N-A-A Chapter 474, Section 483: The Closed Loop of Fate
Chapter 474, Section 483: The Closed Loop of Fate
Chapter 474, Section 483: The Closed Loop of Fate (Part 2)
The further you go, the more you realize the importance of moving forward.
Saruman became increasingly terrified.
It's hard to imagine just how evil and twisted the lives preserved in this city truly are.
"Damn it! Perhaps if we leave this place, we'll have to face those terrifying creatures head-on!" Saruman's face turned very ugly as he realized what was happening.
In fact.
Even here, he was barely able to keep up and had to keep casting the "Mental Barrier" spell, a mental shield woven from ancient runes and willpower.
"My magic is being consumed at an alarming rate."
Saruman gripped his staff tightly, his knuckles white from the force, veins throbbing on his forehead. With each whisper, the shield shimmered with a faint silver light, trembling like ripples on water. He knew that once his mana was depleted, even a moment's lapse in concentration would unleash a torrent of madness.
It completely consumed his reason.
And at that time.
Kag won't escape either.
"Hold on! I'm sharing my warrior's spirit with you!"
Kag's expression was not good either. He had no magic, no spells, only a body forged by war and suffering, and a heart that refused to yield.
Both of their foreheads were covered in a fine layer of cold sweat.
His lips were clenched so tightly that blood seeped through them, and his eyes were fixed on the road ahead—not to see the road clearly, but to prevent his gaze from getting lost in the writhing shadows.
"Go home! We must go home!" Kag kept repeating the name of his hometown, the only anchor he could hold onto, the driftwood that kept him from sinking in the raging waves.
Even so, he began to hear his inner voice responding to those whispers.
"Perhaps—it really is time to stop—it's quiet here—it's warm here—" Neither Kag nor Saruman knew this was a form of seduction.
The two could barely speak to each other. Any word could become a conduit for contamination, twisted into new seeds of madness. They could only communicate with their eyes—a weary but resolute nod, a brief but powerful pat on the shoulder. This silent alliance became their most primal and precious weapon against this realm.
As night deepened, no stars shone in the sky, only a sickly moon, its colors shifting, hung on the distorted horizon, casting an ominous glow.
perhaps.
On this cursed land, the "end" is never a geographical coordinate, but whether the soul can still hold onto that glimmer of light called "self" in the midst of the raging torrent.
of course.
There are also material-related issues that require distraction.
After traveling for about half an hour...
The material crisis has finally arrived.
As they passed through a portico-like structure made up of two twisted stone pillars, suddenly, a pool of seemingly still, viscous black liquid next to them began to boil violently!
The liquid rapidly swelled and coalesced into a humanoid creature without a fixed shape, composed of mucus and shadow. It emitted a "gurgling" sound like the gasping of a drowning person, and brandished tentacles made of mucus with gleaming cold edges, suddenly coiling towards Kag's legs!
"Watch out!" Saruman reacted swiftly, pointing his staff.
A blazing fire serpent roared out, striking the slimy creature. However, the expected burning did not occur. The flames seemed to crash into deep water, only causing the creature's body to tremble violently and emit an even more piercing hiss, its forward momentum undiminished!
"Extremely high physical and elemental resistance!" Saruman immediately judged, and changed his spell accordingly.
The powerful shockwave struck the slime creature, blasting parts of its body into countless fragments, but the remaining parts continued to wriggle, rapidly absorbing the surrounding shadows and slime.
Attempting to restructure!
At the same time, countless pale, pupil-less eyes suddenly opened on the walls on both sides that were covered with biological mucus! Invisible mental shockwaves shot out like sharp needles!
The bullets shot straight into the brains of the two men!
This is the counterattack of the monster that slipped through the net!
"Well!"
Kag grunted, feeling as if his head had been struck by a heavy hammer, a wave of dizziness washing over him, and his movements instantly slowed. Lina, on his back, also seemed to be affected by the shock.
He let out a low groan of pain.
"Hold fast to your mind!" Saruman roared, slamming his staff into the ground. A semi-transparent shield of spiritual light unfolded around him, barely managing to block most of the mental impact.
But his own face also paled a little.
There was no way around it; resisting the pollution already consumed a lot of his mental energy, and now he had to be distracted by fighting, which naturally made him even more uncomfortable, pushing himself to the limit. Just then, the slime creature had mostly reformed, and several tentacles attacked again like venomous snakes, with astonishing speed!
"Get out of my way!" Kag roared, his warrior's ferocity ignited, despite his headache. Instead of dodging, he channeled his fighting spirit into his greatsword and unleashed a fierce horizontal sweep!
"Sizzle!"
The greatsword, imbued with demon-slaying battle aura, finally worked this time. Where the blade passed, the viscous tentacles were severed at the root, falling to the ground where they writhed violently as if alive before slowly melting away. The creature let out a painful shriek, staggering back a few steps, its body trembling even more violently.
"It's vulnerable to enchanted weapons and powerful energy attacks!" Kag shouted immediately.
Saruman understood immediately and stopped using conventional elemental magic, instead beginning to chant a short, ancient incantation—"Holy Light Judgment!"
This is one of his most treasured light magic spells, which has a strong restraining effect on negative energy and evil creatures.
He wouldn't have been able to use it if he hadn't made consecutive breakthroughs before.
A pure, scorching light, seemingly containing fragments of the sun, burst forth from the tip of the staff, surging like a sharp sword with unstoppable force as it pierced towards the slimy creature!
"Chirp—!!!"
The slimy creature let out a death throes and an extremely piercing howl. Bathed in holy light, its body churned and evaporated violently like boiling water, finally turning into wisps of foul-smelling black smoke and vanishing completely. The pale eyes on the wall seemed to be startled as well, instantly closing and disappearing without a trace.
"Finally, we've got this thing sorted out!"
The battle ended, and both of them were slightly out of breath.
On Kag's arm, the black lines seemed to have spread downwards a little further due to the recent outburst and the mental shock, causing a stinging sensation.
Saruman's magic power was also greatly depleted.
"These things—are even more troublesome than what we encountered in the corridor." Kag looked at the slowly disappearing black stain on the ground with lingering fear. He swallowed hard. "The monsters in the corridor at least had physical forms, but these things—they seem to be pure malice and pollution coalescing into existence!"
In this regard.
Saruman nodded solemnly.
"That's right, and they seem to have become one with the city itself, drawing strength from the environment at any time. We must be even more careful."
Saruman also realized the reason for the enemy's actions.
After a brief rest, suppressing the stinging pain from the lines on their arms and the lingering mental shock in their minds, Saruman and Kag had no choice but to continue down this perilous path.
Again.
There's no other way! Staying means giving the city more opportunities to erode their will with invisible whispers and to alienate their bodies with pervasive pollution.
The road ahead became even more bizarre.
But I had no choice but to go.
They seemed to have entered the intestines of a giant beast made of living rock. The walls on both sides were no longer cold stone, but covered with a very thick, translucent, and slightly pulsating biological membrane.
Beneath the membrane, distorted, blood vessel-like patterns could be faintly seen flowing slowly, emitting a kind of spiritual pollution with a sweet and cloying odor that made Saruman feel dizzy.
The buzzing sound that permeated the air became more concrete here.
It looked as if countless tiny insects were gnawing and wriggling under the membrane.
"Stay close to me and don't touch anything," Saruman warned in a low voice, deliberately dimming the light at the tip of his staff to avoid overstimulating these seemingly dormant "walls." His senses were heightened to their limit, like the most sophisticated radar, scanning every inch of the space ahead for energy fluctuations.
However, R'lyeh's malice always exceeded expectations.
As they passed through a particularly narrow corridor, with dark green gelatinous material hanging overhead like stalactites, danger silently descended.
"Tick-tock—"
A drop of thick, dark yellow liquid with a pungent, acidic smell dripped from above, landing just half a step in front of Kag's feet.
"laugh--!"
With a sickening corrosive sound, a small pit was etched into the incredibly hard green stone ground, and wisps of white smoke rose from it!
"Up there!" Kag reacted quickly, leaping backward and pulling Lina even tighter on his back.
Almost the instant he finished speaking, the previously still, stalactite-like gelatinous substances above seemed to awaken simultaneously! Dozens of bulges rapidly rose and enlarged on the surface of the gelatinous substances, then "plop! plop! plop!"
Like a ripe abscess bursting open, large amounts of viscous, differently colored acidic fluid poured down like a torrential rain!
Some are dark yellow and extremely corrosive; some are dark green and emit a sweet, fishy smell of neurotoxins; and some are even translucent.
These substances did not corrode upon landing, but instead spread rapidly to their ankles like living things, seemingly possessing strong adhesive and spiritual absorption properties!
"Damn it! These things like to ambush!" Saruman slammed his staff, instantly creating multiple layers of magical shields above and around the two of them.
He was on the verge of death.
The acid splattered against the shield, producing a dense hissing sound, and various colored smoke rose up. The shield's light flickered and dimmed violently at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"We can't take this! Move!" Saruman roared, his mana draining rapidly as he continued to channel mana into the shield while attempting to advance.
Kag swung his greatsword, swatting away several clumps of viscous liquid that were trying to bypass the shield and attack from the side.
"Hiss hiss hiss~" A slight corrosive sound came from where the sword touched the liquid! He was startled; the corrosiveness of this acid was far greater than that of a strong acid!
"What the hell is this! It's even more disgusting than the slimes we encountered in Raven's Ruins!" The two struggled forward for more than ten meters under the torrential rain of acid. Just as they were about to break out of this "stalactite" area, Saruman's outermost shield finally gave way.
It shattered with a "bang"!
Several clumps of dark green acid slipped in and shot straight into Kager's face!
It was another critical moment.
Kag displayed the reaction speed of a top-tier warrior. He suddenly sidestepped, using his arm-armored shoulder to forcefully knock away most of the acid.
Of course, even with a quick reaction, a few drops still splashed onto his unprotected areas of his chest armor and arms.
"laugh--!"
Several charred spots instantly appeared on the breastplate, and a piercing burning pain, accompanied by a strong numbness, came from the area of the arm where the skin was in contact with the charred breastplate!
The neurotoxin started to take effect!
"Kag!" Saruman exclaimed.
"It's alright! Let's go!"
Kag gritted his teeth, enduring the numbness and excruciating pain, and instead of slowing down, increased his speed, bursting out of the acid's reach. Saruman followed closely behind!
The last shield shattered behind them with a deafening roar.
"We can't even beat that legendary monster that casually wipes out a bunch of mobs!" The two leaned against a relatively clean wall, panting heavily.
Everyone was in a bad mood.
"Am I going to die again?" Kag quickly checked his injuries. The areas on his arm that had been splashed with splatter were red, swollen, and blistered, and the numbness was spreading to the surrounding area.
"Well, it seems there's still a chance to save him." Kag thought for a moment, then took the bottle of high-grade antidote that Saruman had taken out without hesitation and drank it down.
He then used a dagger to cut away the rotten flesh and sprinkled on some special healing powder. His movements were swift and efficient, but the cold sweat on his forehead showed that he was enduring immense pain.
"These damn things—" Kag looked at the still-sizzling acidic area on the ground, still feeling lingering fear.
"They are not simply traps!"
Saruman watched with a grave expression as the gelatinous "stalactites" slowly retracted and returned to their original state. "They're more like some kind of—defensive symbiote, or perhaps the city's own immune system."
This conjecture weighed even heavier on their minds. What if the entire city was a living, terrifying entity, or something possessing some kind of collective consciousness?
Their intrusion was tantamount to a virus invading the giant's body.
"No matter what, I don't want to be digested."
After taking a quick look around, they dared not linger and continued on their way.
The following section was relatively peaceful, but the feeling of being watched lingered. The passageway sometimes widened to the size of a plaza, filled with enormous fossil structures resembling some kind of biological organ.
The terrain is very varied.
At times, the passage narrowed to the point of being like a crack, requiring one to crawl through. The biofilm on the walls gradually disappeared, replaced by older stone walls covered with blasphemous inscriptions.
Just as they passed a mural covered with distorted stars and tentacle patterns.
Another anomaly has occurred!
The surrounding shadows seemed to come alive, converging from all directions like viscous ink, causing the air temperature to plummet and a bone-chilling cold to permeate the air.
"Hehehehe~"
Countless subtle movements.
It was as if whispers of pure resentment were resounding directly in their minds, no longer an allure, but a vicious curse and a desperate wail!