Flunza, who had been taking it easy and acting all collected on Brigitte’s back, widened his eyes upon hearing the Leviathan’s bellow.
As a master of “sequence of the sea”, Flunza naturally knew how to read the emotions of sea monsters. He knew the Leviathan was so pissed because something was wrong inside the door. And it was probably a creature or even a human being.
Flunza just “spoke” to the Leviathan in order to aggravate its rage so that it could break down the door faster. Whatever was inside the door had become the Leviathan’s new target for venting out its rage.
But how come? There should be nothing alive in there. The door had not fully materialized in reality. No one could possibly go inside.
“Maybe the mysterious dimension gave birth to a creature upon its creation... or a soul left behind?” Flunza pondered in his mind.
No matter what was happening inside the door, Flunza no longer felt so confident as anything unexpected in the secret dimension would affect their plan.
The Leviathan suddenly roared toward the sky again.
Apart from unyielding anguish, Flunza also detected “disappointment” in its voice, which meant whoever the monster was going after had successfully escaped.
There was more in the monster’s voice. It was directing its rage at a human.
A human inside the secret dimension just slipped away from the Leviathan’s gaze!
As for who got inside the dimension... that was beyond him.
“Not this again... not this again! We missed a great opportunity during the plane fusion three years ago. Whoever you are, if you dare put your petty hands on OUR treasure, I WILL find you out!!!” Flunza fisted the seawater below out of rage, creating a giant tidal wave around his position.
Flunza was not the only one who noticed something wrong. There were more wizards present who could read beast language. But unlike Flunza, they couldn’t understand the details.
Lady Payne folded her fan and spoke to Summerdew, “Master, did the Leviathan just detect someone inside the door?”
Summerdew was still holding her chin, but she wasn’t feigning that cute look anymore.
Lady Payne grew slightly anxious upon seeing the rare reaction of her boss. “Master, could it be one of the wizards who somehow sneaked inside?”
The space around Devil’s Water was now utterly unsettled, thus allowing random space ruptures to pop up now and then. It was possible that, by some miracle, one of the ruptures conveniently led toward the secret dimension.
“No...” Summerdew slightly shook her head. “The Leviathan has lost track of its prey, which means we’re talking about a powerful wizard or someone weak who happens to know another entrance to that place.”
“Which one is it, if I may?” Lady Payne frowned.
“This dimension existed on top of ‘that item’ and was not generated in usual ways, so no one can ascertain its coordinate and use a place passageway to travel inside unless a legendary wizard is here. Do you think a legendary wizard needs to escape from a Leviathan?”
“That leaves us with only one explanation then.” Lady Payne grimaced. “A wandering wizard or apprentice beat us to it and claimed the prize?”
“Prize? Heeheehee! Firstly, they need to know there IS a prize. Then, they must have what it takes to protect it. I don’t think a coward who ran for their mom is such a case.”
Instead of feeling worried, Summerdew looked rather excited for some reason. “Now get ready. If we failed to locate ‘that item’ later, send your bird and contact Ewan.”
Lady Payne nodded and prepared her message.
“I think fate might have actually favored us, Master. If the item remains in plain sight, even if we brought a lot of forces with us, it’ll be difficult to compete against Flunza. But if we can get Mister Ewan to help us... then I don’t see a reason why we should fail.”
“Wanderer of Balance” Ewan was one of the “Eighteen Overseers” from Starliege Temple, a Prophet who was good at “achieving absolute balance”. Compared to the Prophet from Song of the Deep, Tuwalu, Ewan was several levels more powerful.
Away from them, Mariyasah also noticed the unusual attitudes displayed by Flunza and Summerdew. Combined with what he just “read” from the Leviathan’s reactions...
“Did something bad happen? Like, a thief went inside the door and snatched the item away? What a waste of time... Wait, it was ME who spread the false message. If the secret dimension turned out to be a giant disappointment and people decided to get to the bottom of it, I’ll be in trouble.”
Mariyasah wasn’t afraid of the wizards who might blame him later, but he didn’t want to bring any trouble back to Floating Mech City and displease Lawson.
“Sh*t. Hope things don’t go that way.”
Due to Angor’s escape, the Leviathan was extremely annoyed for having its absolute authority challenged by a weakling. And it was slowly getting mad again.
It was doing its best to tear at the door so that it could get inside the dark dimension and find where its target left.
The sea, which had been soothed by Flunza’s presence, began to run amok again.
Boundless thunderclouds had summoned lightning strikes that connected with the dancing tides below, causing groups of wizards to show up from their hidings.
The Leviathan paid no mind to them—it was fully aware that these humans weren’t strong enough to break through its scaled body.
It wanted to catch that particular slippery human inside the door right now!
After receiving enough damage, the door was finally torn into a giant hole, and it also left its “interstage” and showed up in everyone’s views.
Fresh air, seawater... different elements in the environment began pouring into the door on their own.
The small island inside the door had welcomed another catastrophe that came down from the sky this time.
As a deadly amount of water slammed into the ground below, the Leviathan also used the bigger entrance to dive inside.
The other wizards looked at each other, before they activated their respective defensive tricks and followed behind the water current.
Truth was, it wasn’t the Leviathan who made it into the door first. It was Flunza, who blended himself into the seawater and was carried into the door at the first moment the door appeared in reality.
The first thing he did was to fully spread his spirit feelers to every corner of the dimension. This wasn’t a difficult task for a truth-finder like him.
Yet... he got nothing.
No energy signatures, no lifeforms, and no noticeable traces left by the unknown trespasser.
His expression turned grim as he failed to detect the presence of the Mystery item as well. Just as he feared, somebody took it away.
The falling sea had completely destroyed what remained of the small island and washed everything clean. It was almost impossible to track down a person who was no longer here.
However, he still had other solutions up his sleeve.
Immediately, by using the flowing seawater as a tunnel, he sent a message to Sliv, who had been waiting outside, and told him to contact Tuwalu so that they could get an update of the current location of the item.
While waiting for a reply, Flunza melted into seawater and followed closely behind the Leviathan. He wished to find out what attracted the Leviathan so much. Apparently, the Leviathan was anxiously going after something, which meant he could also find whatever had been in this place by going together.
He also had a hunch that there was a second entrance somewhere in the secret dimension that allowed the sneaky thief to go away. As long as he could find it, he could further track down this man either by prophecy or other means.
Eventually, the Leviathan took him to the cliff wall, which had been submerged underwater.
The Leviathan was too big to go inside the cave, so it started smashing the cliff, hoping to get to the exact location it sensed earlier.
Meanwhile, Flunza easily noticed the small cave and dived inside.
He managed to sense some faint residues left behind by dimensional energy that suggested teleportation. However, they were too weak for him to tell where it led to.
He looked at the particularly smooth wall at the end of the cave and immediately knew what he should do.
“Ahh... It’s a teleportation array only visible to souls. And I just have to put a magic crystal in it...”
The magic array glowed for a brief moment before it suddenly turned to dust and completely vanished.
“Curse it. The b*stard destroyed the other end of the array so soon. Must be someone good at runes.”