Bai Zhou looked at the Blazing Blue Flame atop the tower, illuminating the [Tinghai Excludes You] sign, and suddenly felt a chill crawl down his spine.
A stifling feeling weighed on his heart, leaving him with an indescribable sensation—
He felt that this blue flame was watching him, even watching all of Tinghai.
It was as though the moment he did something taboo, the blue flame would strike him from afar.
—Though Bai Zhou still had no idea what the local "taboos" even were.
Black Cat appeared atop a building and, in the silent surroundings, his nimble body climbed lightly down the wall.
The square paving stones on the sidewalk were soaking wet. Stepping on them felt slick, like treading on rotten bananas, or walking across a somewhat firmer swamp.
None of the buildings cast shadows, because they themselves were "shadows"—hazy, insubstantial to the touch, not entirely real.
—This feeling was very different from the Deep Ruins Realm.
The true body of Current Civilization still remained on the surface of Earth. Everything here was a reflected image of the present world, pressed down atop layer upon layer of Previous Civilization ruins.
Until countless years later, when a new civilization emerged and Blue Star's current civilization was buried by time as well, its final remains would appear beneath the reflection of that new civilization.
Only then would the civilization appearing in the Ruins Realm be "complete," "forward-facing," rather than everything grotesque and reversed.
But by then, that civilization would surely be nothing but ruins as well.
So despite having spent a long time in the Deep Ruins Realm, Bai Zhou still found everything here novel.
Was this the place that countless Extraordinary had spent their lives exploring, where the winds and clouds gathered?
"Patter, patter—"
The cat paws took two elegant