Chapter 615: Ghost Fire

Ilya lowered her head, looking at the noodle‑shaped Magic Staff in her palm, then raised her head again, gazing at the endless ruins around her.

Her lips moved as if to speak, but the thought was so absurd that her mind spun several times without being able to digest it.

"So…"

Her voice was a little airy, "Are we… inside a person's stomach right now?"

Ruby was silent for a moment.

"Given the current situation… yes."

Ilya lowered her head, looking at her foot standing on broken tiles, then raised her hand, touching her face, then her arm, then her belly.

She felt nothing—no pain, no itch, no discomfort, even a bit more spirited than before, except her hair—

She reached out to her hair; the strand hanging from her forehead slipped through her fingertips, feeling soft and slightly cool, but the color was wrong.

She pulled that strand up to her eyes and stared at it for a long time.

Deep violet, exactly the same hue as that purple‑haired woman's, hanging from her forehead down to her shoulders, the tips even darker, almost black.

She remembered her hair being silver‑white.

But now that silver was completely gone, leaving only an abyssal deep purple.

Her hand fell, the strand slipping from her fingers onto her shoulder, forming an indescribably eerie contrast with the gray‑stained pink dress she wore.

"Ruby…"

Her voice was very soft, as if asking herself, "Am I… about to become something strange too?"

A flicker of light glimmered on the staff's shaft.

"Checked… there's nothing abnormal on you… Mana Circuit normal… heartbeat normal… body temperature normal… everything normal…"

Ilya opened her mouth, wanting to say "Is this what you call normal?" but she lowered her head, saw the limp Magic Staff in her palm, and swallowed the words again.

"Then what do we do next?"

Ruby remained silent for a long time, long enough that Ilya thought it had fallen asleep again.

"First… let's try walking… we have to figure out… what this place is…"

Ilya nodded, carefully slipped the limp Magic Staff into her bosom, snug against her chest.

The staff bent into an arc, fitting perfectly into a fold of her clothing, neither falling out nor digging in.

She stood, brushed the dust off her skirt; the pink dress was covered with gray‑white debris, and a few pats didn't clean it, so she just left it.

She lifted her head and looked around.

Everywhere looked the same.

Broken columns, shattered tiles, ruined steles, toppled stone statues—all the same, gray‑hazy, dead‑still, with no visible edge.

She arbitrarily chose a direction, took a few steps, then stopped, glancing back at the spot where she had just lain.

The humanoid indentation was quickly filled by dust blown in from elsewhere, as if she had never lain there.

Ilya turned her head and kept walking forward.

Her boots struck the broken tiles, each step producing a faint clatter that echoed through the open ruins, as if someone far away were walking to the same rhythm.

After walking for a while, she realized the ruins weren't haphazardly piled—those vermilion broken columns, though split into pieces, had continuous grain at the fracture, able to be reassembled.

The carved window lintels, though scattered, bore repeating identical patterns.

The bluish‑gray tiles, though piled messily, each shared the same size and curvature, as if torn from the same roof.

Someone smashed a whole building to pieces and carelessly dumped the fragments here.

But who smashed it? Why smash it? And after smashing, why dump the shards here?

Ilya couldn't figure it out, so she stopped trying.

She cradled Ruby in her arms and walked forward step by step.

The surroundings grew darker; the gray‑white sky above had turned into a deeper gray at some point, like the last twilight glow swallowed by clouds—neither black nor gray, just obscuring everything.

Yet it wasn't total darkness—something glowed in the distance, green and faint, as if someone far away had lit a lamp, its light passing through mist into a vague halo floating in the dark.

Ilya halted and stared at that halo for a long time.

The halo wasn't still; it drifted very slowly, as if something were carrying it through the ruins.

"Ruby…"

She lowered her voice, "What is that?"

The Magic Staff in her bosom gave no answer.

The faint glow on the staff's shaft had dimmed to almost invisible, only the small spot against her chest retained a slight warmth, like the even breathing of a sleeping person.

Ilya didn't ask further, merely shoved Ruby back into her arms and walked toward the halo.

She placed her steps lightly, each foot landing on where she had just stood, trying not to make a sound.

The halo drew nearer.

She saw clearly it wasn't a single lamp but many—some as small as a fist, others as big as a watermelon, irregular in shape, some rounder, some flatter, edges blurry, like melted candles.

They floated a short distance above the ground, moving slowly without a fixed direction, sometimes clustering, sometimes dispersing, like dandelion seeds blown by wind.

The light was green, like a cat's eyes in deep winter night reflecting moonlight.

Ghost Fire.

Ilya's back grew cold in waves, her fingers clutching Ruby so tightly her knuckles turned white.

She stood still, watching the green specks drift slowly through the ruins, alternating near and far, flashing on and off, stretching the shadows of broken columns and ruined steles into long, thin silhouettes on the ground, like countless withered fingers reaching from the wreckage toward nothing.

The ghost fires floated for a while, then suddenly all stopped at once.

They hovered mid‑air, motionless, like a swarm of fireflies startled by something, all lights pointing toward the same direction—the direction Ilya faced.

Ilya held her breath, daring not to move, not even blinking.

The ghost fires hung silently there, their pale green glow bathing her face, turning her small visage ashen and making her deep‑violet hair appear even more uncanny.

Ilya's shadow was cast by those lights from all directions onto the surrounding ruins, several shadows overlapping together, as if many people were standing beside her.

After a long while, those ghostly flames moved.

They did not drift toward Ilya, but spread out one by one, drifting into deeper darkness, like a flock of fireflies that have lost their home, wandering among the ruins.

The largest ghostly flame drifted the slowest; it lingered in front of Ilya for a moment, as if watching her, then slowly drifted away.

Ilya stood there, her legs a bit weak, her palms sweating.

She lowered her head to glance at the ruby in her bosom, the faint glow on the staff's shaft still so dim, the small patch of warmth pressed against her chest unchanged, as if deep in sleep.

She took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly, then lifted her foot and continued forward.

In the distance, more ghostly flames were drifting.