novelraw Chapter 702: At the Foot of the World's Spine
Chapter 702: At the Foot of the World's Spine
Crunch... crunch...
The soles of his boots ground against the splintered wood. A figure holding an oil lamp stepped into the scarred ruins.
He seemed to be searching for something, but he found nothing. Only as he was leaving did he bend down and pick up a small shard from the wreckage.
Fog rolled in from beyond the small town, and the figure departed the ruined quarter, limping on a twisted ankle.
He knocked on the windows of houses where light still flickered, but the owners either paid him no mind or extinguished their lamps.
Just as the strange fog was about to swallow him whole, an elderly couple took the traveler in, welcoming him into their warm home with its crackling fireplace.
"Are you injured?" they asked, noticing the scrapes and the dust-caked clothes.
"What's your name?"
"Lu Li," he answered.
Sensing that the young man, who had clearly survived something terrible, needed rest, the old couple led him upstairs."...We have little food left ourselves. If you get hungry, you can have some vegetable soup."
Lu Li declined their kind offer, asking only for a basin of water to clean his wounds. Aside from the scrapes and bruises from his falls, the most serious injury was his twisted ankle. It would take time to heal.
After tending to his injuries, Lu Li shifted his gaze to the bedside table and picked up the shard he had recovered from the ruins.
Its silver-plated surface was engraved with the fragment of a rose. It was a piece of the Atonement.
Lu Li had found nothing else.
The strange fog enveloped the town, and within it, something indistinct seemed to wander.
In the quiet room, Lu Li replayed everything that had happened.
Anna's projection had possessed the guide, but it had failed.
Anna, saturated with the aura of the In-Between, had transformed into an evil spirit.
She had screamed, "Get out!"
The moment she transformed, the illusion of a rope, like a noose, had appeared above her head.
After her transformation, Anna... had been crying.
Lu Li raised his head, staring at the weathered ceiling, and pictured a rope descending, a still silhouette hanging in its loop.
But something didn't add up. A noose belonged on the neck, but what had been above Anna's head was more like...
A sudden wave of exhaustion cut through his thoughts. It became difficult to concentrate, his battered body screaming for rest.
He managed only to place the Beacon beside his pillow before sinking into a deep sleep.
The quiet and sorrowful night dissolved into oblivion.
In the morning, the strange fog had dispersed, and Lu Li slowly awoke.
Extinguishing the lamp on the nightstand, he went downstairs, carrying the Beacon and the shard of the Atonement.
The elderly couple was preparing breakfast by the fire: a soup of dried herbs with a pinch of salt, and nothing else.
It couldn't sustain life, but it could quell hunger.
Lu Li crushed the stone medallion, awaiting the Trader, and continued to mull things over.
Anna had transformed after possessing the guide. The guide was a follower of Silence... Had she lost control because of an attack from Silence?
Lu Li touched his pocket. The straw charm the guide had given him was still there.
If it still protected him from the ritual of Silence...
The soup was ready.
The old man filled a wooden bowl and offered it to Lu Li, but he shook his head.
"You can eat later," Lu Li said.
He was going to buy canned food.
"Cold soup won't fill your belly," the old man smiled and, holding the bowl, returned to the fireplace to stir the contents of the cauldron.
Lu Li silently watched as the old man sat by the fire, poured the cooled soup back into the pot, and then ladled himself a fresh, steaming bowlful.
Suddenly, he whipped his head around, staring past the old man.
Next to the old man's elongated shadow, another had appeared, not as long, belonging to no one present—the shadow of a girl.
The dark silhouette of the girl drew near the old man's shadow and, before Lu Li could react, merged with it.
Splat!
The wooden soup bowl fell into the cauldron, splashing hot broth. The old man, ignoring the burns on his hands and face, turned to Lu Li and spoke in a strange voice, "Lu Li, it's me."
Lu Li froze.
"We are in the ritual of the Rope of Descent. I am free, but you are not."
Before another word could be spoken, the old man's body melted like a candle, pooling across the floor. In his place, only Anna's shadow remained.
The shadow on the floor turned its head, as if looking at Lu Li, and drifted toward the petrified old woman.
A soft light suddenly poured from Lu Li's hands, bathing the house in humanity and casting the old woman's own shadow aside.
Anna's shadow paused, seeming to glance at Lu Li, then slipped out the door, disappearing into the crack beneath it.
The Beacon went dark, and Lu Li, following Anna's trail, stepped out onto the deserted street.
A light breeze carried grains of sand, sweeping through the empty streets. Anna's shadow was already gone.
The Beacon flared to life again, but it revealed no trace of the shadow he sought.
Bang!
The door of a nearby house suddenly burst open, and a figure stumbled out, addressing Lu Li in a voice not its own, "She has influenced you, just as she has me."
Before reaching Lu Li, it collapsed, melting into the sandy ground.
Shatter!
Lu Li spun around. On the second floor of the adjacent house, a window broke, sending shards of glass flying. A bloodied face appeared in the frame and stated monotonously, "This is an epic tale she has woven for you."
The face contorted and dissolved, vanishing from the window.
Lu Li looked down an alley. A ragged man was running toward him.
"Aunt Mary is in the Lennon Archipelago."
With those words, the man fell to the sandy earth.
Shuffling footsteps sounded from behind. Lu Li turned. The old woman, dragging a broken leg, hobbled toward him, her face twisted in a terrifying apathy. "She—the Rope of Descent—made me lure you into a trap."
The wind whipped sand across the street, obscuring his vision. He could only hear the approaching, chaotic footsteps and the voices carried on the wind.
"She clouded my mind, forced me to possess the bodies of others."
Figures fell as new ones appeared.
"Emin..." came the old man's voice.
"Elena..." came a child's voice.
"I was always by your side..."
"Stop, Anna," Lu Li whispered to the silhouette that materialized before him.
The approaching figure froze and then uttered something incoherent: "...Rod, don't go! It's everywhere..."
The silhouette melted into the ground. From the alley, an old man emerged, fighting against the wind.
He fell, but stubbornly crawled toward Lu Li and grabbed his ankle.
"...I love you."
The faint voice dissolved into the air with a gust of wind.
No one else appeared. The town was empty of survivors.
The sandstorm intensified, and in the distance, a tall, indistinct silhouette took shape.
The Trader stood before Lu Li.
"What do you wish to sell?"
"A new evil spirit," Lu Li replied, his voice deceptively calm, his dark eyes lowered. "It appears as the shadow of a girl. Its ritual is to penetrate the shadows of others, granting it control of their bodies and access to their memories."