Chapter Eighty-Four: Something Is Not Quite Right.

"Good, that's reassuring..."
Colin nodded, though a vague sense of unease lingered, elusive and indefinable.
His surroundings appeared perfectly normal.
He glanced behind him; as expected, the white mist had vanished completely.
Taking a deep breath, Colin once more turned his gaze toward the light concealed behind the mountains, radiating across half the sky.
[There are many ways to reach that place, but aside from the path you tread, the other routes are either too distant or fraught with hidden obstacles that may be impassable.]
"Let’s begin."
With those words, Colin lowered his lantern and led the party forward, step by step.
They walked now upon relatively level ground, littered with luminous stones of varying size, each casting a dim glow.
Around them, towering dead trees stretched their thick, barren branches outward, grotesque and uncanny, offering no shelter, only an eerie spectacle.
The earth beneath was carpeted with years of decaying leaves, yielding softly underfoot and whispering as they trod upon them.
The journey was long—longer than Colin had anticipated.
Nearly an hour passed, and still they traveled through the woods, glimpsing, now and then, ruined houses nestled among the hills.
Yet these glimpses were granted only by the hints he received; the naked eye could not see so far.
Despite his curiosity, Colin had no intention of investigating them.
The only certainty was that they were making progress, no longer trapped in the bewildering maze of the olive grove.
"If only a few aberrant creatures would show up for us to fight..."
The ominous silence pressed in from all sides, so much so that after almost two hours of uneventful travel, Colin found himself longing for an encounter with aberrations—preferably ordinary ones, just enough to break the tension among the group.
But nothing stirred.
Another hour slipped by. Though everyone remained alert, voices began to emerge within the ranks, bantering to dispel the gloom and unease.
In such surroundings, they found themselves exchanging stories of the past and minor hobbies.
This, too, was Colin’s suggestion; without conversation, they might well have suffocated from the oppressive silence.
Deathly stillness, uneasy peace.
The sky above remained dark and empty.
After more than three hours of walking, Colin discovered that they had finally emerged from the forest.
Now they entered a wide dirt road, flanked still by trees.

This corridor between the trees was shadowed and silent, the ground largely hidden beneath fallen leaves, giving it a chaotic aspect.
Yet, through the dead branches and leaves, the dirt road seemed to bear many marks.
[You find yourself intrigued by those traces; upon inspection, they appear to include tracks left by horses and carts, humans, and wild beasts...]
[Ahead lies, perhaps, a town from a bygone era.]
[It should retain much history from the old days, and nothing overtly dangerous lurks there.]
Colin dismissed the hints from his mind.
He already knew a town lay ahead, and that it posed little danger...
Still, an unease gnawed at him, as if some hidden terror or threat was brewing with the passage of time.
He felt he had overlooked something vital, but struggled to draw any connection, lacking direction...
It was akin to forgetfulness—remembering something perfectly one moment, only to lose it the next...
...Perhaps I’m overthinking it... Colin shook his head, stepping onto the leaf-strewn, yielding path, lantern in hand, his voice grave:
"Let’s keep moving. Stay alert, and report any problems immediately."
The party set off once more.
No one noticed that, within the lantern’s glow—lit by the rare, corrupted blood—there now moved twenty-eight shadows...
...
After another half hour or so, Colin finally caught sight, several hundred meters ahead, of the town mentioned in the hints.
More precisely—a ruin.
The ruins were modest in scale; perhaps, as the hints suggested, they had once been a town, but now peace had reclaimed them.
"I wonder what monsters await..."
Though the hints assured him there was nothing too dangerous, Colin remained wary.
Reflected in his pupils, the outer ring of the ruins was a collapsed wall, as if something had smashed through it with brute force.
Through this breach, he could just make out the scene within.
A wasteland, shrouded in darkness.
[You realize that once, some colossal creature broke through here, charging along this ancient cobblestone road deep into the heart of the town.]
"Could it have been the ‘Silent Watcher’ when it left the High Court?"
Colin’s mind went first to this entity, but it seemed unlikely, for there were no giant footprints.
The creature that broke through the walls appeared to be a beast, judging by the four-hoofed tracks left behind.
"Let’s take a look inside."

Colin hesitated briefly, then decided to enter, unwilling to bypass the place.
Most importantly, it was his first time seeing a town—a town so "intact."
He hoped to gather much in the way of civilization’s history here.
Yet, just as Colin and his companions prepared to step through the broken walls into the deserted town, the last shadow at the edge of the lantern’s light began to writhe...
In an instant, a shadow split from its back and silently joined the ranks.
Now, twenty-nine shadows moved.
Colin, walking in the middle of the group, suddenly turned to look back...

[You sense something following you, but upon inspecting the woods behind, you find only silence—no abnormalities.]
"An illusion?"
Colin frowned, his unease growing, as if an invisible pressure was gradually intensifying.
Breathing became harder.
And yet, the hints seemed perfectly normal...
"Sir Colin, do you sense anything strange around us?"
Shana furrowed her brow slightly, as if perceiving something, but unable to pinpoint it...
"I do, but nothing concrete..." Colin shook his head.
"Is there something? I can’t feel much at all..." Li Chou interjected, surprised.
He had noticed Colin’s vigilance throughout the journey, but felt nothing himself.
In truth, for him, nowhere here felt safe.
Everywhere was eerie—one glance sent shivers up his spine, as if some unknown horror might leap out at any moment.
Without special means, this was the greatest difference between ordinary survivors and Colin.
They could not tell where safety lay, nor where danger lurked...
To them, everything here looked dangerous, for heaven’s sake!
Especially since they had to mark their path as they went, lest they lose their way. If not for the two servants at the outset, their goosebumps would be dancing by now.