Chapter 1264: Chapter 1265: Ironblood Cage
A few days later.
After taking a rough circuit around this ancient Sky City, Green urged Yaoyao on and, unable to wait any longer, came to the famed core of the Time Casket—the most precious relic left by the Sovereign of the Light of Hope, the source of the very meaning behind the Dimensional Esophagus Hope Coffin Gathering Place.
The Time Casket can only be used once in a creature’s entire lifetime.
The first instant Green laid eyes on this Time Casket, he was stunned by the mysterious power coiling over its surface and its unique shape, and could not help but recall that far-off time, back when he was still in those naïve, verdant years at the Wizard Academy.
"This..."
Back then, during Green’s first two years after joining Heisota Sorcerer Academy, he had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the study of the knowledge in "Hunting Nose Reconstruction and Scent Atlas", and thereby missed the chance to mindlessly copy and memorize the low-level witchcraft, facing the cruel danger of being eliminated in the upcoming newcomer trial.
That night, at the Blood Sail Alliance gathering, everyone was trying to comfort Green.
Ameida, Laphie’s suitor, that person who had once, in some obscure corner of the sea vessel, secretly gazed up at Green, was, at that time, actually thinking for Green from the standpoint of a "successful one", criticizing the others’ constant consolations, while Green could only maintain a smile under everyone’s comfort with the posture of a "failure", as if he truly wished to express heartfelt gratitude for their sympathy.
That night, everything sank deeply into Green’s heart like thorns.
Binhanson, on that night, spoke words of comfort that Green would never forget for all eternity; this once-annoying, glib friend moved Green deeply.
And now, this immense Time Casket before his eyes was actually the infinitely magnified form of the strange, mysterious phenomenon—the Moon Clock—that Binhanson’s wife, Robin, had been able to summon.
"Young Master Green, please don’t forget, only when the coordinate origin of the Scepter of Hope is located at the eternal mechanical clock can you summon the Castle of Hope into the present world with a sufficient amount of Sands of Time!"
The plump white radish, Yaoyao, said.
"I know!"
Such a vast quantity of Sands of Time was absolutely not something Green could gather in the short term.
"Dimensional Esophagus, farewell..."
As Green spoke, he gazed toward the temporal vortex within the nearly one-thousand-meter-high Time Casket, and stepped into it with resolute determination!
As an all-encompassing sense of pressure closed in from every direction, a nameless compressive force, the surrounding Superconductive Chrono phenomena continuously receded, as if an elevator were rapidly ascending.
An indescribable sense of distortion!
If traveling from reality to the illusory is like actively leaping into a quicksand pit, then trying to escape again from the illusory is like attempting to climb back out of that quicksand pit—harder than ascending to the heavens.
"Damn it, uuuh..."
Low, muffled groans; not only was time in disarray, but space itself was in extreme chaos.
Yet, as the distorted flowing-light, retrogressive time specks around him churned, the grating "ga-ga-ga-ga" of Xiao Ba’s leering laughter-will gradually began to echo within them, and with that, the temporal chaos was actually being rapidly smoothed out, anchored by a single time node.
It was a time node of the Wizard World.
Suddenly!
"Here, quick, I’ve found a lifeform in the shallow layer of time—hurry and drag it up, see if it has any special abilities, swoosh-swoosh-swoosh-swoosh."
Like a small boat sailing amid terrifying, towering waves, Green, lost within the chaotic shallow-layer Superconductive Chrono, was suddenly locked onto by an excited will. That will was not particularly powerful, yet it gave Green an extremely familiar feeling.
Hm!?
This is...
Immediately afterward, in the chaotic timespace where Green could find no leverage to struggle, more than a dozen green rice ears extended in from a weak point in the distorted timespace and dragged Green through.
Tricksters!
By now Green had completely confirmed his own judgment.
The Endless World was simply too vast and boundless. Even with the scattered civilizations Green had come into contact with or heard of by now, there were already more than ten. Who knew how many unknown world clusters still existed, how many clusters had yet to produce worlds famous across creation, or were still developing in their own unique ways.
If he returned to the Material World from the World of Trickster cluster—judging from the fact that a Level-6 Trickster had once appeared in the Shagu Thunder Emperor Wolf World of the chaos world cluster—then with his currently possessed Strength, which surpassed the Level-6 Peak, he would inevitably be able, by various means, to find a road home!
Thinking this, Green extinguished his intention to resist with the Dominator Almighty Soul, and allowed that mysterious power of green straw to guide him, drifting toward that timespace weak point.
Tricksters, a civilization whose Strength lay in summoning and manipulating mysterious power?
...
"Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh-swoosh, he’s here, he’s about to come out."
"It’s a flesh-and-blood creature. Although I can’t sense its Strength level, it must be an existence lost from a deeper layer of illusion—maybe it can help us with something."
"We really hit the jackpot this time."
Three dark-green Scarecrows stood around a translucent great tree. Within the semi-transparent trunk, light and shadow interwove—it was actually the scene of Green being fished up by several stalks of straw.
"Grasping at straws" probably referred exactly to such a scene.
With a "whoosh", all at once, the entire translucent tree was engulfed by green flames, blazing fiercely and forming a vortex of green fire. The three Scarecrows grew even more excited, their emerald Soul Fire eyes staring on in anticipation.
"We did it!"
With the shout of one Scarecrow, from within the green flame vortex, a figure shrouded in violent spatial energy and numerous unknown Illusory World energies drifted out.
Hum...
As the Material World elemental energies and these illusory phenomena neutralized each other, within a radius of over a thousand meters it was as if a layer of annihilation energy had swept through—everything turned to ash, yet the three Scarecrows looked as though they had long anticipated this.
"Tricksters, have I arrived at the Trickster World Cluster?"
Opening his Three-Colored Light Eyes, Green stared straight at these three Scarecrows gazing upon him. Yet, just like during the war with Wizard civilization, since these Tricksters fought by communicating with mysterious powers, it was difficult to judge their Biological Grade; any Strength attack-magnitude assessment held no meaning for them.
Green’s sudden will-communication left the three Scarecrows greatly shocked, incredulous.
This creature fished up from the deep-layer illusion actually knew of Trickster civilization?
Sitting bolt upright from the ashes, he felt an incredible, astonishing oppression pressing in from all directions, as though the entire world itself were bearing down on him. This was an extremely powerful, medium-scale world, one capable of exerting absolute suppressive pressure on his Strength.
"No, you are not in the Trickster World Cluster."
After the three Scarecrows exchanged glances, one of them, a Trickster with a blood-red, gore-stained scarf around its neck, replied to Green in a hoarse voice: "This is the Ironblood Galaxy World Cluster, the Ironblood Prison Trial Ground."
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
As that hoarse voice echoed within their will-communication, just as this Trickster spoke, a bolt of lightning split swiftly across the overcast, cloud-choked sky, illuminating an iron curtain firmament stretching beyond the limits of sight!
