Chapter 1051: Undercurrent
All along, Lin Li had never used the power of the debris of the stars from the time he started receiving guidance from Geresco’s incarnation to the time he entered the Barbarous Arena to fight and train, because what he needed was to try to improve his own strength through various methods. Hence, he naturally could not rely on the power of external objects too often.
However, Lin Li’s strength could no longer be improved through such battles now. What he currently needed was the Meditation Land that Geresco had left behind, not fights with Sanctuary-level prehistoric magical beasts. However, due to the fact that he had been deliberately refraining from using the debris of the stars, he almost somewhat ignored their existence.
Now that Lin Li was facing the Golden Behemoth whose defense he couldn’t break at all despite using all his might, he finally recalled the seven pieces of the debris of the stars that he had. In terms of sharp and powerful attacks, no magical weapon in Anril could compare to the seven pieces of the debris of the stars. If there was one, it’d be the debris of the stars combined with the Stars of Fury.
Unfortunately, Lin Li did not have the Stars of Fury, and only owned a Crossbow of Reincarnation that he had built with his own hands and which had some of the characteristics of the Stars of Fury. Actually, apart from the Stars of Fury, the combination of the Crossbow of Reincarnation and the debris of the stars was probably the strongest in the entire Anril.
After taking out the Crossbow of Reincarnation, the cold Polar Snow, burning hot Raging Flames, violent Thunderbolt, and Nothingness appeared in his hand. They even changed into crossbow bolts that flickered with colorful light. While controlling the black-and-white Solar Spheres to keep the Golden Behemoth in midair, Lin Li loaded the debris of the stars into the crossbow one by one.
As the debris of the stars pieces were loaded, the crossbow was also visibly changing as the dark golden mageweaths began glistening radiantly and emitting a massive and terrifying aura. It was as if the gods had descended into the world at this moment. Under the influence of this aura, the land and sky seemed to have changed in color, just as if they were frightened. The dark clouds rolling in the sky seemed to be reaching the ground, and a large amount of magical elements converged to form a terrifying storm.
Releasing four pieces of the debris of the stars was not Lin Li’s limit, but it was the limit of the Crossbow of Reincarnation. After all, it was only an imitation of the Stars of Fury. If he added another piece, the Crossbow of Reincarnation would probably collapse and disintegrate before the attack could be launched.
At this moment, the Golden Behemoth, which was fixed in mid-air, also seemed to feel the threat from the aura of the debris of the stars. It roared and twisted its body desperately, as if it wanted to fall back to the ground as soon as possible. However, being in the sky, it did not have anything to leverage on, and could only contain a powerful force that it could not exert.
If that blow of his turned out to be ineffective too, Lin Li would have no choice but to admit that the Meditation Land was not fated with him! While thinking about it, Lin Li pointed the Crossbow of Reincarnation at the Golden Behemoth that was fixed in mid-air. Lin Li himself was not too confident in this strike’s effectiveness. After all, he didn’t have the real Stars of Fury, and what he was holding was far from being able to exert the maximum power of the debris of the stars.
Boom!
Lin Li gently pulled the crossbow trigger, and with a crisp string sound, four intertwined rays of light shot out from the Crossbow of Reincarnation, striking the Golden Behemoth that was struggling in the air.
That arrow caused the entire sky to lose its color, as if the only brilliance between the sky and the earth was that of the crossbow bolts.
“Arwooooo…”
Sensing the great threat, the Golden Behemoth let out a groundbreaking roar, and the golden light that enveloped its entire body immediately intensified. It was even concentrated in the front, and was facing the shocking arrow[1] that darted towards the sky.
With the loud roar, the golden light scattered, and the light condensed by the four pieces of the debris of the stars blew away the golden light that had condensed into a giant shield, and shot into the Golden Behemoth’s body. The Golden Behemoth did not wail or cry, and was killed in an instant. The golden light that shrouded its body also surged into the Golden Behemoth’s body as if it was frightened.
“Phew.” Lin Li finally let out a long sigh of relief. Fortunately, the Golden Behemoth had gone berserk and leaped into the sky. Otherwise, even if the four pieces of the debris of the stars emerged at the same time, it might be difficult to break its defense.
Sensing that the Golden Behemoth had died, Lin Li stopped the bombardment, and flew close to the Golden Behemoth’s corpse, taking it into the Ring of Endless Storms. Although Lin Li’s Ring of Endless Storm contained a large amount of precious materials and even the corpse of the Dragon of Destruction, the Golden Behemoth was, after all, very rare, and also had a useful function. Besides, Lin Li also wanted to study the mysterious ancient runes on it and find out how they gave the Golden Behemoth such an incredible defensive ability.
The disappearance of Golden Behemoth’s signs of vitality seemed to be a very huge warning to the other prehistoric magical beasts. Lin Li could completely feel through his mental strength that there were still some other prehistoric magical beasts watching at the edge of the battlefield, and all of them were now speeding up and leaving the place. On the other hand, the prehistoric magical beasts whose territories were near the battlefield also quickly moved as far away as possible at this moment.
Indeed, with Golden Behemoth’s unbelievably strong defense, even in such a world where the prehistoric magical beasts were everywhere, it was definitely an existence that stood at the top of the pyramid. Now that the prehistoric viper was dead, and so were the Tempest Beasts and the tough Golden Behemoth, they all knew that there had to be a terrifying existence there.
After putting away the Golden Behemoth’s corpse, Lin Li returned to the ground, but he did not immediately use the Meditation Land to restore his mana. Instead, he began to check the Crossbow of Reincarnation in his hand in bewilderment. Although the Golden Behemoth had been hovering in midair, and could not leverage on the power from the earth, the power exerted by the Crossbow of Reincarnation and the four pieces of the debris of the stars was actually somewhat beyond his expectations.
Lin Li had built the Crossbow of Reincarnation with his own hands, and thus he understood it very well. Hence, he was well aware what kind of power the Crossbow of Reincarnation could exert. After all, it was just a replica that imitated a very small part of the characteristics of the Stars of Fury.
That was the reason for Lin Li’s lack of confidence in the power of four pieces of the debris of the stars being launched together at the very beginning. If possible, he would have even launched all seven pieces of the debris of the stars together. In his opinion, even if the combination of the replica and the four pieces of the debris of the stars could break through the defense of the Golden Behemoth, it wouldn’t be easy, and they might only seriously injure the Golden Behemoth.
However, in reality, the four pieces of the debris of the stars had blown away the defense of the mysterious ancient magic runes before penetrating the Golden Behemoth’s body unhindered. Lin Li was obviously surprised. Although it was far inferior to the Stars of Fury, the performance of the Crossbow of Reincarnation had undoubtedly reached 1% of the power of the Stars of Fury this time as compared to 0.1% previously.
Although compared to the Stars of Fury, the replica was still far behind, it was akin to a direct tenfold increase in performance of the Crossbow of Reincarnation this time. The tenfold difference was manifested in the debris of the stars, which was absolutely terrifying.
Lin Li carefully examined the Crossbow of Reincarnation, and felt that the materials, mageweaths, and arrays didn’t seem to be any different from before. All of a sudden, he recalled when he’d first explored the Sky Castle and encountered the Stars of Fury that was condensed with mana in the last realm of the Seven-Realm Spiral.
At that time, Lin Li had also used the Crossbow of Reincarnation and three pieces of the debris of the stars to barely defeat the mana-condensed Stars of Fury. Lin Li remembered that when he had been collecting the debris of the stars, Thunderbolt, a ball of something flew into the Crossbow of Reincarnation from the Stars of Fury replica that had been dispersed by a blow. It seemed that the increase in the performance of the Crossbow of Reincarnation was very likely because of the thing that had fused with the Crossbow of Reincarnation back then.
Having understood that, Lin Li stopped dwelling on it. Anyway, the change in the Crossbow of Reincarnation brought no harm to him. In fact, it even allowed him to have an additional attacking method that was even stronger than others.
The death of the prehistoric viper, the Tempest Beasts, and the Golden Behemoth made the area where Lin Li was located almost a forbidden place in the eyes of the other prehistoric magical beasts. Lin Li’s purpose of visit was not to hunt the prehistoric magical beasts, so he naturally couldn’t be bothered to attack them. Instead, he focused on enjoying the benefits this Meditation Land brought.
However, deep down, Lin Li was still troubled by a question. Did Geresco implement all of those things in the inverted tower purely for the sake of giving him the power to deal with those spacetime rifts in the near future? Although reality didn’t seem to conflict with this assumption, Lin Li vaguely felt that Geresco’s purpose did not seem to be as simple as that.
Lin Li’s hunch intensified when he reached the third floor of the Inverted Tower and entered the Meditation Land. The current setup of these three levels—which included guidance, followed by battles to hone his skills, and lastly a meditation ground for the accumulation of mana—alone seemed to be a chain process that was orderly and systematic. Even Lin Li did not know what kind of situation he would be pushed into if he followed the steps.
Of course, despite having such a huge doubt in mind, Lin Li wouldn’t give up all this—at least not for the time being, as it seemed that Geresco’s purpose for now was to help him improve as quickly as possible. As for what kind of problems he’d face after his strength was raised to a certain level, he would have to leave it for later.
Lin Li stayed for almost a month in Geresco’s Meditation Land, during which time he gained way more than what the average person would achieve in several years or even more than a decade. Through a month of meditation, Lin Li’s mana had accumulated to a rather terrifying degree. Although he was still stuck at the peak of level-27, his accumulation of pure mana was simply at the top of the Sanctuary-realm.
Meanwhile, things could be considered peaceful in the Breezy Plains. It was as if the entry of the Gilded Kingdom did not result in any impact on the Breezy Plains. Of course, that was only what it seemed on the surface. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to call it an undercurrent. Actually, everyone knew that the Breezy Plains was about to change, so no matter how big or small the change might be, they were all secretly preparing for it.
After entering the Breezy Plains, the Gilded Kingdom immediately began to swallow the various local forces in the Breezy Plains. Until now, no one knew how many forces of the Breezy Plains secretly supported the Gilded Kingdom. Hence, the various forces in the Breezy Plains were gradually divided into three portions. One portion of them chose to support the Gilded Kingdom, while another portion remained loyal to the Tower of Dusk, and the remaining portion were neutral fence-sitters who were just waiting to see what happened so that they could go with the flow.
After takeover and getting close to the local forces of the Breezy Plains, the development of the Gilded Kingdom in the Breezy Plains began to get on track. They successfully integrated into the Breezy Plains, allowing themselves to gain a considerable level of authority to speak in the Breezy Plains despite being a foreign force.
It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the development of the Gilded Kingdom should affect the Tower of Dusk the most. After all, before the Gilded Kingdom entered the Breezy Plains, the Tower of Dusk already had a dominant position in the region, and even forces like the Mithril Alliance and the others had already submitted to the Tower of Dusk. The appearance of the Gilded Kingdom and their actions during this period of time were almost considered a rebellion challenging the status of the Tower of Dusk.
However, in the face of all the moves of the Gilded Kingdom, the Tower of Dusk had not reacted at all. They simply focused on managing their businesses, which confused the other forces of the Breezy Plains as it didn’t seem like the Tower of Dusk’s usual style of handling things. They wondered if the Tower of Dusk was also afraid of the power of the Gilded Kingdom.
Gavin, Basel, and other senior members of the Tower of Dusk were the only ones who knew that the so-called dominant ruling position was not of any practical use to the current Tower of Dusk. Previously, Lin Li wanted all the forces to submit to him, but it wasn’t because he wanted anything from them, but rather because he wanted to ensure that the development of the Tower of Dusk would not be hindered by anything.
No matter how the Gilded Kingdom developed and gained more authority, the Tower of Dusk would not bother with them as long as they did not touch their bottom line. It was just like adults letting children play freely as long as they didn’t affect the adults. If they did, they would have to receive a beating.
[1] Apparently four bolts turned into an arrow.