Niko and Hana remained seated on the ground, watching as the sun finally set in the ruins of the ancient city, its golden light retreating as the day came to an end.
Soon, a silvery moon shone softly in the darkening sky, accompanied by a vast array of shimmering stars.
The two Spirits gazed peacefully at the sky, while the cat in Hana's arms squirmed and wriggled as it tried to get free, having gotten bored of just sitting around.
It finally managed to escape Hana's arms, and instantly began running about, hopping and tumbling all around the park.
Hana giggled as she watched its antics, before turning her head back towards the sky.
But then the cat reached a set of wires, following them to reach a device with a glass panel on it.
The cat tapped and poked at the device, somehow managing to turn it on.
The device glowed and hummed as it came to life, a set of strange symbols appearing on the glass panel.
The cat couched down, rasing its rear, its tail flicking behind it as it stared down one of the symbols. Then, it pounced, smacking the glass panel with its claws.
As soon as it did, the park itself seemed to have come to life, a low hum spreading through it as bright, blue lights spread out from behind dozens of patches of grass.
Then, strange, glowing devices rose up from each of those patches, floating high in the air.
The devices hummed and swayed, before spreading out to cover the whole park, floating above it like little stars.
The devices grew brighter, and their light started changing color, flickering from one hue to another.
Niko and Hana both looked up in awe at the colorful lights, recognizing these devices as the ones they had seen in the pictures from before.
The floating lights moved in circles, swaying and swirling as they spread color through the dark, night sky.
While Hana peacefully observed the dazzling light show, Niko's ears suddenly pricked as he heard something approaching from a distance.
He heard messy, erratic voices and the clangor of dozens of metal legs striking the metal roads as the machines from earlier frantically rushed in their direction.
Niko had understood by now that they weren't toys, but mechanical soldiers that guarded the city against intruders. And right now, he and Hana were the intruders, meaning that the robots would do everything they could to get rid of the two of them.
He shifted away from Hana and closed his eyes, releasing a small amount of power.
Hana hadn't heard the robots approaching yet, and he would prefer that it stayed that way.
So, Niko waved his hand slightly and gave a mental command, causing three corpses to quietly rise up from the ground, silently rushing out of the park, towards the approaching robots, while making sure to remain unseen.
In a few moments, Niko heard it — a faint sound of metal being ripped apart in the distance, followed by the incoherent words of the ancient machines, who's voices started to grow quiet one by one.
The dead then quietly returned to where they had been buried, returning below ground before becoming lifeless once again.
Niko withdrew his power and glanced at Hana, smiling when he saw her still beaming with joy as she watched the beautiful lights in the sky.
Some distance away near the entrance of the city square, the guard robots lay broken on the ground, sparks flying out from their torn wires.
Almost all of them were completely destroyed, and those that remained were beyond saving, their systems on the verge of shutting down.
One of them had its body torn in half, and was now using its broken arms to drag its torso forward as the other robots powered off one by one.
Feeling its own systems dying as well, the robot made one last, desperate attempt at eliminating the intruders.
It remotely activated the machines mounted on the city's walls.
The metal boxes with pipes that the two Spirits had noticed on the wall were, in fact, turrets meant to help defend the city.
The robot commanded them to fire at the two Spirits. The turrets roared and hummed, their barrels glowing as the ammunition inside them was charged up by dozens of mana stones.
They started moving, repositioning themselves as they tried to take aim at Niko and Hana.
Unfortunately, their targeting mechanisms were too badly damaged, and instead of aiming at the Spirits, the turrets all aimed at each other instead.
Their barrels spun wildly as the turrets unloaded all of their ammunition on each other, causing them all to be destroyed and catch fire.
Niko and Hana noticed the flames atop the ancient walls, and thought back to the strange structures they had seen when they were entering the city.
They thought that those must have been festive torches of some sort, and had probably started burning when the cat activated the festival equipment.
To the two little Spirits, that seemed to be a satisfactory answer, so they didn't dwell on it any more than that, sitting back and enjoying the beautiful view instead.
Meanwhile, the last guard robot looked at the plumes of smoke rising from the burning turrets.
It was frozen in place as it watched the powerful defense system, the last line of defense that the robot had bet everything on, fail so miserably and destroy itself.
There was a strange expression on its featureless face. If it had been a human, it would have been seen crying a single, defeated tear as it smiled deliriously at the ridiculous scene, before finally collapsing on the ground and shutting down forever.
The two Spirits, on the other hand, finally got up, preparing to start moving again.
Niko dismissed the skeletal cat, allowing it to return to its lifeless state, and then nodded at Hana, before they started walking towards the nearby castle.
***
The two of them didn't find anything interesting on the way to the castle, so it was mostly just a quiet, peaceful walk under the night sky.
The only thing interrupting that peace for Hana was the fact that Niko kept getting distracted throughout the way, staring in a random direction with a distant look, just like he had been doing back in that house from before.
She had tried to ask him if something was wrong, but Niko simply shook his head, telling her that it was nothing.
Hana sighed.
She knew that Niko was hiding something from her, but honestly, it made sense if he didn't trust her completely yet.
She would just have to work to earn his trust!
She clenched her fist and steeled her resolve, determined to become the most trustworthy friend ever!
Niko glanced back and saw the strange expression on her face, and raised an eyebrow, not sure what she was doing. But then he shrugged and kept moving.
They finally reached the area where the castle was, and were met with another turbulent river, with a raised, metal drawbridge on the other side.
Hana tilted her head as she thought, and then summoned a group of vines that shot towards the top of the drawbridge and wrapped firmly around it.
Niko grabbed on to the vines, straining his muscles as he pulled the drawbridge down.
The rusty drawbridge creaked loudly as it moved for the first time in countless years, and then finally landed on the ground with a loud thud, allowing Niko and Hana to cross over to the other side.
Reaching the land surrounding the castle, they were greeted by a devastated scene. The ground was covered in deep pits and large nets of cracks, with hardly any part of it left unscathed.
The castle walls seemed to be the least damaged thing in the area, and even they were marred by thousands of deep claw marks and wide cracks.
The two Spirits walked up to the castle's tall, metal gates, which had been torn open by some unknown monster.
Passing through the gatehouse, they were greeted by the sight of the castle's main keep.
It was a tall, majestic building made of large, marble bricks, and was adorned with so many rare gems that calling it vain would have been an understatement.
Yet all of its majesty, all of its grandeur had fallen apart against the horrors that had besieged it.
The walls were covered by cracks and gouges, with some sections having collapsed entirely.
The marble stairs leading up to its doors had been reduced to little more than a pile of rubble, surrounded by the broken, rusted remains of dozens of guard robots.
These ones were different from the ones Niko and Hana had faced — they were almost twice as large, and covered from head to toe in armor so thick it would have appeared impenetrable.
But they still didn't stand a chance against the powerful Abyss Spawns, and were now left ripped apart and torn to pieces.
There were the broken remains of other buildings surrounding the main keep as well, each having a different size and shape.
But Niko couldn't tell what the purpose for most of them was, and he wasn't interested enough to sift through rubble just to find out.
One particular building, however, did stand out to him. It was much smaller than the rest, and only contained a stairway that lead underground, but it was somehow in the worst shape out of all of the buildings.
It was as if the monsters had decided to target that small, seemingly insignificant building the most, pouring onto it like a wave.
Or perhaps, it was the opposite, and a wave of monsters had erupted from within that small building, instead...
Of course, Niko had recognized the building's purpose right away — it was the entrance to the castle's dungeons.
He didn't try to enter it, though.
This area was now within the territory of the living, so it was unlikely for a large number of Abyss Spawns to still be crawling around here.
But still, if there were any corrupted creatures stumbling around in the area, they would most likely be in there. So, he decided to avoid it entirely.
Instead, he lead Hana towards the main keep, creating a path of bones that lead up to its broken doors.
The ancient doors groaned as he pulled them open, revealing the dimly lit interior of the tall building.
Niko glanced at Hana, awaiting her approval, and when she nodded at him, proceeded to enter the castle's main keep.