Chapter 1232: 219. Wrath (V)

“Speaking of which, why didn’t you tell me such important information earlier?”

Suppressing the excited thought in his heart, Muen looked at the Black Book with a somewhat resentful expression.

This concerned the underlying operating logic of gods. No matter how one looked at it, it was important information that was better known as early as possible. Yet the Black Book was still the same as always. Unless it reached a critical moment, its mouth was tighter than a senior schoolmate’s in bed.

Rustle...

The pages silently turned once again.

[This is content sealed by the Covenant of Silence. Your realm is insufficient, so it cannot be disclosed.]

“Then why is it possible here?” Muen rolled his eyes. He was not so easy to fool.

Rustle...

[This is Its Divine Kingdom and is not affected by the Covenant of Silence.]

“...Divine Kingdom?”

Muen froze and secretly glanced at the enormous spherical object high above... So that was how it was. According to common sense, this was Brother Wither’s territory, and it was also outside the world barrier, so naturally it was not restricted by something like the Covenant of Silence.

In that case...

“Then why don’t you take this opportunity to tell me everything that should be said?”

Muen rubbed his hands together. “That way, you won’t become a cryptic bastard in the future and sit at the same table as that old little girl, hated by humans and dogs alike.”

Snap.

The Black Book directly closed.

Before Muen could react, it directly transformed into a dim streak of light and disappeared.

“...And you said it was some Covenant of Silence. Clearly, you simply don’t want to tell me!”

Muen’s teeth ached with anger at the Black Book’s heartless page-turning attitude. However, before he had time to curse it a few more times, he suddenly felt a burst of intense pain.

Muen’s heart jolted in alarm. He lowered his head and discovered that, at some unknown point, both of his hands had already begun to spontaneously combust. Although no visible flames could be seen, those hands were very clearly transforming into the withered, charred palms in the sky.

“Hiss... This is bad!”

Muen reacted.

This place was outside the world barrier, and it was also the Withering King’s Divine Kingdom. Although he had not come here with his physical body, even a bodiless trace of consciousness would still be affected by this place.

It would even be affected faster.

Invisible Crimson Flame burned him, completely lacking the previous familiar and intimate feeling. Muen attempted to control it, but it had no effect at all. Within this Divine Kingdom, those flames would forever have only one master...

That was the Withering King floating high above!

“I need to get out of here.”

Chaotic murmurs echoed beside his ears, carrying some unimaginable mental Pollution. Although there was no longer the sensation from the first time he came here, when his entire consciousness seemed about to be instantly devoured, Muen still realized that he should not remain here for long.

If the blond interloper wandered in front of the wronged party for too long, he really would be beaten. Not to mention that compared with those spineless protagonists in erotic comics, this wronged party was just slightly more ferocious.

“Looks like those matters will have to be postponed.”

Muen took one final look at the sleeping Withering King and drew a deep breath.

“It’s time... to take care of serious business.”

...

...

Muen opened his eyes.

It was still Priscilla’s previous room. Everything around him had not changed in the slightest. After looking at the time, he found that only a short minute had passed.

Only the blood-colored altar on the floor was completely empty. Even the blood had dried, becoming black and foul-smelling.

Only Muen’s consciousness had entered the Withering King’s Divine Kingdom, but as the “sacrifice,” Priscilla had gone there with her entire body. Therefore, naturally, not the slightest trace of her remained.

Fortunately...

“You can still make one final contribution.”

Muen toyed with the Crimson Flame in his hand. He closed his palm, black flames surged, and devoured it.

“Whew...”

He let out a long breath.

No matter how weak Priscilla had become, she was still worthy of the quality of a Crowned One. The power exchanged for her was also extremely substantial. Under the effect of her final remaining value, most of Muen’s injuries immediately recovered.

Although he had not yet immediately returned to full strength, he had finally reached the point where he could risk another fight.

A man, no matter how thoroughly he had been drained dry, could always recover after resting for a while.

“I really do have to thank you.”

Muen pressed his palms together and once again expressed his most “sincere” gratitude toward Priscilla, whose corpse and bones no longer existed. After all, if not for her, there was no way he could have recovered so quickly after fighting Harris.

Most importantly, she had allowed him to learn such important information.

She was practically the key old man in a hero’s story who guided the protagonist toward the location of the Holy Sword before the final battle.

“Once Miss Dragon is saved, I’ll credit you with one-third of the achievement. I hope you can live happily with Brother Wither.”

Muen muttered a few words, picked up the anti-magic shackles from the ground and put them away, then casually erased the altar drawn on the floor.

After clearing away every trace and ensuring that no hidden danger remained, he finally crawled out quickly through a narrow passage slanting upward from the room.

He did not know how long he crawled. In any case, it was extremely deep.

Priscilla had hidden herself even deeper than Harris had. With Muen’s hearing, he could even faintly hear the sound of water flowing through the layers of soil—that was probably the current of the Shattered Sea.

Of course, even this place could not guarantee her absolute safety. Without all the schemes they had carefully arranged, Miss Dragon finding her would only have been a matter of time.

This arrangement merely ensured that she would be the last one found.

She seemed to be the witness left behind by those survivors.

“Sorry, but the sun will still rise tomorrow, and the gentle dragon will still soar through the sky. Therefore, there is nothing here that needs to be witnessed.”

Muen softly made his declaration. Then he suddenly swung his fist and smashed apart the entrance sealed with magical materials and special formations, rising from the narrow and confined passage.

Whoosh—

A freezing wind came howling directly toward him.

In an instant, Muen felt an extreme chill, as though he were currently standing upon an ice field that °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° had not thawed for a thousand years, enduring the assault of a blizzard.

But this was not an ice field, and there was no blizzard.

This was New Tars.

It should have been.

Muen raised his eyes and looked ahead... His pupils abruptly contracted.

Dust rose from the earth and was carried high into the sky by the air currents, enveloping everything within his field of vision.

That “carefree place,” the city that had carried so many beautiful things, had completely disappeared. Everything familiar had turned into afterimages within time. At this moment, all that remained before Muen were a few scattered houses that had already become ruins, as well as—the enormous circular crater that looked as though it had been created by a meteor falling from the heavens.

A familiar crater.

Muen still remembered that when Miss Dragon had first abducted him and brought him to the ruins of the true Tars, he had also seen such an enormous crater. At the time, he had even thought it was a beautiful lake. How could he have imagined that it was a scar of destruction left behind long ago?

But this place now was not beautiful in the slightest.

Inside the crater was not lake water as clear as a gemstone, but spreading black mist.

Within the mist, shadowy figures occasionally flashed past, like wandering ghosts. Terrifying malice carried resentment with it. Even Muen, standing outside, could clearly sense it.

That was precisely the source of the cold.

“Is this... resentment?” Muen frowned and carefully observed it.

The black mist... naturally belonged to Miss Dragon. She had used this thing before Muen more than once. Even when transforming from dragon form into human form, she would use this black mist to conceal her body.

But the large number of shadowy figures wandering inside clearly did not resemble creations of Miss Dragon’s magic. Instead, they were... certain remnants that had accumulated for a very long time.

They were like poison.

Many times, because Miss Dragon was so powerful, she had not noticed those toxins... or perhaps she had noticed them and deliberately turned a blind eye.

But as those “toxins” gradually accumulated, one day, they would reach the point where they could corrode Miss Dragon.

“There are even so many souls wandering within it. With Miss Dragon’s caution in this respect, how could this kind of oversight possibly occur?”

Souls also carried Pollution. According to Miss Dragon’s previous way of doing things, she naturally would not have left behind the slightest trace.

But now...

Muen raised his head and looked upward. The restriction Miss Dragon had originally placed to seal this place was still present, but it had already become faint and indistinct.

That seemed to be the final amount of strength she could maintain. When she brought destruction down upon this place, her condition had already deteriorated to the point where she might not even have been able to properly cast magic.

That wound was deeper than Muen had imagined.

That poison within her heart was also more terrifying than he had imagined.

“I’m sorry. I came too late.”

Muen murmured softly. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he slid down the smooth rock wall of the crater and entered the black mist.

He landed steadily.

A depth of more than one hundred meters was not a problem at all for the current Muen. He could very easily...

“Urgh!”

Extreme pain suddenly struck.

Muen’s body abruptly stiffened. Under an instinctive reaction, he curled up like a shrimp.

“Damn it...”

Cold sweat poured from his forehead. Muen struggled to move his body, but every tiny movement brought him pain like countless needles piercing directly into his joints.

But rather than pain, it would be more accurate to call it cold.

The chill he had already felt outside immediately increased tenfold, a hundredfold after he entered this place. Yet what truly made Muen feel cold was not his physical body. After all, with his current physical condition, even if he ran naked across an ice field for an entire night, nothing would happen to him.

It was his soul.

The substance resembling resentment mixed within the black mist was also corroding his soul.

“Is this what Miss Dragon has been feeling all this time?”

Muen remembered that dream again, that blood-red dream filled with wreckage and corpses.

If Miss Dragon entered that dream every time she closed her eyes, did that mean that all this time, she had been enduring this kind of pain?

Had she endured it like this for eight hundred whole years?

“Heh. Perfect...”

Muen gritted his teeth, his expression twisted. He forced his body to straighten little by little.

His soul was in pain and wailing. He ignored all of it and even forced out a smile. “Perfect. I’m also quite good at enduring pain. In this day and age, in this fucked-up world, who isn’t a masochist?”

He took a difficult step forward.

It was a very small step, and an incomparably heavy one.

Yet he was moving forward with incomparable determination.

Black mist spread all around him. There were no signs in front, behind, to the left, or to the right that could help him distinguish the way, but Muen already knew where he needed to go.

He only had to head toward the coldest... most painful place.

The stupidest dragon in the entire world was waiting for him there.