Chapter 514 Walking the Dragon in the Abyss (1/2)
The Imperial Capital, the chief's office in the Royal Mage Guild.
”I could mostly discern your intent from your request.”
Behind the table, the new Legendary mage had identified the dimensional coordinates that resonated with the residual undulation in one-tenth of a second. He looked up towards the young man before him, and frowned.
”You're going to the Abyss?”
”Yeah,” Joshua replied dryly. ”I want to.”
Nostradamus shook his head slightly. ”Nothing in this world could stop you,” he said a little helplessly, ”you can do anything if you want to, but I must affirm one fact.”
With those words, he leaned on the comfortable armchair and raised his right hand to rub his forehead as if in reminiscence. ”The Abyss is extremely dangerous—to everyone and not just Legendary. Even the gods have to tread carefully there.”
Because it was a dead world. In that dimension where things decay and vanish bit by bit, many unimaginable yet immeasurably dangerous things are possible. Even eternal and invincible champions would easily fall deep within it, just like those two Pentashade dragon kings that went missing so many years ago.
”Listen, Joshua. I know the two mages Barnil and William—that dimensional ripple had Barnil's signature. They had simply and deliberately entered the Abyss, and two Legendary mages would never enter any Otherworld without preparations.”
Nostradamus attempted to dissuade Joshua after a brief moment of thought, but Joshua remained unmoved as expected, compelling the old mage who wanted to educate him with his rich life experience to be quiet.
”Well, I have no way of stopping you,” he said, shaking his head. ”Anyway, it's certain. The presence is the same—that dimensional ripple's target of teleportation is the sixth level of the Abyss.”
”Even so, you must be careful if you are really heading to the Abyss. It's different from ordinary worlds for it is where the corpses of all things assemble. Every malevolence lies within it.”
”Thanks.” On the other end, Joshua did not feel impatient regarding the old mage's rather nagging urging—he was even showing a smile. With a simple conveyance of gratitude for Nostradamus, the warrior then lowered his head and spoke with a deep voice at the thing he was carrying in his hand.
”Let's go, remember to show the way when the time comes.”
The balrog Syndicate that had been held in a transparent cylindrical crystal tube that was half a typical person's height felt the discouraging turn of events in its heart, while it watched in disenchantment the spectacle where two Legendary champions discussed about the way to enter the Abyss. However, it was impossible for it to shake off its 'cage' when its power had been largely sealed. All it could do to escape reality was to shrivel into a blob like a Slime, praying—or not, since praying to anyone was counterintuitive because it was a demon.
Joshua's actions were always so swift and decisive. Nostradamus never even picked up a hint of thought while the Legendary warrior briskly left with his black dragon mount and that captured Balrog. It appeared that he had determined his actions and his life's path a long time ago, and since then never hesitated to fulfill it.
Slowly rising from the soft sheep wool chair, Nostradamus went to his office's window and stared at the warrior's figure until he left the town, the Imperial Capital's magic circles and after Joshua's presence left his area of sensory.
It was then that he muttered softly to himself.
”It's always difficult for humans to understand each other.”
The fact was something the old mage had known for some time. Just as those nobles would never understand him, he would never understand them too.
A peasant would strive to become a champion after all sorts of 'coincidences' and enter higher ranks to become part of nobility, part of the new order as if it was logical. Then, to maintain their own position and the special rights of their descendants, they would seal the paths which other peasants could have used to rise.
What folly.
These people held legacy that could allow most people to become extraordinary people amidst this Multiverse filled with darkness and evil. However, they never thought for all men with all their heart and soul, instead pouring all efforts to subjugate their own race and ignore the countless threats and horrors of the Multiverse, focusing instead on their own little kingdoms and killing the future for meaningless, trivial powers.
This short-sightedness, this logic of nobles, was something the old man never understood.
It was a simple part of the clash, expressed in terms logic. But in truth, every single conflict would fill a two-million-word treatise since the clash of ideologies amongst humans in all aspects were endless. Just as the mage actually did not understand much in the way Israel groomed his heirs, just as he actually never understood why Joshua did the things he had done.
And yet the differences those two held did not irritate him.
It was because humans were different that they appear interesting.
Unlike the nobles, Nostradamus appreciates them, which was why he was willing to help them.
Of course—it was not solely for that reason, the old mage thought. He shifted his gaze away from the window and smiled as he sat behind the desk again. Closing his eyes, his thoughts drifted into nothingness.
Most importantly, he wanted to see that storms the ever-restless young warrior would kick up in the Abyss that had long fallen into silence amidst the Multiverse.
Meanwhile, as the Abyssal Grimoire wailed shrilly amidst the unoccupied grass plains on the outskirts of the Multiverse, Joshua brutally forced the Book of Eibon again to open a summoning dimensional rift towards the Abyss.
Air welling in stillness, oppression, sulfuric odors, and concentrated toxic emissions surged out of the portal. As the huge amounts of toxic air incessantly pour out from the higher air-pressure of the Abyss, the emerald grass plains of spring immediately yellowed and withered. Although the balrog that was still inside its cage could not sense the change in scents of the outside world, it still subconsciously squirmed its highly toxic radioactive body to try sneaking back to its home.
However, both the warrior and the black dragon girl who stood behind him had a nonchalant expression—that little sulfuric scent and toxic from the Abyss were not worth mentioning to them. With a wave of Joshua's hand, the scent that brimmed with Chaos and death dispersed as if meeting its archenemy and ceased cascading, while the yellowed land swiftly returned to its emerald state.
”Let's go,” he said thus, and carried the Balrog to step inside the dimensional rift first. Along the way, Joshua seemed to abhor the narrowness of the passageway and so gave it a nudge with his foot. Immediately, the dimensional rift obediently expanded more than half its original size.
Feels no different from the inside of a volcano.
After the rift expanded, the black dragon followed the warrior's back with a face full of delight.
It's rare for Master to take just me along to play, how envious Ling and Ying would be when we return! She thought excitedly.
*****
[Confusion nurtures destruction, anxiety constructs despair.
Abyssal Diaries, Volume 3, Chapter Seventeen]
When Joshua traversed the dimensional rift and tread upon the ash-black land filled with black sand and toxic soil, his entire body could not help shuddering slightly once as it flashed with faint silver bolts. It was 'Steel Strength', resonating with a certain existence. However, it was only until after the black dragon girl had stepped through the dimensional rift and the crack closed itself that Joshua nodded slightly and closed his eyes.
Time flowed in the opposite direction within his mind while light and shadows collided in his spirit. Innumerable illusion or vision of the past glinted in his consciousness.
The world was affixed in a winter day seven thousand years ago.
Black sand had been fertile soil then, and the toxic earth was still animated with thickets and plains. Standing upon the top of an unknown hill, Joshua looked towards a nearby city—a sharp, spiraling metallic tower and translucent pipelines that resembled spiderweb formed the magnificent city. Built by intelligent insectoid lifeforms, the metallic tower reaches into the clouds while rhombus-shaped vehicles weaved in and out of the pipes, connecting every corner of the city as if arteries.
The world was prospering at the moment, with diverse creatures the warrior never saw before living amidst the grass plains and forests. The insectoids' civilization fused together with nature—using heat energy from underground magma to operate colossal steel mage machines, they built one grand beehive-shaped buildings after the other. Everything of such stability that everyone was filled with hope for the future.
At the same time, dark tides surged amidst civilization. To struggle for global authority, several of those insectoids did not mind inciting the fires of war across of all corners of the peaceful continent. They fought proxy wars, wildly underwent arms race to produce one horrific war machines, which were then sortied with the most advance machines as the world war broke out.
Therefore, time paused here. At the time, technology developed explosively with all variety of objects being invented. Civilization was yet to extinguish, the world still had hope, the soil was still fertile, the forests emerald. The revitalizing fragrance still filled the air while unnamed birds soared in the skies.
The sight of their peaceful lives was carved in this world's long history, eternal and neverending.
But as Joshua's watched it, his gaze resonated under the lead of Steel Strength and permeated the entire illusion that had paused towards the solid world's ever unattainable future—the 'past' of these lands seven thousand years ago.
Whistling warheads descended. Towering mushroom clouds rose from the cities of spiral towers, the solid metallic construction crumbling and melting as if it was ice cream under the broiling heat. Endless augmented glass pipelines were blown away by the terrible shockwaves, turning into every present crystalline fragment. Endless insectoids were instantly killed, with any survivors dying under the calefaction and toxic, whereas the cities that were once prosperous became gigantic lava craters.