Chapter 460: Chapter 460 Gymnasium

There was some good news: after a string of unfortunate events, something we had anticipated finally happened.

Lilina’s Divine Magic Array set up on the edge of the World Fragment sent out an alarm signal in the afternoon, just as we expected…

I admit, this is completely crap-tastic nonsense–placed right next to the evaporating borders of the world, it would be a wonder if that thing didn’t send out an alarm!

When the alarm suddenly blared, Artemis was in the activity room, discussing with us the strange phenomena that appeared after the world’s destruction. Although to Artemis, those things were not only uninteresting but utterly dreadful, the magically skyrocketed curiosity of Qianqian and the gossip-fueled Miss Lin (do you really need this level of curiosity as a Prophet?) found those oddities incredibly captivating. Thus, under the noble pretense of “essential information gathering for world salvation”–which, of course, wasn’t entirely false–poor Artemis was nearly reduced to a story machine by Qianqian and Lin Xue until a maple leaf-shaped hair clip on Lilina’s head suddenly erupted into a series of air raid alarm sounds, finally giving her a chance to catch her breath.

Then, a group of onlookers who happened to be on a spine-chilling soy sauce party tour dived into the unfortunate spectacle of Lilina, who was now sporting an air raid siren on her head.

“Hmm, that’s a creative ringtone.”

Lin Xue patted the somewhat stiff-looking Lilina on the head, then, with the aura of a lady boss, she stamped her foot on a chair, straightened her arm forward, pointed her thumb up, and loudly declared.

“And it seems to be vibrating too.”

Curious, Qianqian sidled up next to Lilina and, seizing the moment while the latter was still mortified, snatched the delicate maple leaf alarm, promptly letting out a surprised shout.

“Give it back to me!” Lilina’s face turned beet red as she hopped up and down, trying to take back her hair clip from Qianqian, “It was made by Lady Goddess, give it back to me!”

It’s Dingdang’s handiwork, huh? Now I understand why the alarm was such a headache-inducing method–it’s likely she saw something on a computer and used it without fully understanding. Last time, she even researched pods that could shoot peas at speeds over 600 miles per hour and corn cobs that would explode when thrown. Too bad Big Sister confisicated all her experiments in the name of world peace.

After a near-daily chaos of chickens flying and dogs jumping, Lilina finally managed to snatch her hair clip back. This time, however, she was too embarrassed to continue wearing that weird thing on her head and instead casually tossed it into her Personal Space, then promptly collapsed on the ground and started scribbling with her fingers.

Even Artemis, consumed by curiosity, leaned in. Though her “dreams” often involved many magical occurrences, and she herself had played the role of a Superpower User, that didn’t quell her fascination with magical spells.

A green halo gently fell from Lilina’s hair, making the girl sprawled on the floor crafting runes look like a mischievous Forest Spirit–charming with a touch of sanctity. The Energy Crystal Powder imbued with Divine Power drifted to the ground, immediately forming quite complex patterns autonomously, and slowly, a three-dimensional model of a city began to take shape. Even though it was not as accurate as a high-tech Probe might depict, its wondrous nature was still awe-inspiring. As this miniature city model rose from the ground, Lilina, who continued to trace divine scripts with her finger on the model, appeared rather Godzilla-esque…

Er, let’s pretend that bizarre comparison didn’t happen.

At any rate, when Lilina stood up, what presented before us was a miniaturized glowing green model, similar to a sand table, and a series of lines made of Runes traversed through it, continuously forming intertwined chain patterns.

“That’s a brilliant use of Divine Language,” Monina looked at Lilina with some surprise, “Is this your own research?”

“It’s just a minor improvement of the Tracking Technique,” Lilina replied, a rare hint of modesty in her voice, “I’ve separated its descriptive and operational parts, allowing the former to function at a great distance. It’s not a high-level change.”

“That’s still quite impressive,” Monina’s face showed even more surprise, “Even with your role as a spokesperson that enables you to read and write Divine Language directly, your skills are truly remarkable. It took the Captain six years just to learn to write their own address, and that became a legend in the Divine Realm!”

Was Dingdang an idiot in her early learning days?

Thanks to Lilina’s brief explanation, we could understand the significance of the model. The city glowing in green, needless to say, represented the World Fragment, and the moving Rune Chains symbolized the information flow diagram sent back through the evaporated Divine Magic Array. That incredible Divine Magic Array held the “Undying” attribute, meaning even if turned into a quantum state, information state, or even data chunk state by the world’s evaporation, as long as the Spellcaster didn’t interrupt its operation, it would continue to run indefinitely. This allowed us to directly collect information from within the evaporating state that could never be observed with conventional technological means.

“These are the main nodes,” Lilina seemed worried that we wouldn’t understand–indeed, we had not–a gentle touch of her finger on several points of the River of Information immediately brightened them, “They are where the information shifts from a stable to a volatile state. Connecting these points, one can locate where the world fragment first became unbalanced.”

While she spoke, Lilina traced several thin lines in the air, connecting the dots one by one. However, halfway through, she suddenly stopped moving, then awkwardly looked up: “Boss, how do I draw a compound scatter plot again?”

Me: “…You dare to be the Pope without even mastering middle school geometry!?”

“Do you need to know middle school geometry to be the Pope!?”

“Really, I am at a loss with you two,” Big Sister sighed with a headache, then pointed casually to the city model, “Still need a scatter plot? It’s right here!”

“No, no, it should be here!” Lin Xue immediately interrupted Big Sister, pointing to another location on the model.

“According to my intuition, it should be this place!” Qianqian also joined in the commotion with her intuition that changed every three seconds.

After a debate.

We silently exchanged glances, then collectively sighed, and contacted the command center.

“Taville, the Imperial Leaders now need your help.”

I could feel my voice filled with unspeakable desolation.

“At your service, My Majesty, what happened!?” Taville’s voice was tinged with tension, obviously, my grave expression had made that dedicated female scientist uneasy.

“…How do I draw a compound scatter plot?”

Having finally found the initial anomaly of the world after much fumbling, I felt all of us were shrouded in a thick veil of darkness…

It may have been a coincidence, but the marked initial information anomaly was not far from our current location, in the eastern part of the campus, according to Artemis, it was where the old gymnasium stood.

It turned out that the place where the world was first destroyed was inside. Monina’s speculation was confirmed, but how could a distortion that started internally cause such a huge flash in the sky?

“The structure of the world is more complex than you think,” Monina explained, “At higher dimensions, space is discontinuous. If an energy explosion is powerful enough to instantly destroy all dimensions, then no matter where it originated, it can provoke phenomena that the entire world can observe at the same time, such as a massive flash.”

Since it wasn’t far, and we had Yelsen, the Divine Race Warrior who was reportedly in charge of defense, as a bodyguard, we agreed to Artemis’s request to come along. However, we had to be careful not to let Hu Wen and the others find out, as explaining would be troublesome. In the end, it was Monina who activated her ability, making Artemis’s departure a false fact that everyone could overlook. Then we boldly walked out right under everyone’s noses. During this time, Artemis even curiously greeted her companions, and they didn’t realize anything was amiss even as they chatted with her…

The world’s strongest assassins are not those who can stab you from the shadows, but those who can kill their target in front of millions of eyes and then drift away. I dare not imagine how one should combat this kind of power that can twist the worldview–despite, according to classmate Yelsen, Monina’s “Star Realm Dispersal” skill being so refined due to all the time she spent skipping school to practice…

In fact, all the current members of Dingdang’s team, except for a certain Light God uncle responsible for errands, had banded together during times they skipped classes.

“Ah Jun! Look up at the sky!”

Just as the dome of the stadium came into view, Qianqian, who had been looking around the whole way, suddenly spotted something. She immediately pointed upwards and cried out in surprise.

Following the direction of her pointing finger, I couldn’t help but exclaim, “What in the world is that!?”

Another city? A city upside down in the sky!?

Behind those thin clouds in the sky, the inverted silhouettes of buildings clearly presented themselves, looking just like a mirage, but the grand scale and realistic sensation made one irresistible to question whether there really was an inverted city gradually descending from the faraway heavens.

After carefully observing for a while, we suddenly recognized many familiar things within that “Sky City”–the food street that Sandora had once swept through alone, the pirate copy street that once sparked a citywide sensational event of the 300-meter relay, and the amusement parks A, B, and C that Qianqian frequently visited…

I can’t reminisce anymore, if I continue, I’ll start crying…

“It’s our real world!” Big Sister’s voice sounded very serious, “Erosion has already reached our vision range!”

Monina shook her head: “It’s not that bad yet. Due to the relative fragility of the World Fragments, we can see the sights of another world many days in advance, but the time left for the opposite side isn’t much either.”

“Is that your world?” Artemis murmured softly to herself, “Just like in my dreams… Let’s hurry, or both worlds are done for.”

“Squeak–”

The heavy metal gate issued a grating sound, and under Yelsen’s immense strength, it was slowly pushed open. The old sports stadium, which had been said to be abandoned for several years before Doomsday, had accumulated who knows how much dust. When the gate opened for a moment, the dust that rushed forward nearly made one suffocate, thankfully we all knew how to use Energy Shields, otherwise just from opening the door, everyone would have been choked out.

Poke, poke…

Watching Artemis curiously peering at the shield and poking it was particularly speechless.

“How long has it been since anyone came here?”

Even though all the dust was kept outside by the Energy Shield, Big Sister instinctively fanned in front of her face. The wide and empty sports stadium was filled with floating dust, with rays of sunlight leaking through the gaps above the sealed windows on all sides, forming bright gratings through the flying dust, slicing the space ahead into a bizarre assortment of geometric shapes.

What concerned us the most were the dozen or so round shadows on the floor ahead, where it looked as if something was blocking the light, but in reality, there was nothing there but dust.

“Not counting the time that’s been frozen since that day, this sports stadium has been closed for nearly ten years. It’s said that spectral events often occurred here–but who cares about that now?”

“Have you never come to check it out?”

Lin Xue seemed to ask casually.

“No…” Artemis answered instinctively, then immediately repeated with confusion, “Never come over… How could we have forgotten that there was a sports stadium here?”

It was then that I realized what Lin Xue meant.

After the world was destroyed, Artemis and her Awakener companions had spent years searching the city for survivors. To say that they had turned the entire city upside down might be an exaggeration, but at the very least, they must have rummaged through every corner inside this school. Yet, such a large sports stadium… was overlooked by them?

“I bet, if Artemis calls Hu Wen and the others now asking about the sports stadium, they’ll be totally clueless,” said Lin Xue, folding her arms.

I spread my hands, “That only works if this world actually has a signal.”

“There is a signal!” Artemis hurriedly answered, then took out her mobile phone, “Although I don’t know why, mobile phones have always worked in this world.”

A few minutes later, Artemis, having completed the assimilation, wore an obvious unease on her face. Holding up her mobile phone, she offered us a forced smile, “Ling Yin didn’t even know that there was such an old gymnasium in the school.”

“Why would Artemis know about it then?” I asked curiously, then mused, “Could it be because we were the ones asking?”

“That’s right. If any one of us had been the one to make the call just now, even without mentioning the gymnasium, simply describing our current location vaguely, Ling Yin would have immediately ‘remembered’ everything about the old gymnasium,” Lin Xue spoke as she walked on, “I’ve seen something… some secret about this gymnasium…”

Then, before our very eyes, as Lin Xue walked into a circular shadow at the center of the gymnasium, she disappeared from everyone’s sight.

“Lin Xue!!”

“Wood, don’t yell so loud, I’m fine,” much to my relief, Lin Xue’s voice followed almost immediately in my mind, but her next words nearly choked me, “Could it be that you have some thoughts about me?”

That damn girl was definitely doing this on purpose! Could you say such things on a public channel?

“There are many similar voids in the gymnasium,” Lin Xue reemerged from the circular shadow in the blink of an eye, “These voids seem to be thorough wounds caused by some kind of ‘explosion.’ Once you walk into them, you can see another world. Guess what it is?”

“No matter what it is, it seems like we’ll be busy.” Before we could even move, Yelsen had already decisively taken action. With flashes of dazzling golden light, the bad-boy muscle teen transformed into the Greek War God. Adorned in full-body gold war armor, his left hand held a magnificent heavy shield emblazoned with golden wings, and his right hand grasped a sword nearly two meters in length, its guard carved into the shape of wings, looking as if it were forged from sunlight (I have plenty of reasons to believe that the seven-hundred billion attack of golden flash came from this Holy Light Giant Sword). The now foolish Yelsen looked as magnificent as a lead character, “I’ll lead the way! Everyone, follow me!”

Facing our surprised expressions, Monina commented dryly, “It’s fine, my idiot brother is tough. Let him lead.”

Is that really your brother?

Honestly, Monina’s icy disdain towards her own brother gave me a complex sense of relief. Should I be thankful I have a bunch of soft sisters?

Following Lin Xue’s lead, we chose the largest circular shadow and stood on it together.

Then, the scene before our eyes changed instantly.

The dilapidated and disordered gymnasium had vanished, replaced by an ancient stone-paved grand platform, and beyond the platform, touchable, massive planets and the mysterious, boundless expanse of the starry sky.

“This is…” The shock in my heart made me look around in bewilderment, but the scene flashed again, and we were back in the previous gymnasium.

It turned out that I had unconsciously stepped back, leaving the shadow zone. Lilina had evidently made the same mistake as me, following me out.

Exchanging an awkward glance, Lilina and I returned into the shadow, and at once, the mysterious platform floating between planets and Qianqian along with the others materialized before us again.

“You two suddenly disappeared just now,” Qianqian hopped over and said curiously.

“I know… what is this place?” (To be continued, for further details please visit www.wuxiaworld.site. More chapters available, support the author, support genuine reading!)