Chapter 1145: Section 1146 Collapse
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Angel’s first concern right now was, Where is this place?
It seemed to be an underground tunnel.
Angel looked at both ends of the tunnel, and aside from the spot where he was, which had some light, both ends were pitch black.
Although he was curious about where the ends of the tunnel led, he didn’t have any plans to explore. Staying here at least allowed him to see the exit, so when the battle outside was over, he might be able to leave through here.
But if he went to explore, no one knew if there would be dangers lurking in the depths of the tunnel.
After all, this was Lassudral, the city of demons. Even if a weak demon popped up, Angel might not be able to defeat it.
For Angel, Lassudral was hardly a place with relative safety. That was why Angel had never ventured out despite having been in Lassudral for so long.
Therefore, under these circumstances, Angel chose to wait where he was.
However, Angel didn’t put all his hopes in one basket. After all, waiting in one place was almost entirely reliant on luck, and might still end up in sitting ducks, so he had to have a backup plan.
He took out two Scouting Puppets from his bracelet and threw one each towards both ends of the tunnel.
The Scouting Puppets, Alchemy constructs, had very faint energy fluctuations and were relatively concealed. Using them to scout around was clearly the best choice at the moment.
As the Scouting Puppets flew away, the situation inside the tunnel gradually came into Angel’s view.
The two Scouting Puppets flew slowly, and for a short while, Angel didn’t notice any change; both ends were still pitch black, silent, and unchanged.
After a while, one of the Scouting Puppets finally saw something different.
—Spots of light and a dead-end wall.
This puppet saw one end of the tunnel, where there was a wall, appearing to be a dead end. However, there was a spot of light remaining on this wall.
This spot of light was actually the remnant of a Pattern.
Or rather, the wall was covered with a strange Pattern, and the lines that made up this Pattern were luminescent. However, at this moment, more than 90% of this luminescent Pattern had gone out, leaving only the last bit of light.
And even this spot of light was continuously shrinking; it was foreseeable that in the near future, this luminescent Pattern would be completely dimmed.
This Pattern gave Angel a strong sense of déjà vu.
Through the eyes of the Scouting Puppet, Angel felt as if he saw a vortex within the spot of light that sucked his consciousness in. At the endpoint of his consciousness, there were strange luminescent Inscriptions. These Inscriptions surrounded him completely, not letting him escape.
Angel even had a hunch that if he tried to touch these Inscriptions, his consciousness would likely be stuck there. These Inscriptions felt very dangerous to him.
The only solace was that these Inscriptions were disappearing gradually, and after not too long, they completely vanished.
At the same time, his consciousness was also kicked out of the vortex.
After snapping back to reality, Angel realized that the spot of light on the wall at the end of the tunnel had completely disappeared, and the area had reverted back to darkness.
“That feeling, it’s like…” Angel murmured quietly to himself, as his thoughts seemingly traveled back to not long ago when he had seen Aoluxiya in the Misty Cabin, and the armor it wore had similar Inscription lines: “Could it be an Inscription?”
With that thought, Angel had an epiphany.
The wall bore an Inscription, and the reason the spots of light on the Inscription were fading was as Komodo had said before, someone had sabotaged the Inscriptive Central Hub underground. This led to the Inscriptions gradually becoming ineffective.
Angel felt somewhat fortunate that after feeling his consciousness sucked into the vortex of light, he roughly guessed that the Inscription drawn on the wall must serve the purpose of “trapping enemies.” If the Inscription hadn’t been damaged, he surmised that his sliver of consciousness would have been permanently left there…
Since this place had Inscriptions, a sudden guess about this underground tunnel sprung up in Angel’s mind.
To corroborate this guess, Angel turned his attention to the Scouting Puppet that was flying in the other direction of the tunnel.
This Scouting Puppet kept flying forward, and by Angel’s estimation, it had flown nearly two kilometers already.
According to his guess, having reached this distance, he should soon see a change—
Indeed, just as Angel muttered about negative distance in his mind, this Scouting Puppet finally saw something different.
At the end of the tunnel, there was a door that appeared to be crafted of metal.
The door was closed, unable to be opened.
Although he couldn’t know what was beyond the door, Angel’s guess was nonetheless corroborated. From the moment he fell into this underground tunnel, Angel had combined previous external information to deduce the spatial coordinates of his current location.
Then, Angel silently constructed a holographic simulation sandbox in his mind.
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This was thankfully thanks to the power of the Gate of Dreams, which allowed Angel to have a profound understanding of the holographic sand table. Thus, constructing it wasn’t too difficult.
Angel roughly replicated the important landmarks of the core area of Lassudral on this sand table. Then, with its help, Angel estimated the direction and distance of this tunnel before and after, ultimately arriving at a conclusion:
The direction of this tunnel was precisely heading towards the Void Tower at the very center of Lassudral.
Previously, as he silently counted distances in his heart, he was also calculating the distance of the Scouting Puppet from the Void Tower. When the Scouting Puppet entered a negative distance from the Void Tower and a door appeared, Angel was almost certain that this tunnel should be the underground passage connected to the Void Tower!
Having reached this conclusion, Angel still couldn’t do much about it.
Because he had no knowledge of the Void Tower, or rather, even the demons living in Lassudral knew nothing about it. Half-Blood Demons like Canaan didn’t even dare to approach the vicinity of the Void Tower, fearing they might come across a great demon who would find them displeasing and then… there would be no afterwards.
The only thing Canaan knew about the situation inside the Void Tower was that no one could enter except for the seven seat-holding great demons.
Therefore, even though Angel knew where this place was, he was still unable to act.
Moreover, combining the information previously obtained from the outside, it could roughly be inferred that Yadasai should be inside the Void Tower… Although Angel had once met Yadasai, he couldn’t be certain that if he encountered the other party here, they would let him go.
Beyond that, there was another unknown person inside the Void Tower.
When Yadasai spoke to Komodo previously, it was clearly mentioned that the intruder who destroyed the Inscriptive Central Hub was also inside the Void Tower.
Since Yadasai hadn’t made a move against the intruder, presumably, they were another peer-level powerhouse. Such an existence was not something Angel dared to face lightly.
After some thought, he decided it was still best to stay put and wait for the situation outside to become clear.
Angel let out a long breath, “Although the gains are minimal, at least it’s confirmed that this underground tunnel is relatively safe.”
However, what Angel didn’t expect was that soon after these words were spoken, a Scouting Puppet transmitted a danger warning.
The warning came from a Scouting Puppet Angel left at the other end of the wall.
Angel was stunned for a moment, then turned his attention back to that puppet. When he saw the current situation clearly, he was astonished to find that the wall inscribed with inscriptions, upon the complete disappearance of the light spots, actually developed cracks.
Not only that, but this crack was visibly expanding at a rate perceptible to the naked eye, spreading not only to the wall but also to the surrounding ceiling, where vine-like cracks emerged.
As the cracks appeared, a large amount of rubble fell from the ceiling. Accompanied by thunderous roars, the bottom of the tunnel… collapsed.
And this collapse was not ceasing; as the cracks in the ceiling spread, the collapse continued to diffuse at great speed towards the entire underground tunnel.
It wouldn’t take long for the cracks to spread to where Angel was!
This sudden cascade of collapses left Angel shocked, especially since he had just stated that the underground tunnel was safe, only for this situation to emerge the very next moment!
Angel couldn’t help but turn to look at the Icebound Hex floating beside him… Binaqionse’s dragon scales weren’t faulty, and Toby’s Calamity Curse hadn’t diffused out either.
But why then did this situation occur?!
Angel now understood that when bad luck strikes, it grinds a person down more than a curse would!
Angel’s thoughts spun rapidly, considering how he should face this sudden disaster.
If the collapse was just an ordinary accident as it seemed on the surface, it wouldn’t cause too much harm to Angel as he was now, and he could even withstand it with his physical body alone without the use of Defense Spells.
But the fear lay in the fact that once the tunnel collapsed, the chaotic energy from above would immediately surge in.
Angel even suspected that the inscriptions disappearing previously couldn’t withstand the chaotic energy from above, leading to the current collapse of the tunnel.
The rumbling from afar grew increasingly near.
As the cracks neared, Angel eventually made up his mind; he ran a distance into the dark tunnel, then took out another Scouting Puppet and released it towards the only exit above.
He intended to probe the outside situation, unsure whether the battle between Fafnir and Komodo had ceased.
But as soon as the Scouting Puppet left the exit, Angel could no longer sense its status.
This was within his expectations.
As the Scouting Puppet was blocked, his Spirit Sea felt a slight sting. When this pain appeared, Angel didn’t look back; he ran towards the other end of the tunnel.
After all, the Scouting Puppet was enveloped with a strand of Angel’s spirit, and if the Scouting Puppet was destroyed, even if the exit blocked the information, the sensation of a sting connecting to the Spirit Sea would still be transmitted.
Since there was a sting, it meant that the Scouting Puppet was destroyed as soon as it left, which also meant that Fafnir and Komodo had not stopped fighting.
In such a situation, Angel naturally didn’t dare to leave through the exit and could only run into the darkness.