The ground fell apart and started collapsing rapidly like its underneath was hollow all along. At the same time, many tier-5s got out of their wagon and grabbed their cart before activating their [Mana Flight].

Ethan knew that [Mana Flight] would consume enormous amounts of mana with that kind of weight, but it wasn’t much of a problem since they didn’t need to fly for too long. Yet, with its steeds tied to it and full of people on the inside, the hefty wagons needed at least two tier-5s to float in the air. All a single tier-5 could do was slow down its fall.

Meanwhile, Ethan’s wagon didn’t have any tier-5s at all.

He took out his 100 ft long rope from his ring which had a hook at one end and stabbed it to the roof of the cart with an [Overcharge]. ‘’Guys, hold tight!’’ Summoning his ship just above them, he immediately sent his mana and kept it floating close to the cart. In order to wrap the rope around the ship, he grabbed its other end and used three [Blink]s in succession, but still couldn’t reach the cart afterward. Ethan bit his lip and made a sharp descent with the ship, getting it very close to the wagon which was in free fall. With the rope on the loose once again, he used another [Blink] and appeared on top of the wagon before punching with [Overcharge] and making a hole. He clutched the edge of the hole with one hand and released the rope through the hole with another. ‘’Quick! Tie this to something! Hurry up!’’

His voice drowned out among the rumbles of the ground and screams of the others, but thankfully Liam grabbed the end of the rope swiftly and pulled. However, with big and small pieces of land all around, there wasn’t much time before the cart got swallowed completely.

Ethan was still holding the cart tightly with his left hand as he wrapped his right arm around the rope and clutched it firmly before yelling once again, ‘’Hold tight!’’ Gritting his teeth, he stopped the descent of the ship and made it float without moving.

The abrupt stop pulled his arms apart much more intensely than he'd expected, adding the land pieces hitting and squeezing the cart, he couldn’t help but yell, ‘’Fucking tie it already!’’ Three more seconds passed as his face kept twisting before he heard the voice of Fraeya.

‘’It’s done! You can let it go!’’

Ethan released his grip on the cart and let the rope carry him upward. After one last dangerous shudder, the wagon finally stabilized itself in the air. Letting out a sigh of relief, he looked down and saw that they’d tied the rope to Fraeya’s staff, which was plugged into the hole and held nicely, even better than the hook he’d stabbed.

He slowly released the rope and slid down, gently landing on top of the cart. ‘’You guys are okay in there?’’

‘’We are okay,’’ Vivian replied anxiously. ‘’But Carl needs help.’’

‘’No need!’’ Carl yelled, one hand holding the wagon and the other hugging the driver. They were both dangling at the bottom, just a bit above the horses. ‘’I can hold on as much as needed. Just slowly bring us to the ground, Ethan!’’

‘’Alright. Hang tight, everyone, and be still.’’ Before moving the ship, he looked around and found that among the 30 wagons, there were only 20 up in the air, getting carried by tier-5s. While the rest of them were buried in the ground. And among the 20, half of them had only a single tier-5, leaving them with no choice but to descend slowly.

‘’Let us all descend first and try to save the others!’’ Malik’s voice sounded.

They were already dozens of yards below the ground, but the chasm beneath them was even deeper. Ethan considered leaving the elderly in their cart to the surface, but decided against it, thinking it’d be safer for them to stay with the group. He slowly made the ship dive into the chasm and descended their cart along with the others.

After going down more than a hundred yards, the dust cloud started to disperse and revealed a small part of an ancient city, buried under the recent avalanche.

‘’Are you guys seeing what I’m seeing?’’ Carl called.

‘’Is that a city?’’ Liam asked.

‘’Yes,’’ Vivian replied in awe. ‘’It’s the Imperial City.’’

‘’What do you mean?’’ Hayley asked in confusion. ‘’There is no empire on Azora, ever since–’’

‘’Emperor Anpu,’’ Vivian finished, her voice shaking.

Ethan’s eyes widened as he gazed at the hidden city. Most of it was buried, but some small areas displayed the gorgeous stone buildings and even the elegantly designed streets of what was supposed to be the Imperial City. An underground city? Maybe it was on the surface long before. Nevertheless, there wasn’t any mention of this in Anpu’s notes. Hell, there was nothing useful there, but at least Vivian seems to know something.

Once they were close enough to the ground, Carl jumped down from the cart together with the driver, while Ethan slowed down their speed and let the horses plant their hooves on the soil once again. The poor things were freaking out at the beginning, but they resigned their fate quickly and stayed still this whole time. Only after the landing, they got spirited but were still anxiously gazing around.

With the wagon settled down to an open area, Ethan gave a silent sigh. There wasn’t any danger for him or Beet, but that wasn't the case for his new friends. He was grateful that they weren’t among the unlucky ones.

After Fraeya freed her staff, Ethan picked up his rope and stored it while thinking that he should’ve asked for two hooks. Getting the ship just above his head, he raised his hand and touched it before storing that as well.

‘’How are you so sure Vi?’’ Hayley asked as she got out of the cart. ‘’The legends of Emperor Anpu are, you know, legends.’’

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‘’The buildings gave it away. They have the exact same designs as the oldest houses of Mirasatra, but these are even more archaic,’’ Vivian explained, walking behind her. ‘’Even if this isn’t the Imperial City, it must be related.’’

‘’Let’s help the others first,’’ Ethan said, jumping down from the wagon. ‘’We’ll have time to investigate later on.’’

‘’There must be dozens of deaths, and what you care about is the damn ruins of an old city. Unbelievable,’’ Fraeya scolded and turned around with a snort before making her way toward the rubble in haste.

Hayley called behind her, ‘’I-I didn’t mean–’’

‘’Don’t take offense. She’s just worried,’’ Liam said, getting out of the wagon along with the elderly couple and their grandson.

The old couple seemed shaken pretty badly, but the little boy was anything but. When he saw Ethan, his eyes lit up, and he yelled excitedly, ‘’Thank you, big brother!’’

‘’You’re welcome,’’ Ethan replied with an amused smile before turning to Liam. ‘’Let’s hurry up. I can detect some mana signatures, but some of them are very faint.’’

Almost everyone helped each other to save the ones under the rubble. All they needed to do was lift a stone and send it to their spatial bag before emptying their bags someplace else. They managed to reach everyone alive in less than 10 minutes, but there were only 5 survivors and none of them was in a good condition.

The good news was that half of the wagons they had lost were for carrying the goods. Once the earthquake had started, their guards left them right away and helped the others. Still, not everyone was that lucky. Other than the five injured people, there were 28 deaths in total.

The more bodies they uncovered from the wreckage, the more people started crying. Especially after the findings of the little children, a solemn atmosphere spread among everybody until an old merchant snapped.

‘’It’s all your fault!’’ the merchant yelled at Malik, clenching his fist. ‘’There were enough tier-5s to carry all the carts, but you couldn’t even manage to give the right orders! Just my personal bodyguard was enough to land our cart safely, but I saw 3 tier-5s helping a single wagon!’’

‘’First the thefts that kept going for more than a month, and now we lost a fifth of our own people,’’ a good-looking middle-aged woman ranted. ‘’Could we reach Mirasatra at all? Why do we even pay you?’’

‘’Nonsense! It’s all his fault!’’ a young guard yelled, pointing at Ethan. ‘’He made the sandworms run amok everywhere yesterday. As they chased him, they dug out not just the sand but the soil as well. That’s why the ground collapsed!’’

‘’Oh? Perhaps you had a way to let them get in a line and die quietly?’’ Carl snarked, crossing his arms.

‘’Enough!’’ Malik shouted. ‘’What’s done is done. Blaming others won’t bring the ones we have lost. We need to decide what should we do now.’’

As everyone was arguing heatedly, Ethan noticed that one of them fixed his gaze on him, disregarding the chaotic crowd. Turning his head, he locked his eyes with Joey’s, but the man, who seemingly was good as new after a potion, didn’t even shy away and kept his stare.

‘’You know he is gonna be a problem,’’ Vivian whispered close to his ear.

‘’So? What should I do?’’ he asked with a wry smile. ‘’Kill him because he looked at me funny?’’

‘’No. Kill him because he might kill you.’’

‘’And then what? Should I kill his friends among the guards as well? They might want revenge. How about I go after his family afterward? Nah, I think the best course of action would be killing everyone he knows.’’

She shook her head. ‘’As I said, you’re a good man, Ethan, but good men die early.’’

Ethan grabbed her wrist when she turned to leave and gave her a serious look. ‘’My problems are mine. Don’t do anything stupid.’’

Vivian smiled sweetly. ‘’What can I even do?’’

Ethan rolled his eyes and released her arm. Turning back to the crowd, he saw that Liam was in the middle, trying to calm everybody down, and it was working. Pretty much everyone was fond of Liam, and just a few kind words with a sympathetic look were enough for him to get himself listened to.

However, after almost half an hour-long argument, the group was still divided. The problem was the appearance of the ruins. About half of the people wanted to investigate the mysterious city and the other half wanted to go to Mirasatra as soon as possible.

‘’We will camp here for three days and explore the city,’’ Malik declared. ‘’After three days, all of my guards will escort anyone who wants to go to Mirasatra. Until then, if anyone is willing to make the trip themselves, we can help you to get on the surface, but you will be on your own.’’

Many objected, but Malik’s decision was final. Ethan didn’t really care since he was planning to stay here, but he also didn’t wish for these people to suffer anymore. He was glad to see that Malik didn’t abandon his responsibilities.

The group picked a place to bury their dead. Half of them stayed to help and the rest started making preparations for the camp. Ethan and others went toward their cart and found Vivian nearby, inspecting a stone building.

[Blink]ing on top of a big rock next to her, he sat and covered everybody with his [Void Mute]. ‘’So? Who is this Emperor Anpu? And what was that Imperial City talk about?’’

Vivian lifted her head to look at the barrier of [Void Mute] in fascination and probed with her [Mana Sense] when her eyes failed her. She faced Ethan with a smile and gave a thumb up. ‘’Emperor Anpu, also known as the last Emperor, was the ruler of Azora almost 100 thousand years ago. Naturally, there isn’t much information about him preserved until now. Other than that he’d united 80% of Azora with his undead armies, everything else is just rumored.’’

‘’Necromancer?’’ Liam asked, raising an eyebrow.

‘’80%,’’ Carl repeated, dumbfounded.

Ethan leaned forward, intrigued. ‘’I guess we’ll have to make do with rumors.’’

‘’Hmm. There are many, but let me tell the few interesting ones.’’ Vivian tapped her chin as she considered. ‘’Legend says that the famous capital of Mirasatra was originally built as a garrison. Anpu fought his battles against Mighty Domains from there. After he won and conquered most of the place, he retreated his armies and gave Mirasatra to his bastard son. But it wasn’t any kind of reward, you see. Back then, the famous Mirasatra was merely a backwater place no one wanted. The reason he sent that bastard away was for strengthening the reign of his eldest son, the crown prince who lived in Imperial City.’’

‘’And you’re sure that this place was the Imperial City?’’ Ethan asked.

Vivian nodded. ‘’Almost certain.’’

‘’What happened to the crown prince?’’ Hayley questioned. ‘’You wouldn’t mention it without a reason.’’

‘’No idea. He was probably one of the first who died after Anpu’s ascension. I mentioned Anpu's kids because there were a lot of them, and a century-long war happened after his ascension.’’ Vivian stopped for a second and her smile grew big. ‘’Legend says that the war wasn’t for the rulership. It was for the skills and artifacts that he’d left for his kids, and even a century later, no one was able to find his signature skills. Not to mention the countless artifacts that he’d hoarded all over the continent.’’

Everyone looked at each other in disbelief.

‘’Since that's the case, it’d be better if we have a head start,’’ Ethan commented, looking at the busy crowd.

‘’Ah, about that. There is another widespread rumor which says that once upon a time, the giant guild buildings of Mirasatra actually housed royalty. That’s why every single one of them has a secret passage that leads to a safe bunker which is often right under the city center. And if any of you had ever been in Mirasatra, you’d know that every guild has a double half-moon symbol on top of them,’’ she explained with a smirk and pointed above with her index finger, toward the roof of the stone building. ‘’Just like this one.’’