Chapter 147: Already Dead

Inside the black and white shadow realm, the bloody mud that constantly surged out from the black smoke looked as though it was alive and tumbling. They were constantly flowing out from the smoke but would constantly vanish. They would never be able to extend further than the black smoke. They were like some kind of disgusting, bone-chilling mollusks. While they were flipping around, they would constantly emit a distracting and strange turbid sound. In the beginning, Gawain thought the sound was a normal sound produced when the mud was flipping around. However, he quickly realized that the rumbling sound was like a mutter that could be heard when someone was dreaming. It was impossible to hear any logical information form the evil and chaotic sound; it merely brought fear, frustration, and disturbance.

It wasn’t only Gawain; not even Amber had seen such strange things in the shadow realm. It obviously corresponded with the place of the breeding vessel, but this bloody mud was different from the ‘reflection’ rule between the shadow realm and the real world. It was obviously a distorted thing that shouldn’t exist. Instead of saying it was ‘reflected’ in this place, it would be better to say that there was some reason it was occupying this place.

Gawain used an instinctively disgusted face to look at the mud that constantly oozed out from the black smoke before turning to look at Amber. “What is this thing…? It is these things that frightened you?”

He felt it was rather strange. This bloody mud might give off an unpleasant feeling and would constantly mutter something that would make a person distracted; furthermore, there was a strange power that was constantly attempting to play a horrific film in Gawain’s mind. But those iMages didn’t do anything apart from allowing Gawain to recall the stimulation when watching a horror film at night in his previous life. Amber was a fearless person and would even dare to sneak into an ancestor’s tomb during the Dark Wave. She might be shocked by this mud, but it was strange that she was frightened stiff.

Amber felt it was rather strange too. She looked at the mud with lingering fear and said, “Yes… That’s right… When I merely took a glance at these things earlier, it was so horrifying that I felt my mind was about to explode. Even when I recalled its appearance, I would have brief hallucinations in my mind. I don’t know what happened now… These things might still be disgusting, but I don’t feel those spiritual attacks anymore.”

“Is that so?” Gawain looked at Amber before frowning and looking back at the mud. Immediately after, he gripped the Sword of Pioneers and walked carefully towards the source of the mud.

A certain intuition told him that the ‘aberration fusion’ that had bizarrely tough vitality was related to this pile of mud in the shadow realm. If he didn’t eliminate this pile of mud here, the investigation on the other side would probably never be able to be conducted successfully.

When Amber saw Gawain walking forward, she followed behind while perspiring cold sweat. When facing such abnormal beings that were beyond common sense, one’s combat ability would obviously become unreliable. However, at the next moment, she was so stunned while she stared with wide eyes.

As Gawain took each step forward, that constantly surging bloody mud actually retreated bit by bit!

In the beginning, it wasn’t very obvious, but after Gawain took a few more steps, the mud that extended in all directions had actually caved in significantly. It was so obvious that anyone could see it.

Gawain was also startled by this situation. He took one step forward, and the mud would take one step back. When he stood still, the mud had also stood in place and was squirming on the spot.

“What is going on?” Amber’s astonished voice echoed from the back. “These things seem to be… afraid of you?”

“Instead of saying it is afraid, why not say that it is a kind of biological or instinctive reflex?” Gawain frowned as he couldn’t understand why the mud would be retreating from him. However, it didn’t matter as Gawain continued to advance while saying, “This is good. Saves me a lot of work.”

The mud in front of Gawain had finally retreated back into the black smoke. As Gawain continued to walk forward, even that black smoke started to contract and change forms, causing it to reveal a gap. Through the gap, Gawain saw the neatly arranged runes and magic crystals that were still emitting a faint light.

Magic circle? It isn’t a magic circle reflected from the real world to the shadow realm, but a real magic circle constructed in the shadow realm?!

Could it be the work of the Gondor Empire’s Master Mages?

Gawain was rather astonished, but after thinking about it carefully, he felt it wasn’t really all that amazing. Gondor Empire’s magical technology was far beyond the current era. At that time, the unique human magic system was something that even amazed the elves. Even though the humans back then didn’t find out what the nature of the shadow realm was, but it didn’t affect those powerful Master Mages from having the ability to enter the shadow realm.

Amber stood far away from the bloody mud, and when she noticed that Gawain didn’t move for a long time, she waved her hand and shouted, “Have you discovered something?”

“A magic circle that is constructed on ‘this side’.” Gawain didn’t lift his head and answered, “It seems like this testing facility is constructed in two parts. The real world’s facility is one of the parts, and the other part is constructed inside the shadow realm…”

Amber was obviously surprised. “Wow! That era’s humans are incredible. They can enter the shadow realm too?”

“The people from that era are so incredible that you cannot imagine,” Gawain replied casually before stepping into the range of the black smoke. As he crouched down and was looking for the magic circle’s core, the black smoke constantly withdrew, allowing the complicated and massive magic circle to slowly become complete in Gawain’s vision.

Using his theoretical knowledge that wasn’t considered bad, Gawain quickly determined that this magic circle was extremely different from normal magic circles. Only a portion of it was considered ‘magical’, using regular spell runes or element runes. However, the other portions were carved with special symbols called the ‘sacred seals’ or ‘sacred runes’.

Those symbols weren’t a part of the magic system and were seals that were regularly used by members of the religions. It was said that they originated from the Eternal Stone Slate, and their function was to remove obstructions from connecting with the god’s power. When using such symbols, the ‘circles’ that were drawn wouldn’t be considered as a ‘magic circle’, it should be a theurgy circle.

In Gawain’s general knowledge, theurgy circles and magic circles were two things that would never fit together. In front of him… was the fused product of the theurgy circle and the magic circle!

Furthermore, this fused magic circle’s functions seemed to be particularly complex. As of now, Gawain had already noticed more than twenty rune combinations used for control and also a large number of runes that were used for the charging of energy… Such energy-charging runes were rather rare during the Gondor Empire era; after all, most of the magical pieces of equipment were basically powered by the magic from the Well of Deep Blue. There was rarely any equipment extracting energy from the environment which was deemed to be ‘low efficiency’. Yet, this equipment in the shadow realm had a magic circle that was filled with a complex and massive energy-charging structure…

No matter how strange this magic circle was, its size was still limited. As the black smoke continued to withdraw away from Gawain, its core region was finally exposed. Gawain’s eyes were frozen at the moment he saw the magic circle’s core.

Even if we defied the gods… Devouring the flesh of gods… Eat heartily…

As these maniacal words appeared in his mind, Gawain’s line of sight was fixed on that object for a long time without moving.

It was a piece of a man-made crystal that was a square of one foot on each side. It was sealing a piece of some extremely bizarre organism’s tissue inside.

Gawain could only use ‘bizarre organism’s tissue’ to describe what he had seen because he couldn’t recognize what living creature would have such flesh. It was dark red in color, and it didn’t have any blood vessels, tendons, muscles, or anything similar. However, there was a blood-like fluid constantly revolving around its surrounding. It was probably sealed inside the crystal for at least a thousand years but still was still gradually squirming…

It was just like an undying heart.

The truth was at the point of disclosure. Gawain didn’t dare to believe the bold association that he developed in his mind, but if the words on the testing hall’s walls were true, and if those crazy and preposterous manuscript records were true, then there wasn’t a need to suspect what the thing inside this crystal was.

Ultimately, Gawain decided to believe his own judgment as he recalled the ‘battlefield communications’ recorded into the Eternal Stone Slate.

The gods were dead; therefore, it wasn’t hard to imagine that their flesh would fall into the mortal realm.

If there was a pious believer here or anybody with common sense in this place, after they realized what was inside the crystal, they would probably lose all manner of speech and ability to move due to shock and fear. But Gawain was different; he was just worried if this bundle of ‘god’s flesh’ would suddenly jump and drench his face in blood. After all, such bizarre things would always mean great danger, but when Gawain looked at how terrified the bloody mud and black smoke were, it seemed like this bundle of flesh was even more afraid of him…

Gawain used the Sword of Pioneers to carefully poke at the crystal. The organism tissue within the crystal merely shivered a little, but after careful observation, there weren’t any other changes.

In short, it didn’t seem dangerous.

Gawain sheathed his sword and bent over to pick up the man-made crystal cube. It was rather heavy, but it wasn’t anything to Gawain. When the crystal cube was lifted off the ground, the ‘magic-theurgy circle’, the surrounding black smoke, and bloody mud vanished in an instant.

The runes had forcefully operated for a few seconds after losing the core, while the remaining magic crystals on the magic circle rapidly dimmed. Finally, this place was only left with complex and mysterious runes that were nothing more than an anomaly.

“This… What is it…?” Amber looked at Gawain with an anxious expression as he carried a large crystal out. This was the first time in her life that she saw something sparkling but didn’t have the thought to steal it. “Why… why do I feel my blood running cold just by looking at it?!”

“You really wish to know?” Gawain carried this organism tissue that was probably from the gods, and looked at Amber with a dull smile, and said, “With your brains, you should be able to guess something, right?”

“I…” Amber suddenly opened her eyes before taking a deep cold breath. “You aren’t kidding right?!”

“The legends say that there was a war between gods in ancient times, and gods had fallen into the mortal realm, allowing the mortals to possess Beyonder powers including magic. Since the gods’ powers could fall into the mortal realm, how isn’t it possible for their flesh to fall down too?” Gawain laughed but didn’t talk about the actual information he obtained from the Eternal Stone Slate’s shard. Instead, he used the ancient legend of the war between gods to explain this matter. After all, no matter how eccentric and unorthodox Amber was, she was still a local native with this world’s common sense and was also a self-proclaimed pious believer of the Goddess of Shadows. If he was to tell her that all gods might be dead and who knew what the mortals were praying to, she might not be able to accept it. But the legend of the war between gods was something that existed since ancient times. Such an explanation was something she should be able to accept.

After all, it was quite convincing to say that a god or two might have fallen when they were in a conflict. But to say that they were wiped out by some Zenith Galactic Fleet was simply a wholly different goddamned perspective…

Seeing how Amber nodded pensively, Gawain silently decided, ‘If it is necessary, I can also use the explanation to the people ‘outside’.’

He didn’t wish for the talents that he had gathered after all the hard work to completely collapse after hearing his twisted common sense…

Even if they had to collapse, they had to collapse in a proper and orderly manner.

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