69novels Chapter 466-465: The Intersection of Time and Space 1
Chapter 466-465: The Intersection of Time and Space 1
Chapter 466-465: The Intersection of Time and Space 1
Only members who are about to die.
Only then will they come out to clean up the pollution. This is an ironclad rule of the African Bureau of Mysteries. After all, when pollution cannot be stopped, the people who come to deal with the pollution risks will also be carrying risks themselves.
Therefore, everyone who comes to handle such an incident is considered a consumable resource, and naturally, those whose lives are about to reach the end of their depravity should be chosen.
They are silent victims.
He is a hero.
There is no doubt about that.
The man in the black robe was fulfilling his duty on the last day of his life.
His actions were silent and efficient, like the most intricate magical construct. Starting from the relatively "ordinary" uppermost cell block, he descended layer by layer. In every empty or blood-stained cell, in every dark passageway, in every possible hiding corner, he used his unique and unreplicable magic.
That is, to carefully investigate by combining magical perception with pollution resonance.
Occasionally, he would encounter one or two people who had narrowly escaped the first wave of purges but were now suffering mental breakdowns due to fear.
Or prisoners struggling in their death throes. The man in black showed no pity or hesitation towards these people. A tap of his wand, or a silent surge of magic, and all signs of life were extinguished.
His movements were clean and swift, ensuring death was instantaneous, giving his opponent no chance to unleash a final curse or transmit a message. He quickly arrived at the underground interdimensional hall where the final battle had erupted. Here, the residual magical corruption and abyssal aura were most intense. He waved his wand, casting a powerful purification spell, but with little effect. These forces originating from the abyss were extremely stubborn, and ordinary purification methods were ineffective in eradicating them.
The man in black robes remained silent for a moment, then took out several small bottles of different materials from his robes. Inside were not traditional holy water or blessing powder, but some things that looked far more bizarre.
The silver dust shimmered with starlight, a kind of black, viscous liquid that seemed to be alive and slowly wriggling, and some unknown minerals ground into powder with a strange fragrance.
"I must do what I have to do." The man in black robes muttered to himself. He began to carefully and sparingly sprinkle the substance on the places most severely corrupted by darkness, especially on the remnants left behind by the prisoners after their self-sacrifice, where even the ashes were tinged with an ominous black.
Silver dust settled on the scorched ground, emitting a faint hissing sound and dispelling the chill of a small area. The black slime, as if alive, actively covered the traces of the abyssal shadows, slowly "devouring" or "assimil" them. Meanwhile, the mineral powder emitted strange fluctuations, seemingly interfering with the mental effects of the remaining pollution.
These substances are experimental products they have found or created over many years in their research on how to combat, or rather "pacify," similar pollution in themselves and the environment. They cannot completely purify, but they can inhibit their activity to a certain extent and prevent them from spreading further or affecting subsequent pollutants.
The man in black robes worked with extreme care, leaving no suspicious remnant unchecked. Even a seemingly ordinary pinch of ash, if it contained even a trace of abnormal energy fluctuations, he would sprinkle it with the appropriate suppressant material. The entire cleaning process was slow and tedious, but he showed no impatience whatsoever.
Time slips away in silence and busyness.
When he finally finished his final inspection of the lowest level, the one above Saruman's chamber, and sprinkled a pinch of silver dust onto a barely perceptible remnant of energy.
He stopped what he was doing.
In the entire underground prison, apart from him and Saruman in the secret chamber, there was no other living creature. All the prisoners, whether they deserved their fate or were innocent victims, had turned into cold corpses or nothingness.
He has temporarily taken control of or disabled all magical traps and alarm systems. And he has suppressed all residual pollution as much as possible.
Absolutely foolproof.
He stood at the top of the stairs leading to the lowest secret chamber, taking one last look back at the vast prison he had personally transformed into a death zone. His vertical pupils held no trace of accomplishment.
There was only a deep weariness and indifference.
"It's time to see the teacher one last time." The man in black robes turned and walked down the cold stone steps. His footsteps echoed in the empty stairwell, clear and lonely.
The entrance to the secret chamber was right before him. He could sense Saruman's vast yet restrained magical aura behind the door, like a stabilizing pillar guarding this ultimate secret.
"Are you back?" The blind old wizard Saruman remained seated quietly, as if a thousand years had not altered his posture. His empty eye sockets "looked" at the returning student. Although he had no sight, the man in the black robe could sense that his teacher knew everything that had happened above.
"Is it cleaned up?" Saruman's voice was calm and unwavering.
"Hmm." The man in black robes responded with a simple syllable. He stopped a short distance from Saruman, his black robes still spotless, but the lingering aura of blood and the abyss seemed to permeate his very soul.
Silence fell once more in the secret chamber. Only the barely audible breathing of the two figures and the faint blue magical light swirling around Saruman's fingertips, seemingly ready to rekindle memories at any moment, trembled slightly.
The clamor and death above stand in stark contrast to the antiquity and tranquility of this place. And the memories of what lies beyond the stone gate, of R'lyeh, and of the final outcome begin to unfold.
"I'm letting you know the answer because the final day is coming."
Saruman continued to use his memory magic, temporarily relieving the immediate threat, but the weight of history and the gloom of the future still weighed heavily on the hearts of the master and his apprentice.
The answer will be revealed later.
Saruman and Kag led Lina into the portal.
A dizzying, weightless sensation swept over me, as if I had traversed endless void and time. The oppressive walls of the corridor were no longer there, but instead, bizarre, wildly spinning fragments of color, like the spilled palette of the Creator, or like gazing at the madness of the universe through a kaleidoscope.
Incomprehensible noise roared in their ears, sometimes like the frenzied chatter of millions of people, and sometimes like the deathly silence of shattered stars, tearing at their defenses of reason.
"Damn it! How far have we crossed this distance?!" Saruman gripped his staff tightly, doing his best to maintain the basic spell of protecting his mind. Kag gritted his teeth and held Lina on his back even tighter, as if trying to merge her into his own bones and blood to resist the terror of crossing dimensions.
I don't know how much time passed.
Perhaps it was just a fleeting moment in consciousness.
Or perhaps it was an eternity long enough for mortal civilizations to rise and fall, and that frantic tearing sensation suddenly vanished. A solid feeling settled beneath my feet, a long-lost sense of firmness emanating from the soles of my shoes.
The surrounding scenery, like a reflection on the water, quickly stabilized and became clear.
"Where is this place?"
They stood in a world whose desolation and deathly silence defied description. The sky was an eternal and oppressive color; there was no sun, no moon, and no stars, only some unknown, uniform, and indifferent light that poured down from all directions, its source impossible to discern.
They also cannot perceive the passage of time.
Beneath my feet lay cracked, black rocks stretching to the horizon, as if the entire planet had been scorched and carbonized. The air was thick with an extremely heavy, volcanic ash-like stench, mixed with a pungent sulfurous smell, which burned my lungs when inhaled.
There was no sign of life here, no plants, no insects, not even a breeze; absolute silence was like a heavy shroud.
Enveloping everything.
"We...we're back on Earth?"
Kag looked around in disbelief, his voice hoarse from thirst and tension. Although the environment before him was as harsh as the legendary edge of hell, at least the maddening sense of confinement from the endless corridor...
And the ubiquitous whispers and buzzing have completely disappeared.
This gave him a feeling of near exhaustion, a sense of relief as if he had survived a catastrophe.
"Thank God!"
He carefully laid Lina down, letting her lean against a relatively flat black rock, while he stretched his stiff and sore shoulders, which had been stiff from carrying her for so long.
"Looks like we're still pretty lucky." Saruman also let out a long, deep sigh of relief, as if that breath had carried away the gloom that had been weighing on his chest for a long time.
On his young yet weathered face, a relaxed look, tinged with a hint of bewilderment, appeared—a look he hadn't shown since entering the ruins. He surveyed the desolate landscape, his voice filled with unbelievable joy: "It seems so!"
"Kag! We did it! We really got out of that damn place!"
"We've left that corridor from which we can never escape!"
At this moment, he even temporarily ignored the fact that Lina was still unconscious and that the marks on Kag's body had not disappeared, immersing himself in the immense joy of escaping the cage.
Hope, like a spark that suddenly ignites in the darkness, dispels some of the despair.
"Let's go save Lina!"
Without the slightest hesitation, Saruman immediately raised his staff, concentrated, and began chanting a teleportation spell to return to his well-protected and comfortable magic tower on the western continent. He had practiced this spell countless times; he knew it as well as he breathed a sigh of relief. The incantation flowed smoothly from his lips, powerful magic surging within him, pointing his staff towards the void, attempting to tear through space and establish a stable passage home.
However, the magic that surged forth seemed to sink into the ocean without creating any ripples in space.
The anticipated spatial distortions and folded light and shadows did not materialize. He remained firmly standing on the charred rock, surrounded by an eternal, deathly silence.
"Huh? 1"
Saruman's smile froze instantly, solidifying and shattering like ice. A flicker of astonishment crossed his eyes. Unwilling to give up, he tried again, even increasing his magical output, causing the crystal at the tip of his staff to emit a blinding light due to overload. The result was still the same—no response.
The teleportation technique failed completely in this strange place!
"What happened? The teleportation spell failed?" His voice trembled slightly, as his newly ignited hope was doused with ice water.
Kag quickly regained his composure from his brief moment of euphoria. His warrior instincts kicked in, and he gripped the hilt of his greatsword tightly. His sharp gaze, like that of a hawk, swept over every inch of the seemingly calm yet eerily unsettling land, his muscles tensing once more. "Perhaps—we haven't completely escaped the shroud of that eerie ruin?"
He analyzed in a deep voice, trying to find a reasonable explanation: "This area may be interfered with by some more powerful and invisible force, just like it interfered with our sense of direction in the corridor before. Now it is interfering with spatial magic."
This makes a lot of sense.
"That is indeed a possibility." Saruman frowned, forcing himself to think calmly.
Kag's analysis was not without merit. The strangeness and power of the Cthulhu Ruins far exceeded any of their previous understanding, and its influence could not possibly be limited to the underground corridors alone. This seemingly "surface" desolate world was very likely still part of the Ruins, or even the outer perimeter of its core area.
That makes sense.
He agreed, his gaze sweeping across the endless wasteland beneath the dim, yellow sky. "We can't just sit here and wait to die. If we move forward, perhaps we can leave this core interference zone and the magic will return to normal."
They exchanged a glance, both seeing a renewed determination in each other's eyes. Hope, though thwarted, was not entirely extinguished. They carried the unconscious Lina back on their backs, composed themselves, and began their arduous journey across the rocky, seemingly abandoned land.
The black rocks underfoot are hard and sharp, requiring extra caution when walking on them.
The pervasive dust and sulfurous smell in the air made it difficult for them to breathe and caused a burning sensation in their throats.
Looking around, there was nothing but monotonous darkness and dim yellow light.
There was no water, no plants, no trace of life, not even a stone of a different color. This world seemed to have died at the beginning of creation and would remain so forever silent. They walked for a long time, so long that Saruman had to cast spells from time to time to relieve Kag's fatigue.
To maintain Lina's basic vital signs. The passage of time becomes blurred here, with only the endlessly repeating rocks beneath our feet and the seemingly unchanging horizon in the distance.
Just as Kag's stamina was about to reach its limit again.
As Saruman began to feel that his mana recovery rate was far behind his consumption, a blurry outline on the distant horizon gradually became clearer and larger.
That was the outline of a city.
But its appearance instantly took their breath away, instilling in them a chilling, cognitive-based fear. An invisible, heavy pressure emanated from the direction of the city, more terrifying than the whispers in the corridors; it was a physical oppression belonging to an absolutely ancient, absolutely heterogeneous, absolutely insane existence.
They involuntarily slowed their pace and approached cautiously. On the edge of the city, an enormous stone monument, seemingly torn apart by a tremendous force, lay askew in the scorched earth.
"Damn it!"
Saruman suppressed a profound mental unease and a warning that emanated from the depths of his soul.
He took a deep breath and was about to step forward, trying to concentrate all his knowledge of linguistics, semiotics, and mysticism to decipher even the simplest symbol on the stone tablet.
Hoping to find some clue about the place's name, history, or where to leave—and just then!
"Avada Kedavra!"
A voice.
A voice, utterly incongruous with the absolute stillness of their surroundings and even more so with the ancient madness of this world itself, pierced their ears like cold silver needles.
That was—Ian Prince.
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