Chapter 40: Immortals (2)

The true outlands.

The people inside the legacy space might have thought they were witnessing the end of the world.

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

Out here in the true outlands.

The sky flickered with shades of all the colors that could possibly exist.

The gray of the true outlands had been replaced by a colorful sight.

Sometimes, it was the normal colors everyone knew.

Other times, it appeared with random colors that should be impossible to exist.

Colors that seemed to have come from a different reality altogether.

They assaulted the senses with their eldritch sight.

Within this crazy melange of colors.

Archaic symbols flashed.

They flickered in the sky, as they weaved through the currently unbalanced reality.

Their rhythm was mesmerizing.

A sight that will no doubt delight those still capable of watching the sky.

They were beautiful symbols that spoke the profound truth of nature.

Their elegant form was arranged into all sorts of beautiful patterns.

They were the only pillar of normalcy in this madness that had assaulted the sky.

These symbols were of two distinct styles.

Both spread their forms in the sky. Unaffected by each other.

They were the true form of two supreme formations.

They weren’t clashing.

They worked together to hold the true outlands in one piece.

A rare sight.

The Immortal World’s supreme formation, and the Demon World’s supreme formation worked together in harmony.

Their true forms slowly receded as they brought reality back into a balanced state.

If the sky was already the domain of madness.

The ground wasn’t any better.

All sort of fissures had opened up and stretched wide.

Chasms going deep into the earth of the true outlands.

Revealing the bedrocks at its very core.

The two supreme formation worked hard in concert.

They redirected the fissures to form in far away areas with no living beings.

At least, no one would die from being swallowed up by the very ground beneath their feet.

*

When the adventurers had entered into the domain, and after the entrance closed.

Some staffs of the Adventurer Guild had been left behind.

They were tasked with watching over the place where the entrance into the domain had been.

After the entrance into the domain had disappeared, there hadn’t been much they could do but wait.

They waited for the results.

Hopefully, a good one.

They had been relaxed.

Then they saw the entrance slowly come back into existence.

It was flickering.

They didn’t think much of it at first.

Not until the quake.

At that moment, the ambient essence of the true outlands had been forcefully stirred.

It became harsh.

All operations that required essence had become hard to perform.

Even breathing had been a laborious task.

The sky had gone through all sorts of changes.

The ground under their feet became so soft their legs sank into it.

A quagmire they could not escape from.

It drew them in. Relentless, despite their desperate struggles.

They were going to be buried alive.

The sky and the earth of the true outlands seemed to have rejected their being.

*

The adventurers and demons in the true outlands felt their hearts steeped in shock at this moment.

This disturbance in the true outlands was the worst thing they had ever experienced in their lives.

Some F-Rank adventurers were gathering resources to complete their mission, when the strangest thing happened.

The quakes that enveloped everywhere around them, shook not only the ground.

Even the air around them felt like it would be torn apart.

None of them could remain standing in the face of the quake.

As they struggled to regain their balance, they felt their bodies sink into the ground that had become soft.

Then the small plants they were harvesting seemed to have had an extra boost.

They grew vigorously.

Their branches grew out as they whipped the adventurers.

One of the adventurers was wrapped by a branch, and flung into the air.

During his flight, he saw the sky shatter and reform into a gaping maw.

A maw that seemed intent on swallowing him whole.

F-Rank adventurers weren’t the only one suffering from this calamity of the true outlands.

E-Rank adventurers, D-Rank adventurers.

All the way to SSS-Rank adventurers.

None were safe from this disaster that had befallen the true outlands.

*

A team of adventurers was being chased by demons.

Their speed was on another level, the two groups ran through the forest like there was nothing in their path.

With their speed, they covered great distances with every step.

Every move looked like they vanished at one point, and appeared in another.

When the quake occurred. Every tree in the forest they were in was blasted into shrapnels.

Even with their speed, they could do nothing in the face of the quake that shook their footing.

Their essence ran out of control.

The shrapnels struck with full force.

There was simply no way for them to avoid being hit.

*

A battle.

It wasn’t one being fought on the land.

The two groups used the sky as their foothold.

Everyone glided through the air, agile as a swallow.

Their movement filled with grace and charm.

Even the demons looked gracious.

Their attacks tore through the air with great force.

Displaying all sorts of wondrous phenomena.

But in the face of the quake, and the phenomena that accompanied it.

They seemed paltry.

All of them fell from the air.

No longer were they agile, or their movements filled with grace.

Their fall looked like the most clumsy thing that could have ever existed.

Their fall didn’t just end up with them landing onto the ground.

The ground beneath them opened up into a special zone.

All of them fell in with no exception.

A crushing weight descended on them.

It was invisible.

Yet, as real as anything could be.

They witnessed as the sky changed.

As the gray disappeared, only to be replaced by a sky that couldn’t decide on what color to chose.

Their eyes saw beyond just the sky.

To the darkness that enveloped everywhere.

A darkness that gave one undeniable impression.

True emptiness.

They knew whatever this was.

This was beyond mere mortals like them.

This was the work of immortals.

As they used all their strengths to resist being crushed by the invisible weight, one thought came to the minds of both demons and humans.

Damned immortals!

*

The Outlands.

Near the portals leading into the true outlands.

The army had already mobilized.

The quake shook The Outlands.

It had been intense at first.

All sort of strange phenomena colored the sky of the mortal world.

Then, the sky had began to break apart.

But it was quickly repaired by the Immortal World’s supreme formation.

Only to go through another round of upheaval.

Not only the sky, even the earth had not been safe.

As time passed, the upheaval gradually subsided.

Everywhere was calm now, but the quake could still be felt.

The portals leading into the true outlands, once separated according to rank, had joined into one.

Then it began to hurl people out.

Thousands upon thousands of Adventurers.

Adventurers of all ranks.

All of them with varying degrees of injuries.

But they were alive.

All of them were alive.