Chapter 664: The Weeping Ossuary

“What in the actual fuck is this?” Thoren muttered, still reeling from the sight before him.

He had encountered countless strange things since entering the Abyss, but this entrance was unlike anything he had seen before.

The enormous ribs, the unnatural way they had fused with the stone, and the black water falling across the opening all combined to create a scene that seemed almost impossible.

His gaze slowly moved from one side of the gate to the other, searching for an inscription, a symbol, or any indication of what lay beyond it.

He found nothing.

“What is the Weeping Ossuary?” he murmured.

His voice echoed faintly through the cavern before the sound of falling water swallowed it.

Thoren narrowed his eyes.

He looked around the massive structure once more, examining the ground, the walls, and the surrounding darkness.

Then his gaze returned to the black water and his expression immediately darkened.

‘Don’t tell me I’ll have to pass through the black water if I’m going to enter the gate.’ ℯℓ.

He stared at the falling liquid, his lips twitching in disgust.

The water looked filthy.

Its unnatural darkness made it impossible to see through.

‘What the hell is this place? Couldn’t they have built an entrance without a waterfall?’

He nearly cursed aloud, but he forced himself to remain composed.

This was the Abyss.

Complaining was useless.

Thoren stared at the gate for several more seconds.

Then he let out a heavy sigh. “I’ve come this far. I can’t return now.”

He clicked his tongue and jumped down from his undead Greater Dune Scorpion.

His boots struck the rocky ground beside the mount, sending a small cloud of bone dust into the air.

However, he was not foolish enough to enter carelessly.

Thoren glanced at his undead servants before making his decision. One by one, he recalled them into his Undead Space, including the undead Greater Dune Scorpion.

Then, he slowly approached the entrance.

Black liquid struck the stone before him, splashing across the pale bone dust and forming thin streams that flowed toward the darkness beyond the gate.

The air near the entrance carried a damp, unpleasant smell.

He stopped just short of the falling water.

For a brief moment, he examined the curtain of black liquid, searching for any unusual movement or reaction beneath the Soul lantern’s light.

Thoren took a deep breath and stepped forward, passing directly through the curtain of black water covering the entrance to the Weeping Ossuary.

He instinctively tensed, expecting the cold, filthy liquid to pour over his head and soak his clothes. However, what happened next left him momentarily stunned.

Nothing touched him.

The black water continued falling from above, flowing down the enormous ribs and splashing against the ground.

Yet the moment it approached the eerie light of his Soul Lantern of Eternal Crypt, it seemed to change direction.

The liquid curved away from the light, leaving a narrow opening directly in front of him.

“What the hell?”

His eyebrows rose as he turned his head toward the black water.

The liquid continued falling relentlessly, but none of it crossed the boundary of the lantern’s illumination.

It was as though the water possessed a will of its own and instinctively avoided the ghostly light.

Thoren narrowed his eyes.

‘Is this another ability of the Soul Lantern?’

After one final glance at the entrance, Thoren continued forward.

The moment he crossed the gate, the atmosphere around him changed.

Beyond the entrance stretched a long, descending corridor carved into rough stone. It was wide enough for four people to walk abreast.

Yet the uneven walls and sloping floor gave the passage an oppressive appearance.

Thoren slowly raised his head, allowing the Soul Lantern’s eerie illumination to spread farther ahead.

Both walls were lined with shallow niches, each holding a single human skull.

There were dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, arranged in a seemingly endless sequence along the descending corridor.

Beneath every skull was a carved sigil, its strange markings etched directly into the stone.

Thoren’s expression grew serious.

No two sigils were alike.

The black water followed the corridor in a narrow channel carved directly into the stone floor, running downhill ahead of Thoren as though it were leading him toward something hidden in the depths of the Weeping Ossuary.

Thoren’s gaze followed the channel for a moment before returning to the corridor ahead. However, the deeper he walked, the more unsettling the surroundings became.

Drip!

A droplet fell from somewhere above, striking the stone with a faint, hollow sound.

Drip! Drip!

The sound continued at irregular intervals, soft but constant, as moisture gathered around the skulls lining the walls and trickled down their weathered surfaces.

In the oppressive silence, those tiny sounds gradually formed a strange rhythm that seemed to follow him as he descended.

It sounded odd.

Strange.

And deeply unsettling.

The repeated dripping echoed through the corridor, sometimes seeming to come from directly behind him and sometimes from somewhere far ahead.

The atmosphere was enough to give an ordinary awakener goosebumps.

Thoren, however, continued forward with a guarded expression, refusing to let the unsettling surroundings distract him.

His Soul Lantern floated above his head, casting its pale light across the walls and revealing more skulls arranged inside the shallow niches.

As he walked deeper into the corridor, he began studying them more carefully.

Some skulls were relatively intact, their surfaces smooth except for small cracks that had developed over time.

Others were badly damaged, with missing pieces and deep fractures running across their foreheads.

Yet every skull had a carved sigil beneath it.

There were too many to count accurately.

More importantly, the arrangement seemed deliberate. Whoever had constructed this corridor had taken the time to place each skull inside a separate niche.

This was not something that could have happened by accident.

Thoren’s expression gradually became more serious.

‘What exactly is this place?’

Before he could consider the question further, a faint sound reached his ears.

“…Come…”

Thoren stopped immediately.

His eyes narrowed as he turned toward the far end of the corridor, where the darkness extended beyond the reach of his lantern’s light.

For several seconds, he remained motionless, listening carefully.

But he heard nothing.

Only the soft dripping of water continued to echo through the passage.

He waited another moment but he still heard nothing.

Then he heard it again.

A whisper drifted through the corridor, so faint that he could barely distinguish the words.

“…Come…”

Thoren’s gaze sharpened.

Someone was speaking.

Or something.

His hand tightened slightly as he continued forward, his attention now focused entirely on the far end of the passage.

The corridor continued sloping downward, and the black water flowed steadily through its narrow channel, carrying him toward an unknown destination.

He did not turn back.

And after several more minutes, the end of the corridor finally came into sight.

Standing before him was a massive, ancient door, its dark surface towering over the passage. The enormous structure appeared to have been carved from a single piece of black stone.

The door was old.

Incredibly old.

Thoren stared at the massive entrance without blinking. The moment his eyes settled upon the door, something appeared in his mind.

‘The Hall of Tallies.’

He froze.

The name surfaced without warning, just as the name of the Weeping Ossuary had appeared when he first encountered its entrance.

Once again, he had no idea where the information came from or why his mind seemed to recognize a place he had never visited before.

Before he could even react, a deep creaking sound suddenly echoed through the corridor.

Kreeeak!

Thoren’s eyes widened as the massive ancient door was moving.