Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2455 City of the dead

Mid Sector 666—Necrofortress Galaxy

Step Step

Caesar slowly advanced across the unusually soft ground beneath his feet, wearing a black shirt left open down the middle that clearly showed off his well-defined, carefully sculpted muscles, along with a pair of black shorts that ended just above his knees. His hair was cut short and styled with obvious care, while his beard was equally short and neatly pointed... Overall, rather than looking like someone walking through a place such as this, Caesar appeared as though he were casually heading out on a trip to the beach, deliberately dressed up and groomed to attract the attention of girls along the way.

When he reached a certain spot, Caesar finally stopped, slipped both hands comfortably into the pockets of his shorts, and began slowly looking around at the familiar scene surrounding him, a scene heʼd already witnessed countless times throughout the past years and should have long since become accustomed to, yet somehow it still managed to amaze him every single time he saw it, still leaving an unmistakable impression on him no matter how many times he returned.

He was standing on an undead planet.

No...

It wasnʼt merely that this planet contained large numbers of undead as one ordinary part of the Necrofortress Galaxy, nor was it simply another world inhabited by creatures that had already died. The planet itself, from the ground beneath his feet to the sky stretching above his head... looked undead.

The entire sky was covered in dense layers of gray clouds bordering on black, enormous masses that never seemed to disappear and allowed only faint, weak strands of light to squeeze through them, to the point that daytime on this planet wasnʼt much different from night. There was no clear sun visible anywhere in the sky, merely a pale and indistinct patch hidden behind the endless clouds that indicated it still existed somewhere beyond them, while the planetʼs surface remained submerged beneath a cold gray light so lifeless and faded that even the colors of the world itself seemed as though they had died long ago and only their remnants remained.

The air itself was heavy and humid, carrying with it the persistent smell of ancient soil and slowly decaying bones, while every gust of wind that swept across the surface scattered countless fine particles of ash whose true origins were impossible to determine at a glance—whether they were merely remnants left behind by ancient fires or the remains of bodies that had decomposed and turned to dust thousands of years ago. The trees were still standing throughout the landscape, but they were black, twisted, and completely stripped of leaves, with some of their trunks hollow on the inside, and whenever the wind passed through their crooked branches, the sounds they produced resembled distant whispers and low moans far more than the ordinary rustling one would expect to hear from trees.

Even the ground beneath all of this wasnʼt entirely still... In some places, the dark soil would slowly swell upward before gradually sinking back down again, repeating the movement as though something hidden deep beneath the surface were quietly breathing, while skeletal fingers occasionally emerged from between narrow cracks in the earth before disappearing back underneath once more. Across the surrounding plains, groups of undead wandered without any apparent destination or purpose; skeletons carrying the broken remnants of rusted armor, dried corpses whose shriveled bodies still retained scattered patches of old flesh, and strange creatures that had been dead for such an unimaginably long time that it was no longer possible to determine what they had originally looked like while they were alive.

Faced with that horrifying scene, one that wouldʼve been enough to deeply disturb anyone unfamiliar with this place, Caesar merely released a quiet sigh before continuing forward at complete ease, his steps remaining relaxed as he casually glanced from side to side and took in the familiar surroundings.

Not far away from him stretched what, at first glance, appeared to be an enormous seashore extending across his field of vision—no, calling it a gigantic swamp would have been a far more accurate description of what actually lay before him.

The water was stagnant and dark green, almost completely motionless in many places, while some patches had dried up entirely and exposed what lay beneath them, with small mountains formed from moving bones protruding upward from those dry areas. Several distant islands could also be seen scattered along the horizon, yet those islands didnʼt appear to be made from ordinary earth and mud like the islands one might encounter anywhere else, their distant shapes alone giving the impression that their composition was something entirely different... because this wasnʼt a place that could be compared to anywhere else.

Across the enormous swamp, incomplete corpses floated motionlessly upon the stagnant surface, remaining exactly where they were without advancing or drifting backward as though even the water beneath them had forgotten how to carry them anywhere. Some of those corpses lay facing upward, staring endlessly into the darkened sky through empty, hollow eyes, while others floated facedown with whatever remained of their heads submerged beneath the water... assuming, of course, that they still had faces left at all.

Most of those floating corpses had likely wandered away from their herds at some point and, after becoming separated from the others, simply lost whatever purpose had previously driven their movements. Once that happened, they might remain floating in exactly the same places for thousands upon thousands of years until another herd of undead eventually happened to pass nearby, at which point they would simply join that new herd and begin walking behind its leader just as all the others did... still without any real purpose of their own. They didnʼt know where they were going, nor did they understand why they were following in the first place; their ability to think had long since faded away and disappeared, until nothing remained of what theyʼd once been except the bodies themselves.

”Tsk~” Caesar showed a clearly annoyed expression when his wandering gaze happened to land on a particular sight on the other side, where a small city stood overlooking what had once been a sea, its existence amid such surroundings making the scene even stranger to look at.

It was a city where it was difficult to tell whether it truly belonged to the living or the dead, or whether that distinction even mattered anymore, and this peculiar uncertainty was perhaps one of the strangest features of the entire planet.

The markets were still operating as though nothing had changed, the broken gates continued opening and closing, soldiers remained standing atop the walls, and carts moved back and forth through the streets, yet most of those performing these ordinary daily tasks had already died long ago, or were currently somewhere along the path toward that same fate. Most of them no longer truly understood what they were doing, and none of them seemed to know exactly what they were guarding or where they were even trying to go... Simply put, they were merely continuing to perform the same actions and routines they had repeated while they were alive, carrying them on even after the meaning behind those actions had begun to disappear.

It wasnʼt strange here to see a skeleton standing in the middle of the market bargaining over the price of a weapon, a translucent ghost entering one of the nearby buildings directly through the wall instead of bothering to use the door, or a man sitting calmly in front of his shop while half of his fingers slowly transformed into black bones before his eyes. Here, death wasnʼt some clear end that brought everyday life to a stop, but merely another stage of that same existence, one through which everything continued in its own distorted manner.

As for the most disturbing among everything that could be seen here, those were undoubtedly the ghosts, which were so widespread that theyʼd long since become an ordinary and inseparable part of the planetʼs natural scenery.

They appeared between the buildings as translucent shadows, usually tinted with an eerie glowing green that made them easy to distinguish even through the surrounding gloom, drifting silently above the streets or passing directly through walls without anyone nearby giving them the slightest attention. Some of them still retained clearly recognizable human forms, enough that their old appearances could still be distinguished, while others had deteriorated until they were nothing more than vague masses of mist carrying distorted faces or pairs of faded eyes. In certain parts of the city, the spirits gathered in such dense numbers that the fog itself seemed almost alive, while the countless whispers produced by them overlapped and tangled together until it became impossible for anyone listening to determine whether those voices were truly coming from somewhere outside or had somehow begun speaking from inside their own head.

The entire planet resembled a gigantic corpse that had stubbornly refused to decompose completely; a world that had died long ago and should have fallen silent with its death, yet something had forced it to continue existing and moving in this unnatural state.

As for the most dangerous ones, and those who truly needed to be watched out for in a place like this... they were the Crossers.

They were the ones whose transformations had not yet reached completion, those who had originally come here hoping to transition into an entirely new form of life and escape whatever past theyʼd left behind for one reason or another, paying enormous sums of money merely for the opportunity to reach this galaxy. Some came specifically intending to undergo the slow transformation, while others arrived chasing the promise of quick riches within one of the most mysterious, powerful, and wealthy galaxies in existence, only for their attempts to ultimately end in failure.

They were still capable of breathing, eating, and speaking like ordinary people, and some of them even retained a faint trace of warmth within their bodies, yet despite all those remaining signs of life, the marks of death had already begun creeping across them little by little, gradually claiming more of their bodies as their incomplete transformations continued...

Their skin was pale and gradually turning gray, some of their limbs had already lost all sensation, the colors within their eyes had begun fading away, and their hearts might beat only once every several breaths instead of maintaining anything resembling a normal rhythm. Some of them could still appear completely human when seen from a distance, enough to deceive anyone who didnʼt know what to look for, but approaching them would reveal that their chests barely moved as they breathed, or that a deep wound somewhere on their bodies had simply stopped bleeding despite never actually healing.

Ptooey Caesar spat beside him with obvious distaste as he looked toward the city ahead. ”Here we go again...” Then, without lingering any longer, he headed directly into the city.