What was more scary to them; treading through unknown lamds or what now laid before their line of sight;
Strange structures of what resembled walls with scribbles they couldn't make sense of; the walls that stood had weird engravings on them which had never been seen nor heard of before.
It all looked a bit ancient since moss had began growing on the black walls whose material looked unknown but awfully familiar.
"It couldn't be?" Rud thought as he grabbed his black gauntlets of which one had already been damaged from the chameleon, with K.V.S engraved on it.
They had to stop and check around to gather as much information on the marvel of innovative supremacy.
From their viewpoint they could only draw from parallels of what they had seen to what they now stood on.
"Remains, much like those in the fourth sector, these are remains of a civilization probably preceding us.
Or would the right term to use here be ruins..." Lana mumbled her words with a an awkward smirk.
She was clearly englamoured by it, as she brushed her hand along the wall, its creases; cracks; crevices.
"What could have been" She muttered.
A palm wrapped on her shoulder, it was Heimlich.
"That should be enough, let's get going." Heimlich said to her, pointing to the others that had begun leaving.
"What gives, shouldn't we study this more, you all are standing before things you can barely comprehend." Lana said to Heimlich, but she wasn't just referring to him as much as she was addressing everyone.
"You love that line, don't you." Heimlich replied with his helmet in hand and a bored gaze.
"Ah…" Lana recalled saying the same some days ago.
"Lana, what's the hold up?" Ricia said as she walked with the group that were heading back to the wagons.
"...ahhhh...." Lana struggled to react from the words of Heimlich.
"Oh, oh, shouldn't you be more suprised about this?
You were the one nearly foaming at the mouth because of aether." By the time Lana stated this Heimlich was no longer there.
"Yeah yeah, hurry up." He said to her whilst waving away.
"I've gotten desensitised to things like these." Heimlich thought as he walked away.
They were getting back into positions while waiting for Lana, Rud spoke to Caesar with Leo in their midst as well.
"Doesn't this wall look just like this, a bit duller but couldn't it be the sam-" Rud asked.
"You're probably overthinking things, there is no way.
Right Leo." Caesar waved it off.
"As you said, we can't draw conclusions, it might just be the coating that looks similar, or some process during the production of the weapons.
Could also be a rare mineral also probably found in the empire, who knows?
Assumptions can't just be drawn." Leo said to them both.
Rud and Caesar looked shocked and had an awkward stare at Leo.
"You're literally someone that draws conclusions and assumptions.
Sometimes even turning them to fact." Caesar snuffed it off.
"On second thought, it looks similar to something else as well, can't put my finger on it" Leo thought while looking at it intently.
"Sorry for the time wasting, got lost in my thoughts for a bit." Lana apologised as she took a step.
"Just make sure to get this place on that map of yours as well." Gustev commented.
"I wouldn't miss this for my li-
Ouch." Lana let out as she took her final step out.
"What was that?!" Heimer asked almost immediately with worry on his face.
"It's nothing, just cut my finger against the sharp edge of the wall." She took a look at her finger.
"Oh well…
It's bleeding" Lana squinted at the outflow of blood coming out from her finger.
She rubbed it off on her armour as she climbed her horse.
"Are you alright?" Ricia asked.
"Yeah, it was nothing serious." Ricia said as the journey continued.
–
Blood trickled down the wall of the ruined structure.
–
The supplies were running low, they had only taken one meal per day for the past days but it still wouldn't be enough.
They needed to get done as fast as possible, lest they die of starvation, they kept riding with the structures of the ruins still visible.
[The roaring of the raging water]
– Few minutes later –
They asked, and the world was kind enough to listen, what was now visible at the edge of the horizon was all it took to rekindle their hopes.
"The base of the light," Heimer thought as he fired up the horses to get there as fast as possible.
The closer they got to the large now very bright pillar of light, it was getting clearer to them, this was truly the edge, the point where the ground met the sky.
Even the river looked like it was at its edge as well, as they travelled along the river with the structures to their left.
–
They stopped in front of the light;
It - the light - was a weird one, it was bright, awfully so; but not blinding, and even weirder than that, it left a Shadow around its circumference.
At its base was nothing but light flooding down, as some of them looked up to see how far it reached, it was piercing through the clouds to the heavens.
Truly a mystery on all fronts, as had been other things for the past seven months.
"Hey, you might want to see this!" Ren yelled from about twenty metres behind the light while pointing towards the horizon, which for all they knew was a mountain in the distance.
He had walked around the light previously, his voice was nearly swallowed up by the roaring water.
Soon enough, the true nature of the land they stood on got revealed as they walked towards Ren;
The land they stood on was on a cliff, a disgustingly large one as well, the drop was more than they could estimate with eyes alone.
At the bottom were trees that gently faded to a patch of land with what looked like grey sand in-between large rocks.
With the mountains that had been visible since they stepped into the plains being to the left.
"How high up do you think this?!" Heimer asked Lana.
"Rough estimates would put us over five hundred metres, but I can't be sure!" Lana said as she looked at the land beneath which was misty.
"And then there is that as well!" Heimer said as he looked over at the roaring waterfall, they could hardly hear themselves speak.
Tonnes of water pouring down over 5km of width and six hundred+ kilometres of height, with mist forming from the impact as it roars from hitting the ground.
But what was even more shocking was the fact that the resulting water body at the bottom was a very snall river that flowed along the gigantic trees to the grey sand.
Birds flew across the air in the distance, the flap of their wings incited one thought in Gustev;
"Those are really big birds, I don't think I've seen any larger
I've lived long enough to see a new reality, those oldies at the board wouldn't be ready for our findings.
To imagine I wouldn't have seen this if I was still there, what an adventure this has been." Gustev thought with a satisfied smirk.
"Is that the 'waterfall' Slotchger wrote of?" Ricia queried.
"I don't know what else would define this phenomena so perfectly, might have to read those books again.
I might as well follow the kid to the library." Heimer thought.
Leo sat on the edge of the cliff that joined the waterfall as he peered into the distance assimilating himself with the scene.
The wind blew against his long grey hair scattering it about.
"Hey get up, that isn't safe at all." Paul said as he pulled Leo away by one hand and Saul pulled him by the other.
"imagine if he had fallen." Paul said.
"He would be the first recorded death outside the empire." Saul replied as the proceeded to giggle.
Laura stood at the edge of the cliff with Cera beside her, there was worry on Laura's face, but not from the presence of the person she loathed.
"Do you sense anything." Cera asked as she extended her upper body over he ledge.
Laura shook her head very subtly then nodded as if unsure.
"I don't know." Laura said as the worry on her face increased, while Cera's eyes widened.
"There, there." Clarence said as she patted Herra on the back; she was nauseous from the height.
"You're also scared of heights as well?" Caesar asked Rud with a book and pen in hand.
"Yea- [Buegh]" Rud held his stomach.
Ricia seemed to be looking at a circular contraption with strange patterns, it was adjoined to the ground.
She dusted it over but couldn't make sense of it whilst she dusted it over, the patterns were both circular and triangular.
"What could this be." she muttered as she looked at it.
While all this was going on Fiona just sat at the edge to the left with a smile on her face and glimmering eyes.
–
But alas it was time for them to do something about the light, they had one unified thought on what they had to do.
"Head into the light"
And so they did, as they all took a step into the light, with nothing but the will to save mankind.