Chapter 1352: Deep within the Gray Realm

Chapter 1352: Deep within the Ash Realm

“Am I hallucinating?”

Chen Ling rubbed his eyes and looked up at the sky again.

He saw five dim, distant suns hanging high above. Their color was so faint that Chen Ling almost didn't notice them... They were like the faint, pale moon occasionally visible during the day, devoid of light.

In the Ash Realm, the sun is indeed visible, and there's undoubtedly only one. While distant, it's never this dim.

When did the suns become five?

“Keep going forward,” Chen Ling immediately ordered, dismissing any thought of turning back.

He had a premonition that he was headed in the right direction... There had to be something unusual nearby.

To be honest, Chen Ling hadn't held much hope before coming. After all, his last sighting of the Silent Angel at the Crimson Heaven Sect's headquarters was many years ago, and the probability of the entity remaining in the same place for so long was very low. This time, he had prepared himself for a fruitless journey.

But when he saw the five suns in the sky, he immediately realized he might have come to the right place.

At Chen Ling's urging, Wu Yi's speed once again reached its maximum. Strangely, no matter how far they moved, the five suns remained at a constant distance, like a texture in a video game, creating a hazy sense of unreality.

Just then, the distant grey-white land began to slope downwards, and the further they went, the steeper the incline became.

“Stop,” Chen Ling said, and Wu Yi immediately halted.

Chen Ling stood on Wu Yi's back, scanning his surroundings... Their current position was like the edge of an enormous meteorite crater. They couldn't see the end of the giant pit in either direction. The ground sloped neatly downwards, and not far below, faint outlines of unknown structures vaguely emerged.

Chen Ling couldn't estimate the size of this colossal pit, but it definitely exceeded any human realm. Had he truly found the hidden territory of the Seventh Destroyer, as he had suspected?

“Well, do you sense any danger?” Chen Ling asked Wu Yi.

Wu Yi's head swayed slightly, as if sensing the surroundings, before finally shaking its head.

“Then let’s go; we’ll head down and take a look.”

If Chen Ling were alone, he might not dare to venture deep into this place. But with Wu Yi by his side, they collectively amounted to two eighth-tier combat powers... With this lineup, even if they truly trespassed into another calamity realm, they could still retreat safely.

As Wu Yi carried Chen Ling closer to the bottom of the giant pit, the faint outlines in the distance gradually became clearer.

Chen Ling’s pupils slightly contracted.

“This is...”

The distant outlines were not mountains or forests, nor were they a mirage... It was a city.

Or rather, the ruins of a city.

Grey-white, ash-like material drifted down from the sky, like a silent and somber snow.

Countless broken walls and crumbling ruins were scattered across the desolate ground. Once towering buildings had sunk into the earth, leaving only small sections of their tops exposed. Yet, even this glimpse appeared grand and magnificent, like what might have once been landmark structures...

Winding asphalt roads were severely cracked. Occasionally, buried streetlights could be seen by the roadside. The desolate cold wind swept through the silent ruins, emitting mournful wails and gently rolling the small debris scattered across the ground.

Audience expectation value: 3Current expectation value: 42

The moment the ruins appeared in the distance, Chen Ling’s audience expectation value, which had already risen in recent days due to the arrival of Jian Changsheng and others, once again surpassed 40.

“How can there be city ruins in a place like this??” Chen Ling stood on the centipede’s back, his brows furrowed.

Chen Ling was certain that humanity had never established a realm here.

As he entered the ruins, more and more doubts arose in Chen Ling's mind...

These structures didn't appear to belong here, as both the density of the high-rises and the street planning were highly illogical.

Four high-rise buildings pierced through each other like knotted threads; some wide roads were only two or three meters long, ending abruptly at distorted concrete walls; streetlights were jammed between floors; manhole covers were impaled on lightning rods...

Everything suggested that some force had condensed several cities together, crumpled them into a ball, and then discarded them here.

This wasn't even the strangest part.

When Chen Ling picked up a dust-covered street sign, he suddenly realized he couldn't read the script on it...

The writing here resembled that of Earth but was distinct, like an AI-generated language—familiar yet unsettlingly alien.

This was a civilization completely unknown to Chen Ling.

Chen Ling stood dazed amidst the ruins, his gaze slowly sweeping around...

A thought suddenly occurred to him.

This place, could it be a former civilization of the Ash Realm?

Had there once been cities and human civilization within the Ash Realm??

All along, Chen Ling had viewed the Ash Realm as an alien world filled with monsters, inhabited only by aggressive creatures and endless grey... Not just Chen Ling, but humanity’s realms had always held this belief.

During his time with the Fusion Faction, Teacher Ye had mentioned some fringe theories. For example, if the Ash Realm was considered a parallel world, why couldn't it have humans? Why couldn't it develop civilization like Earth? In the early days of the Great Cataclysm, some even attempted to venture deep into the Ash Realm, searching for native inhabitants... But ultimately, none of them returned.

And gradually, such theories were disproven and faded from public view...

The reason was simple: If humans existed in the Ash Realm, why had not a single human skeleton been found for centuries?

But as Chen Ling personally witnessed the city ruins before him, this theory resurfaced in his mind... If this city truly represented a civilization born from within the Ash Realm, then ninety percent of humanity’s current research on the Ash Realm would have to be overturned.

If human civilization genuinely existed in the Ash Realm, how did it disappear?

Was the Ash Realm truly grey from the beginning?

And the Calamity... where did it come from?

Or, delving even deeper...

What exactly am I?

One question after another flooded Chen Ling’s mind. The large red opera robe stood motionless amidst the twisted city ruins, like a statue.

Ash, like snowflakes, drifted down and settled on his shoulders. The entire ruin seemed to have been muted, its silence chillingly unnerving...

Meanwhile, at the very end of these city ruins, a figure with six grey wings on its back silently opened its eyes.