“This could go on forever! Starlight, do you have any better ideas?”
Seeing the Stone Troll Emperor's body recovering at a pace visible to the naked eye, Maela cursed under her breath. In her weakened state, she had no way to stop it.
Starlight could only shake his head helplessly. Without the metal giant piloted by Stark to act as a vanguard, asking two mages to fight this monster alone was indeed a tall order.
“If we flee now, it shouldn't be too difficult. That thing is heavily injured and likely can't give chase, but Cinder City's defenses...”
Starlight looked back at the Fire God statue behind them, feeling a pang of regret. Was there really no way to solve the issue of the collapsing dome?
Just as he resolved to take Maela and Stark and leave, several figures rushed into the temple at high speed.
Squinting, he saw that two of them were the patriarchs of the Gold-Palm and Silver-Beard families who had fought alongside them earlier.
Since they were here, the identities of the other two were clear—they had to be the Saint Rank experts from the Iron-Heart and Copperboot families.
As soon as the four experts entered the temple and saw the carnage and the Stone Troll Emperor standing in the center of the massive crater, they immediately understood the situation.
The Silver-Beard and Gold-Palm patriarchs, along with one other, immediately targeted the Stone Troll Emperor—whose wounds had yet to fully heal—and launched a fierce assault. The fourth man flickered across the room and appeared before the trio.
“Girl, are you all alright? You said you were going to activate the defense array. What’s the status?”
Maela’s eyes lit up, and she shouted joyfully, “Patriarch, you’re finally here! I found the defense array, but I haven't figured out how to use it yet. Stark probably needs to get in there and take a look!”
The Copperboot Patriarch’s sharp gaze swept over Stark’s shattered wind goggles and his dust-covered frame. He suddenly grinned. “Good. I didn't expect you to have this kind of capability, boy. Go and try it. Let us four old fogies buy you some time!”
With that, he brandished his halberd and turned into a streak of light, charging into the fray.
“Let’s go!”
With the help of four Saint Rank experts, Starlight let out a low shout. He grabbed Maela with his left hand and supported the stumbling Stark with his right, and the three of them sprinted toward the Fire God statue.
The deafening sounds of battle echoed behind them—the clanging of battle axes, the booms of battle qi explosions, and the enraged roars of the Stone Troll Emperor—but the three didn't have a spare moment to look back.
“Get inside!”
Maela ducked and nimbly crawled into the opening at the base of the statue, which was only about the size of a window. Stark followed close behind but got snagged by his backpack straps.
“Dammit!” He fumbled to unbuckle the straps, and the bag fell to the ground with a heavy thud, tools spilling everywhere.
“Forget about those!”
Seeing him try to turn back to gather his things, Starlight grabbed him by the collar, shoved him into the opening, and then squeezed in himself.
The passage, specifically designed for dwarves, was dark and cramped, making it quite uncomfortable. Fortunately, they didn't have to crawl for long before reaching the end.
Starlight looked up and saw a faint, pulsating blue light ahead at the end of the tunnel.
Seconds later, the three of them dropped into a hemispherical stone chamber. When Starlight took in the scene before him, he couldn't help but gasp.
The walls of this stone chamber were incredibly smooth, almost reflective enough to show their shadows. Dozens of stone tablets of various sizes were embedded into the curved walls.
However, rather than stone, their material was more akin to crystal. Their translucent surfaces glowed with a faint blue light, covered in ancient script Starlight had never seen before.
Most miraculously, these characters were not static; they moved across the surface of the tablets like living things, sometimes forming complex patterns and other times scattering into flickering points of light.
One particular stone screen was displaying the battle outside in real-time, making it feel as if they were standing right in the middle of the fight between the Stone Troll Emperor and the four patriarchs.
This screen immediately caught Maela’s attention. She walked over quickly to examine it closely.
On the other side, Stark’s fingers trembled as he brushed against the glowing runes on the stone wall, a look of fanatical excitement in his eyes.
“By the Fire God... This is... a control system combining Ancient Dwarven and elemental runes... I thought this technology was lost long ago!”
“Yeah, yeah! I already knew that. Nerd, just tell me if you can read it!” Maela ignored his wonder and urged him on.
“I can... but I need time! This knowledge has quite a few deviations from the records passed down in the clan. No wonder no one has ever been able to activate it... I have to cross-reference this carefully.” Stark snapped out of it and pulled a leather notebook from his vest, flipping through it rapidly.
“Hmm... the differences between the ancient script and modern language have grammatical variations... common runes have a twenty-five percent... no, twenty-seven percent deviation...” Stark’s fingers moved rapidly as he compared characters, muttering to himself.
Starlight’s attention was drawn to the center of the stone chamber—a crystal ball the size of a basketball suspended in mid-air. A faint red light pulsed inside it like a slowly beating heart.
Countless thin threads of light extended from the bottom of the sphere, sinking into the ground like blood vessels and connecting to every stone screen.
“This must be the master console for the system. Let me see...”
Stark rushed to the crystal ball and placed his palm on its surface. Rows of flickering ancient characters immediately appeared in the air before him.
His fingers slid rapidly across the surface of the crystal ball, and the floating ancient characters began to reorganize and rearrange according to his inputs.
“It’s an encryption algorithm... Why are there three layers of this? Did our clan never even try to crack it before? There isn't a single record of this!”
Stark gritted his teeth, his eyes glued to the screen as his other hand rapidly flipped through his notebook.
“Can you force it? With magic or something?” Starlight asked.
“No!” Stark didn't even look up. “I’m afraid this system has counter-measures. A wrong move could cause this whole place to self-destruct!”
As he spoke, his fingertip suddenly stopped on a specific string of runes. “Wait... this arrangement... I get it! Give me a few more minutes!”
At that moment, the entire stone chamber shook violently. A stone screen suddenly displayed a row of glaring red runes—clearly some kind of warning.
Maela placed her palm on the ground, quickly sensing the surrounding elemental flow, and her face paled.
“This is bad. The dome of Cinder City might not hold much longer! Nerd, can you go any faster?”
“I’m trying!”
Stark didn't bother replying further. His fingers moved across the crystal interface so fast they became a blur, his pupils reflecting the frantically jumping runes.
Without him even noticing, his pupils were gradually turning the same pale red as the crystal ball, as if he had entered a strange state.
Starlight, watching from the side, naturally noticed the change in him and looked him over.
What he saw made his heart skip a beat. Stark’s shirt had been torn in several places during the earlier battle, and a necklace had slipped out from his chest at some point.
“This is!?” Starlight’s pupils constricted.
A necklace was one thing, but what truly shocked him was the rose-red gem hanging at the end of it.
The color and shape of the gem were far too familiar; it was almost identical to the one embedded in Noah’s body—the cover of 《The Great Journey of Carlos》.
His fingers unconsciously brushed his waist, finding that 《The Great Journey of Carlos》 was currently emitting a faint light that resonated with the gem, and the gem on the book's cover was even slightly warm to the touch.
“Noah! Noah!”
He called out twice, but Noah did not answer, remaining quietly at his waist as if deep in sleep.
“Starlight, look!”
Following Maela’s startled cry, Starlight looked toward Stark. The gem pendant had suddenly floated into the air, drawing a crimson silk thread between Stark and the crystal console.
The runes flickering in the air also seemed to have received some kind of summons, beginning to gather toward his body.
Rate on N.U.
