The “gem” in E’toss’s words was placed deep underground beneath the Grand Temple – the ancient city’s priests clearly valued this object extremely highly. They drilled a shaft hundreds of meters deep into the bone-based foundation beneath the city to build a secret room, and completely sealed it with molten metal. It was precisely because of this insane method of storage that the gem escaped the great battle between Hao Ren’s group and the evil spirit, as well as the rebellion that took place in the Grand Temple thousands of years ago.
However, a mere few hundred meters of shaft and a layer of cast metal were no problem for Hao Ren’s autonomous machines. The machines quickly dug an inclined passage next to the highland and extracted the “gem”.
Just as Hao Ren and Vivian had expected – it was a blood crystal.
Mysterious light flowed over the translucent blood-colored gem, and each of its surfaces refracted the turbulent vortices at the boundary of the other dimension. It looked magnificent and mysterious. Vivian held the gem in her hand, gently stroking its surface: “An evil spirit… not only acted rationally for nearly a hundred years, but also deliberately made such a blood crystal before going completely insane… Hao Ren, what do you think is inside?”
“Perhaps it’s the ‘message’ of that evil spirit,” Hao Ren frowned, “But to be honest, I strongly advise against you rashly absorbing this thing. That evil spirit was too special, she even possessed divinity—the blood crystal she left behind is definitely very different from the ones you’ve obtained in the past.”
“I’ll consider it carefully,” Vivian shook the “gem” in her hand, a smile appearing on her face, “But you should understand my personality. If I examine the power in the blood crystal and confirm that it’s not harmful, then I will definitely absorb it. After all, every blood crystal contains memories that I have already lost, or invaluable information. I can’t turn a blind eye to it.”
Hao Ren of course understood Vivian’s personality, so in the end he just opened his mouth, but didn’t try to dissuade her any further, just nodding gently: “Then you must be careful, and if you want to absorb this thing, you must tell me in advance.”
“Of course, I know that.” Vivian nodded with a smile, but just as she was about to say something more, a low rumbling sound suddenly came from afar, mixed with the loud sound of something continuously shattering, and the ground beneath their feet began to tremble slightly.
“What’s going on?!” Izhaks immediately looked up into the distance, and a cloud of dust gradually rising appeared in his field of vision.
Large patches of dust were gradually rising from the edge of the city, and countless shadowy buildings swayed behind the dust cloud, then collapsed piece by piece. The dust, when it rose into the air, seemed to be disturbed by some invisible force, twisting as it rose, gradually forming a terrifying vortex structure like a horizontal tornado, almost merging with the quicksand vortex at the chaotic boundary of the other dimension!!
Hao Ren understood what was happening with just one glance: “The collapse of the other dimension is accelerating!”
Hesper suddenly exclaimed in shock: “How could this be… Didn’t you say that even if it collapsed quickly, there would still be at least several days…”
“Nonsense, I threw at least two dozen nuclear warheads when I was fighting that evil spirit – most of the destructive power was transferred to the spatial boundary,” Hao Ren glared, “And that’s not even counting Lily’s dog cannons, Vivian’s storms, and the blood sea that evil spirit threw out! Do you think this place wouldn’t collapse with so many things erupting all at once?”
Hesper stared blankly at Hao Ren, and after a long while, she squeezed out a sentence: “You’re still so confident even though you know you’re the culprit!?”
“Did I have a choice in that situation?” Hao Ren rolled his eyes at the little bat spirit, then turned to look at the transparent “jellyfish” slowly drifting in the sky, “E’toss, this place is going to be finished! You have to find a way to leave!”
“I know, I know… this place was bound to have such a day sooner or later,” In the ear-piercing rumble of the other dimension collapsing, E’toss’s voice was still unhurried, “No need to worry about me, chaotic wanderers cannot be killed by this level of collapse… You guys get out of here quickly, this city probably won’t last a few more quarters of an hour…”
The increasingly violent earthquake was coming from afar, and the collapse of the other dimension was further accelerated – this was like an activated chain reaction. When the reaction had not yet begun, the balanced structure of time and space was still relatively stable, but once it broke through a certain critical point, the collapse of the entire space was as swift and unstoppable as a sandcastle in the waves. In just a few sentences, Hao Ren had already seen patches of smoke rising from all directions of the city. In the most severely collapsed areas, the entire earth had curled up and bulged, and countless buildings and shattered boulders floated up like light bubbles, twisting into spirals in the air and falling into the quicksand vortex at the chaotic boundary.
The entire lost city was accelerating its fall into the vortex of the spatial boundary.
“What are you going to do?” Vivian asked loudly, “Are you sure you can run out in this situation?”
E’toss did not answer directly, but sighed with emotion: “I have stayed in this place for too long. Now that the Overlord has perished and the city has come to an end, it is time to say goodbye to this place… Let’s go, while we still can.”
“Let’s go,” Hao Ren felt E’toss’s calmness and determination from the mental connection, so he pulled Vivian next to him, “Don’t worry, it knows what it’s doing.”
The collapse of the other dimension was gradually approaching its peak, and finally even the gravity environment began to dissipate. This gravity system, which originally relied on the structure of time and space, quickly weakened and warped after the spatial boundary lost its balance. The entire ancient city of E’toss tilted slowly in the quicksand barrier, and the structures on the edge of the city scattered like snowflakes, swirling and falling into the quicksand vortex. Hao Ren and his group quickly passed over the city, and they saw a huge black rift appearing in the central axis of the city, with E’toss’s bone fragments gushing out of the rift, like the fires of hell.
E’toss’s spiritual body was beginning to detach from the city.
The “giant jellyfish’s” tentacles retracted from the ground, and its almost transparent body slowly changed shape, as if preparing for the final sprint. On the ground, the golem legion, out of control, extinguished their runes one after another. Their scorching cores finally cooled down, and after losing the core support, these precise constructs would no longer operate. They were like the most ordinary stones, gradually leaving the ground as gravity was lost, and floating towards the increasingly lower spatial boundary.
It was wise to leave a set of stabilizers at the entrance and exit of the other dimension.
The collapse of space caused the connection between this lost land and the main material plane to also fall into an extremely turbulent state. If it weren’t for the stabilizers forcefully extending its life, this passage would probably have turned into a bright spark of energy along with the collapse of the boundary – and even with the effect of the stabilizers, it looked shaky. When Hao Ren and his group arrived at the exit, this originally wide rift had turned into a bright circular hole, and dazzling electric light constantly shot out from the edges of the portal forcibly supported by the stabilizers, clearly reaching its limit.
“Go through quickly, this place won’t last much longer!” Hesper pushed Elizabeth and Gungnir, running towards the exit while shouting, “Everyone keep up! Don’t fall behind!”
The group passed through the gate one after another. Hao Ren and Vivian stayed at the end of the line, guarding the rear. With one foot across the portal, they looked back at the lost city for the last time before the passage completely collapsed.
The entire city had almost completely shattered, turning into large patches of suspended land floating in space. The ruins of the Grand Temple and several fragmented pyramids collided in the air, and these ancient and magnificent buildings collapsed into fragments in a series of loud noises.
And a translucent, ever-changing giant “creature” floated above these fragmented ruins. It seemed to be bidding farewell to its former body for the last time, then turned its head and drifted towards the largest vortex at the spatial boundary.
The huge tearing force of the spatial collapse seemed to not exist for E’toss. The figure swayed gently in the vortex, then passed through the barrier and disappeared.
Only E’toss’s farewell remained in Hao Ren and Vivian’s minds.
“Looks like a fish, meow.” Gungnir’s head suddenly popped out of the spatial passage again, muttering next to Hao Ren.
“Hurry up!” Hao Ren slapped the head of this stupid cat, who couldn’t distinguish between important and unimportant matters, “If you don’t leave, this place will really collapse!”
The unstable spatial passage made people dizzy for a while, but the dizziness came and went quickly. Hao Ren soon felt his feet firmly on the ground again. He shook his head and quickly adapted to the surrounding dim environment.
It was still the same cave covered in yellow sand.
The two subordinates Hesper had left behind were still faithfully guarding here. When they saw the group returning safely from the rift, they immediately greeted them: “That’s great, you’re all safe – Chieftain, this place has been shaking since just now!”
Hesper glanced around the cave. She clearly saw that the walls of the cave were also蠕动 (rú dòng - wriggling) and shrinking, and the yellow sand on the ground was dissipating like a phantom in the wind, so she nodded: “Let’s get out of here quickly, this cave should disappear soon too.”
The young male vampire saw Hesper’s serious and nervous expression and couldn’t help but ask: “Chieftain, what happened inside?”
Hesper looked at Vivian, then at Hao Ren, and sighed softly: “Our family is too chaotic. With your normal level of values, it would be difficult for me to explain it clearly to you.”
Young vampire: “?”