The sky seemed boundless, yet it also felt as though something heavy hung over it.
Beneath the dim sky, Avalon Castle, like a terminally ill patient, lay silently and painfully upon the ground.
Sean walked at the front and approached the castle.
Only then did he see that a ring of water resembling a moat surrounded the castle. The water was murky beyond belief, and as they drew closer, waves of foul stench wafted over them.
"Is that pus flowing down from the walls?" Daisy covered her nose. She had accidentally taken a deep breath earlier and had nearly fainted from the stink.
"Yes and no. More accurately, the water here was corroded by the pus flowing down from above—" Stephanie crouched down, touched the soil, and cast an unfamiliar spell.
She looked up at the others. "The place we're standing on should have been a lake. For some unknown reason, the lake nearly dried up. That ring over there is probably the last remaining water, and then the pus flowed down and turned it into what it is now."
Hermione frowned with some distress, then asked in confusion, "But we're standing on level ground... If this used to be a lake, shouldn't it have become a depression after drying up?"
Hearing their conversation, Sean crouched down to examine the soil beneath him as well.
The ground seemed to be made from some mixture of material, sand, gravel, and soil. Its surface was pure black, but if one dug into it with force, the soil in one's hand felt like fibrous silk.
Sean tried digging out a piece, but he still could not identify its precise composition. In any case, it definitely was not normal soil or gravel.
Just as he was about to toss away the thing in his