Chapter 384 Debris of the Continen (2/2)
Above the whirlpool, the eleventh Rune appeared among the clouds. That was almost half of the number of Runes required for the ritual to be completed. Right after the eleventh Rune had appeared fully in the sky, the Elemental energy that formed everything began to distort. The outer wall of the world began to distort. With the layers of dark clouds dispersing, a moon appeared in the sky.
However, that moon was not one of the two silver moons in the Mycroft Continent. Its color was inconspicuously shady. However, the blood did not condense into its solid form as it remained in color of black and red. Its light shone upon the seawater of the great whirlpool, turning it into violent waves that looked like sea of blood.
The dimension had been switched. The interior of the black barrier completely fell into some floor in the Dark Abyss. The shady moon in some floors of Dark Abyss had also projected its power as it corrupted everything near it, causing them to putrefy and be destroyed.
Under the guidance of Chaos runes, the shady black moon shone its blood ray at the Epoch. Joshua no longer had the extra strength to change the direction of the ark. He only gritted his teeth as he attempted to speed up the ark.
”Use the Core until it melts! Full speed ahead!”
In the middle of the captain's cabin, the red-haired old man was giving his command. Many of the crews with weaker strength were unconscious after experiencing the intense trembling and the influence of the Dark Abyss, leaving only the elite grade veterans and the vice-captain who had the strength of a Silver-intermediate conscious. But they were also barely hanging on.
”Yes! Magic Enhanced Engine Overdrive, Core Detonation Particle, full speed ahead!”
The remaining technicians immediately carried out the command given by their captain and instantly readjusted the function of the ark. The engine of the ark instantly exploded loudly. Right at the heart of the Epoch, the gigantic enchanted core began to overload, the magic particle of the core that maintained the transfer of energy to the ark had completely shut down. In just a few minutes, the power system of the giant ark would self-destruct to provide the ark with energy a few times higher than it normally did.
Boom! Cracking! Rumbling! Boom–
Right at the bottom floor of the Epoch, the waterproof cabins that were now useless was shattered into pieces by the tremendous force of the explosion. The next place that got blown up was the cargo bay where Black and Funa were. The insanely powerful Magic energy that was unleashed by the 'Core Detonation Protocol' had been turned into the momentum that pushed the ark forward at full speed at the cost of dismantling the ark piece by piece.
The Church of the Seven Gods seemed to have foreseen that. They came prepared with a plan that covered every possibility that they could think of. As long as the magic circle at the core of the ark remained intact, they would be able to guide everyone on board the ark back to their world. The body of the ark was insignificant.
With the support of that push, the white ark flew straight towards the Abyssal rift at its top speed as its body slowly dismantled one part after another and slowly turned into a broken ark.
Joshua who was standing at the bow, saw the Abyssal rift getting larger by the second as they approached it at top speed. The presence of the Dark Abyss was also getting stronger as they moved nearer to the rift. The warrior was overwhelmed with excitement. That was a charge that was much stronger than any charge he had performed in the past, both past life and this life–after all, the warrior did not get a chance to sail on a gigantic ark in his past life!
At the moment before the Epoch entered the dimensional rift, at the centermost of the body of that ark which had already broken to the point that it no longer looked like an ark, parts of it that remained intact suddenly gleamed with a flash of warm holy power. That wave of energy behaved like water and began to cover the remaining of the ark entirely, forming a strange oval shield.
The Epoch was completely submerged into the dimensional rift. The ray of bloody moonlight that was on their tail vanished without a trace after losing its target.
In the sky, the twelfth Chaos rune slowly appeared.
With the unpredictably ferocious waves, the ark was completely submerged into the dimensional rift. Joshua who remained standing at the bow could see that everything before his eyes were floating and looming around the Epoch before disappearing. Through the transparent barrier of holy light, he could also see the scenery on the other side of the dimensional rift. A world of red. Blood moon lingered in the sky. There were mountains levitating in the sky as well. Right beneath those mountains was an endless pit of void.
There was nothing connecting any of those levitating mountains. Many of the mountains were already shattered and reduced into debris and dust. The dimensional rift was activated above all of them. The dark shady sea water gushed out of the rift like a gigantic waterfall as the water poured towards the bottom of the Dark Abyss.
The broken white ark came through the rift and remained floating in midair. Unlike the sea water, the ark managed float in midair by relying on the acceleration they obtained by activating the 'Core Detonation Protocol' where they melted the core to gain power. Joshua and Funa had also distributed their power on the ark as well. The ark continued to fly in the air in a curved line as it made its way towards a mountain formed from a set of black rocks.
”Impact ahead! Brace yourselves!”
Roland's eyes widened as he stared at the black rock mountain that grew larger by the second as they approached it at a high speed—in fact, that mountain looked even larger than an intermediate-scale island at the sea. It would be an understatement to call it a mountain–it was a horrible sight. Even though the Epoch was tough, it would definitely be torn into pieces if it were to crash into a mountain that was purely formed from a pile of giant rocks at that speed.
”Stop talking, Roland! Concentrate!”
Robzek let out a raging roar as he immediately lifted his hands. Runes appeared around his body. The blond-haired holy knight responded to the situation at last as he charged himself up with his holy light and his combat aura as fast as he could.
When the broken ark was about to collide into the mountainous island, two gigantic light wheels suddenly appeared on both sides of the ark. The light wheels came into contact with the surface of the black rock first as they smashed into the rocks, shattering the surface of the rocks into pieces of tiny rocks. After that, using that momentum as the force, the wheels rapidly spun as they brought the ark forward.
Instantly, the Epoch was like a strange flying ark-shaped car with two gigantic wheels on each side. It force-landed in the internal area of the floating island.
The surface of the ground collapsed and was shattered by the impact of the two rolling light wheels. Rocks and dust floated outside. The entire ground made of black rock was plowed with a long and deep trench all the way through in a straight line.
At the bottom of a long grand canyon, the Epoch gradually slowed down until it stopped. The deck was pretty messed up. Everyone on board of the deck was almost thrown off the ark. Everyone was out a breath but relieved that they were still alive—Funa hugged Hill tightly. The draconic lady had plunged both of her legs into the deck as she attempted to resist the thrashing force of the ark as it crash-landed moments ago.
The three members of the church used their own holy light to balance themselves and prevented themselves from getting tossed out during the crash. Joshua did almost the same thing. However, the black draconic girl who almost fainted because of the immense jolting force of the crash hung onto the warrior.
Back in the cabin, almost all of the crews had lost their consciousness. Some of them had even sustained heavy injuries during the crash. However, there was no one there to attend to their injuries. Hence, their fates were in the hands of the gods.
After shaking his head while regaining conscious, Joshua looked around him. They were currently in the middle of a grand canyon. There was no end to it by the looks of it. The ark was at the bottom of the canyon. It was probably a few thousands meters deep. The two sides of the canyon and its ground were of bizarre-looking black rocks.
As everyone had yet to catch their breath after the crash, the warrior decided to scout through the terrain. However, as he was observing the surroundings, Joshua sensed that something was not right–the surface at the bottom of the canyon was a little too smooth as if it was being polished by something. Other than the trench that was formed by the impact of the ark while it attempted to land, there was no sign of any dent nor bulge on the surface of the ground. That was definitely not natural.
Recalling his past memories, while the Epoch was landing, the warrior had a glimpse of the floating islands. The moment he recalled the images of those islands, Joshua instantly realized that the floating island was a fragment of a complete continent. The gigantic canyon that they were in was actually a gigantic mark… that was left by some sort of weapon!
After slowly taking breaths, the warrior thought deeper. He was shocked—if everything was as he thought, then how fierce was the battle that happened in the plains of the Dark Abyss be? How horrifying was the battle that even the continent was destroyed and shattered? How was there a mark that was a few thousand meters deep across the shattered continent?