Chapter 697: Chapter 74 So It’s You, Miel
“Where are we?” Nora asked hesitantly.
“The Abyss Gate.” Red-haired Otto replied.
Demigods, escorting the girls of The Azure Longsword, set off from Palermo, teleporting in a northeast direction, and traversed a full 3,600-plus kilometers to reach the remote Hyperborean Polar Ice Plains.
Scattered Beastman cavalry roamed in the distance, a few of which the Demigods killed off-handedly, prompting the rest to quickly flee far away.
At this moment, everyone was located within the open-air ruins of an industrial site from an old era, resembling a huge mine. Above was an abandoned drilling tower, and the surroundings were cluttered with molten, scrapped, and obsolete drill bits.
“How do we get down?” Medea, arms crossed, asked perplexedly. “You don’t mean we just jump down, do we?”
“Exactly.” Marquina and the Enchanting Demon Queen, one on each side, grabbed her shoulders and then leapt forward down the shaft.
It was unclear how much time had passed.
As Medea groggily woke from her unconsciousness, she saw Nora treating her.
“Where is this?” Medea sat up, only remembering that it seemed like her real mother and sister had pushed her into the mine shaft.
“This is the transfer station,” Nora replied.
Medea sighed deeply, still feeling dizzy, when she saw Marquina and the Enchanting Demon Queen approaching.
“Camellia, your physical constitution just isn’t up to par!”
“As an Enchanting Demon, you’re so faint-hearted. Men will bully you in the future.”
“Shut up!” Medea snapped, cutting off their teasing. “All because you two suddenly pushed me!”
Annoyed, she stood up and straightened her clothes and hair, then took a look around.
This place seemed like an abandoned… subway station? Yet aside from the Demigod seniors and the girls, there were no other passengers, nor were there any station staff.
Dim, flickering lights hung overhead as if they were about to fail, and deep, low wind sounds echoed from the distant tunnel, akin to a demon’s murmurs and whispers. People were scattered around, sitting or standing, seemingly waiting for something.
“What do we do next?” Medea asked.
“Wait for the train,” Nora replied.
Obviously, during the time Medea had been unconscious, the Demigods had briefed everyone.
“A train?” Medea was puzzled.
“The train to the Abyss,” Nora said.
From the distance, the sound of a train rolling over tracks faintly started and grew steadily louder. Half a minute later, an old, rusty green-skin train emerged from the tunnel, gradually slowing down to stop in front of the station.
“Eh.” Medea eyed the train’s rusted iron shell hesitantly—feeling it might fall apart naturally after another 500 meters.
However, Sigrdrifa steadied her arm from the side:
“You’re still quite weak, let me help you on,” Sigrdrifa said with a hearty smile and insistently helped Medea aboard the train.
“I appreciate it!” Medea, unable to wriggle free, was nearly in tears from frustration.
The rest followed into the carriage. As expected, it was empty. Many of the leather seats were torn, the windows were covered in cobweb-like cracks, and there seemed to be remnants of posters not completely torn away.
As Thira was the last to enter the carriage, the doors automatically closed and the scenery outside began to retreat backward.
Medea looked around and saw everyone sitting in their seats, silent. So, she quietly activated her Mind Power and asked Sigrdrifa next to her,
“What did they tell you while I was unconscious just now?”
“They didn’t say anything?” Sigrdrifa was puzzled.
“Then why don’t you have any reaction to this bizarre station and the meaningless ancient train?” Medea asked skeptically.
“Oh, Eleanor’s ancestor, Otto, told us to just follow them and not ask any questions,” Sigrdrifa replied. “That’s why we’ve been quiet all along.”
“He told you not to ask, and you just didn’t?” Medea was somewhat speechless.
“Yeah, he said, ‘To know’ in the esoteric sense is equivalent to ‘to gaze’,” explained Sigrdrifa. “When you gaze into the Abyss, the Abyss gazes back at you; the more you understand the Abyss, the more attention it pays to you.”
“Uh…” Of course, Medea was no fool. Otto’s explanation was crystal clear, meaning “the process of understanding the Abyss equates to the process of being tainted by the Abyss.”
None of them had reached Demigod Level, and being tainted by the Abyss naturally was not desirable.
Medea herself had been designated as “Daughter of Purgatory” by Purgatory since birth, able to draw power from others’ pain. If the Abyss were to discover that the neighboring Daughter of Purgatory was dropping by, it would likely be an extremely dangerous situation.
With her thoughts racing, she guessed why she had fainted just now—it probably wasn’t because she was suddenly shocked, but rather the Enchanting Demon Queen had tampered with her Mind Body to avoid her gaining any understanding of the Abyss during its ingress.
Such understanding, in turn, would attract the Abyss’s gaze.
So, not to learn, not to conceive of the Abyss, was actually the safest choice for her.
—————-
Abyss Lower Level, Dark Elf Dungeon, Ancestral Tomb.
“Leveled up?” Hearing the proud report from Little Mia, Aske was momentarily speechless.
You leveled up that fast?
To think that just half a month ago, we had just defeated the Outville Family, allowed you to touch the Navian Bone Tooth and comprehend the Black Hole Law, and now two weeks later, you’ve leveled up again?
Could the Abyss provide an experience bonus to Transcendents who master the Black Hole Law? Wait a minute, maybe it’s…
“Miel?” Aske asked seriously.
“Mm,” Miel could only respond truthfully, “Recently, while training her, I pulled out a future Mia… probably the future Mia imparted some experiences to her…”
Just as I suspected! Aske immediately understood.
The Path of Law from Lv.10 to Lv.20 required experience fundamentally based on the understanding of the Law. Since different people have varying interpretations of the Law, even a Demigod predecessor who specialized in the Black Hole Law couldn’t speed up Mia’s comprehension of it.
However, the Fate Law was like a bug-like existence: it could project Mia’s future self, and the understanding of the Black Hole Law by the future Mia was both a continuation of the present Mia’s understanding and significantly more advanced in progress.
That is to say, letting the future Mia communicate with the present Mia could accelerate Mia’s understanding of the Law, therefore speeding up her leveling pace.
What about others, then?
Could they also “speed up”?
Miel, so indeed you are the biggest cheat in the team…
Quickly suppressing these thoughts, Aske, looking up at the swaying ceiling of the Underground Palace, instructed Mia,
“Alright, let’s teleport out of here first.”