CHAPTER 58: VESTIGES OF AN OLD WORLD (2).

Nero had a dream.

A dream of a strange world filled with strange things.

Things that filled his heart and soul with even stranger feelings.

But then, he woke up and it was all gone.

Grasping at the empty air, Nero froze then let out a groan.

Morning had come to the settlement without bringing any light.

The grey clouds remained, pressing down against the gloomy world like a ceiling. Nero slowly rose to his feet.

Looking around, he was relieved to see his belongings had not been moved in his sleep.

Stretching, he walked to the edge of the only window in the room and looked out.

The town was rsther large in comparison to Gor.

Although the buildings were weathered, with most of them in complete, or partial states of degradation, he could tell they were of quality make— they must have been quite cozy in their prime.

His gaze traveled.

The town was a vestige of a civilization, preserved completely in the stones and silence.

Most of the buildings seemed like residential buildings. However, the more he looked, the more he realized there was far more variety to them, especially in their outward appearance, despite all the structures having the same color.

At the center of the town, close to the closest root of the dead godtree...

There was a large edifice constructed of the same material as the rest of the town. With large columns and a series of steps that led into its inner chambers, Nero came to an educated guess;

’A temple.’

Nero looked around.

After a quick and detestable breakfast of Abominable flesh, he stepped out of his temporary residence. The Silver Blade was holstered to his waist as he stood cautious steps forward.

Walking through the town that had probably been desolate for a very, very long time, Nero took in the sights with a complicated gaze.

After walking for some time, he finally reached the temple.

The walls were carved with intricate patterns, runes and shapes he couldn’t make out in the slightest.

He quickly turned his gaze away. Perhaps those runes had some connection to the deity that has the temple. To gaze upon a god surely counted as a death sentence, right?!"

Nero huffed then approached slowly, walking up the stairs, eventually arriving at the doors of the temple.

The entrance to the temple faced the stars rather than the earth.

Nero pushed open the heavy stone doors and stepped inside.

The interior was vast and open, a single enormous chamber with a domed ceiling that rose at least thirty feet overhead. And in that ceiling, a hole had been deliberately carved—an opening that allowed light and rain to fall directly into the heart of the temple.

Below the opening, a raised platform held various instruments, all of which he had never seen before.

This steps echoed through the vast chamber, towards the platform holding the strange items.

’What are these things?’

They were alien to him, their purposes obscure. But their arrangement suggested careful, methodical study. A strange feeling thumped through his heart as he gazed up.

Perhaps, a few thousand years ago, someone had also looked up into the heavens just like he was doing.

Someone had stood here and looked up at the heavens with the intention of peering past the mundane to understand the secrets of the divine.

His gaze traveled onto a particular patch of wall. His breath hitched up.

There were more murals...

The drawings were more angular and sharp but with less contrasting colors that gave off a different feel compared to the murals in the cave.

It was strange.

The civilization in the grotto and this settlement beneath the dead godtree were certainly the same, from what he could tell.

If that was the case, then why did they seem so different?

The first images showed a figure made of light descending from the stars themselves. It came as something both terrible and magnificent— a god of knowledge and discovery, but also of restlessness and hunger.

The murals depicted the being traveling, moving from place to place across a vast world. In one image, the god held a hammer. In another, it held a scroll.

In one, it held a sword, and in another, it held a bloody heart.

The people gathered below, praying to the being.

In return, it granted them the gifts it acquired on its long voyages.

But as Nero’s gaze traveled along the wall, he began to see the division that had fractured this civilization. The murals split into two paths—literally, the stone itself diverged.

One path showed people kneeling before roots and vines, before representations of Sariel and nature. These figures were increasingly warped, their forms changing, becoming less human.

The other path showed people gazing upward, studying the stars, pursuing knowledge. These figures remained human longer, but their faces showed a different kind of corruption—a hunger in their eyes, a desperation to know more, to understand everything.

At the point where the paths diverged completely, a single mural showed both gods standing together, no longer distinct but unified, as though they were two aspects of the same divine force.

Nero’s lips trembled as he read the archaic scriptures,

"As the roots connect the earth, the stars connect the sky. A single spirit. They are one and they are the other."

Nero stood before this mural for a long time, trying to reconcile what he was seeing with what he had seen in the grotto.

’This god is the same as the one in the one depicted in the cave. They are complementary, two aspects of the same divinity. They are simply a people interpreting a single entity with different aspects. This in turn caused the Angel to split into two egos— One represents the cycle of life and death, of growth and return. The other represent the pursuit of understanding, the drive to transcend one’s nature."

Although he was not quite certain, Nero was sure this observation was not too far from the truth.

Humans, by worshipping it, had created a divide within themselves. Some sought to serve the earth and its cycles. Others sought to reach toward the stars and comprehension.

The civilization had fractured along these lines, and the fracture had been their undoing.

Nero turned away from the murals and focused on the temple itself. On a raised dais at the center of the observatory platform stood a pedestal. Empty now, but the wear marks around it suggested something had rested there for centuries.

Something important.

He climbed the platform and examined the pedestal more closely. There were inscriptions carved into its surface— not in the ancient script of the murals, but in something older, more primal. A language that somehow his mind could almost parse, as though the Oracle’s translation had left some residual effect.

Intrigued, he decided to delve in even deeper...