Third Person's POV
Instead, focus on the ascent and moving forward with a single minded focus until they reach their destination.
They resud their upward climb, but this ti, the swirling red clouds thickened around them like a curtain of mist and ash and veiled their path while slowing their advance.
The air grew heavier with each step, as if the very mountain were testing their resolve.
Soon, hours passed in a tense silence and broken only by the sound of steady footsteps on the ancient bronze wire.
Eventually, the fading sun dipped beneath the horizon and painted the red fog in molten shades of gold and crimson.
Just as Ethan was about to speak, the dense cloud layer began to thin, and a colossal silhouette broke through the veil.
What erged was a sight beyond anything he had ever imagined.
A vast red-black fortress carved directly into the upper cliffs of the Devil Abyss Mountain beca visible to his eyes, and he was amazed as he saw its rough-looking spires stabbing into the darkening sky.
It sprawled across several jagged peaks with its ridges linked by black bridges and ropeways, while the surrounding minor peaks ford a web of convergence points for the many Spinal Ropes threading through the sky.
High above, at the summit of the central peak, stood the main citadel.
It was a gargantuan and walled stronghold, which was still about two or three kiloters away from their vantage point.
The main city that seed like a huge fortress exuded an oppressive, blood-tinged grandeur even from such a distance.
A heavy aura washed over them and hit Ethan like a storm of heat and iron, and as he bore the brunt of its solemnity and grandness, he couldn't help but feel that it was simply more than the pressure of altitude.
Instead, it was a legacy of power and sothing older.
Even the once-imposing City of Vord and the Scarlet Hollow seed quaint in comparison.
This place seed to hold not just history but an ancientness that bled it into the very air.
Suddenly, a quiet voice tinged with sentint stirred from behind him.
"We have finally reached the place, Brother Ethan. Let's go. The recruitnt exam is the day after tomorrow, and we are well in ti."
Virelle's words brought him back to the mont.
He nodded silently, and even though he was still awestruck, the trio began moving towards the entry gate that lay directly ahead along their Spinal Rope path.
When they reached it, sothing pulled them to pause and turn around.
Behind them stretched a vision both surreal and humbling.
As they looked from their height, they could even see a vast crimson plain unfurling like a blood-soaked canvas beyond the cloud ring circling the city and disappearing into a distant, unknowable horizon.
Despite their enhanced vision and senses, none of them could make out its end as it seed like an unyielding piece of earth, as ancient and wide as the myths themselves.
Ethan sighed softly as the weight of his journey mingled with the thrill of what lay ahead from now on.
Without speaking, he turned back toward the gate and took the final steps forward.
They approached the massive structure—an imnse black gate looming like the gaping maw of a long-dead titan.
What drew Ethan's eyes, however, was the grotesque face carved above it.
A three-horned and inhuman nightmarish devil visage stared down at them.
Its split star-shaped pupils glead in a static shade of eerie yellow as it glowed faintly against the obsidian stone.
The texture of the carving was unsettlingly lifelike, and its features were so ticulously etched that Ethan could almost feel the malevolence oozing from its leering grin.
A chill crept down his spine, and he felt that sothing was wrong in this scene in front of him.
It bore a disturbing resemblance to the Extra-Terrestrial Void Nihility Demon he had fought in the dark forest just fifteen days ago.
It seed to possess a similar alien malice and the sa yawning void in its expression that seed to say that it wasn't simply crafted but was real instead.
Suddenly, a spell seed to break, and he broke away from his thought process.
Glancing sideways at his companions, he saw Virelle and Velcy passing beneath the gate with casual ease as their eyes only casually drifted to the devilish carving.
They seed to be treating it as a re design and an ornantal fixture, but Ethan on the other hand, couldn't shake the feeling that it was far more than a sculpture.
And its gaze seed to haunt him in a silent manner.
As he stepped through the threshold and crossed into the open mouth of the devil's visage, he erged into a world alive with activity.
He looked around as before him stretched a grand avenue flanked by tall, red-black structures, with each of them being made from a single slab of dark stone.
The shadowed buildings rose like silent sentinels, with their design being both austere and intimidating.
The city's breath seed to pulse beneath his feet, and he couldn't help but feel that this City of the Abyssal Sanctum had swallowed them whole.
The structures lining the path resembled small carved-out caves, looking rough-hewn and primal and bearing none of the symtry or ornantation favored by the sophisticated cities of humans, elves, or dwarves.
This raw aesthetic lent the surroundings a visceral and almost ancient feel, and it seed as if the entire city had been pulled from a ti when survival mattered more than elegance.
The streets were a moving mosaic of diverse life as beings from nurous races walked past one another and brushed shoulders while completely ignoring each other.
The mingling scents of iron, ash, strange spices, and faint blood hung thick in the air.
Ethan's eyes flicked from face to face, and his gaze was montarily distracted by the animated shops and run-down establishnts dotting the roadside.
However, what made his brows rise wasn't their appearance, but it was the strange indifference of the crowd.
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