Lu Yuan pulled his attention back and let his gaze fall on the Blue Knight once more.
The Blue Knight was currently standing two paces behind him, her entire body wound tight.
The threads on her body vibrated violently around her, her deep blue eyes reflecting the swirling eerie inscriptions that filled the space. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, her expression far grimmer than before.
This was because at the end of this vast emptiness, in the direction where the copper wall had vanished, lay something extremely dangerous.
The Blue Knight's transcendent power was sending out frantic warnings, far more violent than at any point in the channel.
This crushing pressure was something she had only ever felt once before, beside the Grand Knight Commander, since leaving the Knight Academy.
She suddenly recalled the words the Grand Knight Commander had spoken to her before she left for the Bronze City.
He had given her something akin to a prophecy.
The Bronze City held the way and the method for her to step onto the Rank 5 pathway, but she would encounter life-threatening dangers here, and cross paths with things and entities she would never forget in her lifetime. He had told her to think it through before deciding.
The Blue Knight hadn't hesitated much at the time and had agreed immediately. She believed she had never feared death.
None of those who graduated from the Knight Academy feared death, because those who did could never even pass through its gates.
Even if it was a taboo, a legendary existence, so what? She refused to remain stuck at Rank 4 for the rest of her life. At worst, she would simply lay down her life.
But now, standing in this space drowned in swirling eerie inscriptions, sensing the existence directly ahead that far exceeded her imagination, an emotion she hadn't felt in a long time crept up from the depths of her heart—fear.
It wasn't that she had never faced an unbeatable enemy, but this was different. The thing ahead was so many levels above her that she didn't even have the right to contend with it.
The Blue Knight took a deep breath. The air she inhaled carried a faint scent of copper rust, which she ignored. After a brief moment of calming herself, she slowly exhaled, her gaze returning to Lu Yuan's back.
This Rank 2 youth was currently holding his march lamp, walking toward where the copper wall used to be. His steps were steady, and his entire body showed no sign of being affected.
Seeing this, the Blue Knight hesitated no longer, stepped forward, and closely followed him.
Lu Yuan took a few steps toward the original direction of the copper wall, and the grey-white text began to pop up frantically.
【You are approaching a forbidden aura. Please stay away immediately.】
Lu Yuan ignored it and took another two steps forward.
【Inscription (Advanced · Eerie Inscription): +1...22.5/50】
【Inscription (Advanced · Eerie Inscription): +1...23.5/50】
【Inscription (Advanced · Eerie Inscription): +1...24.5/50】
The grey-white text at the edge of his vision kept popping up, so fast that he couldn't even read them line by line. His experience in Eerie Inscription was shooting up, climbing with every single step he took, with a density he had never witnessed before.
Immediately after, another line of text jumped out.
【Forbidden Lore: Knowledge Seeker: +1...80.9/100】
Lu Yuan's heart skipped a beat. His long-dormant Forbidden Lore experience was actually rising.
This was one of the few types of experience he couldn't easily farm, much like Sanity IV.
No matter how he meditated or practiced Guard, Sanity IV wouldn't budge. He had gained seven or eight points in Guard after practicing it during this period, but Sanity IV remained completely stagnant, save for a few points that had jumped when his Sanity overflowed some time ago.
The same went for Forbidden Lore.
At least Eerie Inscription could be slowly accumulated through engraving and learning related knowledge, but the experience for Forbidden Lore and Sanity usually remained dead still, unless he actively came into contact with an unknown forbidden existence or some unique entity he had never encountered before.
Now, he was merely standing within this vortex of eerie inscriptions, doing absolutely nothing, yet his experience was climbing on its own.
The amount gained from these few steps alone was worth months of hard study back at the branch.
Lu Yuan suppressed this pleasant surprise in his heart, having no intention of stopping his steps.
Now was not the time to worry about experience. He had to figure out two things first: how deep this copper wall below had sunk, and whether the fifth fragment had anything to do with it.
He continued forward, holding his march lamp.
The flame inside the copper-framed lantern dimmed section by section, the range of its light shrinking from the original four or five paces to about two.
As he walked further, the light clung almost entirely to the wick, barely illuminating his hands and a small patch of ground beneath his feet.
Right then, the ground beneath his feet suddenly vanished.
Without him realizing it, the path ahead of Lu Yuan had ended, leaving only an abyss.
He glanced down. The light from his march lamp fell only about half a man's height down the cliff face before vanishing. Beyond that lay nothing but pure darkness, unable to leak even a shred of light.
A cold wind welled up from below, carrying an indescribable scent that was actually somewhat pleasant.
This was where the copper wall was supposed to be, but now it was gone, leaving only a massive void.
Lu Yuan peered along the edge to both sides, only now realizing that this copper wall was far larger than he had imagined.
The width and height of the gap exceeded his imagination; even relying on his divine sense, he could only perceive that both the left and right sides stretched beyond his line of sight.
The area of this collapse was probably comparable to the entire Polymath Tower.
Such a massive wall had sunk entirely like this.
Just then, footsteps sounded behind Lu Yuan, and the Blue Knight stepped up to his side before he knew it.
She also glanced down, her brow furrowed tightly, her deep blue eyes reflecting the pitch-black void below.
Neither of them spoke, clearly stunned by the sight before them.
And right at that moment, within that deep darkness, an ethereal gleam of light actually pierced through.
It was a faint golden glow, barely perceptible, seeping up from the very bottom of the darkness.
The light was incredibly weak, so much so that Lu Yuan initially thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. But after staring for a few breaths, he confirmed that beneath the endless abyss, something was indeed glowing.
Only, that golden light was not pure, appearing as though it had been stained by the darkness.
The Blue Knight saw it too.
As if sensing something, the threads on her body suddenly tensed. She took half a step back before forcing herself to halt.
Lu Yuan turned to look at her. “Are we going down?”
The Blue Knight withdrew her gaze from the bottom of the abyss and let it fall on his face.
Without hesitation, she gave her answer. “We go down.”
Lu Yuan looked down at the cliff face.
It was nearly vertical, and the sheer face, a mixture of stone and bronze, was covered in swirling eerie inscriptions, so dense that one couldn't even find a foothold.
He reached out to touch the edge of the cliff. When the swirling eerie inscriptions met his hand, they still parted around him.
It didn't matter to him, but the Blue Knight couldn't afford to touch these things.
“More importantly, I can't climb a wall like this,” Lu Yuan said honestly. “And you can't touch the inscriptions around here. How are we supposed to get down?”
He was right.
A nearly vertical cliff face like this was not something a Rank 2 Knowledge transcendent could climb freely, not even with Timekeeper active. Unless they had ropes or similar gear to secure themselves, going down was practically impossible.
The Blue Knight looked down at the abyss, then back at Lu Yuan. After a brief silence, she provided her solution.
“Carry me on your back.”
Lu Yuan froze for a moment, not expecting the Blue Knight to propose such a method.
“My threads can cling to the cliff,” the Blue Knight said quickly. “As long as they don't directly touch the inscriptions, we'll be fine. You ward the inscriptions away from me, and I'll carry us down the wall.”
Lu Yuan ran the plan through his mind. Theoretically, it was feasible and sounded reasonable.
“Alright then.”
In the next instant, without hesitation, the Blue Knight slipped behind Lu Yuan, wrapped her legs around his waist, and hoisted herself up.
Only then did Lu Yuan realize that the Blue Knight wasn't actually that heavy—about the weight of an average adult male. Carrying her wouldn't hinder his movements at all.
However, her strength was absurdly immense. The moment her legs clamped around his waist and tightened, Lu Yuan almost thought he was going to be snapped in half.
That force, carrying a sort of pure destructive power, locked onto his waist, securing her as firmly as possible.
Through his leather armor, he could feel that the legs she had locked around his waist were slender, yet beneath lay a nearly explosive musculature with a touch of elasticity.
The Blue Knight was more than half a head taller than him.
With her hanging on his back like this, the back of Lu Yuan's head rested roughly just below her chest. The sight of the two stacked together was far from elegant.
Holding the lamp, with a fully armored Rank 4 knight who was significantly taller than him riding on his back, he looked exactly like someone carrying a giant vat.
Lu Yuan couldn't help but swallow hard. It wasn't that he was having any inappropriate thoughts from touching the Blue Knight, but rather that he felt those legs could twist him into two pieces at any moment.
Thinking about it this way, a sense of security actually rose in his heart. As long as nothing went wrong with the Blue Knight, he likely wouldn't face any issues either.
At the same time, the light blue threads on the Blue Knight began to spread, creeping out from her cloak and the gaps in her armor. They clung to Lu Yuan's body, wrapping around him from his shoulders down to his waist, enveloping him entirely.
The moment the threads made contact, Lu Yuan shuddered.
An incredibly powerful and pure energy surged through the threads. The irritation and gloom that had weighed on his chest were instantly swept clean. Even his mind cleared up significantly, and his breathing became much smoother.
The swirling eerie inscriptions that had previously caused a slight dizziness when he looked at them could no longer pose even the slightest distraction.
At the same time, he felt his body being thoroughly conditioned from the inside out by this power. An indescribable vitality welled up in his limbs, and his strength felt as if it had increased by a solid margin.
The two of them were wrapped by these light blue threads until they looked like mummies.
This was clearly the effect of the Blue Knight's transcendent weapon.
What surprised Lu Yuan even more was that he seemed to have a faint, instinctual control over these threads.
He tried shifting his thoughts, and the threads wrapped around his arms tightened, then loosened, and finally reached outward, actively pushing aside a nearby swirling eerie inscription.
Once these threads settled on his body, they seemed to understand his intent, behaving as if they had grown from his own flesh.
Sensing her threads being manipulated by Lu Yuan, a complex emotion flashed in the Blue Knight's eyes.
Is his Sanity actually this high? Even higher than mine? she thought to herself, but she kept silent.
Lu Yuan hung the march lamp from his waist, freeing both hands.
The threads spread out from between his fingers, firmly gripping the edge of the cliff, easily supporting the weight of both individuals.
He tested the grip and, confirming there was no issue, looked down at the fading golden light at the bottom of the abyss. He called back over his shoulder, “Hold tight.”
The Blue Knight's legs tightened around him a fraction more.
Lu Yuan couldn't help but exhale slowly, but he said nothing more. His eyes narrowed slightly as he manipulated the threads and vaulted over the edge of the bottomless cliff.
Rate on N.U.
