The Gamer's POV-Chapter 188: Home of the Hollow Ones [4]

The statue hunched over again, studying the frozen cadets. It moved from cadet to cadet, its massive obsidian face pausing just meters away from each person. Eventually, it straightened, and after lingering for a moment, it turned and began slowly walking away toward the east.

Cedric watched its massive shadow sweep over them as it departed. Still, he did not move. He waited until the statue was several hundred meters away and finally halted, freezing in place once more.

It was at this moment that everyone finally moved. Some fell quietly on their bums in exhaustion, while others simply stood there trembling.

Cedric exhaled a breath of relief. He straightened, cracked his back and arms, and then rubbed the back of his neck while rotating his head to clear the tension.

’Ah... gosh. I thought I was going to die there,’ he thought, before taking a look around.

When he saw what remained of the blue-haired cadet, he sighed, and after a brief moment, looked away.

In total, it seemed the statue had killed about nine cadets. When Cedric confirmed that none of his party members had been killed, he exhaled in relief. However, most of them were still trembling from both the exhaustion of standing in one position and the lingering fear.

Dion, for instance, looked as pale as a sheet of paper; the person directly in front of him had been squashed, leaving the remains splattered over his entire body.

"Are you okay?" Evelyn asked as she placed a steadying hand on his shoulder.

Dion looked at her, then nodded once. He exhaled slowly, pulled out a bottle of alcohol, and murmured, "Gosh, I feel like that experience has made me sober."

He began chugging a large amount in one go.

At that moment, Aurora’s quiet voice sounded in all the whisperscripts. "Let’s keep moving. We don’t know when it will turn around again."

Everyone cast a glance at each other, then continued moving quietly

After a dozen minutes, the cadets reached the second statue. Since it was facing north, the cadets couldn’t continue onward, so everyone halted behind it and waited for it to move away.

Sadly, it remained in that position for a very long time. An hour passed, then another... until finally, its entire body creaked.

It turned its massive body toward the west, but right before it began moving, its head snapped around and locked onto the cadets, who were standing as completely still as statues themselves. When it didn’t detect any movement, it finally looked away and began walking until it disappeared in the far distance.

"Move, move. Quickly," Aurora whispered through the whisperscripts.

The group immediately surged forward while keeping their gazes on the statue they could see, which was the one that had killed some of them, and was now standing east.

Soon, the cadets covered enough ground that they couldn’t see they couldn’t see the statue any longer.

But then, they noticed the ground had begun to slope upward. It felt as though they were climbing a long, steady hill. When they neared the crest where the ground began to slope back down, Aurora dropped to her belly and began to crawl toward the edge. Everyone followed suit, moving cautiously until they reached the top. From there, the entire dark city stretched out below them, nestled at the foot of the hill.

For a moment, the cadets just lay on the ground, trying to process the sight of the massive ruins. The soot in the air was thicker here, tasting like ash on their tongues, and the cadets could hear the constant sound of metal hitting metal, like blacksmiths were working. The rhythmic clanging kept echoing across the entire ruins.

The outskirts of the city were filled with broken homes and crumbling stone walls that looked like they had been abandoned for centuries, but deeper down, the buildings began to change. These inner structures were far more grand, and imposing, as if it was built for a particular group among the highest hierarchy of the hollow ones.

From here, the red bridge was also visible. It hovered in the center of the city, pulsing like a beating hearts.

Cedric’s eyes shifted from the bridge to the city walls where he could see a few of the hollow ones walking atop the walls. Compared to the dominants, the Hollow Ones were about two meters tall. They looked exactly like humans, except they had metallic bodies instead of flesh and bone. And all were dressed in rags and holding metallic spears.

One of them suddenly snapped their head toward the top of the hill, causing the cadets to immediately scramble back and press their bodies as flat as possible against the dirt.

The Hollow One remained focused on the ridge-line for several agonizing seconds, before finally turning its head back to the path and continuing its patrol.

Aurora turned to Alicia who laid beside her and asked quietly. "How long do you think you can hold on for us to get through?"

Alicia thought briefly before replying shakily, "The most I can do is ten minutes. Any more, and I won’t be able to fight in the temple."

The plan was for Alicia to layer a fake reality over the actual domain of the Hollow Ones. The only problem was that using her bonded ability slowly destroyed her own reality. The speed of that destruction depended on several factors, such as the size of the area she was trying to cover and the strength of the beings within the fake world.

And so, it couldn’t be used for long. As she said, she would still need to fight when they got to the temple, so she needed to be in at least, good condition.

Aurora looked to the group, then looked back to her and nodded.

"Ten minutes is enough."

Alicia slowly nodded.

She swallowed hard, and then... suddenly, her eyes rolled back into her head, leaving only the stark whites visible.