Chapter 120: Chapter 120: Butchered Society
Aiden could finally walk properly again. His legs no longer trembled with every step, though the phantom ache of his wounds lingered in his muscles like a ghost refusing to leave. He moved carefully, as though each pace might still betray him. His body had found strength—but his eyes, his heart, his soul—they weren’t so sure.
They weren’t sure if it was okay to walk through this place as though it were still a city and not a grave.
Beside him, Arina moved swiftly, almost too swiftly, her boots crunching over broken tiles, her cloak trailing behind like a shard of night. Her face was set in grim determination, but her hand twitched once upon the hilt of her sword, as though even she could not keep still in this silence of massacre. She tried to sickle away her awareness of it, tried to cut down the sight with the blade of her will.
But Aiden could not.
He could not help but look. Could not help but see.
Everywhere, death. Not the reverent death of funerals or the heroic death of warriors sung into ballads. No—this was a butcher’s death, raw and indifferent.
The so-called warriors of the elven city lay in the street like discarded dolls. Headless, limbless, their blood staining white stones into rivers of rust. Not "most of them." No—all of them. It was as if one merciless hand had swept across the city, and all that was proud, ancient, beautiful had fallen in one stroke. One slice—and their heads rolled like festival lanterns torn from the sky.
Aiden’s throat tightened. Instinctively, his hand rose to his neck, fingers brushing the vulnerable hollow of his throat. He swallowed hard. He remembered the moment—the edge of steel, the whisper of death almost close enough to kiss him.
The perpetrator had been inches away from doing to him what had been done to them.
"...Why?" he whispered, the word leaking out before he could contain it.
The silence of corpses offered no answer.
Arina glanced at him, her sharp features softening for half a heartbeat. Her voice, when it came, was low. "I hated them. You know I did. But even enemies shouldn’t be slaughtered like this. Not this way. No hesitation, no sentiment."
Her lips curled as if on the edge of spitting. "That’s what abominations are born with. Bastards without flaw, without mercy. No sympathy. Only psychopathy."
Her words dropped like stones in the ruined air.
"Don’t know," she added after a beat, her eyes flicking across the horizon of bodies. "But this is one of the reasons why the dungeon break will soon come upon us..."
Aiden pressed a hand over his mouth. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Didn’t trust the fragile dam of his voice not to break into panic, or grief, or begging.
Silence was safer.
Silence was survival.
Because the killer—the one who had left this trail of carnage—was still near.
And when the perpetrator finally emerged from shadow, striding toward them with a deliberate, dreadful calm, Aiden felt his heart slam like a drum trapped inside his ribs. Every step closer felt like iron on stone, the sound of inevitability.
He did not beg.
He did not ask for mercy.
He knew the rules of this game.
The moment he opened his mouth to plead, his head would join the rest on the street.
’...He’s coming for me next time. What in the heavens shall I fucking do?’ His thoughts scrambled like rats in a flooding cellar, frantic and useless.
But they didn’t know why this conflict had happened. Didn’t know the seed of hatred, the spark that had set fire to the city of elves. And truth be told, in that moment neither Aiden nor Arina cared.
Survival was their only hymn.
So they walked.
Step after step, they walked, and did not look back. Toward the gates of the giant tree—the heart of the city, the palace carved not from stone, but from living wood.
The tree was not merely a tree. It was a world unto itself. Hollowed and shaped into soaring halls and stairways that spiraled like veins of light. To enter was to step into a different space, a sanctum that pulsed with ancient life.
Arina’s breath was sharp as they crossed the threshold. "We need to hurry. If another group of elves finds us here, they’ll point at us. They won’t care for explanations."
Aiden gave a humorless laugh. "True, true. It’s been one shitty encounter after another. I don’t want my bad luck coming in clutch again."
A thin chuckle escaped Arina’s lips.
"...What?" Aiden asked, narrowing his eyes.
"...Nothing," she said too quickly. Her mouth twitched at the corner. "Just walk faster."
And so they did, their footsteps slapping against the stairways slick with blood. The scent of iron clung to their throats, thick and metallic, and every step echoed against the silence left by the slain.
"You know," Aiden muttered after a time, "this actually made our work easier."
Arina glanced at him sidelong. Her face was unreadable, but her silence encouraged him to go on.
"If not for this... massacre... we would’ve had to answer questions, deal with threats, waste time on their damned procedures. Now..." He gestured vaguely to the silence around them. "Now there’s no one left to slow us down."
"...I won’t deny that," she admitted. Her tone was like steel being sharpened. "There would’ve been suspicion. Obstacles. In the end I would’ve had to steal the spell and the potion anyway."
Aiden blinked at her. "...So you were planning on stealing after all."
"I’m fucking dying here," she snapped, her voice echoing sharp against the hollow chamber. "Of course I was."
The rawness of her confession made him flinch.
"...Let’s not waste time," she added, her voice rasping as she turned away. "If my information’s right, one of my mates saw the potion in the treasury."
"...Treasury?" Aiden perked up despite himself. "I like the sound of that."
"There won’t be gold," Arina said flatly.
"...Fucckkk!" His complaint burst out, half-serious, half-shield against the heaviness pressing down on him.
Step by step, they pressed deeper. Their boots smeared blood across marble tiles, kicked severed heads aside as though they were pebbles. The sound was obscene—soft thuds, hollow rolls.
Finally, they reached what once had been a throne room.
Aiden froze.
The wall behind the great chair was shattered, as though some monstrous hand had punched through it. High elves lay sprawled across the thrones, butchered with the same merciless indifference as the warriors outside. Their robes were still intact, shimmering with runes, but their bodies slumped lifelessly, heads lolling at grotesque angles.
’I mean... what the fuck did the elves do?’ Aiden thought. Not even one had been spared. Not priest, not guard, not elder. The slaughter had been total.
They stepped over shattered marble and passed through the destroyed wall until at last they saw it: a massive door, gleaming steel embedded in wood.
No ordinary metal.
Titanium.
Aiden reached out, his fingers brushing the cool surface. His heart skipped.
"This motherfucker bent titanium," he breathed, staring at the warped frame. The vault remained sealed, but its edges bore the marks of some overwhelming, failed attempt.
Arina’s eyes narrowed. "Seems he was after something too. But for some reason... he gave up."
She stepped forward, hand tightening on her sword, mana flaring around her like molten light.
"Giant’s Slace!" she cried. The blade struck, sparks dancing like fireflies.
"Perfect Pierce!" The impact rang like a bell.
"Saint’s Bomb!" The explosion rattled the vault, smoke curling in bitter plumes.
"Curs—"
"Hol—"
Her words stuttered, breaking under strain.
Hours passed.
The sun sank, shadows stretched, and the room filled with the silence of futility.
Aiden sat with his back against a column, arms folded, watching her. He had begged her to stop, to rest. Told her there must be a key, some hidden mechanism. But desperation had drowned her reason.
When at last she collapsed onto the floor, chest heaving, sweat soaking her hair, she looked more wounded than any blade had ever made her. Her aura flickered gold, not with triumph but with exhaustion.
The vault remained untouched. Only scratches marred its face, pitiful against its immensity.
Aiden sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. ’If only she would listen. Believe me when I say I can heal her. If only...’
He rose, scanning the chamber. His eyes roved over corpses, the hollow eyes of elves staring at nothing. No aura pulsed from them, no lingering magic.
But then—something.
A flicker.
Blue light, faint, emanating from the wall itself. Not stone, not wood, but something hidden beneath.
He stepped closer, heart tightening. The aura pulsed, alive, breathing behind the wall.
"...What the fuck..."
He placed a trembling hand on the surface.
And then—
The wall opened.
Not with the grinding of stone, but like a sigh, a hidden door unfolding in silence.
"Oh..."
The word slipped from his lips, soft and stunned.
What lay beyond would either help them—or damn them deeper than they already were.