Chapter 129 The Desert

Time rewinds to a dozen minutes earlier. The ancient castle of the Baisse-Moss family was thoroughly bombarded by the massive amount of weaponry that Heissena had been hoarding since World War II, collapsing it. The Shadow Demons stubbornly resisting in the castle were mostly wiped out. It turned out that the Heissena family, who had been quite low-key in the last hundred years, actually had hidden strength that exceeded that of the Shadow Demon family—when those crazy vampire showed their fangs armed with high technology, the old-fashioned half-demons instantly crumbled.

But the leader of the Shadow Demon family ran away.

When everyone arrived at the underground of the castle, they only saw the altar and magic array that had been destroyed, as well as the key stone slab that had been turned into fragments. Baisse-Moss found another distortion point in the basement of his castle that could connect to the ruins and escaped into it, and finally blew up the escape route.

However, this did not stop Hao Ren and the others. The door-opening method recorded by the data terminal also worked in the Shadow Demon's castle. Everyone re-summoned the portal to the ruins above the collapsed altar. Heissena ordered her subordinates to wait outside the portal, and then followed Hao Ren and Vivian to the different space that almost killed her.

But after passing through the portal, what appeared in front of everyone was a desert.

Lily was squatting on a sand dune not far away, acting crazy, while Hao Ren looked in astonishment at the strange scenery stretching as far as the eye could see. Under the chaotic, yellowish sky, there was only endless yellow sand. The undulating sand dunes stretched from under his feet to the horizon. He looked as far as he could, seeing sparse, withered plants and jagged rocks that had been weathered into various strange shapes in the distance. Apart from these things, everything was desolate, and there was no landmark building or ruins to be seen—and of course, no sign of Baisse-Moss.

"Isn't there supposed to be a sea of clouds in here?" Becky looked around nervously, the eerie change in the environment triggering her mercenary instincts—and she hadn't forgotten the scene where she was almost roasted alive in this different space before. To be honest, she didn't even want to come in at first, fearing that the energy storm was still raging, but then she thought that her enemy was waiting here, she couldn't help but follow.

"It seems that entering the ruins from different places will change the scenery inside," Heissena speculated, stroking her chin. "The key stone slab only works at specific spatial distortion points. The distortion point at the entrance of the Parthenon was found by me, but now it seems that there is more than one such distortion point. Of course, it may have nothing to do with the entry coordinates. Baisse-Moss changed the 'settings' inside the ruins by some method. He knows more about the ruins than I do."

To ensure safety, Nangong Wuyue had transformed into a sea serpent before entering the ruins, but she was dumbfounded as soon as she came in. At this time, she coiled her tail into a mosquito coil shape, and lay listlessly in the middle of the coil: "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die..."

It was really difficult to send a marine creature to explore a desert.

"Why don't you go back first?" Hao Ren took out a large bucket of water from his dimensional pocket and sprinkled it on Nangong Wuyue's tail. This bucket of water was originally prepared for Doudou. "The environment here is not suitable for you..."

"It's okay, I'll adapt," Nangong Wuyue finally cheered up a little after being sprinkled with water. She tried to concentrate her mind to squeeze the water from the surrounding air and the depths of the yellow sand, forming a layer of moisture around herself and everyone else that was better than nothing. "Fortunately...there's still some water content."

"Terminal, scan." Hao Ren casually threw the data terminal into the sky. The only one on the scene who was completely unaffected by the environment was this PDA.

The data terminal rose into the sky and scanned the area with a wide-area radar far exceeding the perceptual limit of everyone present, then descended and projected a huge arrow pointing into the distance in the air: "Go in this direction, there's a mountain range over there, and there seems to be something fun on the other side of the mountain."

Hao Ren thought for a while and decided to save some effort: "You fly fast, teleport us over."

"You're just too lazy!" The data terminal complained as usual, but it wouldn't slack off when it came to serious business. It immediately turned into a blue light and disappeared into the sky. After a while, everyone was teleported to a bare stone mountain peak. The data terminal landed on Hao Ren's shoulder: "This unit teleported you directly to the top of the mountain. Take a look at what's at the foot of the mountain?"

Hao Ren and the others recovered from the dizziness caused by the teleportation and looked around at the surrounding environment. Hao Ren first saw the rolling yellow sand extending infinitely on one side of the mountain range—the desert from which everyone had come. On the other side of the mountain range, he saw a vast barren plain with large stretches of stony wasteland and a large basin. Looking as far as he could, he could see another equally desolate mountain range on the other side of the plain.

Two mountain ranges, sandwiching a plain and a basin in the middle. This didn't seem strange, but Hao Ren always felt a strange sense of déjà vu in the scene before him.

He rummaged through his memories while looking at the trend of the entire mountain: the mountain under his feet extended out for an unknown distance, and the section where it curved towards the desert in the distance had a very peculiar structure, with peaks and gaps distributed in order, looking like a huge spine.

"Wow!" Lily suddenly realized, "This is a bit like the Dragon Spine Mountains!"

"The basin below should be Lake Beinets," Vivian nodded. "The plain should be the Twisted Woodlands...what's going on?"

The data terminal descended into mid-air and presented the surrounding desolate terrain with precise holographic projection, then covered them with vegetation and blood-colored lake water. When the image was processed, the appearance of Lake Beinets was completely revealed, almost without any difference.

Hao Ren was dumbfounded.

"Obviously, we are still in a different space, not teleported to the Dream Plane," the data terminal turned off the projection. "It is speculated that this records the scene of a certain historical period in the Dream Plane—the scene before Lake Beinets was formed. The Great Plains used to be a desert, and Lake Beinets used to be a basin. The legends of the Dream Plane seem to have many deviations. What we are seeing now should be the true scene before the goddess destroyed the world: a desolate place."

Becky opened her mouth for a long time without closing it: "Um...you said if I draw the scene in front of me and take it back to my hometown to sell to historians and the church..."

"You'll most likely be tied to a pyre by the church and sprinkled with cumin for two hours," Nangong Wuyue glanced at the mercenary girl who was desperate to make money. "Even if no one burns you, they'll probably treat you like a lunatic."

Becky stuck out her tongue and stopped talking, while Heissena, who was standing behind Vivian, finally couldn't restrain her curiosity: "What have you been talking about all this time? That Dream Plane thing isn't the first time you've said it!" Then she pointed to the data terminal: "And what exactly is this talking, hologram-projecting brick?! When did human wizards research such a thing?"

Hao Ren's forehead was instantly covered in cold sweat. He had been acting with Heissena for so long that he had subconsciously regarded her as "one of his own". It was only when she yelled that he realized that Heissena was actually an original vampire who didn't know anything...

He quickly asked the data terminal if there was an automatic pencil that could erase someone's memory by pressing it against their eyes, but Vivian didn't need to go to so much trouble. She just glared at Heissena: "Secret, don't ask."

Then Heissena solemnly nodded in agreement, like signing a military order before going to the battlefield.

It would be so much better if she was always so obedient.

Lily jumped nimbly among the rocks, running around and exploring. At this time, she suddenly stood on a high place and shouted loudly, pointing to a certain spot on the mountainside: "Hey! The temple! That temple ran to the mountainside!"

Everyone finally found the Cloud Temple, which was theoretically the core of the ruins, but this time it was not floating in the sky, but was "embedded" in the mountainside of the Dragon Spine Mountains in a peculiar state, as if it was integrated with the entire mountain. And it didn't collapse: the grand energy storm last time looked like it was going to tear the temple apart, but now it seems that the latter is still well preserved.

"Baisse-Moss must be in there!" Heissena cheered and spread her wings, gliding towards the mountainside, followed closely by Nangong Wuyue. The sea monster girl rolled down the mountain with great momentum, exclaiming, "Ah...help...I can't stop...stop!!"

Izhaks was shocked when he saw this: "Why does this girl like to roll herself into a ball so much?"

Nangong Wuyue's snake ball rolled towards the mountainside while answering intermittently: "In order to prevent...moisture from evaporating—"

Hao Ren: "..."

To reiterate, it was really difficult to send a marine creature to explore a desert.