Central Earth, the ruins of the old capital.
Though the blazing sun shone overhead, everything within a thousand miles of the ruins remained shrouded in darkness, as if it were deep night.
The bustling pavilions, towers, and magnificent palaces had long since vanished. Even anything remotely valuable had been stripped away time and again over several centuries, leaving behind nothing but parched wasteland.
Layer upon layer of broken walls stood alone like burial mounds. Ash and dust drifted down in a ceaseless torrent, like a downpour.
The city in the sky once forged by the Eternal Empire had already vanished into thin air. All that remained was this handful of ash, falling for over four hundred years without ever reaching its end.
Crooked rifts sprawled without pattern, countless bricks and stones floated in mid-air, and howling winds would at times turn into torrential rain as disaster followed disaster.
This place, transformed into a forbidden zone, had long been beyond saving and retained no value whatsoever.
Only the Tower's Shadow flickered in and out of sight, as though it had remained frozen at the instant it was severed.
Clearly close at hand, yet impossibly distant.
Amid the devastation, a point of shadow emerged out of thin air. It slithered like a snake, winding onward, bypassing layer upon layer of blockades in an instant before entering the depths and hovering before the messenger who had waited for so long.
There was only a shadow.
Yet it seemed as though an invisible figure had descended in the deathly stillness, silently looking down.
The messenger gave a soft smile, utterly unconcerned. "Lord Spider, you arrived so late. I thought you were not coming."
"Do not babble. And do not waste your breath."
Spider's patience had nearly run out, especially after he discovered that the