The earth is dominated and overwhelmingly occupied by monsters and Abominations. Defiled creatures of the ground, sky and seas.

There is no inch of the vast grey and black world not covered with strange, profane life.

And yet, humans continue to exist within this dark world.

They thrive and prosper... well, not exactly.

But they did exist. The had existed for hundreds of thousands of years, since the Age of Gods, surviving through even the Age of Giants, all the way until the current Age.

The greatest reason for this, was the existence of the cities and or empires.

Scattered around the Earth, are singular empires. Although knowledge of the distant empires is established within the Thorne empire, not much, or as little as none, is known about them.

Within the Thorne Empire, there are ten major cities— Bridgehorn, Liedenstorm, Caensar, Vale, Cape Norde, Kanka, Ortswich, Beorstone, Orm, and Vosche.

Within these ten cities, there were dozens of smaller towns scattered between them. Gor was one such town and was located in a more remote area of the empire— the very far edge of the empire, in fact.

Between Gor and Bridgehorn, there was just Liedenstorm and a few more desolate towns. Nero had no idea what the fate of these smaller towns was as he made his way towards Liedenstorm.

Either way, that was not of any concern to him at the moment.

Earlier in the day, they had finally left the confines of Malady's Garden.

In an instant, the world had become just a fair bit brighter.

Grey clouds still obscured the sun's glow yet did nothing to take away the biting heat.

As they walked away from the last line of trees onto more sparse vegetation, Nero couldn't help but glance back.

The line of trees stretched far both left and right. Farther than his eyes could see at the very least, disappearing behind a depression in the earth before trailing off into the distant horizon.

It was large. The portion of the forest he had journeyed through didn't even account up to a single percent the entire thing.

There was still much of the forest to discover.

Nero trembled. That was not a good thought.

Something also told him he would be coming back to this place.

He tried to push those horrible thoughts out of his mind as he glanced forward.

Reflected in the depths of his black, slightly golden eyes, was a scenery he had never witnessed before in his life.

He had heard countless stories about the cities and their awe-inspiring grandeur. But today was the first time he truly got to see it.

Before the grand walls of Liedenstorm, he was no different from a more of dust drifting in the wind.

So insignificant, so graceless...

He felt hi breath catch in his throat.

"I—is this what a city really is?"

It was much greater than he could have ever imagined.

The walls were much larger than any tree, dwarfing even the dark Malady's Garden.

Despite being far into the distance, the walls cast a shadow on him.

And even taller than the walls were two enormous buildings located within the city. Although he couldn't make out exactly what they were, something told him one of them was the church.

It was rather... different from the churcyhe was used to.

Nero sighed.

The walls were a deep, ashen grey color— almost black the more he looked at it. There were several protrusions jutting out of it that he couldn't quite tell what they were.

He wanted to make use of Heretic Eyes but then changed his mind. If his ability allowed him to catch the attention of some higher order being, then it was best to be as cautious as possible.

His hands trembled slightly,

'This is it...' he thought to himself.

However, his high spirits were quite to fall when he remembered what Obed told him.

"Damn it. To think it would truly be so long!" Obed at the front of the group, cursed through gritted teeth.

From what Nero could only assume were the gates of the city, judging by how enormous and different they looked from the rest of the wall, he could see a very long and wide road snaking all the way back to the road they were standing upon.

However, the road they were standing upon was the just one of many.

Dozens of different roads snaked from Malady's Garden and otherwise, all onto the major wide road. They were roads created after hundreds of years of being beaten by human feet, horses, and carriages.

At the moment, most of the roads, including the main road, was filled with traffic. Hundreds of thousands of humans all streamed towards the enormous bastion that was Liedenstorm.

A terrible wind blew for a moment. Nero squinted his eyes to block out the rampant wind then turned to Obed with a question in his eyes.

Obed glanced at him then sighed,

"This is bad. It has never been this bad."

Lucy clicked her tongue,

"Do you think Nero's story has any part to play in this?"

Obed placed a hand on his chin,

"Maybe. If the towns were just destroyed and a few survivors managed to escape all the way here, them it could be possible. But that's very unlikely. How could so many humans get through such large stretches of uninhabitable wilderness? Human souls are to Abominations, as a flame is to a moth. With so many of them, several tides of them should be gushing at us."

Lucy sighed,

"This is really strange indeed."

Then she turned to Nero and shrugged,

"With this much traffic, we might not be getting into the city any time soon."

Nero frowned, "It's that bad?"

Lucy nodded seriously,

"I've never seen one this bad. We could be out here for a month at this rate."

Nero trembled, "This... Isn't that dangerous?"

Exposed to the elements and darkness once night fell, the chances of Abominations attacking the gathered humans was completely certain.

Obed's expression was dark as he cursed again...

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