Ch.385Starlight-Laden Past. Meteor Crater (2)

“Indeed. So this is what it feels like.”

Victor nodded slowly as he descended in the elevator, clenching and unclenching his fist.

“Is your power not working properly?”

“No. The power is there, but… it can’t extend outward. It’s difficult to explain… it feels like something is blocking it. Could it be the souls of those buried here?”

It was like having a computer with a perfectly functioning CPU but being unable to do anything because the monitor was off.

Others had blamed it on the clouds, but there was definitely something supernatural down there. Something that even the power of the sun couldn’t easily dispel.

“I see. So this is a pit of the past. It’s rejecting the light of the present.”

“Ugh… it’s getting colder.”

“Let’s turn on some lights now. We’ll reach the ground soon.”

Click.

Spot!

As he flipped the switch, a damp light pierced through the darkness.

What secrets could be hiding in this darkness that even artificial light struggled to penetrate?

Clatter… Clank!

“We’ve reached the ground. Let’s get out.”

Drawing his purifier for the first time in a long while, Victor took the lead position of the party and began guiding the Iron Walkers, with the honor guard forming a protective circle around them.

At that moment, the ground beneath Victor’s feet suddenly lit up, and the light transformed into whips that began to coil around him.

Crack! Crack-crack!

“W-what is this?!”

“Darling!”

“My lord!”

The dwarf brothers desperately swung their axes, infusing them with aura to cut through the light whips as if chopping firewood, but their strikes merely sliced through empty air, having no effect on the whips of light.

Victor, realizing the gravity of the situation, unleashed his divine power at the cost of damaging his protective suit, but the light whips simply ignored his divine power and constricted his body even tighter, dragging him underground.

“What…?!”

“His Majesty’s power isn’t working…?!”

A light that was immune to his divine power? Victor, the Iron Walker party, and the honor guard members all stared with wide eyes.

Then what exactly were these glowing whips? Could it be… an evil god lurking underground? Some primordial darkness capable of devouring even the sun itself?

“Berkman! Hawkman! Get back!”

“But Victor is—!”

“The ground is collapsing! You’ll be caught in it too!”

“Damn it..!”

As the whips continued to coil around Victor, the darkness-shrouded ground began to disintegrate.

The scene resembled a junkyard of fragments and scrap metal slowly collapsing, completely swallowing Victor’s incandescent white body into the underground. Raisha lost her composure and began striking the ground frantically with her halberd.

“It swallowed Victor?!”

“AAAAARGH! Give me back my husband!”

“Moon Goddess! Please calm yourself! We can still feel our lord’s presence!”

“Nnngh….”

It was quite surprising to see Raisha’s face contort like this.

The Iron Walker party and honor guard had lost their leader in less than a minute after setting foot in this crater.

What conclusion would they reach in this darkness?

*

CRASH…!!!

“Urrrgh…”

Victor was being dragged deep underground by the whips of light binding his entire body.

It felt like experiencing the sensation of packages collapsing on top of him during a loading job—an extremely unpleasant and painful feeling.

BOOM! CLANG!

“Commander! Can you hear me?! Commander!”

[Lord… where… you…]

“Damn it… the communication!”

The radio wasn’t working properly, likely because he was continuously burrowing through the crust surrounded by metallic fragments.

He was still bound by the whips, his body protected by aura, being dragged endlessly downward.

“Damn it… how much deeper are we going?!”

As if to mock his concern, he was finally released from the whips.

The only problem was that he had crashed headfirst into a thick cylindrical passage and had to break through it with his entire body.

“The purifier… is it alright…”

To be honest, even Victor couldn’t help feeling fear this time.

It was clearly light, yet he had no control over it. It was like watching his body move on its own, causing his brain to panic.

“Huff….”

Victor took a deep breath and attempted to communicate with his honor guard who should still be on the surface.

This cylindrical passage had pipes and power lines visible. He didn’t know where they led, but if they connected to the surface, communication might be possible.

[Commander. Report.]

[My lord! Are you safe?]

[Somehow… I’ve entered some kind of passage… but I don’t know my exact location. Can you pinpoint it from there?]

[…I’m sorry. We can’t go that far…]

[That’s fine. Anyway, I have no choice but to move forward. Be careful. If I, a god, was dragged down without resistance… it might be worse for you all.]

[Understood, my lord.]

Fortunately, the communication went through.

However, climbing back up this enormous distance would be challenging even for a god. While ascending itself might be possible, if that mysterious whip or tentacle—whatever it was—pulled him down again, there would be nothing he could do. In this crater, there seemed to be something powerful enough to break even a god.

In the end, all he could do was walk endlessly through this cylindrical passage.

The scene resembled scientists observing a hamster placed in a maze. The problem was that this time, he wasn’t the scientist but the hamster.

“Damn it, I don’t like this.”

Victor removed his protective suit, irritably wiped away his sweat, and continued forward.

*

Creeeeak…

“What kind of puzzle is this…”

There were doors at intervals, but strangely, they opened automatically as Victor approached.

Yet not all doors opened—only one door at a time—and Victor immediately noticed that the opening of these doors involved the will of some intelligent entity.

By only opening specific doors, they were essentially guiding him to the passage they wanted him to take.

This wasn’t Hansel and Gretel. If they had dropped a vial of elixir at each turn, he would have known it was a trap but still followed. But they gave nothing and merely opened doors, making him feel increasingly humiliated and angry that someone was treating the Sun God and Lord of Humanity so lightly.

“Damn it, whoever you are, if you’re some amateur, I’ll have your head!”

He had been looking forward to a proper adventure after so long, but it ended before it even began. Now he was trapped in this underground labyrinth of unknown depth, wandering through maze-like passages, following doors that opened on their own.

Creeeeak…

“That makes thirty doors…”

The air was getting colder.

For some reason, this underground space that had been filled with stuffy heat was now growing cold. What could this mean? When he touched the pipes embedded in the passage walls, some strange hot liquid—definitely not water—was still flowing through them, but now the pipes felt cold to the touch though the contents remained the same.

He didn’t know what liquid was flowing, but it certainly wasn’t water. Victor could sense it. There was neither the pure energy of clear water nor the turbid energy of murky water.

What he felt was like a raging current—flowing, breaking, connecting, disconnecting repeatedly—an energy like that of a machine.

“…I have no idea what this is.”

If Simon were here, he might have known, but Victor’s knowledge wasn’t enough to identify this unknown liquid.

“…I can’t cut through this either.”

Cutting through it wouldn’t be difficult in itself. This passage seemed incredibly old, and his purifier could easily slice through it.

But this was underground, with an enormous amount of ruins and debris above. If he carelessly damaged something and angered the owner of this place, or worse, if the space itself collapsed, even Victor wouldn’t escape unscathed.

“Damn it. There’s nothing I like about this situation.”

Victor put his purifier back in its sheath and continued walking along the passage.

By now, he couldn’t tell if he was walking upside down or right-side up, but when he opened the 31st door, he couldn’t help but gasp.

-Welcome, being of the modern age.-

A screen?

No, in a room filled with monitors, a white-haired old man suspended in mechanical devices began to address him calmly.

“…Who are you?”

-Forgive my late introduction. I am Frederick Carlson. The last remaining Earthling.-

“Earthling…?”

-More specifically, I could say I’m the final Homo sapiens.-

Only then could Victor set aside all hostility.

What stood before him was neither an ancient dragon nor an evil dark god.

It was merely the final legacy left by the Age of Stars—someone who had survived for a million years, slowly decaying.