For a couple of hours, Faust remained still, meditating and absorbing information from the miasma. However, after the initial burst that granted him a flood of knowledge, the stream of information diminished drastically.
It was as if most memories of the Old Rat Prince were clouded by something. Some sequences had no transitions between them, as if entire moments had been deliberately ignored. That was probably due to the old man restricting his Will—perhaps he anticipated someone might find it and purposely left out certain details. It was possible, though Faust couldn't be sure what information would matter so much after the old man's death.
Still, the fact that the man's seventh trial hadn't been the same as his made Faust curious. But he simply assumed that all seventh trials were different from one another; there was no reason they couldn't be. After all, his fourth trial had also differed from the old man's.
Only when no more new information could be drawn did Faust stop meditating and rise to his feet.
The miasma in the area was still as thick as ever, so dense it felt like it might soon become something solid. But now, with no reason to delay further, Faust looked again at the two objects on the ground.
The lamp-like artifact, Plague Bringer, and the engraved bronze key.
He extended his hands—now resembling a patchwork of dark red scar tissue—and reached for the lantern. A strong pressure resisted him, preventing an easy touch, but it wasn't overwhelming.
After only a few minutes, he managed to make contact with the lantern, which was broken and endlessly emanating pitch-black miasma.
The moment he touched it, he felt the miasma assaulting his body, though... it didn't do much damage.
Recalling how the previous artifact user had stabilized it using mana and Will, Faust attempted the same.
Slowly, he began to inject his mana into the object—but it devoured all of it instantly. Startled, Faust withdrew his hand. The artifact had stabilized slightly, yet miasma still poured from it at an alarming rate.
Despite being drained, he now felt a faint connection to the artifact but weak and almost nonexistent.
"Hmm... alright. I guess I could use it eventually. It'll just take a while, but if I manage to, it'll be a great improvement… for now I could also try to use the mana explosions the old man did, maybe I could escape from this underground using it." he said with a cold grin, as he reached down and grabbed the bronze key, bringing it closer to examine.
"...This!"
Faust was surprised. While he was seeing the Old Rat Prince 'memories', he hadn't had a chance to analyze the key, and the engravings once seemed like random markings. But now, upon closer inspection, they were clearly runes.
These runes, however, were highly complex—combinations of multiple advanced symbols. The old man didn't seem to understand runes, so he likely had no idea what this key truly was beyond its apparent function.
"If even that old man didn't knew runes… then how strong is Red?" Faust muttered in a weak voice, only to himself.
Unfortunately, the inscriptions were far beyond Faust's current understanding. He only knew one advanced rune—Devour—which he had been studying for over four months, and only now he had been approaching mastery.
But then an idea surfaced, since these are runes, what if I tried to inject mana into them?
That would have to wait, though. He just had all his mana drained by the lamp, it would take a few hours until he would fully recover it.
For now, all he could do was fully scout the area until his mana recovered.
As he prepared to move, his body still strained under the miasma's pressure, another thought crossed his mind as he glanced at the nearby skeletons… but it was something that would require time.
******
In a colossal city made of dark gray sandstone, surrounded by towering black walls, the red moon glowed ominously, casting its crimson light over everything below. Massive sandstone houses filled the streets, within them, feeble people hid.
In the streets, other weak and starving humans wandered aimlessly, walking into the gray sand roads, while others knelt in place, begging for food and water.
Apparently, the people in this city felt hunger and thirst, differently from those who came from the outside.
At the heart of the city stood an immense sandstone statue. It depicted a beautiful woman, unclothed, but with her intimate areas covered in thick, flowing hair carved out of stone, but that almost seemed real. Though also carved from sandstone, her eyes seemed to hold an unfathomable depth.
From those stone eyes, a thin stream of water trickled down, falling into a small pond below it. Around the statue, a crowd had gathered to witness the sight, though any who dared approach were ruthlessly struck down.
The statue was guarded by several figures clad in full suits of black armor. The armor didn't shine… it looked rough, tarnished, and rusted. Their weapons, forged from the same dark metal, matched the grim tone of their appearance. Their helmets had no openings, being smooth and round, like expressionless iron buckets.
Atop a nearby house, quite far from the crowd, Snake was cleaning his blade. His black hair, once slicked back, now hung loose and ragged, the ends slightly singed. In his hands, his cutlass dripped with blood. At his feet lay a body, cut in half.
It was a woman, likely in her thirties. She had fiery red hair, and a grimoire lay open in her lifeless hands, its pages marked with fire incantations.
Snake had just killed her, as she had tried to strike him from behind, likely a competitor in the sixth Trial.
Searching her belongings, he found an Adventurer insignia tucked into her leather coat. It was made of silver and marked with a "IV."
Looking down at her still form, Snake muttered quietly, his tone tinged with sorrow.
"She was at least strong enough to be considered Gold... I guess most people who make it this far would be." He knelt beside her and whispered a prayer. "Rest in peace. May the gods guide your journey from now on."
Raising his gaze, he turned his eyes toward the statue—toward the armored figures keeping the desperate crowd at bay. But that wasn't his goal.
His eyes shifted to the horizon.
Far from his location, at one edge of the city, stood a massive castle made of dark sandstone and gold. Its walls were towering and thick, shielding the interior from any watchful eyes.
Snake had already completed the Seventh Trial, which was reaching the Grand Desert City. The moment his feet crossed its walls, the Eighth Trial had begun.
"Steal from the Mad King, huh…" Snake muttered.
He had been in the city for several days already, scouting the castle and identifying potential entry points. But for now, he delayed it. He was waiting for something else.
Still on the rooftop, the dead woman behind him, Snake sat on the ledge, calmly wiping the blood from his blade with a cloth, and waited… patiently.