The castle sat at about the center of the city with the area behind it being slightly smaller than the area in front of it. The area Felix had walked through was conical and bordered by two rivers, each running from outside the city into the lake at the bottom of the cliff. The buildings nearest the rivers, outside of that cone were densely packed with many floors. Moving away from the rivers, towards the back of the castle, the houses grew increasingly larger and more spread out. Behind the castle, the cliff sloped down into an area filled with what Felix would call, mansions or manors. Those houses were almost castles in their own right.

The city had been laid out such that the wealthy living behind the castle could simply walk up to the castle. On the south side, the poor folk's residential along with the commerce district were located at the bottom of the cliff face just past the surrounding lake. The castle looked down upon everyone, but had an ideal view to look down upon the commerce district and the poor folk living within and near it.

Looking down at the castle itself, Felix was tempted to search it, but decided against it when he saw and identified a few of the Devoured within. Their levels ranged from the low 600s at minimum and just went up from there. The scarier part though, was that these devoured were clearly superior in build. Some wielded steel armor and weapons, others were simply horrifying tentacle creatures, griffins and chimeras. While the Devoured on the outskirts might have only been dangerous in groups if they managed to pile on top of you, these Devoured seemed dangerous all alone.

Felix looked into the upper class district, behind the castle and saw much of the same. Their levels weren't quite as high but they looked just as deadly. Felix had only ascended above the walls of the castle for a few moments when he heard a screech from behind him. He whipped himself around and saw a large flying creature that was once, according to Felix's best guess, a pterodactyl. It's screech had alerted two other flying creatures that were further off as well. The creature that had spotted him though was currently rocketing towards him much faster than Felix had ever flown.

Felix didn't even think of fighting it, especially when it's level was 653. He immediately dove off the cliff and used force spells to push himself downwards. He heard another screech and risked looking back to see the creature had landed on the edge of the cliff and was currently posturing. It had it's wings out, making itself look as big as possible, but it didn't seem willing to go past the cliff. Felix immediately cast Feather Fall on himself to desperately hoping to avoid hitting the water. He had just barely managed to stay dry using a couple of Force spells along with the Feather Fall. The creature at the top of the cliff screeched once more then flew off into the air and out of sight.

I don't think it's worth exploring the city down here.

Yeah, these things don't give any experience and they're really just a massive pain in the ass.

Yeah. I'm gonna try to get into that hole on the ceiling though, see if I can make it back to Ky'bel.

You might want to wait a bit for that bird thing to calm down.

Yeah. I just really don't want to fly all the way back out and hope they finally made it through the gate.

Felix flew towards the outskirts of the kingdom and then pressed himself to the side of one of the ceiling beams. He flew alongside it towards the center of the city keeping a careful eye out for the flying Devoured. He didn't spot any outside of the second wall though so he made it all the way there, once again, without issue. As silently as he could, Felix crested the corner of the ceiling and ascended along the second wall with his light as dim as possible so that he could still see. He then turned towards the hole he had spotted earlier and glided over. With his dim light, he couldn't see exactly where it was but he remembered approximately where it should be on his map.

As he flew, his light ahead of him illuminated the massive figure of some sort of furry creature hanging from the ceiling. Felix immediately stopped moving and carefully moved his light but it seemed as though the creature either hadn't noticed him, or was asleep. He illuminated more of the creature and saw what looked like an owl with patchwork fur, leathery bat wings and antlers on it's head. It's talons had dug right into the stone of the ceiling and it seemed to be asleep. It was definitely Devoured, but it somehow managed to hold onto some of it's fur, though not all of it.

Felix carefully routed himself around the creature with his light much further ahead of him now, in case there were others like it. He managed to make it to the hole without encountering anything else though and carefully flew inside. It was a short tunnel that only went 50 meters or so with two cables dangling down around the middle. Felix noticed that their ends were frayed and had likely been cut. He continued to ascend until there was a doorway on one side of the tunnel. He carefully flew up to it and peeked through, gingerly moving his light into the room. After a few moments, nothing seemed to react so Felix increased the intensity of his light until the entire room was illuminated.

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The room was a large circular chamber with a grid like pattern of what appeared to be stone sarcophagi. Felix didn't spot anything else, at least nothing that moved in the chamber so he carefully floated himself inwards. Getting a better look around, this room was definitely contained within the third wall of Ky'bel, confirmed by his map and the material of the walls. The room contained just three things, the shaft Felix had just ascended through, a grid of sarcophagi and a tall stone pillar in the middle of the room. The pillar in the middle was a perfect square maybe ten meters wide running all the way to the ceiling made of the same white stone as the walls.

Felix carefully walked up to one of the sarcophagi and noticed it was open. Inside, lay the body of something he didn't recognize at all. Felix's best description was a human sized ant but it's body was slightly more humanoid than that. He walked right up to it and realized it wasn't open at all, the top was made of a thick sheet of glass. Right in the center of the glass, a number was engraved, 17.

Felix looked around and saw that every one of the sarcophagi had a number on them, though not all of them had anything in them. Walking around, the majority of them were empty. The others were almost exclusively bodies, though some of them held armor, weapons and jewelry. Felix didn't bother trying to open any of them, slightly worried the bodies were still alive, undead or that he might trigger an alarm of some sort. Instead, he walked to the center of the room and right up to the large square column that stretched from floor to ceiling. He walked around it until he found a door which was just a doorway at this point with holes on either side, like an explosion had ripped the door off. Looking behind him, he saw a large metal door lying on the ground with a large dent in it, all but confirming his theory.

Felix pulled his light forwards and into the room and saw what was once a workshop. Scattered around the floor there were knives, tweezers, scissors and clamps of many different sizes. There were three tables as well, one on the left side of the room, one on the right side and a large stone table in the middle. On the stone table in the middle lay a corpse chained by over a dozen chains wrapped around it's neck, wrists, arms, legs, ankles, chest and waist completely eliminating it's ability to move. The body was an odd amalgamation of different parts that were fit together almost seamlessly.

It was generally the shape of a normal human but it's arms and legs each had an extra joint. It's feet had just three toes with claws on the ends and another on it's heel. It's hands only had three fingers and two thumbs, one on each side, all with one more joint than expected. It's head had a slight snout, 5 eyes, 4 ears and two horns that curled backwards to protect it's head almost like a helmet. It lay on a pool of dried blood covering the table and floor leading towards what appeared to be two massive severed ant legs. Finally, there was a sheet of paper held by a dagger stabbed into the corpse's chest.

Felix was about to walk into the room when he saw the corpse's chest rise and then fall, taking a breath. Felix quickly darted to the side, out of sight and extinguished his light out of instinct. It was completely silent in the chamber and now pitch black. Felix stood with his back to the stone wall and as his heart calmed down, he heard the wheezing and gurgling of the creature in the room breathing every few seconds. Once he had calmed down enough to think, allowing the adrenaline to pass through his system, Felix closed his eyes and reached out with his soul senses. He didn't detect the soul in the room, so it wasn't a Devoured, but he could feel the ambient anima around it warping and shifting around wear it should be. It wasn't difficult to suppress that effect but Felix suspected that body was either asleep or otherwise unconscious in some way.

[? - ???] Erolan (Lvl ????)

How the hell is that thing alive? It's not a Devoured, they didn't breathe.

No idea. Maybe the seal, whatever it is, keeps them alive too?

I'm starting to think it hasn't nearly been as long as The System suggested. What's a realistic amount of time for someone to stay alive for?

Assuming they didn't need food or water… for a human in the D grade… a long time, like thousands of years. Not sure about longer than that, but I think the system is helping fight off diseases and aging so… maybe even longer in this universe? This body might also be C, B grade or even higher.

Right but if this was an early integration, wouldn't that have to be at least a few trillion years?

Not necessarily, I suspect your universe isn't as old as you thought. Each integration is probably only a few billion years. It's also possible your universe was growing while other's were being integrated.

I guess, that would still be billions of years.

Yeah… Seems more likely the system did something weird with this city.

That's what I'm thinking. Maybe it put it in stasis or something? Can you warp time? Maybe it was only a few thousand years here instead of a few billion.

Maybe the system can, you would probably have to create a pocket universe and have it's time pass at a different speed. Actually… that seems like the most likely thing that happened though I don't actually know if that's possible.

Couldn't this have been recreated by The System?

Not really, creating souls is too complicated. Erolan's and even the Devoured souls would be a huge pain, nearly impossible.

Do you think it's safe to go into that room?

I think so, but it's not my life that's at risk, well… not really. Just don't mess with the seal, don't touch anything and you should be fine.

Felix took a few deep breaths and peeked around the doorway and into the room. The body was exactly where it was before and everything in the room was in the exact same state as he remembered. Felix cautiously stepped forwards and into the room. He watched every step he took, making sure he didn't step on anything, his every sense as alert as possible, ready for anything. Felix managed to walk right up to the body and looked down at the sheet of paper which he expected to be a seal, instead it appeared to be a note. Felix leaned over the body and read the note without touching anything. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .