Chapter 348: We Found Your Grandfather! (1/2)

In here, there was no sun, moon or stars.

Only darkness.

However, claiming that there was no sky in here and that there was only a pitch-black ceiling would be a little incorrect.

If there had been a bird flying in a straight line upwards, it would never reach the ‘ceiling’ even if it flew ten thousand years and rose dozens of thousand miles above the ground.

Still, if one had to say it, the height within this space was not really significant even if it was endless.

And while there was no sun, moon or star in here, the space in here (the ground, specifically) was not actually dark.

That was thanks to the massive crystal formations that stood over the ground over several or even dozens of meters, each of which glowed dimly in milky-white or emerald radiance.

While the radiance of just one or two crystal pillars would be faint, but like the trees in a rainforest, the countless crystals here were radiating enough light to illuminate every inch of the ground.

When sufficiently elevated, one would see that the ground was actually square like a chessboard, and anyone walking over one edge would appear on the opposite edge, which was why there was no horizon here.

And at the center of the ground was a bottomless, deep crater, the outside of which was covered in a blue net composed of light.

Upon a closer look, innumerable black freakish being were attempting to escape from the crater at bottom of the net, but were firmly stopped by the net!

And beside the net were two figures.

One was a spiny old man who was so skinny that he looked no different from a skeleton covered in human skin from a single glance.

The other was a lanky male elf who did not really look special. “How are things now?” The old man asked then.

His voice was dry and hoarse, even hurting to the ears.

Naturally, he was Eleena’s maternal grandfather: Tyler Meredith.

“The Clearance of the Faint Crystal Stratum has changed hands.” The lanky elf—the other automaton which the old man had found in this very elven ruin answered reverently. “According to the blood test, she should be your granddaughter.”

The old man smiled in satisfaction.

“Is that so… well, all I have to do now is continue suppressing these monsters coming from the Deep Wall Stratum.”

He heaved a breath. The elven stone over his chest was not very radiant now, and anyone could imagine that it would go out at any given moment. “I don’t know how long I would last either.”

***

The truth was that the old man’s lifeforce was almost depleted when he triggered the explosion on Crookes, and he would have died if the elven stone did not keep him alive.

And this place was naturally the Faint Crystal Stratum, the only stratum which he could control.

That said, he couldn’t actually control much of it either aside from several automatons, the Pyrocrystal Cannon, and some secondary weapons.

In fact, many automatons that had gone out of control wandered the Faint Crystal Stratum itself. The old man had attempted to wipe them out at first and use the entire stratum as his own warehouse, but he gave up on that after losing two good automatons in his attempts.

And with a single automaton left now, he naturally did not dare to keep goofing around and did the only thing he could: leading the automatons discreetly to the central area to hold back the things coming from the Deep Wall Stratum with the power of the elven stone.

“Master, I seem to hear the sounds of fighting.” The lanky automaton reported to the old man then.