Chapter 1 The Blazing Inferno

A towering column of fire suddenly erupted from the center of Domir Town. The first to ignite were the wooden houses surrounding the town's central square. The fire then spread with unnatural swiftness throughout the entire town. Even on streets with nothing to burn, the flames seemed to leap and ignite everything as if they were alive. Almost in the blink of an eye, the entire town was engulfed in a sea of fire, appearing as a crimson expanse when viewed from the high ground.

The group standing on the hillside watched the scene in astonishment. The way the fire burned didn't resemble a natural phenomenon in any way. Its speed was reminiscent of cheap movie special effects. Nangong Wuyue was shocked. "This… how did it suddenly catch fire?!"

Hao Ren squinted, carefully observing the situation in the town. He suddenly noticed an anomaly. "Wait… it's not a normal fire. Look at the houses!"

The houses consumed by the flames were collapsing at an alarming rate. Even with such intense fire, their destruction seemed abnormal. One by one, the houses disintegrated in the sea of fire and quickly turned to ashes. Soon, a sky-covering cloud of black ash was swept into the air by the wind.

A large amount of smoke gathered over the town, surging like thick ink. Flurries of black ash fell continuously from the sky, blanketing every corner of the town. Vivian was the first to realize the significance of the scene, muttering to herself, "The ash… is this where the town's ash came from?!"

The bizarre fire came and went quickly, as if it were just passing through. It only burned completely for a few minutes before all the flames vanished like illusions. Domir Town had undergone a complete transformation: all the houses were reduced to ashes, and the once-orderly rows of houses were now ruins. The charred beams and pillars of the houses that had reached towards the sky stood forlornly on the ground, appearing as if they had stood there for centuries.

A thick layer of ash covered the ground.

"Looks like this is the town's original appearance," Vivian said, biting her lip. "It was probably burned to ruins hundreds of years ago."

Lily was a little confused. "Then what we saw in the town before… was that all an illusion? Such powerful illusion magic?"

"It wasn't an illusion. It was Domir before the fire, and it existed in reality," Vivian said, finally understanding. "The space-time structure of this secret realm is chaotic, and many things have been preserved for an abnormal amount of time. Remember the lights that suddenly turned on and the flames that ignited out of nowhere? Those were signs of a time-line disorder. So, Domir before the fire and Domir as ruins were superimposed on each other. Baptiste must have been interfering with this superposition, but now that he's gone to Purgatory, things here are starting to behave according to the normal timeline."

Vivian didn't explain the magical principles behind this phenomenon in detail, but everyone present understood what had happened. Hao Ren finally sorted out all the supernatural phenomena he had experienced since entering Domir, including the spirit images that Lily saw like movies, the things in the town that abnormally lost their color, and the lights that lit up simultaneously at certain times. All of this was explained:

Domir in different time states was like a bunch of snapshots preserved in this chaotic space-time secret realm, and they were randomly superimposed on each other, creating the bizarre ghost town landscape.

Baptiste was undoubtedly the culprit, but why did he do this? And how did he do it?

"That wizard extracted the soul energy of everyone here. He admitted it himself," Hesperides said. "I'm afraid the chaotic space-time structure here was also for better extraction of power—probably to create some kind of magic cycle. He sealed off the space-time here. That's the only explanation I can think of."

"A wizard can do something like this?" Hao Ren frowned. "That sounds like he's challenging the rules."

Hesperides opened her mouth but could only shake her head in the end. "To be honest, I don't believe a wizard could do something like this. Interfering with space-time structure is very profound. No one in the modern era even possesses knowledge about this. I've only seen it in some ancient books. It's said that some of the 'Old Gods' of the mythological era could manipulate space-time. But wizards… not that I look down on this group, but most wizards are transformed from ordinary humans. Their talent and aptitude in magic are simply not enough for them to reach this level."

Vivian also nodded. "Baptiste shouldn't have this ability. The situation in this town isn't just ordinary space closure. If his skills in space-time control were really this high, he wouldn't have had his ultimate move broken by Lily digging a hole. I suspect he borrowed some ancient artifact or the help of some ancient being. He can summon the 'Blood King'… there's no guarantee he can't summon something else."

Lily looked at Vivian and then at Hao Ren. She had a different opinion. "You're all just speculating, right? That's based on the premise that the space-time structure of this town is indeed misaligned and superimposed as you said—what if it isn't?"

"Look at the state of the town. Think of a more reliable explanation yourself," Vivian said, pointing to the ruins of Domir at the foot of the hill. "Besides, I've seen realms with space-time disorders. Chronos once demonstrated his signature skill in front of me, and the scene was very similar to this."

Vivian dragged out an extraordinary ancient figure as soon as she opened her mouth, and suddenly all the guys present who weren't as old as her fell silent. After a while, Hao Ren spoke to break the silence, "In any case, Baptiste himself definitely knows everything. We just need to catch him."

Vivian hummed in agreement. "Yeah, but has your probe tracked that wizard?"

"No, the portal was in a chaotic state at the time, and the probe was thrown very far away," Hao Ren said regretfully. "But as long as Baptiste is really in Purgatory, we'll definitely be able to catch him."

"Then hurry up—Purgatory isn't a safe place. Let's hope that wizard doesn't die in there before we catch him."

The group didn't wait long. The autonomous machines didn't take long to install the portal generator. Installing these devices was actually very simple. Most of the effort was spent on analyzing the coordinate relationship between Purgatory and Earth. After the equipment was ready, Hao Ren immediately connected the data terminal to prepare to open the gate. At this time, the terminal reported an unusual event:

In just a few minutes, the Purgatory coordinates sent back by the probe had changed several times.

"This is probably the so-called 'Purgatory instability' phenomenon," Hao Ren heard some reminders from the data terminal in his mind. He immediately thought of something, staring intently at the record of Purgatory's coordinate changes in the past period. Its last 'position' was vastly different from before. "It's been 'drifting'… drifting at the edge of the universe!"

"Aren't all alien spaces drifting like this?" Hesperides said dismissively. "Alien spaces aren't pockets hanging on the wall. They're more like bubbles floating in water. Instability is natural."

"No, Purgatory is very different from other alien spaces," Hao Ren said, looking excitedly at the data terminal's analysis results. "The coordinate drift of other alien spaces is only relative to Earth's three-dimensional address. You can imagine them as planets deep in our universe. These planets are connected to Earth by wormholes. No matter how they move in their own galaxies, their relative position to the entire universe doesn't change: because they are located in the universe. But Purgatory… unbelievably, it seems to be moving relative to this universe. It's not its own coordinates that are drifting, it's the entire reference frame!"

Hesperides gave Hao Ren a strange look. "Who understands what you're saying?"

"Oh, you don't need to understand," Hao Ren said, waving his hand casually, his tone filled with inexplicable excitement. "This is something we're paying attention to."

As he said that, he glanced at Vivian, the implication clear:

"Purgatory" is drifting in the entire coordinate system relative to this universe, which has only one explanation—it is not only a fragment of the universe from the Dream Plane, but this fragment has not completely merged with this universe. It is still wandering in the gap between the Dream Plane and the Surface World.

The "gap" between the Dream Plane and the Surface World has another name, which is… the Wall of Reality!

Hao Ren had finally found the biggest "gangrene" on the Wall of Reality!

(Happy holiday everyone ~~ On this Mid-Autumn Festival, can I have two monthly tickets?)
Yuan Tong