The underground ruins used to be a city of the elves, which had sunken underground after the seven Gods' invasion.
At the same time, it had been stuck in a completely sealed state since then, displaying itself for the first time in a thousand years.
Chromie could sense something calling out to him from inside the city, which led him to feel doubtful about his Farnate family's relations to the elves.
The Moonlight Ring was his family's heirloom, and he had just instantly learnt the language of the elves and sensed the call from inside the elven city at the same time.
Chromie's gaze appeared a bit hesitant, the scene of the elven race being killed to extinction by humans once again appeared in his mind.
The people who destroyed the elven race were very likely the current seven churches.
And unless something was wrong, the seven churches of the Gods were actually invaders, it was them who took over the elven race's homeworld and living space, then eventually killed them to extinction.
But the current world was essentially being held in the seven churches' hands, wherever there were people, there would be a believer of at least one God.
Would it be a good idea to be swept into an event related to what is essentially this world's dark history?
Chromie didn't know, but he didn't have too many choices as the monsterized Darr's attacks were continuously approaching. After the creature's 'ammo' was turned from air into blood, its projectile attack had become a prolonged attack rather than a single hit.
Chromie had already suffered several wounds, if he didn't enter the city right now, the shape of the hallway wouldn't afford him much room to dodge.
Without much hesitation, Chromie jumped into the newly opened gates, which Darr swiftly pursued.
Chromie's first impression was that he was walking through a country of giants, as the streets were built to be considerably wider, and the structures were also much taller. Even in a state of disrepair, the buildings still exuded a sense of perfect beauty.
The wooden structures were wrapped around in a large number of vines, each of which carried several yellow flowers that gave off a gentle light. Most likely, after thousands of years of being sunken underground, these plants had adapted to it, thus giving off an easing sensation when looked at.
There was a huge tree standing at the very center of the city, the heights of which seemed like it could reach the clouds. However, it was already greatly withered and dried, now giving off an incredible silent presence with a small spark of gentle light somewhere along the great tree.
The sensation that Chromie sensed continuously calling out to him came somewhere from the city center.
"Although the structures are in a state of disrepair, some signs suggest that there are still living beings in this place" while fleeing along the grass-covered streets, Chromie could see some of the plant life had been trampled on, as well as some excrements from creatures that hadn't fully dried up yet.
From that, it could be seen that some elves hadn't actually died off and simply sank into the ground together with their capital.
After so many years of being sealed, I wonder what kind of things the elves have turned into.
Chromie felt especially well-adapted to his current environment, which allowed him to travel extremely fast even while wounded, soon leaving the clunky Darr behind.
…
Watching Chromie who got further and further away from him, Darr uttered a resounding shriek, firing off jets of blue liquid from his eye to destroy everything in his surroundings.
Several large skeletons fell out from the destroyed buildings, one of the skulls landing not too far away from Darr's location.
Doing his best to restrain the chaotic sensations being transferred from all over his body, Darr reached out one of his limbs and picked up the skull on the ground.
The skull was considerably big, with noticeable differences from that of a human skull, this was a skull belonging to an elf.
But the thing that drew Darr's attention were the teeth marks all over the skull, which were very similar to the skull's teeth. This meant that the creatures who left these teeth marks were, in fact, none other than their fellow elves.
"There is a considerable amount of plant life here, so there isn't exactly a shortage of food. These teeth marks were made quite recently, meaning that cannibalism had already become commonplace here" Darr tried his best to maintain his rationality and analyzed.
"After being sunken underground, a large amount of the original plant life began to die off, while plant life that had adapted to this underground environment had yet to evolve" Darr began to draw a scene of the distance past: "The death of plant life led to the elves experiencing a shortage of food"
"With their survival instincts, the elves began to devour one another, which allowed a portion of the elves to survive. Even though plant life that adapted to surviving underground eventually appeared and become overgrown, it was already too late; the elves had lost their sentience and rationality, turning into a kind of beast that devoured their own kind"
"They are pitiful creatures, but I'm not that much better right now. If I can't resolve the issue of my body, I will either lose my rationality from the influence of my body, or one of my body's mutations will go awry and cause itself to collapse"
"Regardless of which occurs, that would still…"
Darr was feeling a bit in despair, in the end, he was still an adolescent who still hadn't become a young man, even if he had matured ahead of his peers and had gone through a lot, no one could blame him for feeling despair in a situation like this.
The tentacle in his right eye that was hanging onto the ring writhed a bit, the further he got from the hallway of the ruins, the less psychokinesis he could draw from the ring, after all, the ring was being maintained thanks to the magical formation that Negary had established in that hallway.
"No, I can't, I can't simply give up like this. My current situation had surely been foreseen by Lord Negary" observing this ring, Darr regained a bit of his vigor: "The changes in my right eye means that Lord Negary still hasn't given up on me, this was surely part of Lord Negary's arrangements"
With that in mind, Darr regained his senses and began to traverse deeper into this capital of elves.
Naturally, there was also the possibility that he was merely a stepping-stone for Chromie, and that he was a piece Negary decided to discard from the very start, Darr didn't dare to consider this possibility, as he was afraid that he would be crushed by the thought.
The Gear within his body was still continuously turning, forcing his body to continuously undergo mutations. At the same time, information began to seep out from the Gear following the deeper levels of fusion.
The Gear of Impurity was a product of mixing the power of Impurity with Negary's germs, the germs also contained certain unique properties of both the Dragon of Eternal Sin and the Divine race.
The power of Impurity would then engrave these unique properties into the bloodline of the host, thus causing the host to undergo unstable mutations.
The Gear would then take the linking substance between a lifeform and their soul from the host after their death.
It was also known under another name, the precursor form of Life Essence.
This was also the majority of the white mist's composition that protected Negary's soul when he was still just a remnant soul.
After a creature's death, that linking substance when mixed with the remaining vitality of that creature would become Life Essence.
This was a crucial linking substance between a living creature and their soul, and this was necessary for the Gear to mature, and for the host of the Gear to completely fuse with it.
In other words, as long as one could supplement this linking substance from another source, they would be able to stably mutate again.
Negary knew the method to siphon it from another lifeform, but he wouldn't simply give it to Darr, so if Darr wanted to supplement it, he would have to come up with a way himself.
At the time when Darr had only just found a ray of hope, Chromie was running into some trouble.
