Two minutes earlier.
Human Circle, northern side.
A figure raced through the boundless desert with a heavy Black Box strapped to his back.
Beads of sweat slid down Leng Xuan's face, and windblown sand clung to his eyelashes. His eyes narrowed involuntarily, but even so, his speed did not slow in the slightest.
"That old fox..." Leng Xuan muttered.
During this time, Leng Xuan had been searching the Human Circle for the locations of the mass burial grounds Loki had set up. Yet even after capturing nearly every church bishop and interrogating them relentlessly, he had found only two such burial grounds.
By Leng Xuan's count, the city-state, which had once held around forty thousand people, now had only a scattered ten thousand barely surviving. In other words, another ten thousand people had vanished into thin air.
Leng Xuan could guess that Loki most likely did not trust those church bishops. After having them complete the two burial grounds, he had secretly taken another ten thousand people away and arranged a third mass burial ground in secret!
Leng Xuan had searched nearly every corner of the Human Circle before finally finding some traces at the edge of the northern desert.
As Leng Xuan continued forward, several dark specks flickered in and out of view at the end of the desert.
He raised his binoculars and saw the ruins of a stone city, nearly buried beneath yellow sand, standing tall amid the howling sandstorm—silent and magnificent.
"Found it..."
Lost Stone City.
Pitch-black crows circled above the ruins buried amid the yellow sand, their piercing cries seeming capable of tearing apart one's eardrums.
Countless rotting corpses were piled as high as hills, and the stench, mixed with the smell of blood, permeated every corner of the stone city.
At the very