Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation(Vol 4)

Vol 4/ Chapter 128: The Empty City

"Since you find it strange, why not just go inside and take a look to find out?"

Cysper didn't say much, casually finding a nearby house and slipping in.

"Hey! You don't have to be so direct! Don't forget we're infiltrating secretly..."

Seeing his actions, I immediately recalled the "coffin houses" we encountered in Wal City in the Dark Continent, where Selene and I almost barged right in too.

But luckily this wasn't the Dark Continent, nor a monster's den. The place we entered was just a very ordinary two-story wooden house. The building wasn't tall - from the layout, it seemed to be a regular residential building.

"What's there to be afraid of? It's deep night and quiet now. As long as we don't make too much noise, we definitely won't alert anyone."

Cysper said unconcerned in a low voice. But unexpectedly, after entering the house, we found most room doors wide open, and from the state of the rooms, they were almost all empty, only discarded furniture and debris left behind. It was clear the previous residents had long since moved away.

"Why is this? Could we have just walked into an abandoned building?"

It was largely the same situation upstairs and downstairs. After checking around, I couldn't help asking.

"It seems the original residents left in a hurry, leaving behind quite a few large belongings they didn't manage to take."

Dusting a table surface beside him, seeing almost no dust on his fingers, Cysper shook his head in reply. This indicated the abandonment wasn't too long ago, likely related to Parristol's recent independence turmoil.

"Why don't we check some other houses too?"

"No problem!"

I naturally wouldn't object, immediately leaving with Cysper to investigate several more houses nearby. The situation was exactly the same - completely empty, without any living residents...apart from rats and cockroaches, that is.

"What's going on here? Why did they leave?"

I was utterly baffled. I had mentally prepared for the worst possibilities. I thought even if I saw the city full of human corpses slaughtered by monsters, I wouldn't be too shocked. But reality defied expectations, truly blindsiding me.

"Well...it's hard to say! But based on Parristol's population structure, most were outsiders like merchants and workers. The total population wasn't that large either..."

Staring at the still-lit Chromos Tower in the city center, Cysper seemed to roughly guess some reasons as he tentatively explained.

"So could it be those outside residents fled in fear of being caught in the war?"

"But they couldn't have fled this completely, right? There were still quite a few local residents here. You mean they fled too?"

I was dumbfounded. Almost the entire Parristol was pitch black with few lights, indicating the situation in other districts wasn't much better either. Another tricky issue now was that it was deep night, normally sleeping hours, so it was hard to judge how many people were actually left in the city.

After consulting Reed, Mia and the others still on the mountaintop, we ultimately decided to proceed as planned towards the city center.

As an eight-winged angel, Mia could use the "Spiritual Convergence" spell to create a new spiritual network that Cyra, Cysper, Reed and I could all join, forming a small intelligence network. We could share the latest city exploration intel in real-time like when liaising with Elara, as well as discuss insights and plans.