“Expectations exist only to be betrayed.” - Old folk saying.

“Do you think the entire city is gone, Miss Aideen?” asked Kino with some nervousness as the two of them walked past yet another pile of dust guard equipment. Only the metal parts of the guard’s armor and weapons survived the ritual. Their clothing had turned to dust much like themselves, as had the wooden shaft of their spear. “Other than those who might have survived at the corners, that is.”

“Maybe if several mages of our caliber with affinities that go well against Life were in one place and worked together,” said Aideen after some thought on the matter. The intensity of the ritual was immense, but it was not exactly unbeatable either. “Your void affinity happens to have strong effectiveness due to its nature, however, so we had an easier time. I doubt such a coincidence like what I mentioned happened, to be honest, so us five might be the only survivors from inside the ritual’s range.”

“Oh. I guessed as much, but hoped that I was wrong,” noted Kino as she ruminated on the situation. The inn they stayed at was a bit further away from the city center where the Royal Palace was, so they were closer to the outskirts of the ritual’s range. As such, the two of them had to walk through quite a few piles of what used to be people on their way towards the city center.

Danna, the city of over ten thousand people, was reduced to a dead ghost town, where only the sound of the wind accompanied their footsteps. It was an eerie sight to say the least, given how lively the same city was just half a day before. The incident, nay, the ritual, changed everything in one fell swoop. The actions of a few doomed the thousands who probably never even knew what happened to them.

After all, given the intensity of the life siphon from the mana stream, Aideen thought that a regular person, ones too weak to be considered mages, would probably be drained of life and perished before they even realized something was wrong. Aideen and her charges had been able to resist because they had their own prodigious mana to pit against the mana stream, while regular people would lack either the mana or the expertise to do the same.

Whoever set the ritual up likely did not handle their precautions well enough, however. Aideen had thought that they might meet with resistance in the Royal Palace itself. She had thought that the architect of the ritual would have spared the place, but apparently either they forgot to do so, were unable to prepare the required safeguards, or never had the intention to spare even their own people.

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Aideen and Kino were greeted by piles of equipment and dust when they reached the Royal Palace’s gates.

Inside the Royal Palace, the place’s large – and likely once magnificent – garden was in an even worse state. All that was left out of the garden was a dust-covered wasteland, where not even a single blade of grass or an earthworm survived the ritual’s effects. Pits full of dust were all that was left of the many trees that once grew in said garden, the only mark they left behind.

Even the water in the artificial stream built inside the garden was a muddy gray from all the dust and residue that fell into it in the wake of the ritual.

There was not a single sign of life in the entire palace. The stark white marble edifice of the building just further portrayed its emptiness. As they walked in, they saw piles of dust with some jewelry or armor and weapons on them from time to time, clearly all that was left of the palace’s own inhabitants after the ritual took its toll.

Much like the city itself, the palace was a dead place, other than the glaring amalgamation of mana that Aideen could feel very clearly emanating from around the center of the structure. Unfortunately, she had only been to the Danna palace once centuries ago, and even then, the place had been partially rebuilt over the centuries, so she had no idea on the layout.

Aideen and Kino found themselves lost, running into dead ends one after another in the twists and turns of the Royal Palace, until Kino ran out of patience and chose a more direct solution to her problem. Instead of trying to find their way around the palace, Kino directly made her own route. She used her void magic to carve openings into the walls on their way, while Aideen guided her in the right direction.

In that manner, the two of them rapidly made their way towards the central region of the Royal Palace, and they emerged through the walls into a large, empty chamber. The chamber was probably used for large events or official parties and the like, given its size and rather ostentatious decorations. Most notably, there were many piles of dust – all of which had some sort of sword, dagger, or jewelry on them – in the chamber. Clearly a large group of people were present there when the ritual took place.

A blindingly bright cocoon of pure Life affinity mana floated in mid-air at the very center of the chamber, and Aideen also noticed how there were ritualistic carvings all over the floor. Clearly the chamber had been the site of the ritual that took place earlier, and perhaps the people there had been the very ones that ignited said ritual, only to discover that they too were far from safe from its effects.

Aideen held Kino back when she looked as if she wanted to try attacking the cocoon with her void magic. Products of such rituals were notoriously unstable, and Aideen couldn’t guarantee that her grand nieces and nephew would be safe if Kino’s actions disturbed the cocoon. As for the two of them, they had no such worry, thanks to their nature as Unliving.

After all, not even the Bone Lord had been able to extinguish an Unliving forcefully – other than by making them actually wish for death themselves – when he tested things out on some convenient enemies in the past.