Chapter 508 - Thoreau the Soul Devourer (1/2)

Chapter 508: Thoreau the Soul Devourer

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

On the beach of the mysterious island

“How is it? Can you break the spatial rune?” asked Gretel.

On the beach, Gretel reclined on a chair magically sculpted with sand, basking under the sun. As Link had already far surpassed her on the subject of spatial magic, she chose not to interfere with his work.

Link carefully observed the transparent runes carved into the space on the other side of the beach. A long while later, he nodded. “I can break it, but I may need half a day to do so, and I fear our opponent would not be so generous as to give us that much time.”

As soon as he broke the rune, whoever cast it in the first place would surely come for them. The island was the enemy’s territory; both Link and Gretel may not be his equal here.

“What should we do then?” asked Gretel, though she did not seem flustered. Judging from Link’s calm demeanor, Gretel assumed that he must have some sort of plan up in his sleeve.

Link paced in circles on the beach. Finally, he said, “The longer we wait, the more prepared our opponent will be on this island. Since he’s deliberately locked us in here, we’ll just have to force him to come to us.”

Gretel immediately understood what he meant. She said, laughing, “Sounds like a great plan. Then break the seal, while I’ll wait for him to come here.”

Link nodded and pulled out the Dragon King’s Fury sword. From the sword’s tip radiated a red light, which then pierced the air in front of him.

He had begun the rune-breaking process, but his intention was not to actually break the magical seal but rather to draw the enemy out.

Eight minutes later, a rune had crumbled, and a crack formed on the rune formation. The surrounding runes began to glimmer and align themselves back in place. In an instant, the crack was closed back up again.

A crack caused by the rupture of one rune could be healed up without any problem. If ten or a hundred or even a thousand of those runes were to break at the same time, the resulting crack could be irreparable.

Five minutes later, a second rune crumbled. A crack then closed itself up just as quickly as it had reappeared.

After breaking those two runes, Link felt that he had enough practice. He then proceeded to break a rune at two-minute intervals, but there were just too many runes covering the whole island. Just chipping away at a few runes would not affect the whole thing, and the whole magic seal around the island remained as sturdy as before.

But this was only temporary.

Though the rune formation seemed perfect, after losing ten or so runes, a few places on it had begun showing discordance. All he needed to do was to keep on breaking the runes till everything collapsed.

When Link had broken through more than 50 runes, Gretel, who had been lazily lounging on the beach all this time under the sun and sea breeze, suddenly sat up. “He’s coming!”

Link nodded and continued his work. “He’s a bit slower to react than I had expected. If he were any slower, I would have been done with the whole rune formation.”

In case the enemy had not yet noticed the state of his magic seal, Link did not stop breaking the runes. On the other side, Gretel stood up, and her body began swirling with a bright light. In a flash, the light condensed into a gleaming dragon-scaled battle dress on her. She held in her hand an elegant-looking one-handed sword. The weapon itself emanated a soft red glow, indicating that it too was a legendary weapon.

Link looked at her, somewhat surprised. “Your Highness, you can use a sword?”

Gretel smiled. “I’ve learned many things in the past 2000 years. Though I don’t normally use a sword, I might just be better at it than you.”

“Maybe.” Link chuckled.

At that moment, a black spot had appeared in the sky. A few seconds later, the black spot expanded into the figure of a man with a black robe billowing around him. Another ten seconds later, the figure was already within 300 feet away. He hovered in mid-air, and a voice came from him. “Ah, I seem to have caught two dragons. Today’s catch has certainly exceeded all my expectations.”

Link looked up and saw an extremely beautiful young man in the air. He was wearing a black magic robe with golden linings. With black hair and white, almost flawless skin, he was a beauty to behold by human standards. However, Link was not concerned with his looks. He intently felt for his opponent’s aura which was almost imperceptible.