章節 38: The Crumbling World
The chaos of the Senate chamber suddenly fell silent. Blades froze in mid-swing, shouts stopped in throats, and the deafening clamor of the people outside died down into an unnatural oppressive stillness.
Leo stumbled, holding his rune blade close as the cold, unnatural feeling washed over him. As if the very fabric of reality was torn asunder, leaving him suspended in a moment that wasn't there or anywhere else. He gazed wildly about, shallow and quick breaths heaving through him, but the world about him was different.
There was a cracking of the walls of the chamber as though spidering cracks were creeping through the marble, as though the building itself shuddered under some intolerable weight. The senators and soldiers stand, their faces frozen into masklike expressions of shock and terror, but no longer seemed quite real-as though they were merely figures in a painting.
Then came the glow.
Out of the small book that he had found at the beginning of this strange journey, out of it, there began an unearthly brilliance emanating. It hovered beyond his reach, pages opening up fast as if led by some unseen hand. Golden runes etched upon the cover now glowed brighter and cast long shadows against the crumbling world around him.
Before he could react a system window manifested in front of him, the normally plain text within it now pulsating with an eerie energy.
System Notification:
Quest Failed – This was not the supposed outcome. Fulfillments not met.
The words burned themselves into Leo's vision, searing his mind with their weight. He stumbled back, the rune blade slipping from his hand and clattering soundlessly onto the ground.
"What. What do you mean, 'failed'?" Leo yelled into the silence, his voice rebounding off the quietness of the void.
There was no answer. Cracks in the Senate chamber deepened, bits of ceiling crumbling away to show not sky, but endless, vacant space.
The floor beneath him gave way, and Leo fell—not onto solid ground, but into the abyss itself. His surroundings dissolved into a swirling mass of nothingness, the remnants of Rome vanishing as though they had never existed.
"Antony? Caesar?!" Leo called out, his voice trembling. But there was no answer, no sign of life—only the sound of his own breathing as the void swallowed him whole.
And then came the last note.
System Alert:
He sees you and your growth.
The lines hung before his face, each word drenched with foreboding power that gave Leo shivers. The page of the book lit up as if drenched in golden-dipped flames, and Leo blinked to save his eyesight. His vision went dazed, body sensation as if it weighed tonnes, as if all the crushing weight of the void lay upon him.
What is that supposed to mean? Who is there to see me?" Leo's voice broke, anguish pouring into each word. But his sight went dark, and the illuminated words were the last thing he saw before the blackness engulfed him completely.
When he finally opened his eyes again, there was no sound, no light. Only an oppressive feeling of solitude.
And then, a whisper came. It was neither man nor woman, yet somehow sounded as coming from all around and also nowhere at the same time.
"Your journey is not your own. You are but a piece on a board far greater than you can comprehend. Choose wisely in the next turn, Leo Carter. He is watching."
And then, silence.
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