It was unfortunate, but the defeat of the Calamity-Class specter reaped no rewards.

In retrospect, such an outcome was only natural. These Specters did not possess corporeal bodies. The only thing that kept them tethered to this world were the insanely high amounts of mana within the city. When they died, the dissipated mana simply returned back to the surroundings.

Well, it did not really bother him. After all, it wasn’t like he seriously fought against these things. Ellis had simply just stood there and waited as the Specters rushed towards him. Even the giant Specter was no different. The suicide attack that it launched did not even tickle.

Thus, with a clear mind, Ellis and his group continued on their journey.

Time passed. They walked for another two days. Eventually, the street that they were currently on came to an abrupt stop.

At the end of the main street, there lay a simple marble shrine. It resembled an ancient Greek temple and looked wholly out of place within the aesthetics of this cubed city.

A triangular roof held aloft by several columns. The front of the temple was supported by eight columns, four on the right side and four on the left. The columns on the sides of the building were pure white, much like the rest of the temple, while the columns in the front were pitch black.

Ellis felt a certain sense of familiarity upon looking at those columns. They kind of reminded him of his black spear. Were they made out of the same material?

As he continually stared at the peculiar building, a frown unconsciously formed on his face.

These columns… there should be enough space for one additional column in the center. Adding together the previous eight, that would make for a total of nine columns...

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Instead of a ninth column, the middle section of the temple was used as the entrance to the building.

It was a weird little detail and to be honest, Ellis did not even know why he harped on it, but for some reason, he felt that there was importance in the placement of these columns.

“Hey, do you think there’s anything weird with the columns?” He suddenly turned towards Grisella and asked her.

“The columns?” She reflexively looked over at the Temple. After a few seconds, she nodded her head. “Yes, the sudden black does stand out a bit, especially within the confines of this city. I wonder if there’s any meaning behind it?”

“…” Ellis did not continue the conversation. He had confirmed something. Despite how observant Grisella usually was, she did not find anything unusual with the number of columns.

Then why do I have this weird feeling?

Unfortunately, no matter how much he thought about it, he could not come up with an answer. As such, Ellis, being the man that he was, decisively pushed the issue to the back of his mind.

He shifted his gaze and glanced at the thing behind the temple.

More specifically, there was nothing behind the temple. No, that wasn’t quite accurate either. Rather than nothing, there was a wall. The wall was not smooth or white like the giant walls that safeguarded the city. Instead, it was rough-textured, with large veiny protrusions dotting its surface. What’s more, the wall was colored a pale, almost sickly brown.

It took him a moment to realize, but the wall, it was completely made out of wood.

“Rather, this thing is definitely a giant tree trunk…” Ellis mumbled to himself as his gaze naturally moved up. Unfortunately, he could not see past the heavy fog that blotted out the sky.

Standing beside him, Grisella had reached a similar conclusion. Her expression was rather lively, a mix between fervent excitement and wary caution.

“You think this is it?” Ellis asked.

Grisella did not dare to respond. Her quivering lips opened as if to speak, but no words came out. After a few seconds, she decisively shook her head. “We can’t confirm it just yet, but… it, it very well might be.”

He nodded his head in response.

Ellis did not fault her doubtful personality. Although all signs led to the fact that this was indeed the base of the world tree, it was still necessary to exercise caution. After all, they were dealing with something closely related to Gods. Ellis had a rather negative bias towards those almighty existences.

“Well, we won’t know for sure until we go in.”

Ellis shrugged his shoulders and walked towards the temple entrance.

The front half of the temple jutted out from the base of the brown wall. It was clear with a glance that the majority of the temple was actually located inside the world tree.

Just as he was about to cross the entrance, he suddenly came to an abrupt stop.

His eyes once again drifted upward.

“Hey, can’t we just fly all the way up there?” He spoke, briefly recalling Grisella’s convenient magic artifact.

“I thought about that, but I think it might be impossible.” She stated. “As you know, the mana here is extremely condensed. Considering how opaque the fog is, the mana above is probably several times more plentiful than what it already is down here. Usually, mana like that fluctuates. It’s difficult for me to control my mana in such an environment.”

Grisella shook her head and sighed. “I would much rather not take the risk of accidentally plummeting to our deaths because I lost control of my broomstick. Even in death, such a thing would weigh heavily on my conscious.”

“I see, I guess it’s impossible, huh?” The shortcut that popped into his mind was useless. If it was just scaling to the top, then Ellis could have probably climbed up the side of the tree, but if he were to do that, the others, excluding special small individuals like Ena or Mumei, would not be able to go with him.

As such, he could only take his chances with this weird looking temple.

Of course, before he entered, he did not forget to ransack the front of the temple.

Specifically, he decided to take the columns with him. If these things really were made out of the same material that his spear was made out of, then he could only marvel at the God kingdom’s extravagance. Using such an obviously precious material for mere columns? What sort of concept was that?

Regardless, now that the kingdom was gone, their leftovers were his for the taking.

He unceremoniously pocketed the columns and stored them inside Ena’s spatial pouch. Despite the addition of such large objects, the little thing had yet to fill up.

Hopefully, he can make weapons out of them or something similar in the future. Maybe a sword. To be quite honest, Ellis preferred swords over spears. Then again, he wouldn’t say no to having an assault rifle either. Unfortunately, he lived in a fantasy world. Such things were a faraway fantasy.

After he removed the last column, the temple suddenly trembled. Without the support of the columns, the front portion of the roof eventually collapsed due to the weight.

Ellis was somewhat surprised. He hurriedly retreated backward. He watched as the rubble continually fell to the ground.

Apparently, despite being colored white, the temple was not made out of the same material that the city’s buildings were made out of. The sole fact that they did not regenerate was proof of that.

The collapsed roof blocked the entrance, but with Ellis’s strength, digging it back up was an easy task.

After five minutes, the group safely proceeded inside.

***

Unlike his original expectations, the inside of the temple was not dark or gloomy. Instead, artificial light illuminated the surroundings. Purple-hued crystals grew out from the walls. These crystals were no larger than his fists, and they glowed much in the same way that a lightbulb shines at night.

Ellis tried to take one for himself, but to his disappointment, the moment he removed the crystal from the wall, it immediately lost its luster and cracked.

“Looks like those things are powered by the temple itself.” Grisella briefly noted before she continued deeper into the interior.

After they passed the entrance, the group quickly arrived at a wide sprawling hallway. The world beneath the world tree was far from what he originally expected. The temple from earlier was seemingly just a front.

Gone were the Greek-like aesthetics with their raised rooftops and spiraling columns. Instead, the group arrived at a dreary and decrepit tunnel. Its walls were the color of mud, while dust lingered in the air.

To be honest, it was quite refreshing. This was exactly the type of scenery that he expected from an ancient ruin.

Ellis and the group proceeded deeper down the hallway.

Eventually, they arrived at a dome-shaped room.

The room was completely empty, which was to be expected from anything more than a million years old. There were large holes in the wall that diverged into seemingly different areas of the ‘temple’. In total, there were six such paths.

“Which one should we pick?” He casually asked the group.

“Woof!” Wight immediately pointed to the leftmost path. Nobody knew what her judgement was based on.

Ena lazily raised her head. She stared for a moment, before she picked the rightmost path. Instead of a decision made of her own volition, her choice was seemingly in retaliation to Wight’s. The little wolf naturally understood Ena’s intentions. She let out a scoff. Such a low-level provocation would not work on her.

The rest of the wolves each picked different paths. Grisella also got in on the fun, but instead of randomly picking one like everyone else, she poured a lot more thought into her decision.

“There’s no indication that any one path will be better than the other, but we should at least be cautious when deciding something like this.”

Her words sounded smart and intelligent, but in the end, her choice was still dictated by the tricky hand of luck.

After a few minutes of bickering, Ellis simply decided to go with the path third to the left.

His reasoning?

Well, it was the path that stood directly opposite of the tunnel that they originally came from.

The group proceeded down their chosen pathway. After traveling for approximately one hundred meters, the light suddenly vanished. There were no more crystals growing on the wall.

This peculiar change heightened Ellis’s caution. He ordered Ena to form a fire ball, before the group continued walking. They traveled for what felt like miles, before they finally saw a new light (literally) at the end of the tunnel.

They arrived at another circular room, except this time, there was no roof. Instead, above the room was an endless darkness. It took Ellis a few seconds to realize, but right now, they were currently standing in the middle of a hollow within the World Tree. The darkness above was merely the parts of the tree that they could not see.

“…”

Ellis furrowed his brow. He could not see more than five meters in front of him. The darkness here seemed different from before. It was thicker, opaque, a place where light did not dare to venture.

“Ena,” He called out to the little fox.

In response, she nodded her head and took control of the glowing fireball that floated just above their heads. She moved it deeper into the room. After a few seconds, the flickering flame suddenly split into seven smaller pieces, before they each darted off towards a specific section of the room.

As light seeped out into all four corners, the first thing that Ellis noticed was the giant altar that stood in the middle of the room. It was plainly designed, most of its intricate carvings had long since been wiped away by the sands of time. Still, as if in defiance of nature, there existed imperfections on the altar.

Stains. Crimson red and shaped like ink blotches. Haphazard and messy, it did not take a genius to realize the true nature of these stains.

It was blood. Dried blood.

“…”

Even though it should be illogical, even though it should be impossible, for some reason, Ellis felt certain that the blood on the altar had been here for a long, long time.

He stared at the blood-stained altar for an indeterminate amount of time, before his gaze drifted towards the back of the room.

“…”

The blood was not even the biggest surprise that this room had to offer. It was the source of the faint light that he had seen from outside the room.

With glowing green eyes and an ethereal body, Ellis locked eyes with an unmoving specter.