Hong Min stepped cautiously toward the abandoned city, with 404 following him like a shadow. The air was heavy, carrying the scent of dust and ancient dampness. With every step on the stone floor, he felt a strange sensation creeping over him—a sense of wonder mixed with suspicion.

  The city was nothing like Chang'an with its towering walls. Here, the buildings were bizarrely short; some were no taller than Hong Min's chest, while the highest barely reached twice his height. He felt a deep confusion. Among his own race, the Murai, the average height was nearly seven feet. He, who had never reached that height, was always considered a dwarf among them. But here… here, he felt like a strange giant.

  He burst into a bitter, sarcastic laugh, its echo ringing through the empty space—a laugh that carried years of inadequate. "I, who was a dwarf among my own people… here, I can leap over these houses like a rabbit!" He glanced at 404’s towering height and spat on the ground. "If I'm a giant in this place, then what in the hell is he?" 404's strangeness fit this strange place perfectly.

  The streets themselves were unusually wide and clean, as if they had never been soiled by dust or debris despite the passage of time. Hong Min bent down and touched one of the paving stones. It was unnaturally smooth and cold, like a piece of polished glass rather than rock. There was no trace of dust on it, as if the material itself refused to get dirty.

  On either side of the roads stood polished stone pillars of a strange design, reaching a height of about two men.

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  "What do you think these things are?" Hong Min asked, pointing to one of the pillars.

  "Stone pillars," 404 replied in his quiet voice.

  Hong Min sighed in frustration. "I know they're stone pillars, you fool! I mean, what's their purpose?" But he knew he wouldn't get a useful answer.

  What caught his attention most was not the short buildings, but the colossal palace that loomed clearly at the end of the city. It was so massive it looked like a carved mountain that

  didn't belong in this world. He wondered to himself in a confused voice, "A city designed for the short… and a palace built for a giant. What kind of mad race built this place? Were they servants to giant masters?"

  Hong Min remembered his primary goal: food. His stomach was screaming, pushing him to search every corner. He walked among the ruined buildings, pushing aside fallen stones, but he found nothing. No remains, no supplies, nothing. Water was his only hope—the large lake to the north of the city.

  As he was walking toward it, ignoring the sounds of silence that filled the place, he heard a sound. A strange, coarse sound, like the grinding of rock on rock. The sound came from behind him, from one of the dark alleys.

  The blood in Hong Min’s veins froze. He turned around slowly, his heart beating like a drum in his ears. At first, he saw only a shadow that didn’t belong. A shadow that moved. Then, in the heart of that shadow, two points of crimson light ignited. The coarse sound came again, closer this time, and he realized he wasn't looking at a shadow, but at a mountain of grey flesh in motion.

  When the creature stepped into the faint light, revealing its cracked, rocky skin and the sharp, blade-like protrusions jutting from its joints, pure terror struck his heart. This was no monster from any tale he had ever heard. It was a nightmare of flesh and ash, something that belonged to no known world.

  He let out a choked scream, a scream of pure terror.

  Before him stood the grey mountain of death.