Chương 700: The Last Sunken King

A massive, low roar, deep, rolled in from outside and through the palace corridors. Luke looked around the chamber. Purple crystals filled the place, set on pedestals around a huge stone altar. Above it, near the center of the chamber, a translucent glass circle hung in the air like a lens. Another blast came from outside, sharper this time. A second later, an impact shook the floor.

"An explosion?" The tremor came again. Luke sprinted through the palace corridors toward the exit. Something was going down in the city. When he made it outside and saw what was happening, he froze for a second.

"Well. That just made things worse." The four enormous towers of the city were glowing. At the top of each one, a colossal crystal turned slowly, radiating light like artificial suns. What the hell are those things doing? Then one of the crystals flared brighter. The light spilling from it thickened, focused, and fired. A distant building in the city exploded.

"A fucking weapon of mass destruction?" Luke watched the tower crystals rotate, launching beams across the city. The light hit other crystals scattered through the streets, bouncing, splitting, changing direction, multiplying. Then, all at once, one of the reflected beams hit the palace doors and washed over Luke.

"Oh, shit." One of the towers glowed. Luke tried to shut the doors, but he'd seen enough. The beam shot through several crystals, reflecting from one to the next, until it slammed into the freshly closed doors and blew the palace entrance apart.

"What are those things? Some kind of super magnifying glass?"

"Super magnifying glass?" Cadmus asked.

"Guess you never set paper on fire with a magnifying glass as a kid." The beam poured into the palace and struck one of the crystals in the chamber. The light bounced off it instantly, spreading through the corridors like a living net.

"You have got to be kidding me." The tower had found him and begun to charge. He threw a knife, shattering the crystal in the hall that was distributing the light through the corridors.

"There's still one reflecting light in here!" Artemis said.

"I'm working on it!" The tower kept charging. Then, right in front of Luke's eyes, the broken crystal in the hall began rebuilding itself. Within seconds, it was whole again, catching the light and spreading it through the palace.

"Oh, come on. That's cheating." Luke crouched in a corner and sank into the shadows. The tower fired. But the beam didn't hit him. Instead, it veered toward another part of the city and blew something up in the distance. A moment later, the other towers fired again, tearing through streets, buildings, and bridges. Luke peeked around the edge of the wall.

"These towers have some kind of insane kill mode." He stopped when he noticed something. Using the zoom in his eye, he followed the path of one of the beams through the city.

"People?" There were a lot of people down there. They ran between buildings, ducked behind walls, and fled the beams of light, trying not to get spotted.

"Other participants made it here? Is there more than one Beacon?" The beam lit the hall again, and Luke ducked back into hiding. Or maybe there's only one Beacon, and the system conveniently forgot to mention this is a damn race. He looked out again, watching the people more carefully. They were armed. Some of them wore armor in the same style. And most importantly, they weren't killing each other. A whole group working together to help their leader? Didn't matter. Luke couldn't lose the Beacon.

If he did, he wouldn't reach Stage 3 with Angie and Charlie. He ran. The beam detected him as he charged down the corridor.

"Man, we're about to get vaporized by a War of the Worlds death ray!" Artemis said. Luke touched the crystal on the door and shut it. The corridor plunged into darkness.

"Not anymore." He kept running through the palace. Beams cut through some corridors, pouring in through open doors and windows. Luke slid beneath one of them while the towers kept hammering the city outside, explosion after explosion.

"All that work keeping your little zen bullshit intact, keeping this place exactly the way it was, and this is what you get," Artemis said.

"How the hell was I supposed to know the chamber would turn on the death towers? At least it told us there are people in the city." An explosion echoed through the palace. A new beam of light reached Luke.

"The door you closed has been opened."

"I noticed." He reached the chamber. It was the only place the beams hadn't entered. Purple crystals stood on pedestals all around him, like exhibits in some ancient museum.

"If the Beacon is out in the city instead of here, then congrats, you just turned on this place's apocalypse mode," Artemis said. Luke searched every corner of the chamber. No other door. No throne. No obvious treasure, no hidden passage.

"Goddamn it. I thought the king would've left something here. We're fucked." The explosions kept echoing.

"It's alien, man. What did you expect?" Luke approached one of the pedestals. Something was written on it in the language of that civilization.

"Come on, you stupid system. Translate this damn thing already." A sentence appeared in front of him, written in letters Luke didn't even know existed. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"It's not translating!"

"That is because it refers to something unique to their society, not yours," Cadmus said.

"What does that even mean?" Luke scanned the inscriptions.

"Luke, the system doesn't translate everything in some absolute way," Artemis explained.

"If the word 'mall' has no equivalent in the alien language, the aliens would just hear the original word. Mall. And then they'll sit there wondering, what the hell did this guy just say?"

"Thanks for the linguistics lesson in the middle of the apocalypse."

"You're welcome, my student." Almost none of the inscriptions translated. Then, at last, one inscription changed before his eyes. [Thuunar Uun-Kareth, Guardian of the Eastern Tower]"Are these names?" Luke grabbed another crystal.

"Now I get why this crap wasn't translating. They're names. Names and titles." He held Thuunar Uun-Kareth's purple crystal, with no idea what he was supposed to do next. Then the crystal began to glow.

"A whole civilization built on crystal magic..." Luke looked toward the huge glass circle suspended above the stone altar, like a reflector aimed at the center.

"Worth a shot." He placed the purple crystal on the altar and positioned it toward the glass circle. Violet light immediately flashed through the lens. A voice began speaking in another language. Bit by bit, the system translated.

"I am... Guardian of the Eastern Tower. I do not know what to say to those who come after. Know only that I did my best while I was alive." The message ended.

"That couldn't be it." Luke picked up another crystal and placed it in the center of the altar. When he looked through the glass circle, he saw that it generated an image too. It wasn't perfect. It was like seeing it through dozens of broken mirrors. Even so, through the lens, the crystal revealed more detail. A silhouette stood there.

"... were many years of service as Royal Guard. Today, I say farewell."

"Is this some kind of message for the future? An epitaph?"

"This is my favorite place in the city." The light passed through the circle, reflected into the crystal by the door, and spread through the palace crystals. Suddenly, the image of a plaza appeared before Luke. He was seeing it live.

"Oh. It's showing the city." Luke began placing other crystals on the altar, one after another, listening to what those creatures had left behind. Every time a message ended, a different part of the city reflected into view.

"I began my life as an Explorer. I wanted to reach every corner of our ocean, and I went as far as they would allow. Today, I dive one last time, into something even more mysterious, magical, and impossibly deep. Death." It really was some kind of epitaph. The Explorer revealed a lake in the city as his favorite place. The towers started hitting the palace. Everything shook.

"It seems you do not have much time left in this place, Luke Moon," Cadmus said.

"The security system knows there is an intruder here."

"I still have no damn idea what clue I'm supposed to find here." Luke placed the next crystal.

"Rhozan Namaruun, Engineer of the Fourth Millennium Tower. To the king, I leave my gratitude for serving at his side, and to my family..." Luke yanked the crystal off the altar.

"Oh. Now I fucking get it." The palace shook again.

"I have to find the king's epitaph." A chunk of ceiling crashed down onto the crystals. For one second, Luke froze, thinking they had been destroyed. They hadn't. They stood firm. Intact.

"You would do well to hurry, Luke Moon," Cadmus said. Luke started grabbing crystals.

"There are thousands of these things. I'll never find it in time." He picked one up, listened to the start, then tossed it aside.

"Thaalun Sha'valon, Watcher of the West..." Luke dropped the crystal without hearing the rest.

"Vaashor Ruunath, Patrol Commander..." He threw the crystal away.

"There are too many." Luke stopped and forced his brain to cut through the chaos. There has to be a damn pattern here. He picked up another one.

"Ashaam Eshorai, Guardian of the Western Tower. In dreams, I was able to understand what lay behind that glow... In dreams. I need to draw..."

"Guardian of the Western Tower?" Luke studied the placement of the crystals on the pedestals.

"They're arranged like pieces on a board." Each crystal's position matched the place where that person had worked in the city. The chamber floor was a map.

"This is the palace." Many crystals were clustered in that region. One of them had to be the king's.

"You told us the Light in the Sky was a blessing for Xangari. But what fell from above brought no blessing..." There was no name. No favorite place. The speaker had only recorded the audio with bitterness in his voice. Another piece of the ceiling fell. Luke grabbed another crystal.

"The Fourth Tower shall be built, symbolizing the beginning of the Fourth Millennium. The Light in the Sky fell as the sign of a new age. May your reign be one of the longest among all Sunken Kings, the first to reach the Light. Ureshan Uun-Kareth, Navigation Counselor. And my favorite place is..." Luke removed the crystal and grabbed another.

"His greed brought ruin upon us. He wanted to be the greatest of kings, and now there is nothing left to rule." Footsteps pounded down the corridor. Four people ran into the chamber.

"No way," one of them said, drawing a revolver.

"He's actually here." The rest drew their weapons.

"Are you really Luke Moon?"

"In the flesh." They fired. Luke moved. A thread yanked him upward, and he dropped behind one of them. One swing of the kukri dropped the first man, and Luke hurled him into his partner. He pushed into the gunmen, spinning between them before they could aim again. His blade carved fast, brutal arcs through the air. Seconds later, all of them were on the floor.

[You have slain a Human - Lvl 89 (Patrol Gunslinger - Lvl 78 / Ground-Vibration Scout - Lvl 65 / Ink Ammunition Maker - Lvl 88)] 1, 142, 149, 841 EP earned [+1 Soul Fragment acquired] [971/1000] [You have slain a Human - Lvl 94 (Bonebreaker Boxer - Lvl 105 / Patrol Gunslinger - Lvl 71 / Skin Mask Artisan - Lvl 59)] 784, 971, 325 EP earned [+1 Soul Fragment acquired] [972/1000] [You have slain a Human - Lvl 92 (Patrol Gunslinger - Lvl 71 / Knight of Silence - Lvl 52 / Liquid Poison Maker - Lvl 107)] 688, 454, 328 EP earned [+1 Soul Fragment acquired] [973/1000] [You have slain a Human - Lvl 77 (Curse Healer - Lvl 68 / Gunslinger - Lvl 41 / Vest Tailor - Lvl 88)] 83, 441, 142 EP earned [+1 Soul Fragment acquired] [974/1000]"This isn't a coincidence anymore.

They tracked me here to kill me." He checked the classes of the bodies.

"They're with that mercenary organization." They didn't just want him dead. Someone had hired them for it. Outside, fresh explosions roared. The palace shook. Luke peeked into the corridor. No one was coming yet. Out of time, he rushed back to the altar.

"Fuck. No, no, no." The circular glass viewer was cracked. A bullet had punched through the lens. Luke grabbed more crystals, glancing at the shards.

"Come on. Fix yourself already." Slowly, the glass circle began to rebuild. At the same time, footsteps echoed through the palace. A lot of them. Above him, another chunk of ceiling collapsed, letting a beam of light spear into the chamber.

"Your time is up, Luke Moon," Cadmus said.

"This place is now a target for the towers."

"Shit!" Luke ran as the beam intensified. The tower was charging. He placed another crystal on the altar.

"Oh, visitor, behold my magnificent city," the voice said. Luke froze.

"Got you."

"My favorite place is..." The image appeared. Luke saw the waterfall that led into the Abyssal Zone. There, on the hidden edge, stood the Beacon.

"That's it. Fuck yes."

"What I sought so desperately..." The voice continued, bitter now, nothing like the grand tone from the beginning of the recording.

"... brought ruin. What use is the most beautiful city if no one is left to wander its streets?" A deep sound rang out.

"Let this be the symbol of my fall. Behold the last monarch of this kingdom. The glorious... King Cadmus." Then the beam struck the chamber. And the chamber exploded.