Death... and me

"That helped a lot, Kenny," Rean said with a smile.

Kentucky nodded and immediately turned around. "Alright, you guys go ahead. I'll stay behind and watch." He might have helped open the gate, but he definitely wouldn't follow.

Rean shrugged his shoulders and looked at Zandolf and Essefy. "What now?"

Zandolf immediately took the lead. "What else? Let's go."

Rean and Essefy nodded, feeling a little more respect for the man. He could use his cultivation to force Rean and Essefy to go ahead, but he did it himself.

The three of them passed through the opening of the gate, entering another corridor. To be safe, Zandolf put a few more things in between the two doors of the gate to make sure it wouldn't close. Only then did they continue. Rean once again had to summon his Light Element to generate some illumination on the way.

However, it didn't take more than a minute for them to notice something. "Everything is so clean..."

Zandolf agreed. "Indeed. Everything outside was filled with dust due to the long time that had passed. Yet, everything here is spot-clean. Could someone really be here, maybe the Essece Race?"

Rean shook his head. "Not necessarily. If this place was tightly closed to the point no air circulated, and no dust could come from anywhere else, there would be no dust regardless of how long it has been."

The corridor continued for a while, though. It wasn't before ten minutes of walking, following this corridor that led even further down, that they finally reached somewhere different. Another door appeared in front of them, although this one wasn't like normal doors. It was circular and small, which would need Rean and the others to crouch down to pass.

They opened that door, and immediately, Rean's light sphere became useless as everything inside was illuminated. Zandolf narrowed his eyes but passed through the entrance anyway. Rean and Essefy followed right behind.

The illumination wasn't coming from the roof, though. Instead, it seemed to come from further ahead, from an even lower height. Only then did they notice that their field of view expanded tremendously. From the looks of it, they had entered a gigantic square space that extended tens of kilometers in four directions.

They noticed that they were much higher than the source of all the light, so they approached the front, which looked more edge a cliff. However, none of them expected to see what was down below in this gigantic square cave. "This..."

Colored flames... tens of thousands of them... floated everywhere down there. They had several different forms. No, it was better to say that they could take any form they wanted, as Rean, Zandolf, and Essefy noticed some of them changing shape here and there. But above all, there were many buildings extending through the entire cave.

It didn't matter how one looked at it. That was definitely a city, and a very lively one! "The... Essence Race... and a city?" Rean, Zandolf, and Essefy seemed incredulous.

At the very center of that city, Rean noticed a gigantic cube, one that was a perfect copy of the cubes they had seen in the images while they walked down here.

"Hehe..." Zandolf couldn't help but feel excited. "Hahaha! So many Essence Race beings! Sure the secret I'm looking for is here. It must be!"

Rean was more interested in something else, though. 'How is it, Sister Orb? Senior Hyeoumu said that a fragment could be found in the hands of an Essence Race member. Can the system feel the presence of the fragment? There are so many Essence Race members here, after all.'

Yet, Sister Orb found it hard to answer. [I'm not sure. The system itself seems to be struggling with something, but I can't tell if it has anything to do with a fragment or not. Nonetheless, for the system to react like this, there must be something related to it here.]

Suddenly, one of the buildings in the distance shined brightly with colored color. Right after, three Essence Race members appeared, looking to be much bigger flames than all the rest. They quickly made their way to Rean's group direction.

Zandolf, Rean, and Essefy didn't act harshly. It was to be expected that their presence was found after they opened the gate, after all.

Finally, those three stopped in front of Rean's group while the center flame took a humanoid shape and stepped forward. "Humans? How did you get here? Did you escape the camps of concentration of the Devil Races?"

However, another flame immediately took humanoid form and pointed at Zandolf. "There is no way they are devil food. Look at this guy. He is in the Middle Stage of the Divinity Realm. The other two are in the Elemental Space Realm Peak, which is quite high, too. The Devils would never nurture such experts in their own home."

Zandolf was surprised they could tell his cultivation. After all, Divine Sense worked strangely in this place, showing nothing but a gray mist. Still, he was the leader of this group, so he had to take the initiative to talk. "Are you members of the Essence Race?"

Yet, it didn't seem like the flames wanted to answer. Instead, the three of them formed a circle around Rean's group as if trying to prevent them from escaping. "It might look rude, but we can't let you leave this place. Just surrender nicely, and we won't need to use force here."

One of them looked at Zandolf, who seemed to be prepared to fight. "I might tell you as well. All three of us are at the Peak Stage of the Divinity Realm. A brat like you won't stand a chance."

Zandolf was taken aback. He was a Divinity Realm Cultivator, but he was only in the Middle Stage. Yet, he couldn't confirm the flame's words since his Divine Sense didn't work. "And do you expect me to believe you?"

The leader of these Essence Race members seemed to understand something. He then made a few hand seals, which seemed to interact with the environment around Zandolf, Rena, and Essefy. Suddenly, their Divine Senses came back to normal.

Zandolf was the one to feel the greatest shock. That's because he now knows that Essence Race guy wasn't lying. Each of these flames is indeed at the Peak Stage of the Divinity Realm!