Once Hana finally decided she had enjoyed pretending to be a queen long enough, the two of them walked out of the ruined throne room.
Niko decided that they should explore the castle a bit more, hoping that they might find something useful left behind. But searching thoroughly through the whole castle would be a mammoth's task with just the two of them.
So, he decided to get some help. He raised his hand and glanced at Hana who, understanding what he was about to do, nodded and took a few steps back.
Niko's body started glowing as mystical power poured out of it, the air around him crackling with energy.
He waved a hand and a pulse of green light spread through the castle, raising dozens of dead bodies of different shapes and sizes — some were humanoid, most were animals.
With a mental command from Niko, they all spread out in different directions, searching every inch of the castle.
Niko closed his eyes, instead viewing the world through the eyes of the dead. He saw what they saw, heard what they heard, his mind getting flooded with information from countless different perspectives.
It wasn't easy, his mind felt like it would melt — and it probably would have if he wasn't a Spirit — but he held on, gritting his teeth as he beared the strain.
Within minutes, the dead scoured the entire castle — searching every room and hallway, every box and bucket — but they failed to find anything useful that was still in one piece.
Just as Niko was about to give up the search, one of the dead found something in one of the rooms.
It was another device with a glass panel in it, but this one didn't depict any images when it was turned on. Instead, it showed pages filled with someone's writing.
It was a diary.
Niko doubted he'd find much in it, but still decided to have it brought to him, reading it simply out of curiosity.
He swiped from page to page, skimming through the text. It was written in an ancient language, and while it was a language he had been learning from Leta, he wasn't fluent enough to understand everything written in the old diary.
From what he could understand, however, he inferred that the diary belonged to a young prince — a sibling of the king of that time.
Most of the pages were filled with things about the prince's day to day life or his personal thoughts, which Niko really wasn't interested in reading.
In the last few pages of the diary, however, Niko some interesting things.
The important parts that he managed to understand read:
"...there's been news of some giant monsters rampaging through the land, but I know there's no need to worry, they wouldn't stand a chance against our forces..."
"...a weird looking creature tried to climb the city walls when I was there on a visit today. The stupid thing died right away, though!"
"...there's been more and more of those gross monsters in the vicinity of the city during these past few days, but brother said he'd send a team of Mecha Knights to deal with them. I bet those robots will take care of it within a day..."
"...the team of Mecha Knights we sent still hasn't come back, there's no way they were beaten, right?"
"...the city walls are under siege. There's thousands of those weird beasts surrounding the city from all sides. Brother says that he'll deploy all of our weapons to wipe them out, though, so I'm not worried..."
"...a monster got inside the city. The Mecha Knights killed it, of course, but so many people died by then..."
"...monsters are breaking into the city day after day. The Mecha Knights are having trouble killing them all in time..."
"...I saw someone die. Someone actually died in front of my eyes. There head, it...it was crushed and the blood — the blood got all over my face...
"...why? Why is it taking so long?! Why won't our forces wipe those monsters out already?! I'm tired of this. I'm tired of staying locked up in the castle, hearing people's screams coming from outside the walls..."
"...they won't stop. The screams, the deaths, they just won't stop. Every time I look out through the window, there's blood everywhere on the streets! Even most of the Mecha Knights have been destroyed or are malfunctioning. I...I'm scared..."
"...I tried to tell brother that we should take the people and escape while we can, but he said he can still win this battle. He said that everyone can just escape through the secret passage in the throne room if things take a turn for the worse..."
"...I could see some things far out in the horizon when I looked outside this morning. They was enormous. It looked like they were coming our way..."
"...one of them got inside. One of those monsters actually got inside the castle! It killed many of the servants and even got inside the dungeon and killed everyone inside. The castle's Mecha Knights killed it in the end, but still..."
"...there's strange noises coming from the dungeons now. I've told brother about it again and again, but he says I'm just imagining it..."
"...they came out of the dungeon — dozens of those disgusting monsters. We're all locked up inside our rooms while the guards fight them. My brother — that spineless coward — took his personal guards and escaped through the hidden passageway as soon as he saw them, leaving us all to die!"
"They're all dead — all of the guards died while killing off those monsters. The castle's Mecha Knights have all been destroyed, the soldiers are losing the battle over at the city walls, and those giants are getting closer and closer..."
"...we did it — we found a way to escape! I found an old map that shows the entrance to a tunnel hidden under the statue of the first king. We can use it to escape to safety if we can stall the monsters long enough..."
"...It's been decided — the soldiers will stay back and buy us time while we take everyone else left in the city and escape through the tunnel. We'll be saved, we'll finally get out of this hell!"
And that was the end of it — there was nothing else written in the diary after that.
But it was enough.
Niko looked at Hana and gave her a firm nod, telling her that he had found a way out.
A hidden tunnel!
The two of them promptly exited the castle, heading back towards the park, where the large, golden statue stood.
This must have been it — the statue of the first king.
Niko took a moment to look over the statue. He had a hunch that one of the many jewels embedded into the statue was actually a hidden switch that would cause the tubnel's entrance to appear.
But he had no way of telling which one it was.
While he was busy thinking, trying to figure out which gem to press, Hana simply summoned her vines and used them to press on all of the gems at once.
Most of them didn't react, but one of the gems clicked as it was pushed inwards, causing the whole statue to start shuddering.
Then, with a deafening creak, the massive statue slid to one side, revealing an entrance with a set of winding stairs that lead down into a tunnel below.
The wind whistled as it blew out through the entrance, carrying with it the smell of damp soil and decaying moss.
Niko turned to look at Hana with a pleasantly surprised expression, to which she responded with a bright, and slightly smug, smile.
Using your head was a good thing, but why waste time when there was a simpler option?
Shaking her head with a scoff, she walked ahead, descending the flight of stairs to enter the tunnel.
Niko was about to follow after her, but then he suddenly stopped, looking back at the city with a distant expression.
He could still hear them — the thousands of trapped souls crying out for help, for mercy.
They wailed and cried, begging to be freed from the endless void of their own corpses.
These were the souls of the city's people — this was the fate they met in the end.
They screamed in agony, desperate to be freed from the lightless, soundless void.
But Niko didn't help — not this time.
Not all in need deserved help, and not all souls deserved to be freed.
After all, he still remembered it — the final images he had seen on that device the day before.
Images of a crowd gathered around the circular platform, cheering, toasting, rejoicing as they stood proudly over the people bound upon the platform.
Orcs, dwarves, harpies — people old and young from all kinds of races, all chained to the platform's surface, while the people in the crowd took turns tossing trash at their faces and plunging blades into their backs.
The crowd jeered and sung, laughed and mocked as the helpless victims screamed in agony, tears streaming down their faces while blood streamed down their backs and into the patterns carved onto the platform, fueling the river of blood that flowed through them.
Niko clenched his fists as he thought back to it all, the rage he felt back then surging forward once again.
And even if he hadn't seen those pictures to prove their crimes, even if he had been blind to the arrogance and pride that was poured into every object of this city, even then, he could still see their souls.
The vile, festering souls that had completely decayed — not by the rot of the Abyss, but by the rot of their own evil deeds.
Reviving people like them would only give them a chance to do more harm.
Niko wasn't even concerned that they would be taken by the Abyss.
In fact, he wouldn't have worried about that even if they were in a No-Man's Land, where the Abyss's influence was far stronger.
Because not even the Abyss cared to take over souls like these, as if inhabiting them would be an insult to it.
So, Niko saw no reason at all to bring such evil back into the world.
No, they would just have to wait — counting every agonizing moment till Death comes to take them away, just like their captives had done.
And then...then it was up to Death herself to decide what to do with them.
With that thought, Niko turned away, leaving behind the screaming city of damned souls.