The ruins were the most intact Elijah had encountered since entering the Broken Crown. The buildings loomed over him, towering to heights that would never have been possible back on Earth. Thousands of floors, all empty. He'd entered the city two days before, and he'd still not reached its outskirts. He had even flown for a while, and after what had to be a thousand miles, had found nothing but more buildings.

The sheer scale of it all defied description. A continent-sized city, entirely deserted. It left Elijah feeling both intrigued and oddly hollow. He wanted to know more, but over that curiosity hovered a grim reminder that it had once been occupied.

Did it matter that the scenario wasn't real?

Less than Elijah wanted it to – largely because he knew that the Primal Realms took their scenarios from real-world locations. Certainly, they were twisted into an appropriate challenge, but the seeds of reality had been used in their formation. Did that mean that the city through which he trekked had once existed?

Perhaps.

There was even a chance that it had been scaled down to fit into the Primal Realm, though Elijah's mind spun at the implications that came with that line of thought.

More than anything else, though, Elijah felt a connection to the place. It was like he'd returned, as an adult, to his elementary school. Things looked familiar, but time, perspective, and faulty memories robbed him of anything more than a vague feeling of nostalgia. But considering he lacked even lingering memories of the place – and rightly so, considering he'd never been in the Broken Crown before – those feelings were very disconcerting.

Periodically, Elijah was forced to the ground by swarms of wasps that acted as scouts for the main vespiran armies – all of which dwarfed the one he'd destroyed, both in terms of quantity and quality. There were dragon armies out there as well, and often, Elijah saw the two forces clashing in the distance. However, he'd decided to forego joining in, mostly because he didn't think it would do much good.

There were just so many of them out there, and on both sides. His first impressions of the conflict had grossly underestimated the scale of the war. At times, it felt like he couldn't go a single hour without hearing rumbling explosions in the distance. He even witnessed one of the giant buildings falling. The resulting dust cloud reached him dozens of miles away, and the impact – diffused by distance though it was – still buffeted him with a dust cloud riding hurricane-strength winds.

That further cemented Elijah's assertion that some demi-gods were far more powerful than others. The ones he'd killed never could have downed one of those enormous and enduring buildings.

Of course, Elijah wasn't capable of completely avoiding battle. More than once, he was forced to deal with swarms of wasp scouts. Thankfully, none of them were terribly strong, so he managed to destroy them before they could report on his presence. Still, each encounter, every problem – it chipped away at his momentum, slowing his progress to a crawl.

Weeks passed, and though Elijah fell into a rhythm of travel, he couldn't escape the implications of so much passing time. He'd already been inside the Broken Crown for longer than expected. Close to four months, if his sense of time was accurate. And as far as he could tell, he was no closer to finding the core than when he'd started.

Sure – he knew he'd made progress. The maps he'd stolen suggested as much. However, he still had an incredibly long way to go. From what he could tell, it wouldn't be surprising if he spent a year or more inside the Broken Crown. And that might've even been generous.

And he wasn't sure if Earth could afford that.

Was the increased scope due to Earth's rising levels of ethera? Was it because they'd let the Primal Realms fester too long? Or was the dragon Primal Realm different in some way?

Elijah's pride in his draconic heritage – barely understood though it was – wanted to believe the last part played a role, but rationally, he knew that the other two were more impactful. And that did not bode well for Earth's chances. If the other Primal Realms followed the same pattern, they wouldn't have enough time to conquer them all.

With that in mind, Elijah picked up the pace. Doing so put him in increased danger, but that was a price he was willing to pay. Over the next couple of weeks, he followed the same pattern. Gradually, he got a good sense of the lay of the land, and he began to predict the search patterns of the wasp scouts. That, in turn, allowed him to travel even more efficiently.

Without Shape of the Sky, it would have taken at least twice as long.

Along the way, Elijah saw dozens of battles – each one more bombastic than the last. The two forces might've featured different priorities and composition, but they were as evenly matched as they could be. The vespirans tended to rely on strength through numbers, where the dragons focused on individual might. Both were viable routes to power, and as a result, they fought to a stalemate.

There was a clear winner for each battle, but each side won as much as they lost.

But the true danger came from the abyssal monsters that roamed the broken city. Many were huge, hulking creatures dozens of feet tall and composed of so many disparate parts that just looking at them gave Elijah a headache. But there were smaller variants as well. Sometimes, size equated to power, but that was not always the case.

Elijah discovered that a couple of days after the five-month mark, when he saw a housecat-sized tentacle monster rip through an entire nest. The vespirans ended up killing it, but not before it had destroyed more than three-quarters of their members.

For once, Elijah decided to participate, putting down the remnants. It barely gave him any experience, but he couldn't bypass such a good opportunity to kill the dragons' ancestral enemy. Not when it only took an hour, at least. Any longer, and he might've bypassed it.

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Killing the wounded remnants of the nest wasn't particularly dangerous, even though the leader was a demi-god on a different level than the ones Elijah had already killed. Still, he'd very nearly cut Elijah in half with a barrage of wind-blades that moved so quickly they came with a sonic boom.

Thankfully, Elijah had all his cooldowns and managed to kill the thing, pushing himself to level two-thirty-four. For all that the place was dangerous, the Primal Realm had proven to be an incredible leveling resource. Nearly ten levels already, and he knew he still had a long, long way to go.

Finally, nearly three months after entering the ruins, Elijah reached the edge of that continent. Once, the city itself had kept going, but with the planet having broken apart, the rest had disappeared into the abyss. Elijah felt a pang of disappointment at that. Or perhaps it was sadness. He wasn't certain why he would feel that way about a place he'd never visited, but the feelings were there all the same.

In any case, he was far more focused on the enormous chain stretching off into the distance. According to his map, it was the only viable route to reach his destination. There was one major problem with that, though – it was swarming with wasps.

From atop one of the massive buildings lining the edge of the continent, Elijah used Eyes of the Eagle to study the situation. The chain stretched off for hundreds of miles, disappearing into the abyss. Presumably, it still connected to the continent on the other side, but Elijah had no guarantees of that.

If only he could simply fly across, things would have been much simpler. But only a hundred feet from the chain stood an invisible shield. According to Dolo, it was the only thing keeping the chain from being enveloped by the corruptive influence of the abyss.

When he looked closer, he saw that most of the wasps, vespirans, and drachnids were going the wrong way. They fled toward the ruined city in droves, many of them horrifically wounded.

Elijah watched as, over the next few hours, the flow slowed to a trickle. And then, the chain was empty. The Hive army – what was left of it, at least – had taken shelter within one of the other buildings, leaving the chain entirely unguarded.

But still, Elijah hesitated.

Something had defeated that army. If it was a force of dragons, it wouldn't be a big problem. However, if it was a particularly strong abyssal monster, then that would become a much larger issue. Given the ambiguity, it didn't take Elijah long to decide on a course of action.

He descended the building, racing down the huge, spiral ramp at its center. The structures weren't arrayed like they'd been built with human scale in mind. Instead, the interior was a branching helix, with enormous chambers sized to fit elephantine residents. Each set of rooms featured a distinct, rail-less balcony the size of a helicopter pad.

It all made Elijah feel incredibly small. Like an insect crawling around a skyscraper.

In any case, he reached the bottom of the building without incident, then sprinted across the atrium, cloaked in the Guise of the Unseen. Upon exiting, he quickly reoriented himself – descending that spiral had a way of messing with his sense of direction – then set out for the building where the wasps had taken shelter.

Coming close, he was struck by the sheer noise of their presence. In addition to the normal din of any camp, Elijah could hear screams from injured wasp-men and the distinct buzz of their wings. Everywhere he looked, there were swarms of insects, all in varying sizes. Some, like the impalers he'd first encountered in the Painted Wastes, were recognizable, but there were so many variants, each with their own purpose, that he didn't even bother trying to identify most.

Elijah wasn't there to finish them off – though he would do so if he got the opportunity. Rather, he wanted information. So, he snuck into the building, deftly avoiding the buzzing hive of activity as he searched for someone who might give him some hints as to what difficulties they'd encountered.

He was more than prepared to capture and torture a vespiran, but as it turned out, he didn't need to. Via Soul of the Wild, he managed to find what he took to be their central hub, where three demi-gods were deep in the middle of a discussion of what had happened.

And as it turned out, Elijah's caution was well warranted, because according to that conversation, there was a powerful abyssal monster at the other end of the chain. After listening for a few more minutes, Elijah put the pieces together and came to the conclusion that the creature was demi-god level.

Roughly, at least.

Abyssal creatures didn't really follow the same tiers of power as those attached to the World Tree's system, and as such, it was often difficult to ascertain their true level of power. Estimates were the extent of what was possible when trying to determine their strength. Even investigative abilities – which were specifically designed to inspect and label creatures – often failed to give more than a general idea.

With that in mind, Elijah had a couple of problems.

The first was that such a creature would almost assuredly see through Guise of the Unseen. The only reason he'd avoided detection so far was because he'd steered clear of abyssals, avoiding them where possible. But he knew from experience that if he got too close to such a powerful monster, he would be seen. Sneaking past just wasn't an option.

So, bypassing the creature meant that he had only two choices – sprint past or fight.

It only took him a second to decide on his course of action. He'd start out with the intention of fighting, but if things got too rough, he'd flee. Hopefully, he could outpace the thing if it came to that.

The other problem concerned the impromptu nest of wasps and their allies. He'd already wasted a lot of time, and every wasted hour weighed on him. Killing them wouldn't be quick, especially if it proved to be too much for him. But on the other hand, he stood to gain a decent amount of experience if he exterminated them.

And that would doubtless prove invaluable in the upcoming fight against the abyssal.

That was when Elijah came upon another option he hadn't considered. It was an old strategy, but one that would almost assuredly work.

At least on paper.

In reality, there were a thousand things that could go wrong.

Still, the more Elijah thought about it, the more he liked the idea. It didn't take him long to convince himself, and soon enough, he retreated from the vespirans' temporary base of operations and set off down the chain.

Idly, he noticed quite a lot of corrosion. Huge flakes of rust broke under his feet with every step. He paid it no mind, instead focusing on moving as quickly and efficiently as he could. Days passed, and along the way, he saw a trail of vespiran bodies. Most had been infected with black tendrils of corruption that spread from their wounds – evidence of their battle against the abyssal.

Thousands had died, and that was just during their retreat. How many others had been slain in the battle proper?

Elijah got his answer two weeks later when he saw a shadow on the horizon. At first, he thought it was just another building, but as he drew closer, he saw bits and pieces writhing in every direction.

And when the thing came fully into his sight, he couldn't contain a gasp. Not of surprise. Vaguely, he had known what to expect. Rather, his reaction rooted itself in simple horror.

He'd made the mistake of thinking he was prepared for what was coming. He was not. There were worse things out there than swarms of wasp-men or the abyssal horrors with which he'd become familiar. The evidence lay right in front of him, guarding the end of the chain and blocking his path.

And a mountain of chitinous bodies lay at its feet.