Crossing the valley was uneventful. Hera was half expecting to suddenly be attacked by a giant monster that lived down in the sandy area or something. But that didn't happen. Instead, she just flew on top of Nimbus to the other side and landed as if it was just the most regular thing she ever did. Which, in a sense, it wasn't far off. In the past years traveling the MAZE, this was on the normal side of things. She was just traveling without having to worry about anything or being trapped anywhere.

They took a moment to check the pillars since everybody agreed that this was supposed to be a bridge, and once that was over, Hera and her court started looking around. Another point of agreement was the fact that since this was a bridge, there was supposed to be a road somewhere. No one would simply make a bridge in the middle of nowhere without a path. There should be something connecting here with a bigger settlement.

But unfortunately, they weren't able to find anything. The bridge was long gone. Vegetation had already taken over everything, and the road had suffered the same fate. As a matter of fact, the road was likely to be in a much worse state. It was just the ground. Famously the place where plants would thrive. Having vines climbing up a pillar would take much more effort from nature than having something cover a patch of land.

Even if the Naga had placed some cobblestone or something, it wouldn't be hard for it to become overgrown. And if it was just a dirt road, then over a few decades the place was already going to be unrecognizable. Over the few millennia that they were assuming it had been since the Naga vanished, nature should have completely reclaimed its rightful place.

And now, they had another issue. Hera was knowledgeable enough about the MAZE to know that if a room had plateaus separated like this. With valleys that were extremely deep and kilometers long between them. It was likely that going from one plateau to the next was almost the same as going from one room to another.

The biome could be completely different. The types of plants, the creatures, everything could be new and unexpected. Meaning that there was a chance that here, there were flying creatures. Although the chance wasn't as high as if she were actually going to a different room. Because, despite those differences, the sky would still be the same. And in that case, the rain that was coming from the poison lake would also be an issue here.

Hera first tried to see if there was any activity on land. She tried walking through the forest, but the jungle was too thick, especially near the edge. Which was somewhat strange since plants were supposed to avoid cliffs. Yet here there was a wall of vegetation blocking the path forward. But the wall wasn't that high. Going up just four meters or so.

It wasn't enough for any of the Court members to look above it by themselves, but by doing the regular daisy chain of ranges, Hera could send a few of her blades up into the sky to see if there was anything they could find interesting from above. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Which was something that everybody was expecting. No one believed it would be easy to find the Naga civilization. But the fact that they were here already made them feel like this was more progress than ever before.

After a few minutes, they still weren't able to detect any signal that a flying creature was around. Usually, birds would fly. They wouldn't be keeping to the forest. And in the case they were nocturnal, everything would be fine for now.

Still, the Empress made sure to be ready with a [Slow Fall] spell just in case something were to happen and Nimbus had to drop her. Vulcan and Livy were also at the ready in case shit hit the fan and Hera ended up dropping down from the sky. With all the preparation out of the way, the Empress jumped on top of Nimbus once more. They quickly started flying over this plateau in the hopes of finding something that pointed them in the direction of the Naga.

For the first few minutes, it seemed like there was nothing, which could make sense. After all, the Naga knew about the location of the doorway. There was no need to have another city so close by considering Zaxalam's location.

Sure, it would be more helpful, but the general idea of the MAZE was that if there was a big city near the doorway, on the other side the city wouldn't be there. There would be some travel from one point to the next. At least, that was how things worked in this day and age. So she was going by what she knew.

They were also very slow in their progress. Instead of just dashing across the sky hoping to find the middle of this plateau, they were taking a more methodical approach, circling around a few areas a couple times and trying to see places that seemed a bit strange from different angles, all in hopes to reveal structures that were made by the Naga.

Hera wasn't even looking specifically for full cities. Just an outpost or a guard tower would already be enough to make her excited. But there was nothing. This edge of the plateau seemed to be completely void of any Naga presence.

They started heading a bit deeper, this time finding the presence of monsters. Although the footprint was still very small. She could see some long badger-like creatures scurrying from one side to the next. Lizards the size of large dogs and a couple of plants that seemed to be moving without the assistance of the wind.

All of those three types of monsters had very bright colored furs, scales, or foliage. The classic signal of something being poisonous. Which made sense. Everything here should still be impacted by the poison rain coming from the lake. Over the course of time, the animals that didn't perish would have grown to adapt and become resistant to poison. And in turn, likely becoming poisonous themselves. That wasn't really the case back on Earth, but in the MAZE it was how things worked.

At the same time, that wasn't an absolute rule. Hera knew of a few creatures that, while being highly poisonous or venomous, didn't have good resistance to the same type of toxin. But more often than not, that was the case. If a frog was known to be poisonous, it would take a lot of poison for it to be affected.

After about one hour, when roughly twenty percent of the plateau so far had been properly searched by Hera and her court, they found themselves in an area that was different from everything else.

The vegetation didn't match the same linear flow that they had seen everywhere else. Not that the other areas looked as if they were intentionally planted, but the canopy of the trees, all followed a similar path. They all had roughly the same size, and if you were trying to look from just above them you would see a horizon of trees.

However, here, things changed. Some trees that were supposed to be smaller were taller than others. Other trees that were likely to be almost giants had the same girth and the same volume of leaves, but they ended much sooner than what they should. Almost as if they were planted on different levels.

You could argue that this was a hill. One of them was at the top while the other on the bottom. But the difference wasn't constant. You couldn't see the shape of hills from the trees. You could only see that random assortment of trees in that one specific area. And that felt very suspicious.

Nimbus went a bit lower, closer to the tree line, as they were trying to identify what was going on. From most angles, it was just the vegetation. Strange, yeah, but nothing out of the norm aside from that difference in height.

But once they were doing the fourth lap around, coming from the same direction that the sun was shining, Hera noticed one gap between the vegetation where there was this thick block of rock that felt unnatural. Nimbus flew over to that area, still staying high above the ground, and Hera did the same daisy chain that she was used to doing to get a better view from above, to send her Court down. And a few moments later, Tooth came back with the answer of what they were looking at.

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"It's a building. A mighty building placed in the middle of this forest that has challenged the tests of time," he said.

Hera was also excited and appreciated the theatrics. Telling Nimbus to go down, they slowly approached this new area. On a first glance, it was nothing. It was just a large tree growing out of the ground in a strange way.

When Hera took a closer inspection, the Empress was able to see a stone structure underneath the roots. And with a simple Pulse spell, she was able to recognize a full building hiding beneath them. Apparently, the tree that was there was a tree growing on the rooftop of this structure, and the roots, after taking hold of whatever was up there, started to spread and cover the entire building until they embedded themselves back into the ground.

And that wasn't all. Aside from the spell revealing this one building, it revealed several others. All around her, there were, within this small span of fifteen meters, which was the range of the spell she just cast, at least three other structures. All of them smaller than this first one, but each of them covered by a different type of plant that was hiding it from prying eyes.

With a smile, the Empress walked over to one of the smaller ones first since there were no roots stopping her entrance. It was just a thick layer of vines that she could push aside and enter without having to worry. She was also confident that there was nothing around since none of the mana she just sent out with the Pulse spell connected with a living creature. Aside from the trees, of course.

The three houses were barren. They had a few different rooms, and Hera could see the pyre-like beds that the Naga seemed to enjoy, but there was nothing for her to find. Things that were here were long gone, and there were no markings, no carvings.

Any possible statue or mark had eroded with time. It was a bit frustrating, but she knew that this would be the case. Especially considering the poison rain that was coming from the lake. If she were in a place that had only regular rain instead of something more acidic, then she might still see some of those sculptures that could be along the wall. But here, it all looked like rubble and pieces of stone that were destroyed for one reason or another.

The Empress continued to look around, leaving that one larger structure for last. Not because she wasn't curious, but because in order to enter, she would have to damage the tree, and there was a chance of that not being just a regular tree but a monster that was hiding itself. The odds of that being the case were low. But Hera didn't want to take any chances before she could properly look around.

She saw many more buildings, including what seemed to be a main square and, on an actual hill and not just a place where trees grew in a strange way, she noticed something else. A place filled with stone slabs on the ground. The slabs were completely destroyed, and whatever was written on top of them was long gone. But they were still there.

Hera had a suspicion of what this place was, but of course she didn't want to do the obvious thing to check. Instead, she pumped a lot of mana into the Pulse spell and tried to use it in a way that would help her.

She had heard about some technologies that were able to use sonar to investigate the ground itself without having to break it open and tried to apply that to her magic. The first attempt didn't work as she was expecting and just ended up wasting a lot of mana. The second worked a bit better, allowing the magic to go a few centimeters into the ground. But it was only the third one that gave actual results.

All around her, buried underneath the slabs, were skeletons. Skeletons of Nagas. Meaning that this was, as she was expecting, a graveyard. It was so much nicer to think that despite everything, despite all the differences, the Naga still buried their dead. A strange feeling, yes, but still a nice connection to have.

With that and the last secret uncovered, she turned to the large building. It took just a moment for Hera to go inside too. She did her best to find a passage where cutting the roots was not necessary, but to no avail. And eventually, she had to make an opening where she could find the main door. Once she did, the entire court jumped back, waiting for the tree to attack them or for something to come jumping out of that hole. But nothing happened. It was just as quiet as the entire village was.

Hera walked inside and saw a different building from the rest of the others. No, this wasn't only bigger. It was completely different.

The other buildings felt like homes. Or at least, she could imagine the place being a home. There was a bedroom, what could be a kitchen, a living room, everything that someone would need to live. The smaller buildings outside also had extra rooms that could be either a game room or something, or maybe just a place for people to gather.

Some of those extra rooms could even be places to do business, and another where they could go back to sleep in their own beds. But this bigger house was different. The structure was wide, with just one massive open room on the main floor, the first floor, with the second having a few smaller ones but none that felt like a bedroom.

It was only on the third floor, one below the room directly below the rooftop, that she saw a place with pyre-beds. And then it became clear why that was the case. The pyre-beds, about two dozen of them, were all placed side by side in a large area. It looked very much like the barracks of an army.

"Could this have been a guard post?" Filigree suggested.

The Empress nodded. "I think so. This should have been a barracks or a guard house or something."

However, there was nothing to find here. The place was just as barren as everything else. After a thorough inspection of the area and realizing that there was nothing else for her to find here, the Empress decided to leave. But when she got back to the first floor, Parade noticed something behind the stairs.

A door with another set of steps leading down. Hera triggered the light spell, and they slowly started following that path down. It was a prison. The bars were still in place, although whatever was left inside the cells was long gone. Maybe even if there were bones here, since they were exposed, they were unable to survive. But at the very end of this hallway, there was something else. A metal door.

Hera had seen places where doors were supposed to be, but they were likely made out of wood instead of something sturdier and were no longer there. Yet this one stood. Almost unblemished by the devastation outside.

With a bit of a worried expression, the Empress stepped forward, casting a spell around her mouth and nose to stop any particles from getting close. It was a wind barrier that allowed her to filter the air just in case something like this were to happen. She slowly opened the door, and the moment she did so, a skeleton came falling from inside. She was a bit taken aback, and so were the rest of the court, all who jumped to protect the Empress, but there was nothing else.

Looking inside this room, they noticed that it was completely made of metal. And there were no holes. No passage for air, nothing. It was completely sealed if the door was closed. They also saw how near the door were various claw marks that seemed to be trying to open and break free. Even some old blood stains, meaning that the person who was inside was locked there, and they got to the point where they tried everything they could to escape. The Empress just wasn't aware if they died because of hunger or because they ran out of air.

Feeling sad about the fate of this person, no matter who they were, Hera decided to at least give the bones a proper burial. It was something she did on a whim, not something she thought was supposed to happen. It just felt that whatever crime was committed by the person who was stuck here, was paid, and they deserved now a proper resting place. With the help of the court, she brought everything back to the graveyard and found an empty spot where she buried the skeleton of the Naga.

This wasn't something that she wanted to use for exploration. Much less tell Shane about every single skeleton they found. There was only so much they could learn from dead bodies.

The whole process took a bit longer than they were expecting, and by the time they were done, the sun was already setting. Not wanting to continue to travel during the night, Hera went back to the big house and found a nice place on the second floor for her tent. It felt better to sleep there than to just sleep out in the open. Her Court agreed, and they talked a bit before going to bed since Hera herself wanted to do that soon. After all, what was the point of staying up here if she had nothing else to do.

Sometime after midnight, she was awakened by a sound. Moans echoing from outside. She slowly climbed out of bed and moved to one of the nearby windows that was almost completely covered by the roots and took a peek downstairs, only to see dozens of spectral figures. Spectral figures that were exactly like the ancient Naga moving around and moaning loudly. It seemed like this city, when night came, became a ghost town.