assumed the biomass of thousands of people mixed together in a distorted way. Their faces protruded out of that withered biomass expressing endless suffering and despair, trying desperately to hold down the blockage of that tomb.

Despite being afraid of what those people were trying to hold off, the excavation team moved forward and entered the despicable place. Fortunately or unfortunately, the team had not met up with anything or… any being at that time.

Although the place had been judged as many thousands of years old, the architecture inside still remained perfectly intact. No sign of rust and decay had been shown to the excavation team. However, the eerie silence was like a death scythe hovering on their neck.

The fear of the unknown was the truest fear of mankind.

But as if being possessed by something, the leader of the excavation team decided to push forward to see what was there at the end of the ruin. Of course, this decision was objected to by some of the team's members but he chose to ignore it and do as he planned.

And at the end of ruin, he saw It, he… saw the Thing, the indescribable thing that made his limited mind go crazy.

That… 'Thing' hung upside down from the ceiling and on its assumable head formed a smile as if it had been waiting for this exact moment. This creature just hung up there, devoid of any motion. Even when the expert began to touch that abomination.

They later found that this creature had no sign of life yet the heart wrapped around by the flesh still beating. This phenomenon caused them to frighten in shock and amazement.

But that is the turning point.