Single Wish: Rise Of The Omniscient Paragon-Chapter 823 - 820: The First Night Begins

The city was quiet.

Too quiet.

Corey walked with the others through a wide, cracked street bordered by buildings that leaned at odd angles, as if the weight of something unseen had bent them over the years.

The ground was pale grey, making it seem like it was lifeless, and patches of black moss moved subtly at times due to the bone-chilling wind or due to the steps of the group.

Everything around them seemed wrong, and this wrongness was not obvious or due to seeing something grotesque.

No.

It was when they saw things that were subtly misaligned.

Windows looked like they had been drawn in the wrong places. Lamps hung from invisible poles. A bench sat in the middle of the road, half-sunken into the stone, and its metal frame bled rust.

Faint whispers brushed against their ears every now and then, but when they turned to look, nothing was ever there.

The sky above was still that grey expanse, scattered with unmoving red stars, and somewhere distant, the echo of a bell rolled once, long and low.

As Corey in the middle of the group, his mind was on several matters at the same time.

First of all, he was constantly recalling the words he heard from the gate at the entrance.

Lauda Mortem

Cultus Mortem

At first, Corey had no idea what the words meant, but to his slight surprise, his mind suddenly began to translate the words to something he knew.

Praise Death

Worship Death

One of the abilities he discovered that his Ears of Omniscience had was that it could understand and translate almost any language for him.

Even the language of beasts and monsters.

He had tested this with the monsters of the Trollspire Dungeon, and he could understand what the monsters were saying.

However, he could not communicate with them because his vocal cords was not suited for it.

He would have assumed that his Ears of Omniscience was able to understand and translate any language for him, but when he recalled his encounter with Prince Zakar’el, and how he had spoken in an unknown language he could not recall, talk less of understand and translate?

He knew that his Ears of Omniscience had its limits, and he was curious as to how far it was from the powers of those like the Paragon Ancestor, Supreme Ancestor, and even Prince Zakar’el.

After his Ears of Omniscience successfully translated the words for him, he had said them out loud out of pure curiosity.

He was the last person to enter, and he felt that nobody was going to hear his words.

He never anticipated or thought that speaking those words out loud would cause an immense change to their mission since he had never experienced such a thing before.

As for why he chose to tell Kieran and the others what he said, it was because he believed that they had more knowledge regarding the actual system trial, so they might know something he does not know.

However, from what he was seeing, it seems that he was wrong about their knowledge since they had not said anything useful yet.

Although some might say that it was foolish telling the members of the Thirteenth Dawn that he was most likely the reason why they were thrust into a more deadly and actual system trial zone, he did not care and he was not bothered.

For all he knew, he could kill every single one of them in the blink of an eye.

They posed very little threat to him.

And if they decided to kill him or hurt him in any way, then he would make them regret their decisions.

Some might call it arrogance.

But he called it confidence.

Although the Tier recommendation was what troubled Corey a little, he still felt confident that he would be able to come out of this alive.

Alone or with the entire group?

He had no idea.

Yet.

’The Universal System said the Tier recommendation is Tier 5. I have to be very careful about that since it just mentions the Tier and not the stats and abilities of our enemies.’

’Tier is not everything. If it’s a Tier 5 with weak stats and with poor quality and quantity of skills, then it should be possible.’

’But if not... This might be as dangerous as the Shattered Dimension of the Old Ones.’

Corey’s eyes flashed with a solemn light, and then he suddenly recalled a statement the system mentioned.

Something Will Be Taken

It was very easy to ignore this statement, but for some reason, he could not ignore those words or take them for granted.

’What could it mean?’ Corey wondered.

"I’m not the only one feeling like we’re being watched, right?" Zeke muttered with his hands behind his head as he lazily looked up at a floating lantern drifting across the road with no source of flame.

Myra clicked her tongue. "I don’t sense anything. I don’t think we’re actually being watched. This place just wants us to think we are."

Aelric glanced to his side with his staff gently tapping the road. "There are spirits here. I can sense them. But it’s like they’re asleep... So I can’t sense anything about their power levels and nature."

"Don’t forget to always watch your charms. That’s what is protecting us from the death energy." Rhys said with a solemn expression as he held his shield in one hand.

Nobody said anything in response.

Meanwhile, Corey kept on observing and analyzing their surroundings through his Eyes of Omniscience.

He could see the inconsistencies far more than any of them, and he could also see the disturbing illusions that were in certain places of the city.

One building flickered between a church and a butcher’s shop. Another had doorways that looped into each other like a maze folding in on itself.

Although there were some places his Eyes of Omniscience could not see through unless he decided to brute force it, he had seen about 30% of the city.

The size of the city was extremely large. Far larger than Serithal, the capital of the Kingdom of Miracles.

’If I use all my energy. I should be able to see about 60% of the city, but it won’t be so detailed.’

’I wonder what sort of city this is for it to be this large... I haven’t even seen the center of the city.’

’But I’ve seen some-’

Corey suddenly snapped his head at a window, and he saw a child staring at them.

Then the child vanished.

Aelric suddenly slowed. "Did anyone else see that?"

Kieran spoke calmly, "Keep moving. Don’t stop for anything. And eyes forward."

Everybody listened to Kieran without arguing, and some minutes later, they reached the high ground Kieran had pointed out- a broken clocktower half-sunken into the earth with its shattered spire leaning against the side of a crumbling inn.

They stopped.

Rhys took position near the entrance of the building. Yara, the braided assassin climbed a few steps up the tower to scout.

Meanwhile, Zeke kicked a pebble into a pile of dry bones lying near the base of a twisted lamppost.

"So... we just sit around and wait for night?"

Zeke asked. "Feels like we’re willingly walking into a trap."

Kieran folded his arms. "We observe first. Then decide."

Corey leaned against a crumbled section of the wall with his Eyes of Omniscience still active.

He could see the faint ripple of mana beginning to change in the air.

The city was shifting.

Slowly.

Subtly.

Buildings adjusted. Shadows stretched longer. The throbbing moss brightened slightly on the ground, and one of the gravestones near the tower cracked without being touched.

Then it began.

The red stars above started blinking out, one by one, like candles snuffed by invisible fingers.

The grey sky darkened.

And a new system screen shimmered into the air before all of them.

----

[NIGHT ONE BEGINS]

Daily Rule Activated: Something Will Be Taken

Warning: The City No Longer Sleeps

----

The temperature which was already cold dropped instantly.

Corey’s breath misted in front of him.

And from deep within the streets of the Dying City, a long echoing whisper crawled through the air, saying.

"We... see... you..."

The expressions of everybody changed when they heard the voice because it sounded like the voices of over a thousand spirits crying, screaming, and laughing at the same time.

But before anybody could ponder on the strangeness of the voice, Rhys suddenly screamed, and when Corey looked at him, a certain set of words appeared in his mind.

Something Will Be Taken

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺