Chapter 1183: Section 1184: The Unknown Territory
The sky was oppressively dark, not the somber black of night, but a lifeless black of deathly stillness.
The earth, however, was ablaze with fires that seemed to spring from fissures in the magma, revealing the brownish-red ground that resembled a surface stained with blood.
On this oppressive land, a white-robed youth, who had been laughing wildly, suddenly transformed into a hideous and terrifying creature, and charged towards a fearsome shadow.
Meanwhile, another familiar figure was slowly getting up…
Dororo’s eyes snapped open, his pale pupils contracting to slits, his forehead slick with sweat.
Chills ran down his spine, and an indescribable sense of frustration filled his heart.
At that moment, he heard the patter of footsteps, as a hunched figure entered from outside. She approached the fireplace first, snapping her fingers to extinguish most of the roaring flames within it.
Then, she walked slowly toward the bed, her footsteps softened by the woolen carpet on the floor.
“Sweating profusely, you don’t look like one who has just slept; rather, you seem as if you’ve been active all night,” said a hoarse voice from the newcomer.
Only then did Dororo snap back to reality, turning to the elderly woman beside him: “Mentor Maya, you’re here.”
“You knew I was coming?” Maya, the Prophet Wizard of the Barbarian Cave, known as ‘Measurer of the Stars,’ was the speaker.
Dororo nodded. “I saw some visions before.”
Maya looked intently at Dororo, knowing that he wasn’t lying—which meant he really did see some visions that involved her, yet Maya felt no intrusion whatsoever.
Such a talent was truly frightening. Maya felt this inwardly, though she showed no signs on her face.
Maya walked to the window and drew the curtains, revealing the dark blue sky outside, with faint stars still visible, indicating it was just the break of dawn.
“I felt a strong disturbance coming from your room,” Maya said as she opened the window, letting in the fresh breeze, dispelling the room’s accumulated gloominess: “Tell me, what happened?”
Dororo hesitated for a moment, his eyes downturned, and whispered softly, “I saw that vision again.”
“That vision? You mean the one you saw at the Crown Star Church?” Maya raised her eyebrows; she knew that Dororo often had visions of the Abyss, and after the Astrology Day, the frequency of these visions had increased. However, Dororo was typically reticent. He would talk freely in front of Angel, willing to say anything, but with others, he was tight-lipped, and without probing questions, he wouldn’t open up.
Therefore, Maya knew very little.
As his mentor, Maya respected Dororo’s wishes, choosing not to use special methods to pry. After all, the art of Prophecy was very different from other spell techniques. Speaking about it or not was not merely a matter of will—it could also potentially implicate unpredictable changes.
“Yes, this time I Dreamseeing it in my sleep. And this time, the vision was not static,” Dororo recounted slowly.
“So, you mean you saw certain events unfolding?” Maya inquired.
“I saw some things—especially, I saw…” Dororo’s mind flashed with that familiar figure, and he clutched at his racing heart, his brow furrowing deeply as new sweat began to break out on his forehead.
“What did you see?” Maya was somewhat surprised; was Dororo actually about to verbalize his premonition?
“It seems like I saw…” Dororo paused for a long time before he slowly voiced a name.
“Angel, I think I saw Angel,” Dororo said, suddenly standing up: “He must be Angel, how could I not have recognized him before?”
“I remember you occasionally mentioned that in your visions, there seemed to be a white-robed youth. How did it turn into Angel?”
“The white-robed youth is someone else…” Dororo hesitated before saying ‘someone,’ recalling how that white-robed youth had turned into a monstrous shape in his vision: “Angel was there too.”
“So there were two people. What happened next?” Maya pressed on.
Dororo grew uneasy: “Aside from Angel, I saw a black shadow emanating a terrifying aura. I suspect it might be an Abyssal Demon God.”
“An Abyssal Demon God?” Maya remembered, during this period, Dororo had indeed been asking about information on Abyssal Demon Gods.
But how could Angel and some white-robed youth appear in the same vision as an Abyssal Demon God? Maya furrowed her brow; Angel’s strength wasn’t enough to get involved at the Demon God level, unless he had become a follower of a Demon God?
Looking up at Maya, Dororo stated, “Angel must be in danger right now, I want to go rescue him!”
“Do you think your powers are enough to save him?” Maya’s gaze drifted outside the window, out to the dense forest, surrounded by verdant hills: “If it’s truly an Abyssal Demon God, who among the Wizards’ Realm of the Southern Domain could save him?”
“But I…” Dororo started then swallowed his words back.
Seeing Dororo’s indecision, Maya pondered for a moment: “Let’s head back to the Barbarian Cave tomorrow. Once there, I will share your message with Lord Rhein. Lord Rhein should make a decision. Moreover, I can use the power of the Star Tower to foresee Angel’s fortunes and misfortunes.”
At that thought, Maya sighed quietly to herself. If it weren’t for the artifacts on Angel that shielded him from prophecy, she wouldn’t have to resort to the power of the Star Tower, and even then, she could only speak of fate’s good or bad turns.
Dororo had mingled in the Wizards’ Realm for a while now, becoming more familiar with the Wizards’ rules. There were many matters not as simple as him just doing as he wished.
Like going to rescue Angel: even though he was desperate, how could he go about it? What could he do before a great and unspeakable existence, even if he was to go himself?
So, the only solution right now, it seems, was to return to the Barbarian Cave and ask for help from other wizards.
“Although we are leaving tomorrow, we still cannot skip today’s lesson.” Maya lifted her cane and pointed it toward the window, where a streak of starlight crossed the sky and landed somewhere in the dense forest.
“Utilize the art of Astrology to find where the starlight has settled.”
After Maya stated the teaching task for the day, Dororo paused for a moment, then immediately rushed to the window.
The Morning Star had already appeared, and dawn was not far off. He had barely mastered the nocturnal astrology; he had almost no way to deal with the daytime stars, so if he wanted to achieve today’s goal, he had to do it in the short time before daybreak to complete the astrological deduction, or today’s goal would certainly fail!
Looking at Dororo’s anxious deduction, Maya nodded in satisfaction. However, when she thought about what Dororo had said earlier, she still felt very strange. After pondering for a while, she returned to her room and silently began her deduction. Since she couldn’t predict Angel, then she would try someone close to him, like his Mentor Sanders.
A day passed, and Dororo returned from the forest, completely exhausted.
Fortunately, he had found the place where the starlight had settled in a canyon, before the moon faded and the stars scattered.
Just as he got back to the Wizard’s Tower, he heard Maya’s telepathic message, “While the task is completed, when you first used the art of Astrology to locate the target, you only recorded the target’s position, without considering which path would be the most convenient. You should always be adaptable, not just focus on one goal.”
Dororo’s clothes were somewhat tattered; indeed, he had encountered a particularly difficult path in the process of seeking the target.
“Go and rest, prepare to leave here tomorrow.” Maya stopped at that.
After a while, Dororo lay down in bed, his mind once again conjuring the images he dreamed of the night before – the deathly still, dark sky, and the land scorched by flames and dyed red with blood.
Tonight, would he dream of it again?
Dororo closed his eyes.
…
Angel suddenly opened his eyes.
He was breathing heavily, and his entire body was drenched in sweat. Anyone who went through that kind of escape would look like him.
It took a while for Angel to regain his senses and for his eyes to focus slowly.
The sky was pitch black, a lifeless darkness that was even more oppressive than the blackness of the Void.
Angel felt like he was lying on a solid ground, but there was a burning sensation on his back, as if the ground was being roasted.
Eh, that’s not right, the ground? Is there ground here?! Could it be that he had escaped from that perilous Void?
Just as the thought passed through Angel’s mind, he heard rustling noises near his ear.
“Shopkeeper, are you all right?” A little boy with two horns on his forehead approached Angel’s face.
Angel was momentarily stunned, then he realized, “Greywdu, I’m fine… Have we escaped from the crevice in the Void? Where’s Toby?”
Greywdu nodded, his expression somewhat peculiar, “We have escaped, but this place doesn’t seem very safe either. It feels a bit unsettling.”
Greywdu paused and then pulled Toby out from his embrace, “Its name is Toby, right? It’s right here.”
Angel nodded and reached out to take Toby, who remained asleep.
Only after ensuring Toby was safe did Angel suddenly realize that the chains that had been tied around him were gone!
He pushed himself up off the ground with his hands, sitting up.
The burning sensation from beneath his hands caused Angel to frown slightly.
He looked around, and far away he could vaguely see fissures in the ground that seemed to emit the unique red glow of magma, while nearby, flames burned intensely.
Was this Magma terrain? No wonder the ground felt so hot.
“Do you know where we are?” Angel asked Greywdu.
Greywdu, however, shook his head, “I don’t know, I passed out earlier and didn’t memorize the coordinates… Sigh, even if I hadn’t passed out, I probably wouldn’t have been able to lock onto any coordinates, considering we changed our direction so many times.”
Greywdu’s words also made Angel recall what had happened before he lost consciousness—
The Void collapsing, Space Collapse, crevice-dwelling magical creatures, amidst various terrifying calamities, he underwent the most thrilling and dangerous journey.
Popota kept changing the route until, in the end, maybe even Popota didn’t know where they had gone.
The reason Angel had lost consciousness was due to a spatial distortion during the last change of direction… His memories after that were gone, and when he woke up, he was already on this piece of land.