Chapter 1355: The Second Scene

The flow of time was restored the moment the light solidified.

Under the gushing sunlight, the Oracle's formless hand was no longer invulnerable and instead, appeared like distorted, soft bubbles. As the dazzling blue sky descended, it replaced the weak and faint silver light that the young lady used to protect herself. Having lost the interference of the Deities, it no longer stood the chance to win easily even if Zero was just a newly Awakened.

Meanwhile, two new figures rushed into the sealed domain.

It did not find Epsilon, but found another target that had to be killed.

He was the main Creator of the world, Roland.

Delta raised its other hand and smashed it down ferociously at Roland.

But not a speck of dust was raised.

Its power completely disappeared even before reaching Roland, as though it was nonexistent to begin with.

Hundreds of meters distance could be traversed by a Martial Artist in a split second. Before Delta could even react, its mask was torn apart by Roland and had its star ring grabbed.

Regardless of how much it struggled, it was unable to break away from the other party's hands. Being in the presence of Zero only substantially weakened it, but in front of Roland, it was almost completely useless.

"This isn't fair—!"

Its consciousness began to dissipate as its astrolabe got stripped off.

Roland remained unmoved, he was fully aware that regardless of it being pure magical creatures or enemies from Erosion, their weaknesses were located in the astrolabe that revolved inside their bodies. As long as one yanked out the astrolabes from them, they would simply melt like ice under a scorching sun.

The power within his body surged in joy, as though it was welcoming that moment.

Throughout the entire sequence of events, Roland was still unaware of the full situation.

Less than a minute after separating from Valkries, Roland received an incoming call from Fei Yuhan. No words came through and he only heard static and friction. When the phone got cut off abruptly, he saw the abnormal changes occurring at the suburbs from the tourist elevator.

A strange translucent barrier enveloped the expressway connecting the city to the outside, and obviously it was not something technological advancements could achieve. Additionally, an event that could force a celebrity Martial Artist to be unable to explain her situation was definitely no trivial matter.

When he drove out of the basement garage, he encountered Valkries who was sprinting in the same direction, and as a result took her along with him.

But he never expected to find Zero inside after breaking the "Barrier."

And as for the strange man with the mask and robes, Roland immediately knew that it was one of the Oracles.

As a result, Roland chose to kill the Oracle first without considering the consequences—the Association never had any solid leads regarding the invading enemies. Roland naturally did not let go of the opportunity presented, thanks to their appearance and futile attempt to kill Zero.

The instant the astrolabe was completely stripped off, a bright beam of light soared into the sky, enveloping him within!

Sure enough, it was a seemingly familiar situation.

"Uncle Roland!"

From the corners of his eyes, he saw Zero's tear-stained face.

He gestured her to relax as the brilliance devoured everything.

Compared to the previous time when he was caught off guard, Roland was more prepared for this. He did not resist against the consciousness that rushed into him, but relaxed his mind and took them in, to feel them—

After all, it was useless no matter how hard he tried to resist them.

Why not relax and focus my attention on these surging consciousnesses.

"Ssssii... Ssssii..."

His vision quickly blurred. Countless snowflakes floated down and formed a monochromatic scene.

Along with the snowflakes were Lan's whispering words.

"The truth is always what you understand."

...

After an unknown period of time, he finally got a clear vision of the scene before him as the light dimmed.

This is...

Roland could not resist swallowing his saliva. The scene before him was an endless void, with a large red cavity suspended in the black void—it had no depth and was extremely wide. From his position, the cavity's measurements could only be measured with astronomical units.

Further in the distance were countless twinkling specks of light that mixed with the snowflakes. Roland was unable to discern if they were real or a blurred scene caused from an illusion.

In Roland's memories, there was only one thing that could fit with the scene before him.

—The void did not represent a lack of light, or that there was nothing. It was just that it was too massive.

The flickering specks of light were things that ordinary people would spend their entire lives counting, yet they were just insignificant things to the entire picture.

The universe.

The span of this... is truly inconceivable.

Roland could not help but lampoon.

He initially thought that seeing the legendary Bottomless Land for the first time was shocking enough. Who would have thought that this new perspective had not only failed to reduce the number of questions about it, but also pushed it to a new level of profoundness.

A problem arose. If he were assuming that what he was currently looking at was the known universe, what was the connection between the first and second scenes? Could it be that taking the 'trip' up the Bottomless Land's pillar of light led to the Sky Lord's civilization was in fact sending the rider to space? If that was the case, the term 'upgrade'—or 'elevation'—was rather suitable. But regardless of it being the Radiation People and Match Men, they were not existences that could survive in a completely different environment.

Since flames and sharp objects did harm them, it meant that they were only that much stronger compared to humans in terms of withstanding temperature and pressure. But when the 'upgrade' happened, all of the Radiation Men that stepped in the beam of light were never prepared for it.

No... that's not right. Roland quickly rejected this conjecture, purely forcing a link between the two scenes was too far-fetched. Ignoring all other variables, it was already extremely difficult to explain the reason why the deities would do this. Regardless of the endless Battle of Divine Will or the Legacy Shards that brought about evolution, it was not as if they had prepared for this scene.

There had to be a deeper meaning behind this.

Roland suddenly noticed something wriggling under the red cavity.

Seemingly influenced by a thought, his vision started to move—he then noticed that there were many scattered meteorites floating under the cavity that resembled fragments of a scattered planet or as if they should have been there in the first place. They also looked like pieces of an abandoned ruin at a glance. With his limited knowledge, he had difficulty determining the origins of these things.

These fragments appeared to be pulled by a force, gradually drawing close to a unique stone in the center. Every following layer of rocks was richer in volume, and every new piece added in induced an intense change to the surface layer. Roland suddenly realized that even though all the floating rocks appeared as scattered fragments, their individual volumes were not to be trivialized. That was how their formation was being shockingly held.

At the same time, without a reference object, the entire process looked to be moving at a very fast rate. Perhaps, the real amount of time passed was far more shocking than he imagined.

As if corroborating with his notion, the snowflakes started converging.

The scene seemed to be entering its coda.

In his field of vision, the rocks gradually formed an irregular spheroid, and an inconceivable scene occurred before him—the patterned lines that formed the rhombuses appeared suddenly and proliferated along the surface and darkness, as though it was swallowing the spheroid. If not for the faint reflection of light, Roland would have believed that the rocks had disappeared before his eyes.

When it was completely enveloped, the spheroid plunged into the large and red cavity.

The snowflakes covered his entire field of vision immediately after.

When everything came to an end, a sentence written in unknown characters flowed into Roland's brain.

Despite having never encountered them before, he was able to understand its meaning.

Or rather, they were not words but a thought that directly reflected in his mind.

"This is the price."

"From this moment forth, gravity will no longer be the force which is most deserving of reverence in this world'."