A white ball of fire flickered within an expanse of black.

She couldn’t feel anything. Only the sensation of floating in the endless darkness seemed to be subconsciously felt by her.

《 Survive. 》

A vague call softly spoke and echoed within the darkness around her, though she could not answer back. She seemed to feel an inexplicable familiarity, though she wasn’t sure of the source.

[ Soul Purification Complete. ]

[ Soul No.1152007’s True Name being generated... ]

She then saw messages inside her consciousness.

[ Generation Complete. ]

[ True Name: Oubliette Lacum Abyssum. ]

Oubliette then felt something binding to her existence.

[ Bestowing Godhood... ]

Oubliette sensed some type of power flowing into her being.

[ Godhood《 Misfortune 》has been bestowed. ]

[ Chained God has been confirmed… ]

[ Memory Inheritance being drawn… ]

[ Drawing complete… ]

Strands of light entered the ball of white flames, similar to film reels, the strands seemed to contain vague pictures of another life.

[ Tracking suitable body... ]

After a moment, a new message appeared.

[ Tracking Complete. ]

Oubliette’s consciousness fully returned to her at this moment.

‘Where... am I?’

Oubliette perceived herself and realized she was a bright white ball of fire within the darkness.

‘Is this my soul?’

She couldn’t help but think curiously.

[ All Gods have been assembled and are ready for Transfer... ]

After the message was transmitted to her head, she felt a swirling sensation from beneath the darkness getting ready to take her somewhere. 

However, a sudden ferocious flurry of whispers roared into her soul and blew like an evil and deadly wind from the unknown.

Oubliette’s soul shook like a candle in the wind.

《 ^#<#>¥~}○£~¥•♤○£ `♤\€■○8•●》

《 ♤○¥ °■○£~◇~■○€~ ¥♤○£■\€•¥~》

《 ▪︎€•`£♤\ £•¥` ₩£~>×< >×^#>[■•》

Incomprehensible sinister whispers furiously invaded Oubliette’s mind. She groaned in agony and tried to scream, but no sound came out as a soul.

The soul’s bright flame seemed to have been contaminated with something as pitches of black spots started to manifest.

Just before the contamination spread further, the whispers were snuffed out as if a window was closed, stopping the evil wind from blowing into the house.

Oubliette’s soul stopped being contaminated. Regardless, the damage was done. The whispers had only attacked for a blink of an eye, but she could still feel traces of contamination left on her soul.

Then some new message appeared in her mind.

[ Successfully resealed the Evil God’s influence. ]

[ Calculating Total Losses... ]

[ Approximately 78% of ready Gods have been completely corrupted... ]

[ Remaining Gods have been deemed sufficient to continue. ]

[ Transferring to suitable body... ]

Oubliette was dumbfounded before she was sent off by the swirling darkness covering her vision.

===

[ Detected Chained God has successfully integrated the surroundings and has formed a Divine Ground. ]

[ The battle has officially begun. ] 

[ May the Gods be at odds. ]

Oubliette seemed to sense a message fading away into her mind as she groggily woke up and found herself plopped and laid out on stone ground.

Oubliette: …

‘This is a joke right?’

The situation was too sudden. Oubliette had not even been conscious for more than a minute before…

When Oubliette’s thoughts reached this far, she blanked.

She couldn’t remember.

She could not remember what she was doing before arriving here. 

Panicked, she shot up to her feet and her eyes darted around her surroundings. Then she could not help but double-back her gaze.

Oubliette saw that she seemed to be in an alleyway. There were garbage cans laid side-by-side. Additionally, brass metal pipes extended all over the wall giving it a steampunk feel.

Then Oubliette’s eyes widened. How could she remember this word that seemed to describe cool fantastical machines, powered by steam in an era similar to England’s industrial age? 

She couldn’t even remember where she learned this term from. Oubliette became more interested and looked more closely.

She quickly found that the alleyway was a little damp as she saw some mysterious puddles forming near her. 

Not only that, but the pipes and trash cans also seemed to have started to rust with red patches showing through their exterior, giving off a particular sense of neglect and aging.

Oubliette felt grateful that she had not been sprawled on top of these disgusting muddy puddles from the alleyway.

Unknowingly, she seemed to completely forget about the strange voice and ignored the messages and evil whispers from before.

While looking at the rusty trash cans around her, she saw the walls made of red bricks and the dusty or shattered glass windows with aged yellowed curtains lining parallel to each other stretching across the alleyway. Besides the windows, there were also rusted skinny platforms and stairs along with loaded ladders.

On the various parts of the walls was also faded graffiti of weird symbols and pictures that gave Oubliette a sense of familiarity with the scenery. 

She decided to explore her surroundings first. Oubliette felt that she would be able to recall some more things if she did.

She looked up at the sky and found that it seemed to be nighttime as specks of small glowing stars cast onto a pitch-dark canvas appeared in her vision. There was strangely no moon.

Oubliette found herself remembering something again. 

‘I lived in a world with a moon. Maybe this world is experiencing a new moon.’

Turning her head back down, she decided to open a trash can.

Just as she raised her right hand to do so, she couldn’t help but draw her eyes to it. She noticed her arm was slender and fair, almost like white bone toothpicks that could be shaped like branches.

‘Simply incomparable to the likes of those bodybuilders on the internet.’

Oubliette recalled even more terms.

After sighing with some envy in her heart, she opened some trash cans nearby and found all of them with empty trash bags. It seemed to have been emptied a long time ago, perhaps explaining why the alley wasn’t giving off a stinky odor. Though it was strange, she decided to overlook it. 

She then looked around some more and observed the rather maze-like alleyway. 

‘Is this the backrooms?’

Oubliette recalled a term within her memories. This place strangely had no life, no people, and it was eerily silent. The surroundings strangely felt suffocating and hungry, as if it was ready to pounce and devour her without a trace.

Though of course, it was all in Oubliette’s imagination. The alley was just a normal, albeit rather empty, alleyway.

After finishing her gazing around and random thoughts, she raised her left hand to rub her forehead to ease her thoughts. However, Oubliette was left stunned on the spot.

A prosthetic hand was what came into her vision.

A feeling of alarm spread out instantly and she fumbled and fell onto her butt. 

‘Ouch. Ouch. That hurt.’

A sharp pain rose from behind Oubliette and she felt that she quite possibly snapped her tailbone due to the impact of crashing onto a rock-hard alleyway floor.

She took a minute to recover before she brought her left hand out to her vision again.

It was a mechanical left arm. It seemed to be made of a shiny brown metal, probably brass, and it looked pristine and very steampunk.

Oubliette controlled her hand to clench and unclench and found it moved in a very smooth and clean motion just like her real hand. She gripped hard and found it clenched hard as well and the brass hand shook with pressure.

Interested, Oubliette observed very closely and found gaps within the mechanical hand. Inside was not only brass but also an assortment of other shiny gray metal parts that she couldn’t quite identify.

However, after observing for a while, the initial panic and interest quickly faded away. Instead, she became more intrigued in exploring the other parts of herself.

‘Wait, that came out a little wrong.’

Ignoring her poor choice of thoughts, Oubliette took a look at her legs, while sitting down, and found the right leg to also be a mechanical leg in a similar style to her left arm.

What was biazzare was that the prostetics felt like a part of her, which was likely why she didn't realize it right away. She could sense the ground through the metallic parts of her as if they really were originally a part of her.

‘Cyborg?’

Oubliette, recalling another term, reached to her chest and disappointingly found that the center of her chest was, in fact, not also made of metal. Instead, she found the clothes she wore to be a tattered white blouse and some equally tattered black slacks as well as a pair of leather shoes.

‘I think I can be called a cyborg if I had a metal heart. Though maybe I’m a bit different. After all, how can metal transmit such vivid sensations.’

Oubliette mused to herself before taking a couple more glances around her, but all there was more faded graffiti that she had not noticed. 

She quickly lost interest in staying in the alley. Oubliette worked her legs, paying particular attention to her right out of curiosity, and decided to leave the alley and see the world outside the alley.

She walked towards one end of the alley and found a fork in the road. After some brief contemplation, she turned to the left

As she walked, she soon noticed a rusty chain fence that blocked her way forward, along with a chain door that was chained and locked up. Beyond the fence, she could see more alleyways and paths.

Oubliette felt that even looking at the fence gave tetanus so she was unwilling to touch it, despite having a metallic left arm. Therefore she turned around towards the way she came back and took the path she hadn’t taken yet.

‘Worst case scenario, I return here and bust that gate with a punch.’

Oubliette thought to herself amused with her left arm, she confidently walked back to the fork and went right. She then walked for a few minutes in the winding alleyway, encountering a couple of other paths and dead ends. 

She quickly lost her confidence.

The alleyway was too extensive and Oubliette completely lost track of the way back to the rusty gate after some time.

Just as she was about to go crazy and start measuring the feasibility of climbing a building, she ran saw an opening in the alleyway that came like a miracle. From the opening, Oubliette felt like she saw salvation as she spotted an open road and street.

Oubliette was relieved that she finally found a way out and quickly made her way forward. 

However, a deafening clang in the silence came from behind her.

Startled, Oubliette darted her eyes behind her and found a toppled over trash can. Though unlike the other trash cans that were empty, she saw a figure poking out of the trash bag of the toppled over trash can.

She could faintly make out a sort of figure of some kind through the vague outline of the trash bag.

Oubliette measured with her eyes and found that the figure was probably at most a half-meter tall. Realizing the noise wasn’t exactly a threat, she decided to cautiously approach to examine the object.

Looking at one of the trash cans, Oubliette decided to take one of the lids as a shield just in case.

As she approached step by step, there was no reaction from the thing inside the trash can. A mixture of curiosity and suspense overwhelmed her in the end and she decided to completely approach.

After a couple steps, Oubliette was close enough to move away the trash bag covering the figure.

She inwardly gulped with nervousness as she used her left arm to unveil the figure. Why her left arm? Oubliette just felt that if the figure was aggressive, than it should be ready to eat iron.

However, nothing unexpected broke out, making Oubliette's caution useless. 

She hummed slightly disappointed, but cheered up as she sized up the figure once more.

The figure turned out to be an automaton. The machine had a cylindrical body and four legs made from a similar composition of metals to her mechanical parts. In addition, on its body was a red-tinted camera lens that looked somewhat ominous.

Oubliette noticed a handle on the top of the machine. Intrigued, she reached her left hand to it and pulled.

Then with a click, the top of the machine opened up and revealed a small compartment.

Inside Oubliette saw a yellowed and aged folded paper note. She pulled it out with some curiosity and found elegant and exotic symbols written on the yellow paper. It seemed to be a letter in some kind of language that Oubliette had no knowledge of.

However, she was still able to read it. 

What Oubliette did not know was that a strange dark glow exuded from her eyes as she read the letter.

[ Dear daughter,

Our Vallum is falling. 

The Authorities are trying to conceal this news, but the sudden surge of the Abyss is going to affect our city. I heard from a traveling merchant friend that some scholars and researchers even predicted that Vallum will be directly swallowed into the Abyss later this year.

It may sound like groundless rumors and I wish that were also true, but the recent increase in police and guards, as well as the stricter entry conditions... I'm afraid Vallum is just one step away from preparing for war. 

At the very least, it wouldn't be wise to continue staying in Vallum, despite the convenience and advanced automatons that could be found nowhere else.

Elizabeth prepare to pack your things once you see this letter.

I am also afraid we will have to leave behind your beloved Gerath. He is insistent on staying in Vallum as a responsible police captain. I beg of you as your only father to not let your feelings for him to sway you to stay. This is for the best that we leave him to fufill his duty on his own.

As for where we will be headed, I hear that the City of Lains is quite prosperous. It is far away enough to be safe from the influence of the Abyss so we can settle there despite it not being as wonderful as our City of Vallum. What is more important is that we survive together as a family. 

As your only family left, I only want what is best for you. 

From, your only Father. ]

Oubliette, while holding the letter, was silent after reading.

The mentioned “Abyss” was dangerous and it gave Oubliette a sense of uneasiness. 

Based on the letter, Oubliette concluded that this alley was perhaps part of the City of Vallum and that the city had once been filled with a lot of people based on the fact that a police force existed in the city.

‘Then… where is everyone?’

Oubliette thought that it was likely everyone ran away from the city. However, she felt her instincts telling her...

That it was not the case.

It was a strange premonition and instinctual sense, yet Oubliette could not help wholeheartedly agreeing with it.

Then she turned the paper over and found that in the bottom of the paper was some type of serial number. There also seemed to be a patch of symbols that were different from the normal symbols. Oubliette assumed it must have been the date the letter was made.

[ &#<×[+^>=[$&/# ]

However, she couldn’t read the date at all. Instead, she felt a cold sweat break out instantly as a intense sense of danger filled her body as she tried to read the date. Oubliette hurriedly gave up.

She felt that if she had tried to forcefully read it… something terrible would happen.

She flipped over the letter with some fear and took deep breaths. She took around 10 minutes to calm down.

After calming down, Oubliette looked at the small machine below her feet as she put back the letter into the machine. She felt that the letter was harmless as long as she didn’t recklessly try to read the date.

 

She didn’t know what to call the automaton, but decided to just call the machine Arrel because the shape of its body as well as the way it stored the letter reminds Oubliette of the look and function of a storage barrel.

Looking at Arrel, she decided to try to carry it. 

Oubliette wanted to bring it with her to dissect it outside of the alley. After all, she was quite curious on how the trash can was toppled over.

Thus, she stretched out her arms and hooked them under the half-meter tall machine’s legs. She then tried her best to lift and found that the machine was deceivingly heavy.

Finding the heavy weight bearable for the moment, she made her way out of the alleyway again with a red face.

One step. Two steps.

She shakily carried Arrel. 

Then finally at the mouth of the alley, she reached her limits and placed the Arrel down as gently as she could, but the motion still produced a resounding and heavy clunk that echoed eerily into the surroundings.

This is why she wanted muscles…

Complaining inwardly, Oubliette peeked out the alley eagerly.

She froze.

Outside was a vast array of buildings that seemed to be residential buildings, markets, shops, and other businesses all lined up side-by-side to the street. In addition, some lamp posts lined up alongside the road. 

Not only that, on the street there was an array of transport vehicles that, as far as Oubliette could tell, were like old vintage cars and carriages.

At first glance, this was a main street that was likely filled with much hustle and bustle in its past.

That was, of course, in the past.

What Oubliette now saw was the mottled streets, the deterioated buildings, the unmaintained vehicles on the street were also rusted and rotten.

That was not all Oubliette could see. What was shocking was...

That on the pavements of the streets were… skeletons.

There were pearly white skeletons all around the street. These still remains all wore tattered clothes, likely from before their death, and they were all posed in a shocking manner.

The vast majority of the dead remains were standing as if walking, sitting on benches as if resting, and even some standing behind counters in shops as if working. The minority of the remains were also leaning on the wall or collapsed onto the pavement with little to no clothing. By her guess, Oubliette believes that these collapsed skeletons were the homeless and impoverished people.

The scene was full of "activity" from the still remains, but it did not feel lively and full. It was the opposite, everything felt stagnant and empty. It was like a projection of a prosperous past, like a display of statues in a large museum or a graveyard.

Perhaps it could also be compared to a serial killer's twisted work of art.

She took a deep breath and walked to the left of the alley. She not only wanted to leave this terrifying scene, but also find a way out of this dead city. She had observed that most of the cars were facing the right of the alley that she was in. So Oubliette predicted that the outer city and entrance of the city could be found if she followed the road to the left of the alley. 

Oubliette could judge that based on Vallum's infrastructure being similar to the urbananization of land in the industrial age from her knowledge, she can assume that most cars and carriages would likely head to the center of the city, where the city's market would be most developed and where urbanization is most advanced.

After coming out of the alley, Oubliette constantly felt that her knowledge and logic abilities being refreshed and increased as time passed and as she observed the street of Vallum. 

Though the return of knowledge didn't really comfort all that much from the number of dead bodies.

However, despite the discomfort, she swallowed her fear and looked around the left side of the alley. She found an old dull metal wagon on the cracked streets with its faded red coating, rusty metal axle, and raised handle.

She also found the owner leaning against the wall near the wagon.

The owner was short and it was wearing a tattered white shirt with faded overalls. It has a silk cap and leather shoes as well. 

It was a child.

Oubliette felt a strange emotion arising her as she approached the wagon while looking at the child skeleton. She looked inside the wagon and found yellow paper scraps inside.

If she had to guess, the child likely worked as a paperboy and had used this wagon to carry the newspapers he sold.

Well, that was all just a guess. No one would know for sure what this child skeleton's real story really was.

"Sorry."

While muttering a short apology, Oubliette silently took the wagon as the wheels of the wagon squeaked as she did so. The sounds of the unoiled rusty axle and wheels as well as feeling of dust smearing into her hand from the handle felt very vivid for a moment. 

She felt as though the child skeleton's eye sockets were observing her and burning a hole into her. 

She ignored the guilt and brought the wagon to the mouth of the alley, her heart feeling heavy.

She then lifted and placed Arrel on top of the wagon with a slight thump sound, the heavy weight before now incomparable to the uncomfortable feelings in her heart. 

The wagon would make it much easier to bring Arrel with her, though Oubliette felt that it came at a cost of something that she wouldn't be able to get back.

Now that the wagon was ready, she lowered her head, while avoiding bumping into and looking at the skeletons standing on the streets, lying on the walls, and everywhere else as she walked with the squeaky wagon, carrying Arrel, following her lead.

All Oubliette could hear was the rythmic steps of her shoes and the squeaky sound from the wagon behind within the dead silence.

After walking for a while, she had almost bumped into multiple skeletons, so she forced herself to look straight at them. She saw all the normal posing skeletons before realizing something odd.

Oubliette was shaken, but she observed the skeletons carefully again nonetheless and noticed something unnerving.

There were far more fallen skeletons than before. However, they didn't seem to be all poor people in their lifetime. It also didn’t just look like the skeletons had just collapsed over time. 

In Oubliette’s vision, she saw most of the fallen skeletons reaching out their hands to the air and positioning their legs to get up.

It was more like they were running away and tumbled before dying, rather than falling over a period of time.

Looking at the empty sockets of a couple skeletons, Oubliette felt that she could sense the fear and terror that they felt before perishing.

Not only that, Oubliette saw that the fallen skeletons became more concentrated the further she looked forward. 

The direction she was looking at was what Oubliette assumed to be the way to the entrance and exit of the city.

She concluded… that they were running away.

‘What happened…’

Ouliette became even more agitated. She was so cheerful earlier because she felt that it was the best way to handle the situation in which everything is unknown.

After all, she had recalled that in order to maintain morale, which is essiential for survival, it was important to be able to see the good things in a bad situation.

However, there was absolutely nothing good about the situation before her.

The current situation… broke her mask and her best attempts to hide her fears and protect her sanity.

The remains she had see here countless, ranging from the meek and the bold, young and old, none was spared from skeletification.

Oubliette wanted to question everything. However, there was no one to answer them.

The chills entered her body. Everything was strange. Everything was unknown to her. It felt like the world was supressing her ability to breath.

Oubliette let go of the wagon and walked towards one of the lamp posts.

She then looked at the top of the lamp post, where its bulb should be located, where light should shine down onto the mottled streets.

Staring at the lamp post’s bulb, Oubliette felt something snap and she laughed.

She laughed like a maniac.

It echoed throughout the skeleton-filled street, painting a terrifying scene.

A lone girl was laughing in the street of the deceased.

She had found that the lamp post’s bulb was broken. The same was true for all the other lamp posts all throughout the street.

It was midnight. With all the street lights like this… it should have been pitch black.

However, Oubliette was able to clearly see everything around her from start to finish.

She grabbed her face with both hands and choked.

‘What the hell am I.’

She was not human.