Trickling water flowed over broken concrete bricks, following the vague riverbed through the Ruins toward the collapsed buildings.
He Ao stood at the edge of the riverbed, lowered his head, and watched the flowing water.
The water was so clear that he could see the aquatic grass swaying in the cracks between broken bricks at the bottom.
Yet not a single fish swam in those clear waters.
An eerie silence flooded heaven and earth. After He Ao left South Capital—or, more precisely, after he parted ways with Lin Chichi and the others—he had never heard the sound of an animal again.
There were no birds in the sky, no crawling creatures in the grass, and no fish in the water.
It was as though all life in the world had been wiped away by an invisible hand on the night the Ruins descended.
Any life possessing even a trace of spirit had become fuel for this furnace, continuously burning for the enormous furnace.
This post-destruction world had none of the madness and despair found in apocalypse stories. There was only silence, a deathly silence.
He Ao shifted his gaze toward a pile of Ruins nearby. They were the Ruins of some old apartment buildings.
The surfaces of those collapsed brick walls had long since darkened and faded, bearing the marks of time.
Of course, these shattered bricks and stones were now merely part of the other collapsed Ruins.
He Ao took a step forward. His figure flickered, and he appeared directly before the pile of Ruins.
When he was young, He Ao often followed his grandfather from home to this small river to fish.
Back then, the journey had seemed so long, winding through countless turns and alleyways.
Only his grandfather holding his hand gave him a slight sense of