Blind Box World - SSS-Rank Eye of Truth

Chapter 58: The One Passing Through

The Harpy Queen drew her claws back.

She turned her head, her razor-sharp eyes looking toward the woman on the ship, her expression still fierce but clearly reined in a great deal. Her black wings folded partway, her two legs gripping tight to the stone, and there was even a tension in that posture, like a beast trying to act unafraid while in truth already prepared to flee at any moment.

She opened her mouth, letting out a string of shrill sounds, full of piercing tones mixed with the clicking of her beak.

Ethan couldn’t understand a single word, but beside him, Laira pressed her lips together.

"What is she saying?" Ethan asked quietly.

"She says we killed her descendants." Laira answered, her voice also lowered. "She says that by the laws of this land, she has the right to demand blood."

Ethan looked at her with some surprise, because he hadn’t known Laira could understand that language.

Then again, it made sense, she was a dragon after all. Perhaps in the inherited memory of a Crimson Dragon, the speech of these wild races was nothing unfamiliar.

The woman on the ship heard this and, far from getting angry, actually laughed.

She spun the hairpin in her hand once, then tilted her head, her gaze looking down at the Harpy Queen full of contempt.

"Demand blood?" She drew the words out. "Don’t imagine I don’t know your kind’s habits. You Harpies spend all day doing nothing but eating the flesh of the strong to cultivate. Laid eyes on that dragon and your beaks filled with drool, didn’t they? I’m certain you picked the fight first, then couldn’t win and turned around to start whining about it."

The Harpy Queen let out a shriek, clearly struck right where it hurt.

But that woman wasn’t finished. She waved the hairpin in her hand, her tone growing lazier by the word.

"I’ll be honest with you, I’m in a hurry, I don’t have time to bicker with an old bird. So if you know what’s good for you, take your whole flock and get lost, and I’ll spare your life. But if not..."

She paused, and the smile on her lips lifted a bit higher.

"...then today I’ll show you exactly how hard your beaks are."

Those words were very light, even carrying a teasing air, but the very moment she said them, the air across this entire area congealed.

Ethan didn’t sense her release any killing intent at all, nor did he see her circulate the slightest bit of energy.

And yet the flock of hundreds of Harpies wheeling around outside all fell silent at once.

The Harpy Queen stood there, her nearly three-meter frame trembling faintly. She looked at the woman on the ship, then looked at Ethan and Laira, and in those razor-sharp eyes a fierce struggle played out.

At last, she let out a furious shriek, then turned and beat her wings, taking to the air.

The whole Harpy flock immediately flew after her, and within a few dozen seconds, the sky that had just been pitch-black was empty.

Lěng Ruò Yān, standing behind, let out a breath, her legs so weak she nearly dropped down onto the ground.

Ethan looked up, meaning to say a word of thanks.

But the woman on the ship didn’t so much as spare him a glance.

She only slid the hairpin back into her bun, then flicked her hand, and the ship began to move again, gliding over the three of their heads then heading straight for the pillar of light.

From beginning to end, she had glanced at Ethan exactly once, and in that glance there had been nothing special either, like looking at a rock on the roadside.

She hadn’t driven the Harpy Queen off because she wanted to save him. She had simply found it a nuisance, the same way a person walking down the street casually swats away a fly buzzing in front of their face.

Ethan stood there, watching the ship recede into the distance, an extremely complicated feeling rising in his chest.

Nor was that all.

Right at that moment, the Bone Demon Serpent also began to move.

Its colossal skull head turned back, and in that instant, Ethan once again felt that terrible pressure bear down. But this time, the monster only glanced over this area once, as if checking what all the commotion had been about, then turned away.

It didn’t care.

Whether it was the Harpy Queen, whether it was the woman on the flying ship, or the three of them, none of it was worth its bother.

Its colossal body, thousands of meters long, went on slithering, winding through the crumbling buildings of the dead city, heading straight for the pillar of light.

Then when its skull head touched that murky yellow surface of light, it vanished.

There was no sound, and no flash. The colossal monster that forty Gold-tier Awakened and two Diamond-tier Awakened hadn’t been able to kill simply went into the pillar of light like that, one length of body at a time, until even the last of its tail had completely disappeared.

The whole valley immediately lightened, like a boulder pressing down on the chest had just been lifted away.

But it still wasn’t over.

The hundreds of bizarre monsters that had been gathered around all this while, who had been standing and watching the spectacle of the Harpy Queen being driven off like an amusing play, now began trudging toward the pillar of light one after another.

Some slithered, some ran on six legs, some rolled, some flew.

One by one, they went inside the pillar of light and vanished.

The flying ship had arrived too. It stopped a few dozen meters from the pillar of light, and from the deck, a great many figures began leaping down.

Ethan narrowed his eyes to look. He couldn’t see their faces clearly, only that they were all people dressed in black garments like that woman, at least twenty or thirty of them. They landed on the ground neatly, arrayed themselves in orderly ranks, then likewise walked into the pillar of light one after another.

The woman in black was the last.

She stood before the pillar of light, adjusted her sleeves, then stepped in, and her figure too dissolved into the murky yellow light.

In less than ten minutes, the whole valley, which had been packed with every kind of creature, had gone empty.

Only the three of them were left standing there, on stone covered in Harpy corpses, beneath the shadow of a colossal pillar of light slowly rotating.

Ethan was silent for a long time.

"We go in," he said.

Lěng Ruò Yān whipped around to look at him, her eyes going wide. "Have you lost your mind? Did you just see what went in there? The Bone Demon Serpent! And that whole crowd besides! You go in there and it’s no different from handing over your life!"

"I know." Ethan didn’t take his eyes off the pillar of light. "But think about it, why did every last one of them go in?"

Ruò Yān stopped short.

"From the Bone Demon Serpent all the way down to a monster rolling around like a lump of meat, every one of them dropped everything to go inside." Ethan continued, his voice growing calmer by the word. "That woman included. She said she was in a hurry, that she didn’t have time to bicker. In a hurry for what? In a hurry to get in there, obviously."

He turned to look at Ruò Yān.

"There’s something in there that all of them want. And if something can make an entire dead land come rushing in to fight over it, then it’s definitely no ordinary article."

Laira stood beside him, one hand still clutching her bleeding shoulder, but she quirked her lips into a smile.

"Let’s go," she said. "Out here there’s nothing good anyway."

Ethan drew in a deep breath.

He knew this was a gamble. He knew there were things in there whose shadow alone would be enough to shatter his bones and pulp his flesh if he so much as brushed against it.

But he also knew that if he kept on being this weak, kept on having to bow his head and not dare open his eyes to look, kept on having to depend on other people casually driving his enemies off for him, then there was only one ending for him too.

"Go." He stepped forward.

Lěng Ruò Yān stood behind, watching the backs of the two of them, gritted her teeth, and at last swore out loud then chased after them.

"If Vesna finds out I let you two die in there, I won’t survive it either!"

The three of them stepped into the pillar of light.

And the murky yellow light immediately swallowed them.