Frey kept his Hawk Eyes active, constantly surveying the distance far ahead.
But the view remained the same.
Until the third day on Crownlands.
Frey’s subtle unease was enough to alert both Snow and Ghost, who quickly asked:
“Something ahead?”
Frey responded immediately.
“Something’s waiting for us… and a lot of it.”
He could barely see it .. a distant mirage. But what he was certain of was this:
a massive number of strange beings lay in wait.
“Worst-case scenario, it’s another army,” Frey said, worry evident in his voice.
Snow and Ghost tensed, their expressions hardening.
Frey didn’t say it out loud, but the size of the army he saw was far greater than the one they had faced before.
So vast, he couldn’t see its end.
He wondered what kind of battle awaited them now…
That question lingered for quite some time as they continued running.
And then .. after what felt like an eternity, with their nerves frayed and dread mounting under the weight of anticipation…
They finally arrived.
Frey and the others came to a stop, eyes wide as they took in the sight before them.
The army was enormous.
So enormous that what they had mistaken for ground in the distance… had been them all along.
They all wore the same tattered black robes. Their bodies were slightly larger than an average human’s.
All of them lay sprawled on the ground.
Prostrated.
Face down.
Motionless.
Frey approached one of them cautiously, curious why they hadn’t reacted to their presence.
The moment he touched the figure ..
It crumbled.
Collapsing into ash.
The wind scattered it like dust.
Stunned, Frey checked the others—eyes wide—while Snow and Ghost did the same.
And that was when the three of them finally understood.
The massive army before them…
Was nothing more than a field of skeletons.
Corpses so ancient that time had reduced them to nothing but dust.
Confused, the three of them looked at each other…
“They’re all dead,” Frey said, and Ghost confirmed:
“And they’ve been dead for a long, long time.”
Whatever era these skeletal beings had once belonged to … it was long gone.
But what caught their attention… was the way they died.
“They died while bowing…”
From the remnants left behind .. the posture of their bodies, the way their heads were lowered .. it was clear they had died prostrating before something.
Before someone or something.
“They waited… until their veins dried, until their bodies withered away…”
Whatever strange race they once belonged to…
They had died here. On their knees. Waiting for something to come.
It hadn’t been demons that killed them.
Protected inside this barrier, their killer had been time itself.
Realizing this truth sent a chill through Frey and the others.
“What kind of loyalty is that…?”
Who was this great king that compelled such devotion … devotion so absolute that an entire people remained kneeling until nothing remained of them but bone?
To Frey and his companions, that level of loyalty seemed like pure madness.
Frey turned his gaze forward—toward the direction every single corpse had been facing.
But all he could see…
Was more bodies. More bowed skeletons. More of the same.
“Let’s go,” he said flatly, beginning to walk through the field of kneeling corpses.
They wove their way between the fallen.
The scene repeated itself endlessly.
All of them had died the same way.
Driven by a growing curiosity to uncover what lay at the end of this graveyard path, Frey and the others continued.
But the corpses never stopped.
And that only deepened their unease.
After walking for what felt like an eternity, they realized they had become a speck ..a single drop in an ocean of death.
Their numbers…
Had reached the millions.
“Maybe…” Snow said, stunned,
“Maybe this is where all of Londor’s inhabitants ended up.”
Frey nodded, remembering what that lashed corpse had told them.
It had said clearly: they waited for so long that some eventually chose to fight, while the rest remained behind… still waiting.
“Those who chose to fight met a fate worse than death… forced to face the Lord of Graves himself.”
Understanding that grim truth, Frey continued:
“But those who chose to wait… died here, kneeling—waiting for a king who never returned.”
Between death… and a fate worse than death…
The three of them finally grasped the full extent of Londor’s tragedy.
And with that realization, there was nothing left to do but keep moving.
Step after step… they passed through this ancient, forgotten mass of mourners.
Then ..
Without warning, a strange shiver ran down Frey’s spine.
His heart pounded.
That same feeling from before returned—but stronger this time.
And that was when something else appeared before them.
For the first time, something other than corpses.
It stood in the distance, but they could see it clearly.
A towering structure… looming ahead.
“A castle?” Frey murmured, staring at the massive building forged from a strange black stone that shimmered like metal.
The moon hovered above that monolithic castle, casting pale light across the one place every single corpse had been kneeling toward…
Like pilgrims… who had finally found their sacred destination.
From every direction, the bodies surrounded it .. making the fortress look like an island in the middle of a vast, lifeless sea.
The castle was larger than anything the three of them had ever seen.
So massive, it made the Emperor’s palace look like a worthless shack by comparison.
And the feeling growing inside Frey’s chest…
Confirmed that this place—this castle—was their true destination.
Step by step, they moved forward ..
Until at last, they reached the edge of the sea of corpses.
It was there, at the final line of skeletons, that Frey and the others realized something else:
The kneeling dead had left a clear space between themselves and the black castle.
A wide, circular gap.
Untouched.
No one had dared cross that final threshold.
Beyond it stood the castle gate.
But that wasn’t all.
Frey’s eyes went wide as he saw what stood before it.
Guarding the entrance…
Was a statue.
A towering figure, over four meters tall, gripping a double-edged scythe.
His body was made of a dark, metallic material .. like forged shadow.
A statue.
A statue with a face Frey had never seen before.
He had seen smiles.
He had seen sorrow.
But this one…
This one wore rage.
There it stood .. the statue of fury.
An ancient sentinel, standing guard over a timeless castle.