The cube couldn’t answer Rio’s question, as it was just an artifact with no consciousness of its own, so Rio could only shake his head and look at the carvings on the pillars.
’Is this place built for recording history or something like that?’
Rio noticed that there were airplanes, trains, and ships carved in the gigantic pillars.
In the current modern day, floating magic ships are used for air travel, and trains are also magical.
But the ones drawn on these pillars were normal planes and trains that were in use in an age when mana and miasma never existed in this world.
’Someone who lived during that age, created this temple here after mana and miasma came to exist in this world?’
To stay in the miasma-filled spirit realm and build a structure here, you would need the strength and mentality strong enough to endure miasmic corruption for a long time.
’Who could have created this here? It couldn’t be King Allen; he’s said to have been born quite a few decades after mana first descended in this world...’
Rio wasn’t good at historical knowledge, so he could only shake his head and continue moving forward.
The cube of possibilities was still pointing in the same direction, so Rio had no choice but to enter this place.
He passed through the entrance, and as he moved forward, the fog became slightly less dense in the area, thus increasing visibility.
’As I thought it’s a ruin of a temple...’
There was a massive dilapidated temple in front of him.
Most of it was in ruins, and there were only a few pillars and walls that were still intact.
Debris and rubble were scattered everywhere, and miasmic corruption was corroding all stones and objects in the ruin.
There were massive puddles of liquid miasma everywhere, and miasmic fog was also helping in making this location as deadly as possible.
Rio flew in the air a little bit to avoid walking on the debris of the temple and moved forward while floating in air as he looked around.
’Having your detection abilities suppressed this much is really a problem...’
Rio was using miasma detection to detect the area, but due to this miasmic fog, the flow of miasma in the area was very chaotic, causing his detection range to be shorter than usual.
As Rio moved forward, he came across a giant stone slate.
It was heavily damaged due to corruption, and it even had signs of being hit by weapons, which likely happened due to collateral damage because of a battle occurring near it at some point in time.
But Rio didn’t care about that; he stood in front of it and read the words engraved on the giant slate.
...
{Heavens shattered, realms shifted!
The world broke apart and was split into many pieces!
Oh heavens! Why let your children be defeated!
Grant us a boon, bring salvation to Arneices!}
...
’Arneices? Is that a name for some planet or some location in ancient times?...’
Rio fell into thought as he read those words.
’These words here seem to be talking about the legend that the world was shattered, shuffled and reborn when mana descended on this world...’
Like how the earth became bigger due to spatial expansion, and the solar system shifted and expanded after mana descended on this planet, it’s possible such a thing might have happened to other planets too.
’The world broke apart?... does that mean this ’planet’ called Arneices got shattered into several pieces?’
’What kind of defeat are they talking about then?’
The more Rio thought about this matter, the more confused he felt.
He had never read anything about this in history books that were in the academy.
Just when Rio was trying to make sense of the words carved on the stone slate, he heard a distant sound of a melody.
*~~~~~~~~~~~*
It was as if someone was playing some kind of musical instrument not too far away.
Hearing that distant sound, Rio’s eyes narrowed instantly as he placed his hand on his flute hanging beside his waist.
’Someone is playing music in this devastated, post-apocalyptic wasteland-type place? That’s not a good sign...’
Rio didn’t even expect to meet a single sane being in this hellhole-like place.
Until now, every creature he came across here was just a mindless, degraded monstrosity suffering from miasmic corruption.
’There’s no way that a creature of this hellhole is sane enough to play music.’
Rio looked at the cube and noticed that it was pointing right in the direction where the sound of music was coming from.
’Are you trying to lead me to the source of this music? Are you saying that I can find clues for Liam’s location if I meet the being who’s playing this tune?’
Rio felt very doubtful at that moment, but as Miasma was causing his intuition to go haywire, he had no way to judge whether to believe the cube or not.
’Sigh... I have no other choice either...’
His main goal of coming to the spirit realm was to find Liam, and for that he needed to follow the guidance of the cube.
He had already taken full control of the cube, and there was no way it was deliberately trying to disobey Rio or was lying to him.
But still, Rio felt hesitant.
’Forget it, I will use the spells given by principal Raji and escape if things don’t go as planned...’
Rio kept his left hand on his flute as he flew forward at a slow but steady pace.
As he moved forward, the distant melody became clearer and clearer. Rio moved through the entire ruin and arrived at the very center of it as he kept moving in the direction of the tune.
The miasmic fog cleared up a little bit, and a massive statue of a sword appeared in Rio’s vision.
The giant sword statue was placed on a massive pedestal, and it was extremely detailed.
The sword was double-edged; its blade had a design of various intertwined threads entangled with each other in various formations.
Rio immediately understood that this design depicted the ’threads of destiny,’ and the symbol of a snake on its hilt symbolized ’loyalty’ or ’promise.’
’This is a statue of the ’Sword of Promised Destinies!’...’
But that statue was not the most shocking thing in that place; the most shocking thing was that an unknown person was sitting on a boulder among the debris.
The person had a glowing lyre in their hand, and shockingly enough, Rio couldn’t sense that person’s presence at all.
It was as if the other party did not exist at all and had no presence at all; that being was in the form of a young boy, and he was wearing a bluish robe.
His hair was greenish in color, and his emerald eyes were shining brightly, adding immense charm to his already handsome face.
The young man was so good-looking that Rio felt confused about whether he really was a boy or if he was a girl dressed in a boy’s clothes.
As Rio landed on the ground not too far away from him, the other party finished playing his melody and looked Rio in the eyes before saying with a smile.
"Greetings, fellow traveller..."
Ignoring the other party’s words, Rio questioned in his usual emotionless tone,
"What are you?"