Chapter 132 Otherworldly Creation

Leaden clouds churned and billowed across the sky. They didn't brew any terrifying thunder, only leaving the air beneath them faintly damp.

Swish—

It was a faint, almost imperceptible sound.

Refracting the ambient light, honed round and crystal-clear by invisible currents and biting winds, a single translucent drop surrendered to gravity and plummeted from the gray clouds.

It possessed no color of its own; its excessively pure interior merely reflected the surrounding scenery.

From the gloomy gray-black of the sky to the vibrant emerald of the canopy, it brushed past dead branches and spider webs, flashed by tender leaves and moss, and finally blossomed into a shattered splash of water in the mist, scattering and vanishing into the air.

"Is it raining?"

The half-orc Volga rubbed his slightly damp, bald head and instinctively looked up.

All that greeted his eyes was a thick, lush canopy of emerald green, with the gloomy overcast sky barely bleeding through the gaps in the branches.

"Hey, idiot!"

"We're almost at our destination, so focus!"

At the back of the group, a tall, blond Elf called out, reminding the half-orc who had stopped walking just because of a little rain.

"Volga not stupid!"

As if a nerve had been struck, the green-skinned half-orc—who usually never argued or lost his temper with his teammates—suddenly turned around and enunciated every word to the Elf.

"Chieftain said, Volga smart!"

He pointed at his head, his expression dead serious.

The Elf knew that if he kept arguing, the half-orc would use his broken Common—which was worse than a village toddler's—mixed with countless orcish dialects that even the party's mage couldn't fully understand, to recount several little stories from his tribal life before he became an adventurer, all to prove that his IQ was a few points higher than a normal human's.

Now wasn't the time to tease him anyway.

Forcing a stiff smile, the Elf gave a perfunctory reply, "Yeah, yeah, smart. You're the smartest."

Unexpectedly, upon hearing this, the half-orc Volga shook his head and looked at the other two members of the party.

"Cornell, mage, smartest."

"Warrior, heavy armor, reliable."

"Long ears, thin sword, soft, dumb."

He counted on his fingers, seemingly giving serious thought to the intelligence rankings within the party.

"Volga, rank second... third."

The Elf's mouth twitched, and his normally light footsteps faltered for a second.

"Fine, fine, whatever you say," the Elf surrendered, forcing down his urge to retort. Unwilling to waste any more time on the half-orc, he chose to humor him.

About five days had passed since they left the Adventurers' Association in Rivervale Town and entered the Misty Forest.

All four of them were high-level Class Holders. On the outskirts of the forest, there was virtually no danger capable of threatening them.

They moved very fast.

They had now rushed to the inner regions of the Misty Forest, approaching the core, and were about to reach their destination.

Without a doubt, the environment in the Deep Forest was far harsher than on the outskirts.

Even though the squad hadn't suffered any casualties, the journey had left obvious marks on them.

The silent and resolute human Warrior holding the front line had several new scratches on his heavy steel armor.

The wound on the half-orc Volga's left arm was still scabbed over. Even the Elf's meticulously protected, ordinarily spotless fine clothes had acquired two stubborn, pale green stains—courtesy of a Vine Blight hiding in the bushes that their alarm spell had detected yesterday.

In the entire squad, the mage Cornell was the only one who looked completely at ease.

The Elf had no complaints about this; in fact, he was secretly relieved.

After all, he had been working as an adventurer for many years.

He knew very well that if the core Spellcaster—who was protected by everyone else—ever looked battered and exhausted...

...it would mean their squad was on the verge of collapse.

"Quiet."

A wooden staff lightly tapped the ground, causing the translucent barrier enveloping the squad to warp slightly.

Cornell's gaze leapt past the heavily armored Warrior—who had stopped in his tracks at some point—and looked ahead.

Right in the middle of a suddenly open clearing was a pitch-black cave entrance.

He pulled a Brass Compass from his robes, his expression intensely focused.

On the surface, the compass didn't look much different from the cheap trinkets sold in the town's general stores.

A mottled, dull brass dial, a smudged glass cover covered in fingerprints, imprecise markings...

The only exception was the slender magnetic needle in the center pointing the way.

It possessed a strange translucent quality, as if formed from light solidified into physical substance.

As it swayed slightly with his movements, it trailed wisps of illusory, flowing light.

Holding the compass in his left hand, he gently raised it.

Light flickered. The magnetic needle pointed straight and unyieldingly at the cave in the clearing ahead.

"We're here."

"Get ready."

Cornell glanced up. Without the dense canopy blocking the view, the gloomy sky pressing down with its leaden clouds was fully exposed.

His lips moved, seemingly chanting a short, indistinct spell.

Immediately, the barrier that had expanded outward from his staff rapidly shrank.

Its range decreased, but its early warning capabilities drastically spiked.

It even possessed an adjustable lighting function.

Perfect for the lair environment they were about to enter.

They didn't rush straight in.

Aside from Volga, the rest of the team were veteran adventurers with abundant experience.

Even with their high average strength and the lack of any powerful monsters in this area capable of threatening them, they took no chances.

The group, including the blond Elf, took a moment to rest and resupply on the spot. Only after adjusting themselves to peak condition did they maintain their previous formation and cautiously enter the cave, led by the human Warrior.

They acted with utmost professionalism.

Of course, to a certain extent, it was exactly this serious attitude toward their missions—combined with luck, talent, and other factors—that allowed them to climb the ranks and become high-level Class Holders.

Those adventurers who were too reckless but lacked luck, or who were careless and lacked strength, had long since been filtered out by the major magic-gathering zones, becoming nothing more than fertilizer for the earth.

There had to be hobgoblins inside this lair. The entrance tunnel was spacious and clean, free of the feces and rotting corpses commonly found in an ordinary Goblin Cave.

The tunnel was filled with numerous forks and side paths, and several crude traps had been set up.

The entire structure was massive and complex.

Naturally, this cave environment—which would terrify bottom-tier adventurers—posed absolutely no difficulty to high-level Class Holders equipped with a Spellcaster.

The compass in his palm consistently pointed in the right direction, eliminating any possibility of getting lost. And those so-called traps... couldn't even leave a scratch on the human Warrior's armor.

The journey was smooth, without the slightest hindrance.

"So nostalgic..."

"How long has it been since we last cleared out a Goblin Cave together like this?"

"I've almost forgotten what these green-skinned rats sound like when they scream in death."

Drawing upon a natural inheritance from deep within the dense woods, the blond Elf condensed his voice into the breeze swirling around him.

It only traveled into his teammates' ears, without spreading outward in the slightest.

"Since you obtained your Class Level, I suppose..."

"Besides, weren't you the one complaining that the bounties on Goblins were too low to even cover our supply expenses? That's why I stopped taking those missions."

He possessed a similar method of concealed communication that enemies couldn't detect.

Surges of magical particles danced in the air, delivering Cornell's voice directly to the Elf's ear.

Blessed with a long lifespan spanning centuries, Elves couldn't always clearly remember every single event that occurred throughout their lives.

Having clearly forgotten what the mage just mentioned, the blond Elf flashed an awkward smile and forcibly changed the subject.

His emerald eyes peered into the deep, bottomless depths of the tunnel as he asked, "Still, would goblins really dig their cave this deep?"

"With those stumpy little legs of theirs, it must take them dozens of minutes just to get outside, right?"

Cornell didn't even have time to answer.

The moment the Elf finished speaking, scattered torchlight flickered in the distance of the previously pitch-black tunnel.

They instantly fell silent.

A slender right hand brushed his waist, and in a flash, the blond Elf drew his thin sword, wrapped in a light, flowing breeze.

Cornell, meanwhile, temporarily stowed his compass and reached his left hand into his small leather pouch.

He pinched lightly.

He pulled out a pinch of fragmented dust as black as charcoal and sprinkled it over his staff.

Hum—

The translucent warning barrier suddenly dimmed, wrapping the squad members within it and seemingly merging them with the shadows along the stone walls.

"Six minutes," Cornell reminded them.

The group slowed their pace and crept closer.

They weren't in a rush to fight, choosing instead to observe the situation first.

Thirty-six goblins, and two Bugbears.

Cornell couldn't help but frown.

It wasn't because the number of enemies exceeded what they could handle, but rather...

It was far too easy.

Bugbears with a Challenge Rating of merely "one," along with a few green-skinned grunts.

Let alone these thirty-something creatures; even if the number was bumped up to triple digits, anyone in their squad could dispatch them with ease.

And the Association wouldn't have issued a high-bounty mission just for these minor lackeys.

"Let's clear them out first."

'There's no way to bypass the enemies and go deeper,' Cornell thought. He signaled his teammates to attack.

What followed... was a slaughter as effortless as crushing dry weeds and rotting wood.

These scrawny goblins, whose physical strength was even worse than livestock on a ranch, were facing high-level Class Holders already striding toward the "Transcendent Tier".

They had absolutely no chance to resist.

A light swing of the rapier and a sweep of fierce air currents later, over a dozen goblins collapsed to the ground.

As for those two Bugbears...

To the squad, they were no different from ordinary Goblins.

The half-orc grabbed one in each hand and snapped their necks right off.

The battle was over in a dozen seconds. Cornell just stood on the sidelines and chipped in with two "Magic Missiles," while the human Warrior didn't even budge, simply staying by his side to protect him.

"How bizarre. We walked for five days... and this is it?"

The blond Elf had clearly noticed the same discrepancy as he wiped the residual blood off his blade with a piece of gauze.

"Big guys, tough!"

"But, for Volga, easy," the half-orc chimed in at the right moment, casually wiping the blood on his hands onto the nearby stone wall.

It seemed he had judged from the physical sensation of tearing their bodies apart that these two Bugbears were slightly stronger than their usual kin.

But if anyone actually asked him exactly how much stronger they were, he would only spit out a few orcish slang words, utterly unable to explain it.

"Though, I remember that once Bugbears reach adulthood and leave their tribe, they generally don't live in groups anymore."

"Unless... there's some kind of even more powerful leader uniting their packs," the blond Elf analyzed, his gaze sweeping over the two Bugbear corpses on the ground.

"Exactly. Otherwise, the Adventurers' Association wouldn't have set such a high bounty." Cornell pulled the compass out of his robes again. "The mission isn't over yet. Don't let your guard down."

Sure enough, the magnetic needle on the compass hadn't moved a hair; it remained pointing dead ahead in a specific direction.

Their gazes followed its point.

The needle was pointing straight toward a tunnel entrance located inside the lair, leading even deeper underground.

The battle with the goblins had already exposed them.

So they no longer bothered masking their movements.

The squad picked up their pace and continued advancing into the depths of the cave.

Then, as the path beneath their feet grew ever wider and smoother, and torches slotted into the stone walls gradually began lighting up the passage...

They finally arrived at the ultimate destination of their trip.

It was a massive cave, expansive as a plaza, yet incomparably quiet.

Much like a beehive, the surrounding stone walls were riddled with openings of various sizes. Squirming dark silhouettes and outlines could vaguely be seen shifting within them.

Yet it was as if some invisible wall existed, forcing those shadows to stay obediently inside, too terrified to take even half a step out.

Because of this, the only things openly exposed to the group's line of sight in the entire cavern were a single hunched figure draped in a black robe, and...

"What the hell is that!?" the blond Elf couldn't help but cry out, his pupils shrinking as if he had witnessed something inconceivable.

It sat upon an altar carved from an unknown pale rock, right in the very center of the lair.

Swirling in dense, acrid bloody light.

—An elliptical phantom.

It had taken two days.

The Red-Maned Bugbear had left the Misty Forest and headed to a human village in search of a blood sacrifice.

It had finally completed the very last bit of progress required for the sacrifice.

Allowing the divine gift of the Goblin main god, Maglubiyet—hailing from a distant divine kingdom beyond the Material Plane—to finally descend upon the world.

Hum—

It was a low-frequency hum, just like the sound of dense energy colliding in a mentor's laboratory.

The object was cast entirely from a pure, flawlessly silver-white metal. That incredibly pristine, bizarre material—it was definitely no simple adamantine or mithril.

Its surface was etched with branch-like, eccentric runes, all meticulously arranged. A fluorescent blue Glimmer flowed through the grooved patterns, flashing rhythmically like a heartbeat.

That perfectly rounded, wondrous curvature akin to a deity's teardrop, an industrial aesthetic that fused "profanity" and "precision" into one...

It was something Cornell had never seen before in his decades-long career as a mage.

The moment he laid eyes on this elliptical iron sphere, an absurd yet incredibly real hypothesis blossomed in his mind.

It was an artifact from another world.

"Hum, hum."

Amidst the humming, the iron sphere hovered in midair, spinning at a leisurely pace.

As if carrying some invisible, vortex-like energy, it stripped the fine rubble on the ground and the viscous blood on the altar of gravity's control.

They formed a spiraling vortex around the iron sphere, revolving slowly and steadily.

Energy ripples undetectable to ordinary people surged through the air.

"Clack!"

The base of his staff slammed into the ground. His five fingers gripped the shaft so tightly that his veins bulged.

He gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead.

As if enduring some invisible, crushing weight, Cornell hunched over, his expression twisting in a painful struggle.

For some unknown reason, as the iron sphere spun in midair and its energy ripples brushed across his cheeks...

He felt his physical body suddenly become countless times heavier!

(End of Chapter)