The rainstorm wiped the sky clear better than the most effective cleanser.
Either confused or horrified, the wizards watched the reflection of the desert dissolved.
“It vanished!”
“But where is the Time of Plunder?!”
“Sorry, but I never saw a plane fusion before. Does that mean it concluded?”
“No, fool! It was interrupted!”
“Again?!”
The heavy rain persisted as if the world’s consciousness were crying over its meaningless effort in dealing with the plane fusion, only to give the final fruit to somebody else.
Of course, nobody could care less about what the world’s consciousness was doing. They only wanted their cash delivered.
“Did Seurat lie to us? Where is this f*cking ‘great destiny’??”
One after one, frustrated people found where the team sent by Starliege Temple waited and went to question them.
“But... Our Overseers never fail their prophecy. Not once.” A Prophet tried to rationalize the situation.
“Then who’s gonna explain this shit?!”
Seeing more and more wizards about to lose control, several Prophets simply sat down and began reading the origin of the problem they were met with.
The only thing they managed to see was that the world’s consciousness was “unpleasant” because it lost a lot of power. The rain was the sign of it.
As for the culprit who upset both the consciousness and all the eager wizards by terminating the plane fusion, the Prophets couldn’t find a clue.
This was far from enough to convince the onlookers. Or rather, they didn’t care about the cause of the bummer at all. They came all the way here hoping to earn a hefty profit. Now, they only wanted a target to direct their frustration on.
While most of the people argued, the two strongest wizards attending the event, Flunza and Rein Mute, looked at each other.
“What’s your opinion about this?” “God of Seas” asked first.
Rein shook his head. “Beats me. But at least Seurat was right about one thing, that the final entrance to the foreign plane will not remain at the Parmigi Highlands. Heh. There is no entrance at all.”
Compared to others, wizards from Brute Cavern didn’t look too disappointed because they already got their hands on a lot of Fragments of Eternity.
They had been having a few bad days because wizards from other places would keep mocking them either plainly or behind their backs since Brute Cavern “regrettably” lost control of the new territory.
Now, however, nobody was the winner.
Neither Flunza nor Rein was bothered by the loss of opportunity. At their level, the random resources they could find from the Time of Plunder were nothing compared to their own progress and growth in strength.
Even so, this didn’t mean that they weren’t curious about what truly happened just now. Was this a coincidence? Would future plane fusions come to an early halt in the same way?
Rein received a private Voice Transmission and decided to tell it to Flunza. “An old friend notified me that he detected an abnormal depletion in dimensional energy. In one second or two, the dimensional energy around the area of the plane fusion was completely drained. That could be the cause of the incident.”
“An old friend of yours? Is it ‘Void Walker’ Issus?”
Flunza looked around but didn’t find his target. Though he clearly sensed Issus’ presence nearby. Issus was a truth-finder Occultist who studied dimension-related arts. Rumor said that he once acquired the legacy of Barzel, the Great Twisted Wizard.
There weren’t many wizards in this world who could impress Flunza with their skills. Issus was definitely one such person.
“So, what introduced the energy depletion?” asked Flunza.
“His initial estimation suggested an alien force...”
Flunze frowned.
An “alien force” meant that it was likely an individual who successfully snatched the outcome of the plane fusion under the nose of the world’s consciousness. This wouldn’t be possible unless they were talking about a legendary being or someone above.
Suppose a legendary wizard or monster was behind this, then everything could be explained. Seurat’s prediction was right, that there was indeed a great destiny waiting to be taken. It fell into the hands of the unknown presence they couldn’t see.
Of course, not even powerful Prophets could detect this individual, who probably had something to counter prophecy or even wound careless Prophets who targeted them.
Both Flunza and Rein looked away. A legendary being was no longer something they could handle.
The rain did not show any sign of stopping. Wriggling snakes of lightning mercilessly struck the earth below as if the world’s consciousness didn’t find its fury quenched. But the world’s consciousness didn’t actually have emotions or intelligence, only rules. By using its remaining power, it meant to repair space ruptures that still lingered in the area, while the lightning strikes were only tools.
Meanwhile, people all stood in the rain in saddening silence as their mood was affected by the tantrum of nature.
The Parmigi Highlands regained its peace as the last space rupture was patched up. However, the clearing weather could not erase the frenzy troubling the crowd. Many of them traveled across continents and oceans and camped here for weeks, only to be told that they got completely nothing. No Fragment of Eternity, no Time of Plunder. They simply couldn’t accept it.
...
Meanwhile, several lightning bolts that couldn’t find anything to work on at the Parmigi Highlands made their way to the border of the area and entered the territory of the Yaley Principality.
A bolt moved lower until the altitude was moderate enough for trees to grow. Here, it discovered a dimensional portal in the middle of a forest and moved to seal it up.
...
Sunders was trying to make a decision inside the tunnel.
He thought he was skilled enough to overcome whatever danger Angor predicted, so he chose to enter the tunnel alone, only to lose his direction in the middle of it. He felt an unknown force obscuring his senses. No matter where he went, he would keep moving in circles.
Usually, every wizard should know how to tell directions in an inter-plane tunnel because long-range teleportation was a must-have skill.
As soon as the tunnel was built, Sunders remembered the coordinates of the destination so that he could go straight to it.
Now, he still felt the goal just nearby, yet he couldn’t reach it.
While it was rare, such a “dimensional paradox” could occur occasionally. When it happened, certain elements in the dimensional tunnel would be mucked up. In Sunders’ case, his perception of “length” was screwed. In his view, what seemed to be a short distance was in fact enlarged by countless multitudes.
He could neither retreat nor advance.
He had been attempting to think of a solution, without any success. The exit of the tunnel was just in view, but it was hidden behind a mirror he couldn’t pass through. Each time he went that way, he would get sent back to square one.
He might try to outrun the laws of this dimension or use brute force to punch through the dimension, both of which were only doable if he were a legendary wizard. Yet even the current strongest wizard in the southern region, Monkey, was not at that kind of level.
“The last tunnel crumbled on itself, and today, I ran into a paradox... Maybe one out of a million inter-plane tunnels would be like this, but I encountered two of them in a row. Did I accidentally contract the curse of misfortune back in the Abyss?”
Sunders did not have time to take guesses because something else came to bother him.