"Nana, where exactly were you and Mira taken to?"
Sylus walked beside Nana and asked slowly.
Hearing that, Nana casually described the place they had been brought to. Seeing Sylus’s shining, eager eyes, she sneered. "Silvanus was the one who found the path leading there. If you want to know that badly, you’d better pray Silvanus manages to escape. Though... that hope looks pretty slim. Ha."
Sylus couldn’t help but furrow his brows slightly, but he said nothing.
At that mont, it was as if they both sensed sothing. They simultaneously looked toward the ground, then back behind them.
Sylus frowned, peering into the hazy distance before glancing at Nana. "You saw it too, didn’t you?" he said softly.
It seed sothing white had just streaked past them.
Nana narrowed her eyes. A white shadow...
She licked her dry lips, said nothing, and simply turned to walk ahead, quickly leaving Sylus behind.
Sylus watched her back, clicked his tongue, and muttered with disdain, "Arrogant brat."
anwhile, deep beneath the ground, the newly discovered city.
The explosive battle outside earlier had hardly affected Silvanus or this grand structure at all.
The ground could shatter, but the tower itself didn’t bend or tremble in the slightest.
Silvanus, as if possessed, slowly walked toward the word Hello ford by golden dust that had suddenly appeared on the table.
The reflected light in his eyes shimred like countless bright stars.
"Hello..." he whispered. At the sa ti, his fingertip touched the word. Imdiately, a powerful suction force burst forth. His body seed to disintegrate into dust and was pulled into an entirely different space in an instant!
Just how many overlapping spaces did this cursed place even have?!
Legends said the Hobbits once advanced so far that their machines were capable of manipulating space and ti itself.
But ultimately, those were only legends. Silvanus hadn’t even learned the world’s whole history, and he had never imagined he would one day witness miracles that did not belong to magic inside a lost underground city.
Thud!
Silvanus quickly steadied himself and looked around.
Only now did he seem to regain so clarity. Rembering Nana and Mira were still outside, he frowned slightly.
At the sa ti, the appearance of this place beca clear to him. Before his eyes was nothing but darkness, with a single tal gate standing alone in the midst of a barren, ashen land.
Above, churning black clouds rolled endlessly, hanging so low it felt as though Silvanus only needed to jump to pierce right through them.
Darkness and thick black mist stretched endlessly behind him as well, as if everything was trying to compress the space and push him toward that gate.
Calling it a gate wasn’t entirely accurate. Its body was cylindrical, with a slight protrusion resembling a handrest, making Silvanus imdiately think of the life-and-death covenant altar in the Crucible Hall. On each side of the gate rose two curved, sharp spikes, ford from interlocking tal joints.
Their pointed tips faced each other but never touched, and the entire structure stood at just under two ters tall.
"Tada! That was fast. Surprised? I told you the underground had surprises, hahaha!"
Suddenly, Nerio’s mischievous, childlike voice rang in Silvanus’s head. The sound was so cheerfully ear-piercing that Silvanus instinctively lifted his hand, only to rember there was no blocking out Nerio’s voice.
He frowned slightly and said softly, "Fine, it’s a surprise. But I don’t even understand what this surprise is supposed to an."
Nerio burst out laughing. "aning? Hahaha—aning. Just put your hand on it and you’ll know imdiately. Really, I’m only trying to help you. The stronger you get, the better chance I have of getting out of here..."
He paused, smiling. "My exalted master."
Silvanus said nothing, and with that, Nerio went silent, disappearing completely like before.
Silvanus looked at the gate before him. He knew he no longer had any other choice.
No matter where this choice would lead him, there was no path back.
"Then I’ll just keep going."
He murmured, eyes flashing, without a trace of fear.
Just as Nerio said, he raised his hand and touched the flat surface before him.
But nothing happened.
Silvanus frowned slightly. He lifted his hand to inspect it and noticed that the panel’s design was unusually intricate.
At the top was a shallow little hole, and from that hole extended countless fine grooves spreading downward like tangled roots. Looking closely, he could see that the grooves extended far beyond the handrest and grew smaller and finer along the way.
Silvanus narrowed his eyes. Then, a tiny flash of light streaked across. At the sa ti, a thin cut appeared on his index finger, and fresh blood dripped into the shallow hole.
The instant the drop of blood fell, the tiny grooves lit up. The liquid blood raced through every channel, as if propelled by so acceleration force.
In the blink of an eye, the entire gate was covered in tiny channels filled with blood, looking like a living network of veins.
The lights flickered unpredictably, and at the sa ti, the two sharp tips above began to glow. The light crackled like arcs of electricity, twisting together.
Silvanus stared at the gleaming gateway that had just ford before him. Before he could even react, his body suddenly floated upward, and with impossible speed, he was pulled into the gate. It happened so quickly that Silvanus felt as if only his soul had been yanked forward while his body was still left behind.
"Wahh—! Ugh!"
His body ca to a sudden stop, and montum sent him stumbling forward. Eyes wide, he tried to steady his footing to avoid falling face-first onto the ground.
Mainly because he suddenly noticed a small figure—soone even smaller than him—right in front of him.
If he didn’t stop, they would crash straight into each other!
"Hey! Move!"
But the other person didn’t seem to hear him at all, still standing there unmoving.
Silvanus lifted his hand, instinctively trying to conjure a shield—only to realize in that instant that nothing happened.
Here, he couldn’t use magic at all!
All he could do was spread his arms, preparing to grab the person and tumble to the side together—better that than crushing them outright.
But that scene never happened. Instead, a towering man, nearly two ters tall, suddenly dropped down from above and landed between them.
"Clang! Bang!"
Silvanus collided with him, but the sound that rang out wasn’t soft at all—it was like slamming into a massive chunk of tal!
Silvanus fell backward, hissing through clenched teeth as tears of pain sprang to his eyes.
He stole a glance at the man’s chest—but he couldn’t see a single star there...
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