Chapter 160: Lifeless City

The nearby spectres detected Aura and the others as soon as they landed on the ground. A dozen or so turned to face them and opened their mouths in silent roars which escaped the ear but caused the soul to quiver.

As the spectres were non physical, physical attacks couldn't hurt them. The group also needed to preserve their mana and any large usage of it would attract who knows what.

To combat this, Aura pulled out a pair of soulium clawed gloves and slipped them on her hand.

Soulium was the only metal Styx had contact with which could directly cut the soul, thus allowing Aura to fight without expending any mana.

"What an interesting material," Adam commented before pulling out and unusually long double-edged long sword. "This is imbued with holy power and can touch the soul too. It also has the holy property of dealing additional damage to undead."

Illidiath snorted and directly used a slight amount of mana to empower her hands as she was the only one without such a weapon. The Fourth Step supports stood back and offered a supportive role, even if it was unnecessary.

In this mission, they were more baggage carriers and taking care of any standard husk mobs so the Fifth Step existences could preserve their strength as much as possible.

The spectres flew close to the ground, releasing their silent howls and trying to suck the life force and mana away from the party.

Aura's claws flashed first, the wolf girl running on all fours and pouncing on the first spectre. Her body phased right through it whilst her claws tore it to shreds.

It barely even made a move before it dissipated into the air, leaving a small pile of spectral dust on the ground that the Fourth Step angels and void residents carefully collected into small jars.

Upon landing, Aura's muscles tensed before she cannonballed herself at the next nearest spectre, tearing that one to shreds just as easily.

The angels weilded an extra long long sword and spear with poise and precision, casually shredding the spectres apart as well.

"Hmm? They aren't undead? Our weapons should purify them," Adam casually remarked while looking at his sword.

"Styx said they are probably underworld workers, or once were, and are not the type of undead that are weak to the holy attribute," Aura spoke with her head turned to face the angels.

"Ridiculous."

Illidiath held a specter with her bare hand effortlessly. It scratched and tried to damage her body, but its attacks proved futile. She merely grabbed it with her other hand and forcefully ripped it apart before discarding the evaporation spectral fragments and moved onto the next one.

~~~~~

⠀

The group travelled deeper and deeper into this pseudo underworld, eventually reaching what appeared to be a city. Nobody knew exactly what it was though, as the giant black granite brick wall surrounded the city and prevented anything from being seen inside.

"Do we break through?" Adam asked, drawing his hand back before hitting the wall with all his strength.

*Clang*

The six-winged angel winced as his sword bounced off the wall without doing so much as a scratch.

"...What in God is this?"

Aura got close to the wall and gave it a sniff.

"Inedible…" She said with some regret before losing all interest in it.

Styx was surprised as there was apparently nothing Aura couldn't consume. She was the embodiment of gluttony and even had a sin series skill to reflect it. She could consume entire worlds, or at least sub dimensions, if she wanted to.

Yet, she couldn't eat this wall.

"It must not be a mortal material. It appears to separate the inside and outside. The river of souls passes by here, so there may still be souls residing within it. See if you can find a door, or climb the wall and enter that way."

Illidiath reinforced her finger and dug at the morter with her fingernail. She was by far the strongest here in pure brute stength, but even she only managed to scrape a small amount of morter out.

Styx had the Fourth Step helpers immediately bottle up this dust, but the Fifth Step woman quickly lost interest and ignored the dungeon lord's request to scrape out a little more.

It was almost eerily quite by the wall, the spectres not moving anywhere near it for unknown reasons.

Aura relayed Styx's words and the group wandered under the faint glow of violet flowers, some even growing on the ground at the bottom of the wall, in hopes of locating an entrance.

Sadly, the group ran an entire circle around the wall, which covered and area that was easily three times larger than Lagoon Porter City, yet they found no entry or exit. Whatever was inside of the wall, was designed to stay inside, and likewise outside.

"Very well, we will go over," Adam casually commented and the group grabbed onto the cracks in the wall as they pulled themselves up.

Aura and Illidiath were the best at this, the two incredibly powerful and dexterous. Only the smallest divot in the wall was required for them to grasp onto with their finger and pull themselves up.

They moved rapidly and scaled what was at least several kilometers before they reached the top.

Styx watched through Aura's gaze and was astounded by what he saw.

Unlike outside the wall, inside was brightly lit and full of life. Unknown trees and flowers grew everywhere, while lush grass covered ovals and lawns. Buildings that Styx found very familiar built the town, while normal humans went about their days.

"Great Lord Abyssal, what is this?" Illidiath was stunned as she gazed down at the tiny humans far below them. The city inside the wall was vibrant and teeming with vitality, an utter stark contrast to outside of the wall, or the rest of the world which had turned into ruin and ash.

"Styx says we should go in and investigate. He said," Aura tilted her head in confusion as she repeated his words. "He said that this looks just like his old world. He wants to know why there are humans here, and how they are still alive."

~~~~~

⠀

"There are no cars…"

Styx didn't realize it at first, and it wasn't something that immediately leapt out as unusual. It wasn't unordinary for cars to not exist, especially in a fantasy world.

However, the entire city, from main core business district to outer suburbs, had bitumen road infrastructure throughout. Despite this, they were void of cars or any other form of transportation.

Aura and the others wandered down the pavement on a residential street in the outer suburbs and were filled with a sense of incongruity.

The gardens were full of rose bushes, tulips and other kinds of flowers, whilst lawns were neatly mowed as if they were under constant maintenance. They could feel, however, that at least 90 percent of the homes were completely empty.

There was no life in the gardens and lawns either. Even the dirt in the gardenbeds was devoid of even the simplest micro-bacterial life that is crucial to breaking down plant and other matter to generate nutrients in the soil.

There were some residents that peeked from behind curtains in windows, both out of curiosity and some fear. Seeing people with wings was not something ordinary to these people after all.

Aura and the other Fifth Step existences could all naturally see mana, and this place was practically lifeless in that mana sight. The people who were hiding had little to no mana inside of them, some not even having 10 mana points.

Down the road was a man with wavy brown hair and a straw hat watering his plants with a watering can, but the plants were fake and the watering can was empty.

"Sirs and ladies, how do you do?" He grinned widely and waved as Aura and the others reached his house.

Illidiath looked at him emotionlessly before nodding her head and casually remarking, "Fine."

"Perhaps you are hungry, would you like to come inside for a bite?"

The thought of food made Aura's stomach rumble, which then caused the man to look at her with confusion.

Under Styx's guidance, everyone walked through the gate to his property and entered the house.

Inside, the sense of incongruity didn't leave the group. The old man served them empty plates pretending it was food.

"Here, here, eat up."

They weren't entirely empty, there was a single mote of mana on each plate, equivalent of a single mana point.

None here were interested in this and casually placed the plates to the side.

"Excuse me sir," Adam said politely, "we would like to ask a few questions."

The man's eyes rapidly moved from the people to the plates before hesitatingly asking, "Do you not want it?"

Adam didn't even look at the plate whilst the others also expressed their disdain towards it. Not even Aura was interested in eating it. Each of them had tens of thousands of mana points and a single mana point was worth less to them than a single grain of rice was to a rich man.

Even the Fourth Step assistants were disinclined to touch it.

"Hahaha….. HAHAHAHHAA!!"

Rather than being offended, the man's eyes rapidly turned bloodshot as he laughed in hysteria.

"I knew it, I KNEW IT! You have mana, don't you! I have never seen your kind before, there is no way you don't have mana!"

Inside his body, they could see that he had 21 mana points worth of mana, a ten points less than before he served their "meals".

"I was so kind to you, spare me some of it!!"

He lunged at the group only to be pinned to the ground by the flat of Adam's sword that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Y-You have an illegal weapon!! Are you crazy!?"

"Sir, I would like to ask you some questions."

"Y-yes. But please, spare me some of your mana!"