Chapter 1294 - Journey to Sanctum (2/2)

“You guys will come with me,” Lily said while waving her hand. “Size does matter when it comes to fighting.”

The beasts broke into a commotion again as they all expressed their support.

After a month long of an arduous journey, the Sanctum investigators almost looked like a group of refugees. They had lost all their belongings when the Sacred Hammer airship they flew fell into the Chaos. The supplies they had gotten from Fort Raven were tucked inside the dimensional bags of Calaxus and his deputy. Hao Ren and Lily were also traveling light as they kept all their stuff in the dimensional pocket. The beasts needed little but food, which they could acquire along the way.

Everyone was ready to depart after a short ten minutes of preparation. The groups gathered in front of the portal and crossed the gateway under the instruction of Lady Gloom.

As soon as entering the portal, Hao Ren felt his surroundings began to spin, disoriented his senses. Strange scenes flashed past his eyes as endless darkness and streams of light appeared in his field of vision. The vision looked almost identical to the illusion that he had when he fell into the Cassouin Grand Temple.

Either it was the default condition of the magic of Lady Gloom or the storm of Chaos was interfering heavily with the portal; the teleportation was not a comfortable experience.

But the discomfort was short-lived; Hao Ren had only experienced about ten seconds of dizziness before a light flashed around him and his vision stabilized.

He found himself standing on a hill, and one by one, beams of light flashed around him. Men and beasts, unable to stand on their feet because of the disorientation, began to fall out from the teleporting light and throw up big time.

Hao Ren realized that he had held up better than anyone else.

At last, Lily fell out of the gateway. Feeling dizzy, the husky landed on four. It took her a while before Lily realized she needed to walk upright. The husky then staggered up to Hao Ren, who shoved her to the other direction. “Go that way if you are throwing up!”

After a moment, several bear monsters, carrying a large cage, had also passed through the portal.

The cage contained a mysterious monster, of which even Hao Ren could not figure out what it was. Before finding out the origins and secrets of the Shadow of Nightmares, Calaxus did not want to free or kill it. So they had to bring the monster together.

The last person to go through the portal was the magic caster, Lady Gloom. Compared with the others, the mysterious woman seemed to have not been affected by the disorientation. She walked out of the gateway steadily as light dissipated around her. Glancing at the others, Lady Gloom said, “There has been a strong interference. To be able to maintain the portal open was the best I could do under this circumstance.”

“That’s good enough,” Calaxus said while bending over and gasping. “I have never thought that it would work.”

A moment later, the soldiers of the Sanctum investigation team regained their senses and found the strange environment around them.

It was indeed Sanctum but was no longer a familiar place.

“This is Sanctum?” A church knight stood on the top of a hill and looked into the horizon. He was in disbelief. “Goddess, please protect us. The power of Chaos has gotten in.”

Dark clouds were hanging low with shadows lurking around the hills. There was a faint light behind the cloudy sky as natural sunlight had faded behind the clouds, becoming a shimmer. Peeking through the gaps between the clouds was a layer of faint light, the shield of Order, which in the eyes of Hao Ren, had almost disappeared.

Hao Ren stood on a hill and looked around. A blanket of haze was shrouding the land while faint images of the human settlements spread in his field of vision. The cold light seemed dull and devoid of liveliness.

It was the pure land in the legend of Collow’ worldly kingdom, always enshrouded in the sacred light, the goddess of creation’s last miracle: Sanctum.

It had been eroded.

“This is indeed Sanctum,” Calaxus froze when he saw the scene. But Calaxus was mentally prepared and strong as a senior monk. He forced himself to calm down. “We should be near Lu’an, some distance away from Fidelinopolis. But I’m not sure about our exact location.”

All eyes were on Lady Gloom. Everyone was waiting for the mysterious woman to speak.