Chapter 1966: Core Objective

"Wait, so you're not going to focus on bringing him over to our side?" Kane raised an eyebrow.

"Finding a way out of this place is more important," Rui replied frostily. "Time moves one hundred and forty-four times faster than it does in the real world. In other words, in this world, we have seventy-two years before my father succumbs to his death. Due to this immense time, its urgency has reduced substantially. It is only the second or third-most important agenda at the moment. Getting out of this place has become the number one priority."

"...Makes sense."

Rui's attention returned to the dungeon in the distance. "Let's revise the facts. This dungeon sucked us in from the Mellow and trapped us in a spatially isolated world with a four-dimensional manifold such that exiting the boundary of the world simply warps up back into the world such that we loop back. As a result of this imprisoning mechanism, time is accelerated and this otherwise flat dungeon is extrinsically warped to resemble a planetoid."

"Wait wait wait." Kane raised his hands. "What do you mean 'flat' dungeon? It's clearly a round sphere!"

"I'm saying that this dungeon is a normal part and extension of the Mellow. It's a part of the Beast Domain just like any other region is."

"Huh??" Kane frowned, turning back. "But why does it look like a ball? It loops back in on itself. Isn't this a separate world from Gaia entirely? Like a different planet or planetoid? Maybe somewhere else in outer space far away from Gaia?"

"No. That is absolutely not the case," Rui firmly denied Kane's words.

"How can you be so sure?" Kane raised an eyebrow. "What if it transported us to a different world entirely?"

"Environmental and ecological continuity," Rui quietly replied. "The soil, the bedrock, the minerals and sediments of this place are identical to that of the Mellow. Additionally, the Tree of Life allows me to see, as plain as day, that these creatures are part of the Tree of Life of Panama. There is no way that this is a different place entirely. This is just an extraordinary amount of space warping to create a pocket dimension such that escaping a region from one side causes you to loop back on the other side."

Rui had already deduced that this place was undoubtedly a part of the Mellow. Most likely an island at the center of the lake on the banks of which they had disappeared to be absorbed into the dungeon.

"This dungeon is also almost certainly the reason that there are no anomalies in the Mellow." Rui keenly deduced. "It absorbed the Divine Doctor, you, and then me. But considering that it didn't absorb in any of the sub-Apprentice-level creatures, it can be inferred that the conditions for absorption are specific."

Rui closed his cold eyes as his powerful mind processed all the information, analyzing countless possibilities. "...It cannot be power alone. The Divine Doctor does not possess any superhuman physicality. It cannot be esotericism alone since the Martial Body possesses almost no esoteric substances inherently, and the ones that we embedded in our bodies are minimal, not comparable to some of the Apprentice-level monsters here in the Mellow that have far more than we do, but don't get absorbed. In that case..."

Rui's eyes opened, devoid of warmth. "...Most likely a combination of power and esotericism. I would venture to say that it absorbs anything with the capacity of disrupting the Mellow."

Kane's eyes widened. "If that's the case, that explains why the Elder Tree said that the Mellow has never ever experienced any disruptions or anomalies ever!"

Rui nodded coldly. "Everything would be explained if this dungeon absorbed all the anomalies into it, leaving no anomalies outside for the Elder Tree to detect. But in that case..."

He glanced at the minute silhouette of the Divine Doctor in the distance. "...His journey here was in vain. He came here looking for normality and ended up finding the biggest anomaly that the Beast Domain may have ever seen."

"Yeah, sucks to be him," Kane snorted.

"Kane."

Kane flinched as Rui's sharp voice addressed him. "Yeah?"

"In the time that you've been in this place, did you see human skeletons or corpses?" Rui's devoid eyes turned towards him.

"Now that you mentioned it, yeah, I spotted lots of human skeletons."

"Human or Martial?"

"...I can't really tell the difference."

"Hm, I'll have to put that on the list. It will give us insights into the threshold of the conditions needed to enter this place," Rui remarked stoically. "However, it won't be necessary to exit this place."

Kane's eyebrows furrowed. "You say that like you know what it takes to exit this place."

"It's a simple deduction." His voice was detached. "If we assume that this isolated pocket manifold is caused by the dungeon, then we simply need to destroy the source of it that is creating this manifold."

"...Which is?"

"Most likely a mutated flora lifeform at the center of the dungeon," Rui replied aloofly.

"And how do you figure that?"

Rui's dark eyes turned, eying the entirety of the dungeon. "By gauging the center of this pocket manifold. Do you recall the lake at the center of the Mellow, close to which we got absorbed?"

"...Yeah?"

"This enormous island was most likely at its center, based on the aquatic continuity of the water surrounding the island in this pocket manifold," Rui sharpened his eyes. "It is highly likely that the esoteric phenomenon maintaining this manifold is at the center of it based on the principle that it is warping space equally in all directions. Putting these two together, you arrive at the inference that the source of this pocket manifold is at the center of the dungeon, which, in turn, is at the center of the pocket manifold."

"...I see, it makes sense when you go down that line of thought. That's genius," Kane murmured. "So we just need to clear the dungeon to leave this place? Let's go tell the Divine Doctor!"