Deathly silence was swallowing the light.
Ryan gripped Lucia's wrist tightly, his knuckles turning slightly white from the exertion. He held the 【Echoing Lantern】 across his chest, compressing his 【Lantern】 spirituality into an extremely thin layer of cold white light between the lantern's casing and his hand, ready at any moment to counter a fatal strike from the unknown.
There was no turning back.
The moment they crossed that weathered stone door, the grassland behind them, the golden waves of grass, the damp mist, and even their original world completely evaporated. Ryan looked back; the three-meter-tall ancient stone door still stood solitarily a few paces away, but looking through the doorframe, he no longer saw the soil of the grassland, but a greyish-white, deathly silence identical to what lay ahead.
The door was still there, but the "outside" had vanished.
This was an ancient domain that defied all common sense.
The entire space presented a lifeless, greyish-white, and pale coldness. There was no sun, no moon, nor any boundary that could be called a "sky"—only an endless, leaden grey dome.
The air was dry and heavy, carrying an extremely ancient, decayed scent that seemed to have been sealed away for untold epochs.
In the distant mist stood a vast number of colossal, twisted architectural ruins. The outlines of those ruins were neither human Gothic nor of any known civilization's style; instead, they looked like giant geometric blocks violently torn apart by some immense force and carelessly discarded in the wilderness.
The ground beneath their feet was as flat as a mirror, yet covered in bizarre substances. There were massive, semi-fossilized feather-like objects, scattered broken stone tablets, and numerous fragments of ancient relics that had long lost every shred of spirituality, eroded into dross by time.
What startled Ryan the most was the concentration of spirituality here.
The air was filled with a massive amount of 【Lantern】 spirituality. Invisible to the naked eye, it permeated every inch of space like a viscous liquid. At certain specific nodes, the space itself even exhibited visible refraction and distortion, as if light itself were being bent and stripped away here.
Looking as far as the eye could see, at the boundary where the mist met the greyish-white, massive and hair-raising feather-like shadows occasionally flashed by. There were even faint outlines of colossal eyes opening in the void, only to silently fade away.
Ryan did not attempt to comprehend what those massive shadows were.
His first reaction was to confirm their path of retreat.
Holding the 【Echoing Lantern】, he took a few steps back to the stone door and pressed his hand against the semi-weathered stone frame. The lantern emitted a piercing cold light, attempting to illuminate the spiritual pathway within the stone door.
However, when the lantern's light fell upon the center of the stone door, it was like falling into a bottomless abyss, failing to trigger even the slightest ripple in space.
“The passage is one-way, or rather... it requires some specific condition to be reactivated,” Ryan made an icy evaluation in his mind.
They were trapped here.
“Follow me. Do not step more than a single pace away from me. If anything unusual happens, drop to the ground immediately,” Ryan said in a low, resolute voice.
“Yes... Teacher,” Lucia bit her lower lip hard, forcing down the urge to vomit as her small hand tightly clutched the corner of Ryan's coat.
One behind the other, stepping on the crackling feather fossils beneath their feet, they cautiously moved toward the interior of the plain.
However, before they had even gone fifty paces—
Hum—!
The viscous 【Lantern】 spirituality around them suddenly surged violently!
Without any warning, three rifts silently tore open within the twisted and refracting dimensional folds on either side.
Several bizarre figures squirmed and crawled out of the rifts.
They were absolutely unlike any known creature in the world. They had no fixed form, presenting a deformed, humanoid skeletal structure, but wrapped tightly around the outer layer of their bones were dense, translucent feathers. Most nauseatingly, hundreds of crimson eyes of varying sizes grew all over their chests, arms, and even their heads!
As those eyes blinked, they emitted a faint, dizzying glow.
There were no roars, no growls.
The instant these three Observers appeared, the hundreds of eyes on their bodies locked onto Ryan and Lucia simultaneously!
Boom!
An invisible spiritual blast exploded directly in Ryan's mind like a sledgehammer!
Lucia let out a muffled groan, her eyes instantly losing focus. Blood trickled from her nose, and her entire body went limp.
Ryan grit his teeth, forcing himself to withstand the agonizing mental blow. He did not charge blindly. Instead, his feet slid across the ground, using the thrust of the 【Lantern】 spirituality erupting from his soles to drag Lucia ten meters back, pulling them out of range.
“No physical vocal organs... Their method of attack is a visual and spiritual blast acting directly on consciousness!”
Ryan's eyes were as cold as a hawk's. Gripping the 【Echoing Lantern】 tightly, he frantically poured his spirituality into it.
“Echo!”
Hum—!
A cold white halo erupted outward, centering on the lantern!
Under the illumination of the lantern's light, the illusory trajectories of the three Observers hidden in the air were instantly exposed.
Utilizing the lantern's ability, Ryan captured the spiritual movement paths of the three monsters over the past split second. Within the vision of the 【Echo】, these three monsters did not run on the ground using muscles at all. Instead, they relied on the eyes on their bodies to "observe" space, using the focal point of their vision to achieve short-distance spatial shifts that bypassed physical obstacles!
“I see... Their movements depend on 'observation'!”
Ryan instantly deciphered the logic of the battle.
The moment the eyes of the monster on the left erupted with piercing light, preparing to launch another spiritual blast and shift to Ryan's side—
Ryan struck first!
He violently raised the 【Echoing Lantern】 high, and the flame inside the glass casing erupted with the most blinding glare!
The light was like a sharp chisel, stabbing straight into the left monster's visual focus!
【Lantern】 against 【Lantern】!
Using a purer, more condensed blazing light to strip away and pollute the opponent's "observation"!
“Screech—!”
The hundreds of eyes on the monster burst simultaneously, spraying a large amount of greyish-white pus! Its spatial shift was violently interrupted, and its mutated body tumbled out of the void in a pathetic heap, twisted and broken.
“Now!”
Ryan took a step forward, gathering all of his 【Lantern】 spirituality into his right fist. Cold white flames enveloped his knuckles as he punched heavily into the gaps of the monster's neck bones!
Spirituality violently exploded inside the enemy!
Boom!
This ferocious monster did not bleed. The moment its spiritual structure was destroyed, its entire body collapsed like a dried sand sculpture, turning into greyish-white spiritual fragments that danced through the air.
Seeing this, the feathers on the other two monsters ruffled violently. Seemingly sensing danger, they instantly transformed into two residual shadows, attempting to retreat and melt back into the dimensional folds.
“Trying to run?”
Ryan's eyes were icy, his combat experience pushed to its absolute limit at this moment. Without even looking back at Lucia, he swept the lantern across the void again, capturing the spiritual nodes where the two monsters were attempting to shift!
The light of the lantern suddenly condensed into two solid needles of light, pinning through the hidden nodes with absolute precision!
Puff! Puff!
The other two monsters collapsed before they could even let out a shriek. Their spiritual structures completely disintegrated, crumbling one after another into large clouds of drifting debris.
The battle was over in less than a minute.
Ryan panted heavily, a trace of cold sweat trickling down his forehead. This level of high-intensity spiritual maneuvering and micro-control placed an immense drain on his mental strength.
Just as he was preparing to fall back to a defensive stance—
The 【Echoing Lantern】 floating in the air suddenly erupted with suction.
The greyish-white spiritual fragments scattered in the air, as if receiving a summons, transformed into three streams of light and flowed continuously into the lantern's flame!
Whoosh.
A warm sensation flowed back into Ryan's body from the lantern.
Ryan surged with a sudden tremor.
He could feel with extreme clarity that a certain shackle deep within his body had been unlocked.
The spiritual capacity within him had expanded significantly, and his precision in controlling 【Lantern】 spirituality had elevated by more than a single grade. The flow of ambient spirituality in the air, which had previously felt somewhat blurry in his perception, was now clearly visible to his eyes like a network of crisscrossing rivers.
More importantly, deep within his consciousness, an embryonic form of a brand-new ability had emerged—
【Glimpse】.
Ryan subconsciously looked down at the relic fragments on the ground.
Within his vision, a faint red spot of light emerged on a broken stone tablet fragment that had previously looked completely normal—it was the weakest point of fracture in the fragment's structure.
This was the embryonic form of an eye technique that allowed him to briefly peer through a target's spiritual structure and weak points! Although using it now caused a dull ache in his temples and heavily drained his mental strength, its potential and strategic value were immeasurable!
“Teacher... what was that just now...?” Lucia struggled to climb to her feet, wiping away her nosebleed, her eyes filled with lingering terror.
“The danger has not passed yet.”
Ryan cut her off, casting his gaze toward the more distant wilderness.
Killing those three monsters just now had clearly only dealt with sentries wandering the perimeter. Deep within that distant mist, hundreds of similar spiritual fluctuations were slowly squirming.
Those monsters seemed to be guarding a certain direction.
Ryan gripped the lantern tightly, channeling his newly surged spirituality into it.
The 【Echoing Lantern】 erupted with an unprecedented, blinding white light. Like a lance of light, it forcefully pierced through the thick, deathly silent mist ahead, illuminating the land shrouded in endless darkness.
At the end of the beam of light.
A massive, ancient, and grand architectural silhouette—exuding an indescribable solemnity and eeriness—rose from the depths of the wilderness, standing silently between heaven and earth.
Ryan stared at the dark silhouette of the structure, his dark eyes filled with a deathly silence.
For the first time, he truly realized that what he had stepped into might not be a mere ruin at all, but a desperate world long forgotten by history and time.
Chapter 49: The Peacock Gate
Silence stretched across the barren, isolated domain.
The wind blew through the colossal geometric ruins, letting out wails like the low chants of ancient martyrs. Ryan took a deep breath, calming the surging spirituality within him. Tightening his grip on Lucia's wrist, he slowly drew closer to the grand architectural silhouette in the depths of the wilderness.
With every step forward, the 【Lantern】 spirituality permeating the air grew a fraction heavier.
Within this space, the boundary between sanity and madness was compressed to the extreme. The hard, semi-weathered feather fossils beneath their feet emitted dull snaps as they trod upon them, and within the dimensional folds that occasionally rippled around them, the gazes of alien entities seemed to flicker in the darkness.
“Teacher... that building...” Lucia's voice was dry, the blood at the corner of her eyes already dried into a dark red smear. “It feels like it's pulling at my soul...”
“Do not look directly at its full form. Keep your eyes on the ground,” Ryan warned in a cold voice, his peripheral vision scanning the edges of his sight.
Under the embryonic vision of 【Glimpse】, that grand building in the distance was not constructed from ordinary stone or metal at all. Its walls were filled with constantly flowing spiritual circuits; the entire structure itself was like a massive spiritual organ that was still slowly breathing!
Suddenly, Ryan's steps ground to a halt!
Hum—!
On the clearing ahead, the void rippled violently like the surface of water.
A dozen palm-sized, moth-like miniature aberrations, their bodies covered in dense, tiny compound eyes, instantly tore through the void. Like a swarm of venomous bees leaving their nest, they flew straight toward the duo's faces with piercing, ultrasonic spiritual shrieks!
The first type of creature behind the door—the Observer Moths!
Their size was far smaller than the previous sentries, but their speed was astonishing. With every flap of their wings, they carved a tiny dimensional rift in the air.
“Get back!”
Ryan barked, swinging the 【Echoing Lantern】 with one hand to project a blazing arc of cold white light. The light formed a wall, crashing down to block the path before them.
However, those tiny moths exhibited unbelievable agility in midair. Sliding through the spiritual gaps in the light, the gazes of their dozens of compound eyes instantly converged, transforming into a narrow, searing beam of light that shot straight toward Ryan's chest!
Sizzle!
Ryan dodged to the side, but the clothing on his left shoulder was still pierced by the beam. A patch of his skin was instantly scorched, releasing an unpleasant burnt smell.
“Incorporeal speed-type creatures maintained by spiritual structures...” Ryan's dark eyes narrowed. Forcing down the sharp pain, he fully activated the eye technique he had just comprehended.
【Glimpse】!
The colors in his vision rapidly faded, transforming into pure spiritual lines and structural diagrams.
In Ryan's eyes, the swarm of madly lunging moths was no longer a dense mass of black dots. Within their bodies, an extremely fine thread of white spiritual energy connected all of their compound eyes to a core node in their abdomens.
“The weakness is in the abdomen!”
Ryan's pupils contracted slightly as the spirituality inside him surged. The 【Echoing Lantern】 emitted a dazzling shimmer, forcefully thickening the spiritual flow within a three-meter radius.
The movement speed of the moth swarm instantly ground to a halt!
“Break!”
Ryan gathered spirituality in his palm. Striking with rapid physical force, he thrust his hand, carrying the condensed light of the lantern, precisely toward the moths' abdomens!
Puff! Puff! Puff!
Every time the light of his palm swept through the air, several moths stiffened and disintegrated, turning into drifting greyish-white powder. Within just a few breaths, the dozen or so speed-type aberrations were completely slaughtered.
However, before Ryan could even catch his breath—
Rumble!
The entire greyish-white ground trembled violently.
From the shadow of the grand building ahead, a colossal shadow slowly stepped out.
It was a feathered, humanoid creature standing several meters tall. Its torso had the texture of semi-weathered stone blocks, its chest and arms were covered in layers of massive grey feathers, and its face was completely devoid of features, save for a giant, half-open single eye embedded in the center of its forehead.
The second type of creature behind the door—the Patrolling Featherfolk!
A heavy pressure crashed down like a mountain. Shaken by this terrifying spiritual pressure, Lucia was forced to one knee, blood spilling from her mouth.
Roar—!
The featherfolk possessed no vocal organs, but the spatial resonance triggered by its spiritual eruption boomed like thunder in their minds. It raised its massive, feather-covered arm like a sky-supporting sledgehammer, bringing it crashing down toward Ryan with a world-shattering howl!
Cold white light erupted from beneath Ryan's feet as he dragged Lucia ten meters back.
Boom!
The fossilized ground, previously as flat as a mirror, was smashed into a massive crater, the shockwave tearing the surrounding broken stone tablets into dust.
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