Angel Monarch-Chapter 600: The Corpse of Something Ancient

Their fall was pretty anticlimactic. They felt air rush past them for a few seconds before they reached the soft ground below.

The trio glanced around in confusion. Their lantern and bags fallen nearby, providing ample darkness, which wasn't necessary. They were underground, the only source of light being the small opening they fell through.

With a bit of struggle, they climbed out of the soft, grainy material. Aralim looked around mesmerized, still grasping the sharp mirror. Its edge cut up his hand while falling, yet the pain evaded his mind as pure excitement shone in his vision.

"These are the tunnels! They're real!" he exclaimed with passion.

Sorath grunted nearby and dug out their gear, while Naomi continued standing beside her friend. Neither noticed that their hands remained intertwined.

However, their peace soon ended as screeches and roars echoed from above. More sand-like substance fell from the hole, and soon a few Cockatrices fell on top of the trio.

"Run!" shouted Naomi, while pulling Aralim away by his trembling hand. Her brother, already gathered their bags and lantern, rushed after them.

The tunnel was circular and about ten to fifteen meters in diameter. It led into infinite darkness, which gave the trio perfect sight, while taking that advantage away from any enemies.

The Cockatrices tried to follow, but their uneven center of mass combined with the soft ground made running impossible. It took the group of teenagers about a full minute of sprinting before the horde finally abandoned the chase.

When it seemed safe, they stopped and sat, their backs against the tunnel wall. Somehow, even after fighting and running, neither Noami nor Sorath looked as tired as Aralim.

Their small friend looked moments away from passing out, while Sorath took heavy breaths but otherwise didn't look bad at all. Naomi looked a bit pale and sweaty, her slim body covered in the gore of monsters.

"Hey, Sora... Give me some water... My band is too bloody... I can barely see..." asked Naomi between exhausted breaths.

The dark fabric they wore on their heads, while providing vision, was a hassle to keep clean. If it became too dirty, their vision would suffer, which could easily lead to death in a battle.

Sorath reached into one bag and pulled out a metal flask. Her sister slowly pulled off the fabric covering her face and caught the tossed flask.

Aralim watched his friend's face with a mix of melancholy and curiosity. It was a bit of a taboo in their race to reveal their faces. Usually, only spouses would reveal their faces to their partners.

It was a tradition that after a wedding, the couple didn't wear their bands on their first time together. Supposedly, it increased the other senses and made the moment more intimate.

He didn't know anything about that, but Aralim and his friends didn't care about tradition. They even cleaned each other's bands when necessary, which even spouses weren't allowed to do.

For a long moment, Aralim stared at Naomi's disfigured face. However, he didn't feel any revulsion while gazing at her. Instead, he felt warm and fuzzy in his chest.

It took a lot of trust to take off your band when others were nearby. You were basically blind without the piece of fabric, yet Naomi didn't hesitate even though Aralim sat less than a meter away...

"Beautiful..." he whispered while staring at Naomi. His face then instantly turned bright red, but luckily, neither of his friends seemed to hear his words.

Naomi poured water on the band, then shuffled a bit, moving closer to Aralim. He didn't notice the slight movement, nor the tiny, joyful smirk on the young woman's face.

Eventually, she cleaned the blood and grime off the dark fabric, and pulled it back on her face. They then ate a bit of their rations, which rejuvenated enough for them to continue the journey.

However, after taking a few steps in the winding tunnel, a new problem arose...

"How do we get out of here?" asked Aralim, eyeing the ceiling high above.

They didn't have any rope, so even though Sorath could probably toss his sister and Aralim up, they had no way of pulling their friend to the surface.

"That's not the only issue," said Naomi, while watching the map. "We ran through these tunnels quite a bit. We took quite a few turns and ran both down and uphill... I've no idea where we are in relation to my map..."

Her words didn't feel either boy with confidence. Aralim kept walking back and forth, trying to figure out a solution. Sorath, on the other hand, just sighed and leaned against the soft wall with all his bodyweight.

A screeching noise, like rusty hinges, echoed through the tunnel, then soon a loud yelp followed it. Both Naomi and Aralim seemed to forget everything, as Sorath fell through the wall, or rather... door...

The tall young man jumped to his feet, searching for some invisible enemy. Instead, he found himself in a large empty hall.

The walls were once white and gold, with tapestries and portraits covering its surface. Most of these decorations were rotted an incomprehensible. There were also stone pedestals, with broken statues lying around.

The trio, after making sure Sorath was fine, walked into the room. There wasn't a single source of light, which let them see everything perfectly. The air smelled musty as dust particles floated around...

"This place is old... Really old... It's probably from the time before whatever cataclysm destroyed this Realm..." Said Aralim, his voice full of awe and excitement.

He walked to a nearby painting, which fell off the wall. It wasn't too large, but the frames were made of some metal, which severely increased its weight.

With a bit of struggle, he raised the painting and propped it against the wall. The picture revealed a portrait, which wasn't rotten beyond recognition.

Aralim trembled just from looking at the woman in the picture. It was the most perfect being he'd ever laid eyes upon. Her skin had a slight tan; her face was unnaturally symmetrical, as a kind smile stretched across her face.

A pair of golden eyes stared at him, as long white locks fell over her slender shoulders. Behind her back, the edges of her closed white feathered wings crept into the picture.

He couldn't help but glance at the bone wings behind his own back. A deep frown grew on his face, a mix of jealousy and melancholy.

"Oh, what a beauty!" said Naomi after walking beside Aralim. "You think these creatures lived here before us? Or maybe they were us before getting cursed?"

Aralim wanted to answer when Sorath's shout reached their ears...

"Hey guys! Check this out!"

He sounded very excited, which was unlike their tall friend. They both turned from the painting and went up the nearby winding staircase. It led into a collapsed hallway, but on their right, a single room remained intact.

Sorath was in there, holding an object that instantly pushed any sad thoughts out of Aralim's mind... a book!

The youngest of the group didn't say anything. He ran towards his friend and basically tackled him, just to get a glimpse of those pages.

"Hey, be careful, you idiot! It's barely holding together!"

His words fell on flat ears as Aralim began ravenously searching through the pages. Sadly, most of them also rot away, but eventually he found a page with a few readable lines...

'78.92.11.3/4. – The Heir is finally born! We finally have a Prince! I never imagined this day would come! The other Realms are supposedly sending envoys to congratulate His birth! How exciting!'

Whoever wrote the text, their handwriting was beautiful, much better than the documents back at Sorruin.

"It's a journal... I think..." said Aralim, still mesmerized by the text. He had no clue what the numbers at the beginning referred to, but he guessed they were dates.

He turned a few more pages until he found another few readable sentences...

'82.04.19.1/4. – Something strange happened. It seems the Prince had some unstable episode, and He's now under watch of the Archangel of Destruction.'

A few intelligible lines followed before a few simple words ended the text...

'—drove them insane.'

A strong shiver went down Aralim's spine. He didn't quite understand why, but those last three words caused inherent terror in his heart.

"It seems the leaders of this society had a child, and this supposed Prince went insane..."

He wanted to say more, but his words trailed off as he found another few remnant texts... They were much more bone-chilling this time...

'82.04.08.2/4. – They're all dead...—killed them. Entire Realms! They're all dead. Our Goddess sent the Angels of Fate to hunt... I hope we'll be alright, but the other Realms seem dissatisfied. We can only hope in Goddess Rehael and Her sight!'

Without a word, Aralim glanced through every other page until he reached the end. The author's handwriting gradually degraded until the words became utterly unreadable.

Aralim managed to read only a few of these words...

'Blind... Cursed... Disfigured... Broken... Terrified... Sorruin... Hell... Agony...'

He continued moving through the pages faster and faster until he reached the last one. There, a bright red word stretched across the entire page, and upon reading it, Aralim went pale and he dropped the book, causing it to crumble into dust.

"Hey, I wanted to read that too!" said Sorath with annoyance, but Aralim couldn't even form a word.

His entire body trembled as he backed into the room's wall and pulled his legs into a fetal position. He kept his gaze on the pile of dust that was once a book, as if afraid the tiny particles would devour him at any moment.

Upon realizing he wasn't alright, Naomi and Sorath hurried to his side. The young woman grabbed his hand, which felt deathly cold.

"What did you see?" she asked, but Aralim only answered after a few minutes, when his beating heart calmed down.

"T-there... There was... only a s-single words... M-Mad... Madness... M-Madness..." he mumbled over and over again...