The Dark Mage Of The Magus World-Chapter 84 - 85: A World Transformed

"AI chip, confirm the location."

Hutson stood motionless, his gaze scanning the unfamiliar landscape around him.

"Based on terrain comparison, the probability that this was the Dragon’s Beard Grass farmland is 99.99%."

Hutson exhaled slowly.

"So it wasn’t my imagination. This really was the farmland."

But now—there was nothing.

The carefully cultivated fields were gone.

The paths between the plots had vanished.

It was as if the land had never been touched.

Hutson furrowed his brows, then steeled himself and began moving toward the pine forest.

His movements were slow, deliberate—silent.

The weight of last night’s horrors still clung to him, an instinctive wariness burned into his bones.

Finally, when he reached a vantage point where he could barely see the edge of the forest, he stopped, his eyes scanning for movement.

And then he noticed—

"The spiderwebs... they’re gone."

The realization made his skin prickle.

Last night, the forest floor had been blanketed in webs. Sticky, glistening strands had hung from every branch, stretching between the trees like a grotesque, living trap.

Now—there was nothing.

The webs had vanished without a trace.

Hutson’s pulse quickened.

"But that doesn’t make sense..."

He remembered leaving the cave at dawn and still seeing remnants of webbing near the entrance—strands clinging to the tree branches, faint imprints on the ground where the spiders had crawled.

And yet—

Now the entire forest was clean.

A creeping realization settled over him.

"If the farmland disappeared, and the spiders disappeared... what about the ancient ruin inside the cave?"

A deep unease took root in his gut.

There was only one way to find out.

He turned back.

Hutson retraced his steps, his pace quickening.

When he reached the place where the cave entrance should have been...

His mind went blank.

There was no cave.

Only a solid mountain wall.

His breath caught in his throat.

He stepped closer, eyes scanning the rockface, searching for any sign of the cavern he had entered just hours ago.

Nothing.

He ran his hands across the stone—it was solid, unbroken.

Desperate, he unsheathed his spade and scraped away at the surface, clearing away dirt and vines.

Still nothing.

No tunnel.

No entrance.

No sign that anything had ever been there.

Hutson stepped back, his mind racing.

He turned sharply, looking toward the forest.

The spiderwebs were gone.

The paths left by the mammoth’s charge had vanished.

Even the ground—where so many creatures had moved, where battle had torn through the land—was now untouched, covered in wild grass.

It was as if the entire night had never happened.

A cold dread wrapped around his spine.

"With my current knowledge... I can’t explain this."

There were no recorded spells or phenomena he knew of that could erase an entire landscape overnight.

And worse—if he didn’t understand it, he couldn’t predict it.

Was this a spell? A curse? A world shifting between two realities?

Or was it—

A space that only existed at night?

His thoughts flashed back to the blacksmith’s words.

"At dawn, you can leave."

Did that mean the night and day were two separate worlds?

Two overlapping dimensions, shifting with the rise and fall of the sun?

If so—what was this place, truly?

Hutson’s hands clenched into fists.

There was only one way to find out.

He needed to return to the town.

Hutson never would have dared return at night.

The houses, the shadows, the things that lurked within them...

But now—it was daylight.

If this world had truly shifted, if the town was now a different place, then it might be safe enough to investigate.

Or at least, safer.

If something was wrong, he could still avoid the town and take the long way toward the mountain pass.

Taking one last look at the vanished cave, Hutson turned and began his return journey.

He circled around the pine forest, keeping a safe distance.

Even if the spiders were gone, he wouldn’t risk stepping near their former domain.

As he walked, his eyes scanned the ground.

If the mammoth had really been here, there should have been obvious signs—a creature of that size couldn’t move without leaving destruction in its wake.

But...

There was nothing.

The path was overgrown with wild grass.

The footprints, the crushed earth, the destruction from its rampage... all gone.

It was as if no creature had ever walked here.

Hutson’s grip tightened around his lantern.

He pressed forward, reaching a hilltop overlook where he could see the town.

His stomach twisted.

The town was in ruins.

Hutson remembered arriving here at sunset.

From the mountain’s base, the town had looked alive.

He had seen people moving, warm lights flickering in windows.

It had looked like any normal settlement.

But now—

It was a graveyard.

Houses lay collapsed, their frames rotted and broken.

The streets were overgrown, choked by wild vines and grass.

Buildings bore charred remains—entire sections had burned to the ground, leaving behind nothing but blackened skeletons of wood and stone.

Hutson moved cautiously down the hill, his pulse pounding in his ears.

His feet touched the overgrown road, and he realized—

This wasn’t just a town left abandoned for years.

It was a town erased from time itself.

Hutson made his way toward a familiar sight.

The blacksmith’s shop.

Unlike the other buildings, its structure remained mostly intact.

The door was shut, the windows dust-covered, but the shape was the same.

Hutson stepped forward, peering through the fogged glass.

The inside... was identical to last night.

The furniture, the tools—everything remained in place.

Only now, there was a thick layer of dust coating every surface.

As if it had been untouched for decades.

Hutson’s throat tightened.

He reached for the door.

It didn’t budge.

The lock had rusted shut.

Frowning, he pushed harder—

CRACK.

The entire doorframe collapsed inward, crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust.

Hutson coughed, stepping back.

"Damn it... Blacksmith, I swear I didn’t do that on purpose."

As the dust settled, he stepped inside.

The floor creaked beneath his boots.

He scanned the dim interior—and saw something that made his heart stop.

Plants.

They grew from the walls, from the floorboards, from the cracks in the ceiling.

A house swallowed by nature.

Hutson’s mind churned.

"This place... it’s been abandoned for a long, long time."

So then—

What had he seen last night?

As Hutson moved cautiously through the abandoned house, something stirred in the shadows.

A snake.

Disturbed by his presence, it slithered swiftly through a hole in the broken window, vanishing into the wilderness beyond.

Hutson exhaled, watching it disappear.

Then, his gaze flickered toward the staircase leading to the second floor.

"I should check upstairs."

The steps were old, decayed—rotting from years of neglect.

Many had collapsed entirely, leaving gaping holes in the wood.

Hutson hesitated, then let AI chip scan the structure.

The results were grim.

Several sections had lost their internal supports—stepping on them would mean plunging straight through.

With measured precision, he tested each step before moving forward.

Even so, the staircase groaned under his weight, each creak an ominous whisper against the silence.

At last, he reached the second floor.

His first instinct was to look toward the dining table.

Last night, that table had held Robert’s severed arm, its pale fingers stiff with death.

Now—

The table was still there.

But the arm was gone.

In its place, only scattered debris remained—dust, broken trinkets, forgotten remnants of time.

Hutson’s chest tightened.

He swept his gaze across the room, then turned toward the other two chambers on the second floor.

Both were in ruins.

The walls were cracked, the ceilings caved inward, and creeping vines had begun to swallow the structure from within.

But one room—

The one where he had seen a severed leg hanging from the rafters—

That room still held something.

A set of photographs.

Hutson’s breath stilled as he approached.

The images had faded, worn by time, their details blurring into obscurity.

But he could still make out the shapes.

A family of three.

The blacksmith, his wife, and their child.

Hutson’s fingers hovered over the photos.

Last night, he had seen them—a shadow of the past, locked within a nightmare.

And now, in the harsh light of day, only their ghosts remained.

His gaze drifted to the bedside.

There, half-buried in the dust—

A ragged doll.

Its fabric was torn, its seams frayed.

But even in its ruined state, Hutson recognized it immediately.

The same doll the little girl had clutched in her arms the night before.

His stomach turned.

This wasn’t just an abandoned house.

It was a tomb.

A place where time had unraveled—where past and present no longer followed the same rules.

And somewhere in between, the blacksmith’s family was still here.

Or at least—a version of them was.