Forbidden Forest – Boundary Zone of the Silent City. Afternoon – Day Three of the Expedition.
The forest had undergone a terrifying transformation.
If on the first day the trees still resembled organic flora, and on the second day they appeared sickly, then on this third day, they looked like a graveyard of industrial evolution. The massive Oak trunks were no longer the warm brown of living wood; they were a dull, polished tallic grey. Their bark hadn’t just hardened—it had mutated into a layered alloy that shimred like cold steel under the dim light. The moss clinging to the rocks wasn’t green or vibrant; it was a pale, flickering violet, pulsating with a rhythmic glow that mimicked a dying indicator light on a failing machine.
But the most haunting aspect of the environnt was the sound. Or more accurately, the total, suffocating absence of it.
There were no birds chirping in the canopy. No crickets buzzing in the undergrowth. No distant roars of predators. There was only the rhythmic clack-clack of their own footsteps stepping on dry twigs that sounded more like snapping iron rods.
The Silent City lived up to its na with a vengeance.
Rhea Sudrath—still operating under her alias Red—walked point, her twin daggers drawn. She swung "Fang" to clear a path through a thicket of tallic briars.
TANG!
The sound of the high-grade steel blade striking the bushes rang out with a sharp, tallic resonance that made her ears ring.
"Damn plants," Rhea cursed under her breath, shaking her hand to get rid of the numbness creeping up her arm. "Is this a forest or a reinforced concrete jungle? My wrist is going to give out before we even find the city."
Behind her, Professor Arvid was struggling with every fiber of his being. His face was a mask of sickly pallor, his lips were cracked and dry, and his massive rucksack seed to grow heavier with every agonizing step. Yet, despite his physical collapse, his eyes were wide and burning with a fanatical, feverish excitent. He looked at the tallic leaves as if they were the most beautiful sight in the universe.
"This is the tallosis phenonon, Red," Arvid explained, his voice coming in ragged, wheezing gasps. "Five hundred years of Mana-leaks from the ancient city’s reactors have fundantally altered the cellular structure of the local flora. Cellulose has been systematically replaced by silicate and ferrous compounds. It’s... it’s an ecological masterpiece of unintended consequences."
"Masterpiece my foot," Rhea grumbled, kicking a tallic mushroom out of her path. It clattered against a rock like a discarded tin can. "If you don’t pick up the pace, we’re going to be caught out here after dark. I have no intention of sleeping next to a tree that could develop rust."
"Patience... Red... A historian’s physique was never designed for... marathon trekking..." Arvid ca to a halt, leaning heavily against a steel trunk as he pulled off his glasses to wipe away the fog of condensation.
Suddenly, Rhea stopped dead in her tracks.
Ten ters ahead, the tallic forest abruptly ended. The dense canopy opened up to reveal a vast, desolate plaza paved with gargantuan blocks of cracked obsidian-glass. And at the far end of the plaza, looming over them like a god of cold iron, stood a structure that made Arvid’s breath hitch in his throat.
The Main Gate of the Silent City.
It wasn’t a gate made of timber or stone. It was a singular, monolithic slab of black tal thirty ters high, embedded deep into the jagged rock faces of two flanking cliffs. The surface was etched with an impossibly complex network of carvings that resembled inactive electronic circuitry. There were no hinges, no handles, and no visible seams. It was a wall of absolute exclusion that seed to whisper: Turn back, mortal.
"We’re here," Rhea whispered. She felt a primal shiver run down her spine. Despite all her training and her family’s power, she felt insignificant standing before that cold, dark tal.
Arvid didn’t wait. He broke into a clumsy, lurching run toward the gate, his rucksack bouncing violently on his back. He reached the tal surface and pressed his trembling palms against it.
"Titanium-Black... Mythril alloy... Good gods, the Pre-Calamity technology is still structurally perfect!"
"Move aside, Professor," Rhea said, stepping forward. She reached into her tactical belt and pulled out a specialized tallic sphere—a Mini-Bunker Buster Bomb, another one of Rianor’s "problem-solving" inventions.
"What are you doing?" Arvid asked, his eyes wide with panic.
"Knocking on the door," Rhea replied casually. "Sudrath style."
Rhea pressed the bomb into a small crevice at the center of the gate. She pulled the ignition pin.
"Get back! Five seconds!"
Arvid scrambled behind a massive boulder, covering his ears and squeezing his eyes shut. Rhea dove behind a nearby tallic tree, her muscles coiled.
3... 2... 1...
BLLAAARRR!
A thunderous explosion rocked the plaza. The ground shuddered as if hit by an earthquake, and a thick plu of black smoke billowed upward, obscuring the gate. If there were birds in this forest, they would have certainly died of fright.
Rhea stood up, dusting off her cloak with a satisfied smirk. "Done. Rianor never disappoints when it cos to high-explosive yield."
As the smoke slowly dissipated, Rhea began to walk toward the gate, expecting to see a gaping, jagged hole. But her steps faltered. Her smile vanished.
The gate was... Entirely Unscathed.
There wasn’t even a scorch mark. The black tal had seemingly absorbed the kinetic energy and heat of the explosion like a sponge absorbing water.
"What the...?" Rhea blinked in disbelief. She kicked the gate in frustration. BUK. The impact vibrated back into her shin, sending a jolt of pain through her leg. "Damn this thing! Is this a door or a prison wall?!"
Arvid erged from behind the boulder. He didn’t look surprised. In fact, he looked at Rhea with a gaze that was uncharacteristically disappointed.
"I suspected as much. Your ’barbaric’ thods will never work here, Red."
"Shut it," Rhea hissed. "If Rianor’s bomb didn’t work, we just need a bigger one. I have one more in my—"
"Save your explosives," Arvid said, walking past her toward the gate. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fine-bristled brush and a magnifying glass. "This is not a door that can be forced by heat or pressure. This is a Logic Lock."
Arvid pointed to the center of the gate, the very spot where Rhea had placed the bomb.
Now that the dust had been cleared by the blast, a series of three concentric tallic rings were visible. They were covered in thousands of years of gri, but following the explosion, they had begun to glow with a faint, pulsing blue light. It seed the blast hadn’t damaged the gate; it had rely provided the Mana-spark needed to wake up its security system.
"Ancient Mana-Lock defense system," Arvid murmured, his magnified eyes scanning the glowing symbols on the rings. "The first layer is physical: blast-resistant plating. The second layer is intellectual: you must input the correct sequence of logic."
"And if you fail?" Rhea asked, her hand tightening on her dagger.
Arvid pointed toward the top of the 30-ter gate. There, a series of tallic gargoyles that Rhea had thought were decorative were beginning to shift. Their hollow mouths were slowly pivoting toward the plaza.
"If the code is entered incorrectly three tis... those gargoyles will spray a pressurized jet of liquid fire at two thousand degrees Celsius. We will be cremated before we can even turn to run."
Rhea swallowed hard. She looked at the gargoyles, then at the sheer cliff faces. "Can I climb the cliffs?"
"There is an active electrical repulsion field at the summit. you’d be cooked to a crisp before you reached the halfway point," Arvid replied without looking back. He was already busy brushing the dust from the rings.
Rhea went silent. For the first ti in her life, she felt utterly useless. Her speed, her daggers, her instincts—they were all worthless trash in front of this ancient riddle. The feeling of being "unneeded" that she had felt at the castle’s dining table returned with a sharp, stinging intensity.
"So we go ho?" Rhea asked bitterly.
"Go ho? We’ve only just begun," Arvid offered a thin, lopsided smirk. He pulled out a thick, leather-bound notebook and a fountain pen.
"Stay back, Red. Watch my six. Ensure no monsters try to bite my backside while I’m thinking. This is going to require absolute focus."
Arvid began to work.
He rotated the first ring. KLIK.
The symbols weren’t standard letters. They were a complex hybrid of ancient nurical systems and celestial constellations.
"Hmm... Outer ring: Orion constellation in the Zenith position... Middle ring: Hexadecimal base-sixteen calculation... Inner ring: Primary elental symbols..." Arvid muttered at a frantic pace. His fingers danced across the pages of his notebook, scribbling formulas that made Rhea’s head ache just by looking at them.
Rhea sat on a nearby stone block, her eyes scanning the forest for threats. But her attention kept drifting back to Arvid.
The man was a ss. He was sweating profusely. His hair was matted with gri. His back was hunched, and he coughed every ti a gust of dust hit him. Physically, he was the weakest man she had ever t.
But then... she looked at his hands. They were steady as he rotated the massive tallic discs. She looked at his eyes. Total, unwavering focus. There was no hesitation. There was no fear of the liquid fire hanging above his head.
"He..." Rhea thought. "...He’s fighting."
For Rhea, a fight was a clash of steel. But for Arvid, the battlefield was the unknown. And in this arena of logic, Arvid was the commanding General.
"Wait..." Arvid muttered, his brow furrowing. "The rotational ratio of the planet is out of sync with the modern calendar. Ah! Of course! The ancients used a thirteen-month lunar system, not a twelve-month solar one!"
Arvid crossed out a formula aggressively.
"Therefore... X must be subtracted from Y... multiplied by the gravitational constant of the ley-line node..."
Rhea saw a drop of sweat fall from the tip of Arvid’s nose. She saw the sheer, insane dedication in his posture. For a mont, she was reminded of her brother, Rianor. Her genius brother was exactly the sa—he would forget the existence of the rest of the world the mont he encountered a chanical problem. She had always admired Rianor for that.
And now, she saw that sa spark in this "Bookworm."
"Red," Arvid called out without turning his head. "What is the sun’s current angle?"
Rhea looked at the sky. "Approximately forty-five degrees to the West."
"Excellent. That ans the shadow displacent falls on..." Arvid rotated the second ring. KLAK.
Suddenly, the ground began to vibrate with a low, guttural hum. The gargoyles above opened their mouths wider. A nacing red glow began to pulse deep within the stone throats of the statues.
"PROFESSOR! IT’S ABOUT TO BLOW!" Rhea shouted, preparing to lung forward and tackle him to safety.
"NOT YET!" Arvid scread back. "It’s a warning chanism! I have ten seconds!"
"TEN SECONDS?! ARE YOU INSANE?!" Rhea was on her feet, ready to run.
"TRUST !" Arvid didn’t move. He rotated the third and final ring with a hand-speed that was shocking for a man of his build.
"The final sequence... The King’s Death... The Dawn’s Resurrection..."
5 seconds... The gargoyles began to hiss with the sound of escaping steam. The air grew blistering hot.
"Access code: A-E-T-H-E-L!"
Arvid clicked the final symbol into its slot.
KLIK.
DUNG.
A heavy, resonating sound echoed from within the gate’s internal chanism. It was the sound of a gargantuan lock finally surrendering. The red glow in the gargoyles’ mouths faded instantly. The statues froze back into their stone-like state.
Silence returned. Arvid stood frozen, his hand still resting on the ring.
Then...
GROOOAAARRR...
The thirty-ter tal gate began to slide apart.
Centuries of accumulated dust cascaded from the seams. A cold, stagnant wind that slled of ancient oil and forgotten death blew out from the opening. The path to the Silent City was finally open.
Arvid collapsed onto his backside, his legs giving out from the sheer adrenaline crash. He was panting, his chest heaving.
"I did it..." he whispered. "Professor Loid’s theory on the ancient calendar was correct... mathematics truly is the language of the Gods."
Rhea walked slowly toward him. She looked at the thin, exhausted man—his glasses were crooked, his face was sared with dirt, and he looked like he was about to faint.
But in Rhea’s eyes, at this specific mont, Arvid looked more "valiant" than any prince she had ever t at a royal ball.
Rhea extended her hand toward him.
Arvid looked up, confused. "Eh? What is it?"
"Get up, Bookworm," Rhea said. Her voice was no longer condescending. There was a clear, unmistakable note of respect.
Arvid took her hand. Rhea pulled him to his feet with such ease it felt like she was lifting a bundle of cotton.
"You..." Rhea patted the dust from Arvid’s shoulder (a bit too hard, making him cough). "...You’re actually pretty good."
"My bombs didn’t work. My muscles were useless. But you opened this door using nothing but your brain and so numbers."
Rhea looked him directly in the eye.
"I take back what I said. You aren’t weak. You just have a different kind of strength."
Arvid’s face turned a bright, embarrassed shade of red. Being praised by a woman who could kill a monster in a heartbeat made him visibly flustered.
"I-It... it was just basic logic, Red. Anyone who had read the historical primary sources could have figured it out."
"No," Rhea shook her head. "Only you were crazy enough to try it when our lives were on the line."
Rhea turned to face the dark, yawning abyss of the opened gateway.
"Let’s go in. I’m taking the lead now. You just focus on thinking. I won’t let anything happen to that big brain of yours."
"Why? Are you worried about losing your paynt?" Arvid asked innocently.
Rhea offered a thin, secret smirk beneath her hood.
"No. It would just be a sha if the history books lost a writer as cool as you."
Arvid stood rooted to the spot. His heart was racing again, and this ti, it had absolutely nothing to do with the threat of monsters or fire.
Did she... did she just call cool?
"Oi! Stop daydreaming! Let’s move!" Rhea shouted from ahead.
"Y-Yes! Coming!" Arvid quickly adjusted his rucksack and hurried after her.
They stepped together into the shadows of the Silent City, leaving the light of the afternoon behind. They were entering a world of killing machines, ancient treasures, and a destiny that would bind them together forever.
In that mont, Rhea Sudrath realized sothing profound: her ideal man wasn’t soone with massive muscles like her brother, but soone whose mind was as sharp and "sexy" as Arvid’s.
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