The shriveled object and the half-face vanished into thin air, leaving only a single old boot sitting lonelily in the center of the altar. At that moment, the altar seemed to have fulfilled its final mission. In the blink of an eye, its radiance died out. Several thin bones spontaneously ignited, turning to ash in seconds; the sturdier chunks, the crimson stains, and the rest of the structure began to crack, crumbling into a pile of debris within a few breaths.

  In the end, only the boot remained intact, lying lopsided amidst the wreckage.

  The castle, previously still, suddenly gave a violent shudder—like a person seized by a cold chill. Tars looked at the handsome youth.

  "Our world is gone, and the father I relied on has vanished, just like this castle," the boy said, his voice regaining its calm after his lunging effort had failed. "It appeared solid, yet collapse occurs in an instant. We are rootless, drifting things—superfluous to this world. The peace we found in our weakness and the beauty we meticulously maintained were incredibly fragile. Just like our world; many never knew it was actually just one very, very large shelter."

  Tars recalled the succubus mentioning the history of their planar world.

  "I truly envy you, wizard. You can choose your own path and live the life you desire..."

  The handsome youth now looked at the disheveled, patchy-haired little kobold with undisguised envy.

  "I can hold out for a little longer to let you depart in peace. I never imagined my corpse would get to go on one last long-distance journey between realms."

  As the boy spoke, he began to walk outward. His phantom body moved like a real person; though there were no footsteps, he climbed the stairs one by one.

  "I want to go out and see what the Abyss looks like. I've been here for over three hundred years," the youth paused on the steps and looked back. "Rest assured, Mr. wizard, I won't spend these precious final moments falling into a hysterical madness. Maintaining the final dignity of the House of Iron until my last moment on this earth is the only thing I have left to do."

  With that, the boy continued upward. "However, the choice you made wasn't entirely wrong." His voice drifted down from the top of the stairs, and when Tars looked again, the boy was gone.

  Tars didn't rush to leave. Seeing that he was alone, he immediately tried to open his spatial door, even finding a wall to help him focus. The spatial door he hadn't seen in days successfully manifested. He didn't burst into tears, but he was profoundly moved; the sense of security that came with a clear escape route was indescribable. This ordeal had taught the uncultured kobold a valuable lesson: a spatial door could be directly suppressed by a powerful entity to the point where it couldn't even be cracked open.

  He scrambled up the stone steps. With his worries gone, his mind turned back to more practical matters. He sprinted back to the Library, his eyes shining at the rows of bookshelves. As long as the books were in Abyssal—and not some minor dialect of that lost plane—he intended to take them. The books here were clearly under some form of protection; he picked one up and found it perfectly preserved.

  After a brief, careful search, he changed his strategy. He began "random sampling," darting through the sections and checking several shelves at once. Though his Abyssal Bedroom space was large, he couldn't take everything; many books were merely pretentious works on noble etiquette, which were less useful to him than the shelf of "Weird Fiction" he had grabbed earlier.

  What he truly craved was transcendent knowledge—books on magic. To him, those were treasures beyond price, especially since they were 100% authentic exotic imports. Tars moved rapidly, scanning titles. He even collected half a shelf of books on architecture, but he didn't find a single volume of the arcane knowledge he had hoped for.

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  A sudden heart-palpitation—a flicker of his spiritual light—warned him. He knew he couldn't afford to be greedy. A noble's public library was bound to be somewhat curated and limited.

  He put strength into his legs and ran toward the legendary treasury that every great noble house was supposed to have. While there was undoubtedly a secret vault for the truly precious items, a public treasury used to reward retainers was equally tempting. He ran for a few steps, recalled the map, and then suddenly skidded to a halt. He turned and bolted toward the castle's main gate.

  This map had been drawn by the succubus scholar. If nothing had gone wrong, she had likely already made her move—and probably picked the best items first.

  Tars reached the main gate, panting. The black shroud outside the castle was slowly thinning, and the structure began to tremble.

  "I knew you were still alive," Tars said.

  "Don't even think about coming after my things," the succubus said, stepping out from the shadows. "This is three hundred years of unpaid wages." She was carrying a physical bundle; evidently, her storage ring was already full. "From now on, I have to survive in the Abyss. I'll never get another chance like this."

  She sounded regretful, but she kept a careful distance from Tars. Once she was far enough away, she stared unblinkingly at the thinning shroud. Soon, the lifeless sky of the Abyss would be visible.

  Rumble! The ancient fortress began to shake. Tars watched her, deciding that if things got dangerous, he might offer help—by helping her carry her luggage, for instance. He agreed with her sentiment; once he was back in the warrens, opportunities like this would be rare.

  Suddenly, the shroud rippled. The face of Butler Ezel appeared within it, looking absolutely furious.

  "Stop trying to hold it up!" a shout rang out from the distance. The handsome youth had become more solid, standing in the castle's small plaza. "I know you're tired. I've used up the last of the castle's essence. Rest, Uncle Ezel. I’ve used all my power; now you can surely see me, hear me—even if you don't want to."

  The black shroud that had shielded the castle from the sun—and protected it for three hundred years—began to falter. The entire castle swayed as massive stones began to collapse and fall. The Young Master continued to shout at the butler; nothing could interrupt him. Even as his voice was drowned out by the crashing environment, his lips didn't stop moving.

  The succubus was the first to bolt, her slender tail flicking beneath her robes. Tars took one last look back and followed close behind, his heart at peace, even carrying a book on architectural aesthetics in his hand.

  "Haha! I'm finally out! The Abyss!" the succubus scholar shouted as she escaped the castle's perimeter, never once looking back. "This is the Abyss—the place where my ancestors were born, and the place they fled from."

  Tars looked back at the castle. It sat atop a deep rift in the earth, like a cork in a bottle. As it collapsed, it filled the void, as if the original soil were being poured back in. He saw the immovable spatial rift that had been in the Young Master's room; as the castle crumbled like a dry biscuit, the rift was exposed, only to be buried under falling rubble moments later.

  "The commotion here will soon attract some nasty things. Let's move," the succubus scholar said, turning her head while still maintaining her distance from Tars.

  Tars, however, didn't move. "I'm leaving," he said.

  "How dull."

  She began to walk away, but suddenly collapsed.

  "Ugh—" She hurriedly pulled out a silver potion and downed it, making a strange sound. Tars remained cautious. He could see her palms cracking; after the potion, they began to heal, but then they cracked again. Tiny fissures quickly spread across her hands.

  He looked at the book in his own hand. With a gentle touch, the thick volume turned to ash. This wasn't the ravages of time, nor a curse of the Abyss, and certainly not poor preservation. This was linked to the destruction of that other world.

  "Are you alright?" Tars stepped forward to support her.

  The succubus scholar was now struggling to crawl back toward the ruins of the castle. Seeing this, he picked her up and ran back to the rubble. Her symptoms eased immediately, though the cracking process merely slowed down rather than stopped. He offered her some dragon blood, but she didn't even look at it.

  She said nothing, merely lying there, staring blankly at the sky.

  "Just go... some demons you can't handle will show up soon... the good things are all here..."

  Tars looked into the distance, and when he turned back, the succubus had vanished into a pile of shards. Only a single ring flew toward him in a graceful arc. He opened his palm and caught it, but before he could even get a firm grip, the ring dissolved into the wind.