My Overpowered Bunny Girls

The party walked through the dead city.

Nathan looked at the buildings. They were made of grey stone and they were falling apart. The roofs had collapsed. The windows were broken. The doors were gone. The ash on the ground was fine and soft, like powder. It got into their boots and stuck to their clothes.

The sky was grey. It did not move. The light in the sky was pale and weak. It made everything look flat and colorless.

Nathan kept his eyes moving. He looked at every shadow, every doorway, every collapsed wall. He did not see any monsters. He did not see any people. He did not see any animals or birds or insects. The city was empty.

"Where is everyone?" Garrett asked. His voice sounded too loud in the silence. "A city this big should have something living in it."

"Maybe they died a long time ago," Dillon said. He was walking with his katana in his hand. Cloudy was coiled around his neck. Her scales were dull and she was not crackling. "Maybe there’s nothing left."

"The records said this world had inhabitants," Smithy said. He was looking at the buildings. "The last expedition disappeared here. Something killed them."

Nathan held up his hand. The party stopped. He pointed at a building to their left. It was larger than the others. The walls were still standing. The door was still there. And there was something written on the wall above the door.

"What does it say?" Nathan asked.

Smithy walked closer and looked at the writing. "I can’t read it. But the symbols look like the ones on the portal."

Elise walked over and studied the writing. "It’s a name. A building name. Maybe a temple or a government building." She touched the wall. The stone was cold. "This city was important. It was the capital of whatever world this used to be."

Nathan looked at the building. The door was tall and made of dark wood. It looked solid. It looked like it had not been opened in a very long time.

"We go in," Nathan said. "Maybe we can find something useful. A map. A record. Something that tells us what this world was."

The party moved toward the building. Nathan pushed the door open. It creaked loudly. The sound echoed through the empty street.

Inside, it was dark. Nathan’s eyes adjusted slowly. The light from the door lit a small area. Beyond that, shadows covered everything.

Elise raised her staff. The light from Aurora’s Heart pushed back the shadows. The room was large. Shelves lined the walls. Books and scrolls and papers were scattered everywhere. A thick layer of dust covered everything.

"A library," Elise said. "Or a records hall."

Nathan walked inside. The dust stirred under his feet. He walked to one of the shelves and picked up a book. The cover was cracked and faded. He opened it. The pages were brittle and yellow. The writing was in a language he could not read.

"Can you read this?" Nathan asked Elise.

She took the book and studied it. "Some of it. The language is related to old Draconic. The Tower Worlds share a common root language." She flipped through the pages. "This is a history book. It talks about a civilization called the Ashen Empire. It says they were a proud people who built great cities and lived in peace."

"What happened to them?" Garrett asked.

Elise kept reading. "It says the sky went dark. The sun stopped shining. The world began to die." She turned a page. "It says the people tried to survive. They built shelters. They stored food. But the darkness spread. The cold came. And then the light came back—but it was not the same light. It was pale and grey, like what we saw outside."

"The Shepherd," Smithy said quietly. "He consumed their sun. He left them with a fake light. A dying light."

Elise kept reading. "It says the people split into factions. Some wanted to fight the darkness. Some wanted to flee. Some wanted to pray. The empire fell into civil war. And then... the book ends."

"Ends?" Nathan asked.

"The last pages are blank. Like whoever was writing it stopped." Elise closed the book. "There are more books here. Maybe we can find something about the Clear Condition."

The party searched the library. They found maps. They found records. They found more history books. But they did not find anything about a Clear Condition or a boss. The Ashen Expanse was hiding its secrets.

Nathan walked to the back of the library. There was a large desk there. A skeleton sat in the chair behind it. The skeleton was old and grey, like everything else in the city. Its hands were folded on the desk. And in front of it was a single sheet of paper.

Nathan picked up the paper. The writing was in the same old language. He called Elise over. She read it aloud.

"’The light fades. The people weep. The King has locked himself in the Sunken City and will not come out. He says the world is dead and there is no point in fighting. The Lightbearers still pray, but their prayers go unanswered. I have kept the records as long as I could. Now I go to join the others. Maybe in the Sunken City, we will find peace.’"

Elise looked up. "The Sunken City. That might be the center of the World. That might be where the Clear Condition is."

Nathan nodded. "And the King. A boss. Maybe the final enemy of this world."

Smithy frowned. "Or a victim. The records say the world was consumed. The King might not be an enemy. He might be someone we need to save. Or put to rest."

Nathan folded the paper and put it in his inventory. "We need to find the Sunken City. That’s where the answers are."

The party left the library and stepped back into the grey twilight. The city stretched around them. The Sunken City was somewhere in the center of the World. They had a direction now. They had a goal.

Nathan looked at the map they had found. The Sunken City was marked as a large circle in the center of the map. They were in the southeast sector. The city was maybe two days of walking away, if the terrain was clear.

"We move," Nathan said. "We head toward the Sunken City. We stay quiet. We stay alert. And we watch for anything that moves."

The party started walking through the dead city. The grey light was weak and fading. The silence was heavy. Nathan looked back once. The library stood behind them, dark and empty. Then he turned and walked forward.

The Ashen Expanse was a world that had already died. But something was still living in it. Nathan could feel it. Something was watching them from the shadows. Something was waiting for them to make a mistake.

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