Chapter 1005: Loser
After making the necessary preparations, Lin Li brought his three men, Archbishop Martin, and Donald into the Sky Castle again. They walked along the decided route and went deeper into the Sky Castle.
There were no doors that seemed to lead to the outside world from the passageway inside the Sky Castle. After all, the chaotic environment outside would destroy the Sky Castle if it only relied on one door. Furthermore, it would be easy for enemies to sneak into the Sky Castle through the door if there were any outside the Void Channel.
However, the lack of doors would not be an issue. As the owner of the Sky Castle, Lin Li was extremely clear about every nook and cranny within the Sky Castle (excluding the area that his mental strength couldn’t reach). The place they had reached was one of the rooms at the base of the Sky Castle. This room was used to store magical weapons like the Crystal Cannons. Hence, it also had one launch pad inside. Although it was just a launch pad, it definitely had no problems accommodating something the size of one man.
As it was the strongest battle fortress, there were many launch pads and magical weapons beneath the Sky Castle. The room which Lin Li brought the men to had a shelf of Dragon Cannons—a weapon that was created from the integration of Alchemy and Mageweaths. Unlike the Crystal Cannons that relied on compressed mana in their attacks, the Dragon Cannons combined the mana from the mana source with mageweaths and alchemy arrays in its attacks to create an even more powerful attack.
The skills to create a magical weapon as complicated as the Dragon Cannons had since been lost in this era. One could only find shadows of the craftsmanship in the ancient legends. Hence, although Archbishop Martin and Donald had been numbed by the treasures in other rooms, they could not help but drool at the sight of the Dragon Cannons.
After the Sky Castle entered the Endless Void, the launch pad would cast a shield. It was akin to fixing window panes on a window frame to prevent the Nether Storm from destroying the interior of the Sky Castle. As the owner of the Sky Castle, Lin Li naturally had his way of lifting the shield to let himself and the others leave.
Lin Li observed the situation outside through the shield in front of the launch pad. A gust of Nether Storm swirled past his face, and made the firm shield tremble vigorously. Not to mention Archbishop Martin, even Lin Li could not help but shiver at the impact of the Nether Storm. He knew that its force was not something he could withstand.
Lin Li had brought everyone to the space closest to the bottom of the Sky Castle. It would only take them a few seconds to fly to the destination. However, as his mental strength was obstructed, Lin Li could not use it to assess the situation as comprehensively as he hoped. He even had to make preparations for a spontaneous retreat.
After all, Lin Li was unsure whether they could immediately enter the space even if they arrived at the destination. If they were unable to resolve the problems in a short time, it would definitely be a dangerous choice to stay in the Endless Void for long.
Lin Li initially planned to take his time to observe to look for patterns within the Nether Storm such as internals and directions. However, the Nether Storm was like a child who was not held back by anyone in the Endless Void. There might be a chance for it not to appear, and a chance for it to appear multiple times continuously within a few seconds. It seemed like there was no pattern at all.
Although he had decided that this place would allow him to travel to the bottom of the Sky Castle within the shortest amount of time, the sight of the irregular Nether Storms forced Lin Li to feel helpless deep inside.
Archbishop Martin and Donald were extremely clear about their capabilities. They were alright to participate in adventures, but not in giving their lives away. Yet, they were too ashamed to take back their promise of accompanying Lin Li there.
Hence, the sight of Lin Li’s hesitation sparked joy within the hearts of Archbishop Martin and Donald. Of course, they were not daring enough to demand a retreat. They could only turn their wishes in the form of suggestions to convince Lin Li to give up on the venture temporarily.
However, it was as though Lin Li was deaf to the suggestion of Archbishop Martin and Donald. His gaze was fixed outside the launch pad intently. He knew that it would mean trouble if they were to head out. Although he did not like the idea of playing with his own life, he felt that there would be a greater danger to the Tower of Dusk if he were to leave an unknown threat in the Sky Castle.
Archbishop Martin and Donald smiled awkwardly when they saw that Lin Li did not reply to them. They stopped giving him advice, and waited for Lin Li’s reply in trepidation.
Lin Li did not let them wait too long.
“The rest of you please step back a little,” instructed Lin Li as he turned to face the rest.
“Oh, a-alright!” stammered Archbishop Martin and Donald in joy. They turned to walk towards the door, but they stopped when they saw Connoris and the rest. It was then that they realized that Lin Li’s command was to step back, and not retreat. Could this become a path of no return? Although both of them were deeply unwilling, they knew they had to stop.
Lin Li did not care about how Archbishop Martin and Donald were behaving. After all, their abilities as Legendary mages were too limited; their presence did not matter to him. He got up close to a Dragon Cannon, and pushed it to the mouth of the launch pad.
This sight confused Archbishop Martin and Donald. The Dragon Cannon had been painted as a formidable weapon in the legends with the claim that it could collapse a whole mountain. Yet, what would become of it in the Endless Void?
After pushing the Dragon Cannon to the mouth of the launch pad, Lin Li whipped out a firm World Domain that was made up of the seven pieces of the debris of the stars. He enclosed the whole room with the World Domain before using his mental strength to control the magical crystal to lift the shield at the launch pad.
Please do not belittle the void for its name. Apart from the unruly Nether Storm, the void had all sorts of particles with vigorous energy that would cause great damage to both humans and infrastructure. The layer outside the Sky Castle was the very rare Space Sand that could withstand the erosion by the violent particles. Yet, even Immortal King did not lavish the Space Sand indoors.
The eroding impact of the particles on the construction was just a part of it. These fellas were like naturally chosen leaders that would trigger the magical elements within the Sky Castle and turn the entire Sky Castle into a powder keg.
As Lin Li had already viewed the Sky Castle as his own, he did not dare to commit any irreversible mistake here. That was why he was so careful. If there weren’t the Nether Storm, the World Domain would be enough to protect the architecture from the erosion of the energy particles.
After casting the World Domain and lifting the shield at the launch pad, Lin Li retrieved a Legendary-level crystal from his Ring of Endless Storm, and put it at the mana source of the Dragon Cannon. Although Lin Li had never used a Dragon Cannon before, his knowledge as a Guru helped him find a way to activate it very easily.
Very quickly, a halo surrounded that Legendary-level crystal. Its mana flashed as it traveled along the Alchemy Array and mageweaths. Very quickly, it lit the entire Dragon Cannon.
The Dragon Cannon that had been placed in the room for thousands of years finally displayed its hideous appearance. Its brightly lit Alchemy Array and mageweaths were like a perfect work of art that gave the ancient Dragon Cannon a mysterious aura.
What followed was a loud explosion as a menacing ball of fire shot into the Endless Void. After it flew out of the Sky Castle, the ball expanded and filled up all of their vision. Although there was no sound of explosion, everyone could sense tremors within the castle.
That young Sanctuary-level mage would be a wastrel if he were to cast the Dragon Cannon out of curiosity about its immense powers. Archbishop Martin’s heart could not help but ache at the sight of how Lin Li used the Dragon Cannon.
A Legendary-level magical crystal was definitely needed to activate the incredible power within the Dragon Cannon. That one Dragon Cannon had used up one-tenth of the mana within the crystal. This meant that the crystal had fallen from its original Legendary-level strength.
Although the team from Brilliance Shrine and Rotterdam had reaped significant rewards from this exploration, the Legendary-level magical crystal was still no doubt a precious treasure. The sight of Lin Li incapacitating such a gem without any hint of hesitation gave Archbishop Martin and Donald a great urge to give an immediate lashing to that spendthrift.
However, Lin Li paid no attention to the depleted mana within the Legendary-level crystal. His sight was fixed on the ball of fire. His gaze did not move even after that big explosion.
“It missed?”
Although Archbishop Martin felt extreme heartache from Lin Li’s wasteful act, he knew that testing the impact of the Dragon Cannon was not Lin Li’s sole intention. Hence, when he saw Lin Li fixing his gaze at the distance, he walked forward curiously to look outside the Sky Castle at the Endless Void.
Archbishop Martin got a shock of his life when he saw what happened outside. The ball of fire was like a piece of magnet that repelled the different Nether Storms in its surroundings.
However, that ball of fire was not a continuous magic, after all. The impact of its explosion did not last too long. With the engulfing forces of the Nether Storms, the sun-sized ball of fire dissipated very quickly, while those Nether Storms continued to rage along their new paths.
One of the attributes of the Nether Storm was that it would chase after exogenous energies. This was also why the Endless Void was a dangerous place even to Sanctuary powerhouses: one could not simply avoid Nether Storms just because he wanted to. No matter how quick and agile a Sanctuary powerhouse was, he had to rely on magic to move in the Endless Void. Yet, the use of magic would transform Nether Storms into sharks that smelled blood. They would chase after the strand of magic wave until it completely disappeared.
It was impossible for one to win against a Nether Storm in speed. A Nether Storm could be birthed out of nowhere in the Endless Void. No one would be able to expect whether a Nether Storm would come at them while they escaped. And even if Lady Luck prevented a Nether Storm from appearing in the front, there would be more and more Nether Storm chasing him from the back. Unless he were to find a place to hide quickly, a Sanctuary powerhouse would be tired to death.
Only someone as powerful as Immortal King whose World Domain had achieved reality would be able to activate it to move around the Endless Void freely.
The goal of Lin Li’s experiment was to make use of the nature of the Nether Storm to be attracted to exogenous energy to create a safe but temporary time-gap. Understanding that he would need time to travel to and fro the Sky Castle for his followers, Lin Li had been estimating the time needed for the fireballs to delay the Nether Storm and where he wanted them to explode.
To fulfill this goal, Lin Li was not stingy with his Legendary crystals. He only stopped after activating 60 Dragon Cannons with six Legendary crystals.
Seeing that his efforts in persuading Lin Li not to be a wastrel were in vain, Archbishop Martin finally accepted the fate. What an outrageous wastage of a treasure! he thought as he looked at the powdered crystals beneath the Dragon Cannon in a daze.
As for Donald, although he strived to perfect his relationship with the Tower of Dusk, he knew that he did not have any bonds with the Tower. While he felt that it was a waste to use the magical crystals as such, the sight of Lin Li wasting magical crystals was more like a show to him.