1878 Deep in the Ancient City
Everything before him, around him, above him, and below him was part of the black city that stretched as far as the eye could see.
The enormous ruins of the buildings resembled tombs that were hundreds of meters high. Not only did they extend to the east, west, north, and south, but they also floated in the infinite s.p.a.ce thousands of meters above and below. They formed a three-dimensional maze that did not seem to be anch.o.r.ed by gravity.
Some of the structures that had been eroded for billions of years were still standing in the middle, like tottering tombstones.
The black “urban graveyard” extended in all directions, as far as his eyes could see. However, his light of sight was soon swallowed by a black fog that rolled and squirmed as if it was alive.
Meng Chao lowered his head and looked at his hands.
From the nerve endings on his fingertips, he could still sense the pressure from the rock wall when he struggled with all his might to push it on both sides of the crevice.
But now, the crevices, walls, boulders, and even the crust that separated him from Dragon City had all disappeared.
It was as if he had been teleported from the bottom of Dragon City to a completely sealed alternate dimension.
One end of a rope had originally been tied around his waist, and the other end had been tied to Lu Siya’s waist.
However, the rope was now suspended in midair. The end of the rope that was away from Meng Chao looked like a fishing line that had plunged into an invisible pond.
Meng Chao lifted the rope and went forward to observe it. He noticed that the cut on the rope was incredibly neat, and every strand of man-made fiber in the rope was trembling slightly.
It was as if it had not broken at all but was still connected to Meng Chao and Lu Siya. It moved up and down with their heartbeats, as well as breathing, and it swayed gently.
Meng Chao pondered for a moment before he carefully tugged on the rope.
At the spot where the rope had disappeared into thin air, circles of hazy ripples immediately appeared, as though there were vague waves.
Meng Chao took a sedative pill from the first aid kit and flicked it gently at the ripples in the air.
The pill pa.s.sed through the ripples and disappeared without falling to the ground.
Three seconds later, the ripples vanished too, and the second pill that Meng Chao threw out fell smoothly in a parabola that followed the laws of physics.
Meng Chao nodded. His spirit flames surrounded the rope, and he proceeded to pull it.
He still could not pull the entire rope and Lu Siya over.
Yet, the rope did not seem to be tied to a hard solid object. Instead, it seemed to be stuck in a sticky swamp, tar, or gelatinous ma.s.s. It gave the illusion that it could be pulled with a little more force.
However, Meng Chao was too afraid to keep trying.
Spatial gaps were so strange that they could not be explained by the laws of physics.
In the monster mastermind’s deep memory, even during the Ancient War, the fully-armored Ancients could instantly split into two or teleport to the rock stratum or even outer s.p.a.ce when they faced spatial gaps.
Meng Chao had no idea what would happen to Lu Siya if he dragged her over from the other end of the rope. He dared not risk it.
“Alright, looks like that crevice isn’t just growing in the underground rock stratum, it’s also embedded in a s.p.a.ce tunnel.
Meng Chao rubbed his temples gently and quickly calmed down.
He had encountered similar abnormal phenomena around the Turan Holy Mountain.
It seemed that the ancient ruins under Dragon City and the area where the Turan Holy Mountain was located had similar effects.
If an ordinary s.p.a.ce was flat and even like a piece of white paper, then the s.p.a.ces where the ancient ruins and Turan Holy Mountain were located seemed to crumple this piece of paper into a ball, unfold it, and roll it around several times until its fibers were torn. Not only were the layers of its folds visible to the naked eye, but the inside of this paper was also filled with crisscrossing gaps that were enough for fine particles at the molecular level to pa.s.s through.
“Lu Siya and I should have been teleported to different coordinates in this ancient city’s graveyard,” Meng Chao mumbled to himself.
“Since I’m already here, I’ll just take things as they come. At least I’m still alive.”
This was enough to show that even if there was a living will behind the ancient ruins, it was not completely malicious toward him.
With that thought, Meng Chao tied the rope around his waist. In his mind, things could be much worse, so he strode forward with his head held high. He stepped on the burning footprints that Battle G.o.d Lei Zongchao left behind and followed the pioneer. He was in the core area of the ancient city, where the city ruins were the densest and the structures that resembled tombstones were the tallest.
The black fog that had been floating in the ruins of the giant city could seemingly absorb all sound waves.
Whether it was Meng Chao’s heavy footsteps, the occasional claps he made to attract the attention of his companions, or the crumbled walls that had been eroded by time, any sound was instantly absorbed by the black fog. Meng Chao could not even hear his heartbeat or breathing.
The atmosphere that was even deadlier than the inside of a coffin buried deep underground made the ruins on both sides of the road look even more solemn and towering.
Meng Chao had seen the cities of the Ancients in the monster mastermind’s deep memories more than once.
However, during those times, he mostly followed the perspective of the king of monsters, the indomitable Chaos Behemoth.
It was either that or the ancient beasts that were hundreds of meters tall and created by the Chaos Behemoth.
The ancient city in the monsters’ perspective was crystal clear and magnificent.
However, there was less pressure that could squeeze a person’s soul out.
All of a sudden, Meng Chao stopped in his tracks.
The road before him was nearly 100 meters wide, but it was cut off by a high stone mountain.
Narrowing his eyes, he scanned it carefully. He contemplated for a long time as he mapped it against the pictures of war in his memory. He vaguely guessed that it had to be the debris of the “super enormous crystal” that looked like a battle fortress in the sky. It had floated above the entire city in the past and possessed a diameter of more than three hundred meters.
During the apocalyptic Ancient War, countless enormous and brilliant crystal fortresses in the sky had been struck down by the overwhelming ancient beast hordes.
The crash not only destroyed more than ten huge buildings nearby but also raised a circular chunk of earth from the ground. The crater was over a thousand meters in diameter and dozens of meters in height, and it was also as hard as iron. It looked extremely exaggerated.
Meng Chao could see more than one similar crater.
From this, it was obvious how huge and terrifying the war that determined the owners of the planet was.