The closer they drew to the city, the lighter the yellow rain became.
By the time they reached the gates,
only a fine drizzle remained. Once they entered the city, everything was dry, without a trace of water.
The sound of rain faded into the distance.
Only deathly silence remained in the city, which seemed pieced together from different eras.
Among the first four to enter,
the young man led the way, with everyone else following him deeper into the city. Their order made little difference, really. If danger struck, a few meters of distance would change nothing.
Occasionally,
they encountered ghost soldiers passing silently along the streets.
When the soldiers saw these uninvited guests, they stopped and watched quietly.
But before long,
they turned away again and slowly continued down the street.
Gradually,
as they ventured deeper, the Awakened began to grow tense. They had spotted rotting body parts in the corners of the streets.
There was no supernatural aura.
They appeared to be nothing more than ordinary remains.
But that was precisely what made them even more uneasy.
In a place like this,
could there be ordinary people?
They had no way back, however. The leaders of the major factions outside were watching what happened within the city, so they could only walk quietly along the road.
They kept probing for anything that might go wrong.
Wooo, wooo, wooo—
In the empty, dead city, mournful sobbing drifted faintly through the streets and alleys. The dim areas beyond the streetlights seemed inhabited by restless souls who had died long ago.
"Something's wrong."
One of the Awakened frowned.
He left the road and approached a low, single-story house.
Its yellow mud walls were mixed with straw.
Its black-tiled roof was broken and incomplete.
This was the sort of dwelling still