Chapter 354: What Can Mythal Help With?

Gabriel still hadn’t answered, and Kai decided not to push her for one. He could tell she was waiting for the question that should have come next.

Aegis was the reason he had come to Nexus.

Bahamut had sent him here because those ruins were supposed to be the beginning of his search for answers.

Asking about them would have been the obvious move.

Kai asked something else instead. "What can Mythal help with?"

Gabriel blinked and stared at him for a long moment. "You..."

Kai raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I expected you to ask about Aegis."

"So did I," Sera said.

Kai glanced at her, and she shrugged. "You’ve been thinking about it since we arrived."

"I still am."

"Then why ask this first?"

Kai looked back at Gabriel. "Because you looked worried. If Nexus has a problem and Mythal can help, we should know about it."

Gabriel slowly smiled. "You really are different from most City Leaders."

Sera laughed. "That’s one way of putting it."

"He does this all the time," Lily said.

Kai turned to her. "Does what?"

"Walks toward dangerous things because someone else needs help."

"And then pretends it wasn’t a big deal afterward," Sera added.

Kai sighed. "I don’t do that."

"You absolutely do."

Gabriel laughed softly, but the sound faded quickly, and her expression grew serious again. "Nexus isn’t in immediate danger. Not yet." She looked toward the city beyond the windows. "But there are problems."

"What kind?"

Instead of answering, she gestured for them to follow.

"This is one of the reasons I wanted you to see the Church before going to Aegis," Gabriel said as she led them down another corridor.

Behind the glass walls on either side, researchers were bent over ancient artifacts and monster remains.

And at the end of the hall, a group of them stood around a large table map covered in dozens of markings.

Gabriel stopped beside it. "Since the awakening, ancient sites across the continent have become unstable."

Red marks were scattered across the entire region. Kai studied them. "How many?"

"Too many."

Lily stepped closer. "These are all relic sites?"

"Most of them." Gabriel pointed to one mark. "This site suffered a mana surge three weeks ago." Her finger moved to another. "That one stopped responding entirely. And here, an ancient defense system activated without warning."

Kai frowned. "Against what?"

"We don’t know. We sent a team to investigate." Gabriel’s expression darkened. "They never came back."

Sera’s eyes stayed on the map. "How many people have gone missing?"

"Seventeen confirmed. Researchers, relic specialists, and the Hunters assigned to protect them." Gabriel’s voice stayed even, but her hand had flattened against the edge of the table. "Some disappeared inside ruins. Others vanished after reporting unusual activity."

"And you don’t know what happened to any of them," Kai said.

"No."

"Monsters?"

Gabriel pointed to another cluster of symbols. "That’s another problem. Monsters have started appearing around the ancient ruins, and they aren’t behaving normally." She tapped each location as she spoke. "They gather around certain sites and avoid others completely. Some have even been seen defending ruins."

Sera crossed her arms. "Defending them?"

Kai’s eyes narrowed. "Like they’re protecting something."

"That’s what we suspect," Gabriel said.

Lily leaned in immediately. "Do we have recordings?"

"Of course."

"Can I see them?"

"Later."

Lily sighed. "Everyone keeps saying that."

Kai almost smiled.

"There are also relic malfunctions we can’t explain," Gabriel continued, moving to another section of the map. "Relics that worked perfectly for centuries have suddenly stopped functioning, and some have started activating on their own."

Kai looked at her. "Without anyone using them?"

"Yes, and what happens depends on the relic. One ancient gate opened for thirteen seconds."

Lily leaned forward. "Where did it lead?"

"We don’t know. The moment the first researcher approached it, the gate collapsed."

Lily’s shoulders dropped. "Of course it did."

Sera laughed. "You sound disappointed that nobody got to walk through a mysterious ancient portal."

"I am."

Kai shook his head, and Gabriel smiled before pointing to several more locations. "Then there are the places we simply can’t explore. Ruins that collapse whenever someone enters, areas where mana behaves incorrectly, and structures where time doesn’t match what we measure outside."

Kai looked up. "Time?"

"Nothing as extreme as what you went through during the Second Disaster," Gabriel said. "But we’ve recorded areas where someone can spend ten minutes inside and come out to find that an hour has passed."

Lily’s face turned serious. "That’s not normal."

"No. That’s why we haven’t sent larger teams."

Kai looked over the map one more time. "So you’ve got unstable relic sites, missing researchers, monsters guarding ruins, relics activating on their own, and areas nobody can safely enter."

"That’s the short version," Gabriel said.

Sera glanced at Kai. "And here you were, only worried about finding Aegis."

"I still am."

"I know."

Gabriel smiled faintly. "This isn’t the kind of problem anyone solves in a day."

Kai was quiet for several seconds before he spoke again. "Why haven’t you asked Mythal for help?"

Gabriel looked surprised again. "Because Mythal just survived three Disasters, and you’re still rebuilding. You have enough problems."

"That didn’t stop you."

Gabriel went still.

"When Mythal was still recovering from the First Disaster, you sent healers," Kai said, and when she opened her mouth, he kept going. "You sent medical supplies when we didn’t have enough."

"And when our Hunter teams started running out of equipment, the Church helped us find suppliers," Sera said.

"You sent relic specialists, too," Lily added with a smile. "They helped us stabilize the old barrier system."

"You gave us access to your records," Kai said. "You helped us understand the Six Calamities, and you kept sending information even when other cities didn’t want anything to do with us."

Gabriel looked down. "It wasn’t enough."

"It helped," Kai said. "That’s what matters."

Sera crossed her arms. "You also sent food."

Gabriel blinked. "Food?"

"When the city was struggling after the First Disaster, the Church sent several supply shipments," Sera said. "People noticed."

Gabriel was quiet for a moment. "I remember."

Mira had told Kai about those shipments, and so had Elden. The Church had never asked for anything in return, not a contract, not an agreement, not even a public announcement. It had simply sent help.

Kai looked at Gabriel. "You helped us before you knew whether Mythal would survive."

Gabriel smiled faintly. "I believed you would."

"But you didn’t know."

"No."

Kai turned back to the map. "Then we’ll help."

Gabriel’s eyes widened. "You don’t even know what you’re agreeing to."

"You helped us before you knew what you were agreeing to."

For a few seconds, Gabriel didn’t move. Then she smiled, and it wasn’t the amused smile she usually wore.

But something smaller and warmer, like someone setting down a weight she had been carrying for too long.

"We owe you," Lily said.

Gabriel shook her head. "No, you don’t."

Kai frowned. "We do."

Gabriel looked out at the city. "When Mythal needed help, I helped because people were in danger." She turned back to them. "If I start keeping score, then the whole point is lost."

"Maybe," Kai said.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "Maybe?"

"I still consider it returning a favor."

Sera laughed. "Of course you do."

Gabriel shook her head. "You really don’t know when to let something go."

"No."

"That’s going to cause you problems."

"It already has."

Sera laughed again, and for a moment, the tension in the room was gone.

Then Gabriel turned back to the map, and her face grew serious. "All right. If you’re willing to help, I’ll show you everything we have."

She reached toward the table, and a holographic projection rose from it. The continent unfolded in the air above them, and hundreds of locations lit up across it in red, yellow, and black, some marked with warning symbols and others left completely blank.

Lily stared at it. "This is..."

"Everything we currently know," Gabriel said.

The sheer number of unexplored places made Kai’s chest tighten. Nexus wasn’t just sitting on a few ancient ruins.

It was sitting on an entire buried world of them, and something inside that world was waking up.

"Before you go to Aegis, I want you to understand something," Gabriel said. "The awakening didn’t just create Hunters." She pointed at the projection. "It woke up the past."

The map flickered, and several ancient sites began to flash.

"And we still don’t know what the past is going to do."

Aegis was somewhere in all that darkness. For the first time, Kai wondered whether the ruins were really just a place to find answers, or whether they were part of the problem.

He looked at Gabriel. "Show me where the worst incidents happened."

Gabriel smiled. "I was hoping you’d say that."

Sera sighed. "Of course you were."

Lily leaned closer to the projection. "Can I see the relic records too?"

Gabriel laughed. "Yes."

"Finally."

Kai looked between them. "We’re still going to Aegis."

"You are," Gabriel said. "But before you do..."

She enlarged one section of the map until a single ancient site filled the projection. The entire region around it was buried in warning symbols.

Kai’s voice lowered. "What happened there?"

Gabriel’s smile disappeared. "We don’t know."

"Then why is it marked as the highest threat?"

Gabriel kept her eyes on the projection. "Because only one person from the last team we sent there came back."

Sera’s expression hardened. "What did they say?"

"Nothing," Gabriel said. "They came back alive, but they haven’t spoken a single word since."

Nobody spoke after that.

Kai stared at the location, and a strange feeling moved through him. It wasn’t fear. It felt closer to recognition, and for the briefest moment, Distortion stirred around his body before it went still again.

Kai’s eyes narrowed. Something was waiting out there, and somehow, it felt familiar.