Chapter 1313 - The Old World (1/2)
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Evening twilight covered the entire landscape. The stars were blotted out by the power of Chaos as well as the endless shroud of dark clouds and dusk. The plant-life were dead and twisted, the mountains torn, and the land desolate. Even the eternal fortress created by the goddess could not stand the corruption after it lost its blessings. It was nothing but ruins.
Many years ago, a survivor of the Eternal Battlefield had penned down the scene of the old world in his memoirs.
Under the guidance of the Lord of Mountains, Hao Ren and the rest came to the surface. This was supposed to be a great door to the sacred repository at the base of Mount Asurmen. A massive white marble door should have stood there, with pristine statues lining the wide, paved main road, and after it was the grand cathedral area. But yet what they saw was a dark, upward facing cavern. After climbing out of the cave, they only saw an endless stretch of barren land, and a dreary eventide skyline with dark clouds roiling over the horizon. Eerie wind wails could be heard all across the barren land.
This was the first thing Hao Ren saw the moment he got out of the cave. And this scene was familiar to him. He recalled seeing the same image in the illusion and immediately turned back towards Asurmen’s direction.
Many turned back as he did, and the cacophony of gasps was audible.
Mount Asurmen was gone, and in its place stood a massive mirror-like pillar. This sky-scrapping pillar looked like it was made out of pure silver to reflect light. It stretched from the ground all the way into the sky. Its surface was smooth without any dents, and from its glossy mirror surface, what was reflected was not the desolate land around them, but the valleys and rivers of another dimension.
Hao Rem immediately recognized the scene: Collow.
This is the Realm of Reflections, or what it appears in a three-dimensional space.” Geddon’s voice thundered. “The mirror tower is the precursor before the dream. Many years ago, we used this tower while in our dreams to determine our location within the nightmare realm, but now that the nightmare had reached the final defense perimeter, the tower lost its purpose.”
As he said, Geddon pointed towards a dark shadow on the barren land. “That is the Eventide Citadel. At least two thousand years ago, it was a well-equipped fortress with full-sized regiments as it basked in the light and blessing of the Mother. Our weapons of war and puppet armies filled the armories. Day and night, the warden’s army would fight alongside the brave souls from the ‘real world’ against the minions of Lockmarton. Oh, that was the time where the corruption had not spread to this point. There were still cycles of night and day, unlike the eternal dusk now.”
Hao Ren looked at the ‘Eventide Citadel’ that Geddon spoke of and found much difficulty in imagining its former glorious form. It was now a desolate land with charred rocks and twisted towers. The wind wailed from all around and there was no life within the broken walls.
Hao Ren opened his Dimensional Pocket and deployed about half of his probes and all of his droids out and set them on a wide-range scanning mode to scout the lay of the land. With the MDT back at his side, the high-speed data processing network was restored and his exploratory gadgets in his pocket could now function normally. Otherwise, the high tech probes could only operate on a basic setup and supply him information based on his mental capacity, thus limiting its capabilities.
“So this is the Forgotten Abyss…” Calaxus spoke softly. His earlier injury had been fully healed by Wuyue’s series of restorative spells and could move as normal. “I never though that it was such a vast place…”
“Looks very familiar don’t they?” Geddon pointed towards the mountain range in the distance. “The horizon there, those mountains, seen them before right?”
“That’s….” A church knight exclaimed. “The geography is the same as the Sanctum?!”
“But just the Sanctum, but the entirety of Collow,” Geddon said as he went forward with great strides. As he woke he continued, “While there are quite a few disjoints in the area, but for every matching area, the Forgotten Abyss is a copy of the Collow you know… or vice versa.”
Hao Ren was wondering what Geddon meant with that gibberish before he heard Wuyue’s yelping behind him and almost running him over in her rolled-up form. Only by sidestepping did he managed to avoid falling flat on his face. As he was about to turn around to berate the happy-go-lucky siren, he saw a scene that sent a chill down his spine.