novelraw Chapter 33: The Temple of Atlantis
Chapter 33: The Temple of Atlantis
Just as Verso stepped into the perimeter of the large ruined city, he was greeted by a path lined with blue lanterns.
The path stretched deep into the ruins, casting an ominous sapphire glow that cut through the darkness of the seabed.
It was really hard to miss as it carved a straight line through the weathered grey stone buildings toward a massive golden temple at the center.
"Wow, I really wonder where I am supposed to go." Verso said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Feeling like he needed company for this long walk, he reached into his summoning space and tugged at the familiar marble skeleton.
Lil Bone appeared out of grey portal as it stood beside Verso.
For a second, it just stood there looking confused, its skull tilting as it tried to process the lack of dirt and craters that it was used to.
Then, it slowly turned around and looked up.
The moment its hollow eye sockets hit the sky, the skeleton froze. Its jaw dropped open so wide it looked like it might unhinge and fall onto the pavement.
It began to tremble, its bony ribs as it stared at the millions of tons of water swirling above the dome they were in.
’This guy is such an overactor...’ Verso thought as he looked at the skeleton.
A skeleton shouldn’t be able to express fear but his summon did, and that too because it saw water.
"We will be heading towards the golden temple." Verso said, slowly nudging the frozen skeleton.
"Be ready in case we get jumped, this place is already too quiet for my liking."
Verso took the lead, his boots clicking against the stone path as he started moving forward.
Lil Bone followed right behind him, though its head kept moving back and forth and its jaw was still hanging slightly open as it tracked the silhouettes of the leviathans passing over them.
After a good thirty minutes of walking, the path expanded into a massive town square.
Verso stopped, taking a moment to look around at the buildings and taking in the scale of the massive ruined city.
"This place is really gorgeous."
From the corner of his eye, he saw Lil Bone nodding its head in agreement.
The skeleton had finally stopped shaking and was now mirroring Verso’s gaze, looking at the spiraling towers and the massive buildings.
’I can’t help but wonder what happened to the people that lived here.’
Verso thought about what could have happened to the residents of the ruined city as his curiosity was at its peak.
The city was perfectly mapped out, featuring market stalls with stone counters and wide plazas that suggested a high functioning society once existed here.
It literally had everything a bustling civilization would need to thrive, yet it was a complete graveyard.
The question of what turned a city this advanced into a ghost town sent a cold shiver up his spine.
He slowly turned and looked back toward the golden temple, its spire shining slightly under the faint light filtering through the ocean above.
"I guess there is only one way to find out."
He continued on the path, his pace quickening because of his new desire to learn more about the strange ruins.
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After a good hour of walking through the silent streets, Verso and his skeleton finally reached the base of the temple.
Up close, the scale was overwhelming. It didn’t just look like a building but was like a fortress of gold that made all the surrounding towers look like toys.
The skeleton was busy looking around the temple as Verso looked back at the long, blue path they had just traversed, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"It is weird that we haven’t seen any monsters, though."
In the Shattered Wilds, he couldn’t walk for five minutes without a golem trying to crush his skull.
Here on the other hand, he had walked for an hour through the heart of the realm and hadn’t felt or heard any form of movement.
He turned back toward the temple entrance.
The front doors were massive, crafted from solid gold and covered in strange engraved characters.
The writing was complex as it looked like someone had etched the characters on the door with their nails which made the patterns hard to understand.
"It doesn’t look like it will open easily." He muttered.
Verso walked up to the large door and placed his hand on the cold gold.
He had expected that he would need to find a key or use his golems to batter it down but the moment his palm touched the surface.
[Would You Like to Open ’The Temple of Atlantis’?]
Verso pulled his hand back as the characters on the door suddenly ignited with a bright blue glow.
"Well, that wasn’t that hard."
He accepted the system’s message.
CREAK.
The massive golden doors began to grind open slowly.
The sound was a deafening as a high pitched screech of metal scrapping on stone echoed through the empty city streets like a violent scream.
Verso immediately clamped his hands over his ears, his teeth gritting against the vibration.
He glanced to his side and saw Lil Bone doing the exact same thing, its bony hands pressed firmly against the sides of its skull.
’Since when did you have ears?’ He thought, but he didn’t have the time to dwell on it.
The doors were now wide open, revealing the dark interior of the temple and as the screeching sound faded, Verso took his hands off his head and stepped inside.
The layout was strikingly similar to a church.
Long, heavy stone benches were lined up in neat rows facing toward the back of the hall. The air inside was cool and smelled of salt.
But what caught his attention and made him stop in his tracks was the statue that took up the entire rear wall.
It was a giant leviathan made of dark, polished stone. The statue was significantly larger than the beasts he had seen swimming in the sky.
Its serpent like body coiled around the pillars of the temple, carved with such detail that the scales looked real as its terrifying face looked downward staring directly at the benches where people would have sat.
Verso stared up at the stone monster, feeling the weight of the city’s history pressing down on him.
"Did I just walk into a city of cultists?"