Mystery: Gray Walker

Chapter 104 Source Castle

Green maintained his spiritual output and mental visualization, carefully perceiving his surroundings.

The candlelight burned quietly.

The brooch remained silent.

Even the white bread and fruit were perfectly intact.

Just when Green thought this attempt might still be fruitless, or would take even longer—

hum...

A very faint hum, as if from the depths of the soul, rang out.

That was a spiritual tremor.

The next second, the scene before Green's eyes was covered by a layer of gray gauze. It seemed to shroud the walls, bookshelves, fireplace, and even every corner of the basement with an indescribable illusory quality.

Immediately afterwards, above the small altar, as if in the void, a dim gray-white halo quietly appeared.

The point of light seemed to be suspended in a distant, unreachable dimension, merely casting a faint ray of light here.

At that moment, the candlelight froze, the crackling of the fireplace disappeared, and even time itself seemed to be sucked away by the grayish-white halo.

Green felt a slight dizziness, as if his soul had been gently "stirred".

When he came to his senses, his vision was filled with an endless, slowly surging gray fog.

The ground beneath my feet felt solid, and looking down, I saw rough stone slabs stretching into the depths of the mist.

The air was cold and silent, carrying an indescribable sense of antiquity.

He was standing at the beginning of a stone-paved road. In front of him, a large, simple and heavy wooden door was faintly visible in the mist. The door was closed, and its surface seemed to be carved with intricate but indistinct patterns.

"It worked?" Green asked in disbelief.

He took a deep breath of the cold mist, stepped forward, and reached out to touch the cold door panel.

At the very moment of touch—

"Squeak..."

With a long, heavy sigh, as if sealed for millennia, the door slowly opened inward on its own. Green was certain he hadn't exerted any force; he had merely touched it to gain permission.

"Fool..."

His heart began to pound. God... really exists!

Inside the door, there was an even thicker gray fog, and behind it, a huge, hazy shadow.

Green swallowed hard and stepped across the threshold.

The path underfoot was still paved with stone slabs, but it was wider, and the mist on both sides had thinned slightly, revealing a breathtaking scene.

He was walking in an extremely magnificent covered bridge or hall.

The giant pillars that should have supported the dome on both sides are now mostly broken and collapsed, with huge stones scattered on the ground, half-hidden in the gray mist.

The lofty dome was shattered, revealing the swirling, eternal gray mist behind it, the "sky".

Exquisite murals and reliefs cover the walls and broken pillars, but most of them are mottled and peeling, or covered by thick dust and strange moss. Only some inhuman outlines, incomprehensible symbols, and grand scenes that seem to depict the movement of stars and the birth and death of the world can be vaguely seen.

Dilapidated, unimaginably dilapidated.

This place must have once been so magnificent that it defied human comprehension, but now it resembles a lost temple forgotten at the end of time, leaving only ruins and silence.

The fog was everywhere, but not evenly distributed. It was particularly dense in certain corners and breaks, slowly wriggling like a living thing, devouring the details.

Green tried to see further, but his vision only extended a few dozen meters before being blocked by the gray curtain.

Only the stone path beneath our feet is clearly visible, winding forward as if it were the only, permitted route.

He walked along the stone path, the scenery around him constantly changing in the mist.

Sometimes you pass by a dried-up, cracked fountain pool where only the base of the central statue remains.

Sometimes you pass through an archway that is only half open, above which hangs a strangely shaped crystal chandelier that has long been extinguished;

Sometimes, glimpses of what appear to be huge, neither stone nor iron, skeletal outlines lie silently in the mist to the side, like the remains of some giant beast.

Silence is the only sound here.

His footsteps were swallowed by the mist, making his breathing all the more distinct. An indescribable sense of loneliness and insignificance gripped him. In this vast ruin, he was like an ant that had strayed into a giant's tomb.

"Where...is this?" Green couldn't help but murmur to himself.

The warmth of the brooch continued to emanate from him, as if guiding him, or perhaps simply resonating with the space around him.

He continued onward, the shock in his heart gradually replaced by a deep sense of doubt.

Is this very ruin the name of the Fool?

Does that "mysterious ruler above the gray fog" reside in such a place? Or... what happened here?

Suddenly, the fog ahead seemed to thin out, and the stone path led to a relatively open area.

It seemed to be the center of a circular hall, with the floor made of intricate, radiating patterns of different colored stone slabs. Although covered in dust, its former splendor was still evident.

At the far end of the hall, where the fog was thinnest, the outline of a huge, towering object could be vaguely seen.

Green held his breath, quickened his pace, and headed towards that area.

As the distance closed, the outline gradually became clearer.

It was a mottled, ancient bronze table covered with cracks.

On both sides of the long table, one can vaguely see high-backed chairs of the same material, but most of them are crooked, damaged, or even overturned.

Only the chair at the very head of the long table seemed to remain relatively intact, standing silently against the backdrop of gray fog and ruins, its high backrest as if it had once borne supreme authority.

The long table was empty, covered only by thick dust and... an eternal silence.

Green stopped at the edge of the rotunda, gazing at the long bronze table and the chairs at the end. A word, originating from fragments of memory but exploding in this moment, surfaced in his mind.

"...Source Castle?"

Just then, something unexpected happened.

At the head of the long table, on the only relatively intact high-backed chair, without warning, a blurry figure made of thick gray mist quietly emerged.

He sat there relaxed, his hands clasped together and casually resting on the mottled table.

His figure was completely obscured by the swirling mist, but a calm, indifferent, and seemingly timeless "gaze" pierced through the gray fog, landing on Green, on the entire hall, and even on every corner of this ruin.

Green's heart nearly stopped beating.

He instinctively took a half step back, his throat dry.

"Fool... Lord Fool?"

He spoke tentatively, his voice sounding unusually dry in the silent hall.

"Did you answer my prayer?"

The figure in the gray mist did not react.

He didn't nod, didn't speak, and didn't even change his posture. He was like a statue sculpted from mist, eternally gazing ahead, or a projection frozen in time, devoid of sound.

Green felt a sense of bewilderment and unease.

What is this?

They responded, but not completely?

He mustered his courage, took a few steps forward, and came to the long table, getting closer to the gray, misty figure.

"I...I want to find my way home. Can you guide me?" he asked again, his voice filled with pleading.

There has still been no response.

Only that silent gaze seemed to penetrate his body, seeing the mark deep within his soul that did not belong to this world.

Just as Green was at a loss, and even began to doubt whether the gray mist figure was just an empty illusion—

The gray-mist figure's clasped hands, one of which, with an extremely slight gesture, as if merely brushing away dust, gently waved to the side.

The movements were small, yet they carried an undeniable rhythm, as if plucking the threads of fate.

hum!

The surrounding scenery instantly rippled, blurred, and reassembled like water!