'Nice. All according to plan.' Elena thought to herself as she fell through the darkness.
Originally, this was supposed to be a fun event for her, a time for her to happily abuse her Life Laws to loot and plunder while the rest suffered from the vitality calamity, but these damn Nox Worshippers had to come in and ruin it for her!
The original vitality calamity would've been a breeze for her, but this corrupted version was the complete opposite.
As someone who chased the purest and most powerful form of Life Laws, she held an aura that the corrupted world saw as a threat, which made it target her much more fiercely than any of the other geniuses!
As if that wasn't enough, she was chased by a horde of Nox Worshippers that didn't give her a single second to plan forward.
Therefore, there was only one thing to do: drag them into the subterranean world!
'It's easy for a Life practitioner to sense it, so I was able to act quickly. I wonder if the rest can be so lucky…'
The origin of the suction force was the earth itself, which made the underground and the sky the only safe locations in the world.
And even then, "safe" only meant the suction force was weak, not that it wholly disappeared.
BANG!
Elena's body slammed into the ground and formed a crater in the underground tunnel. The first thing she did was send her awareness into the earth, so she could—
"Ah…"
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
The Nox Worshippers slammed into the ground around her, and the tunnel's bottom fell through, sending the group tumbling through the air again.
'The fall isn't too long this time. I can see the bottom.'
Elena immediately took action, moving towards the nearest Nox Worshipper.
Transcended Death was similar to Su Ren's grey mana in its ability to harm the Nox Worshippers despite their strong exteriors.
Why? Because Nox Mana inherently contained extreme similarities to Death Mana, and Transcended Death was a concept that specifically suppressed this breed of mana!
Elena wrapped her legs around the Nox Worshipper's throat and spun her body, sending blades of Transcended Death Mana into its neck as it twisted at an impossible angle.
The Nox Worshipper was stunned as Elena's body entered its body and froze its systems. Instead of killing it, she jumped off and moved to the next one, repeating a similar process of stunning the enemy while evading the various claws and jaws that assailed her as she went about her task.
BANG!
Crack!
She soon slammed into the next portion of ground. Her leg broke upon impact, but she quickly moved to heal it as her enemies fell around her.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Despite reaching solid ground again, the Nox Worshippers didn't move. They struggled and attempted, but it was impossible to rid themselves of her bindings so easily.
Using the chance she'd made for herself, Elena sat down in the middle of their collapsed bodies and entered a meditative posture.
'Siphon.'
Their vitality flowed into the atmosphere like rivers, guided by Elena's mana inside of them, and entered her body.
"Thankfully you guys are weak. Who knows what would have happened if a stronger one came," she said as their bodies wilted.
BOOM!
Elena flinched.
'No way it's instant karma, right?'
She turned her head robotically to look at the being that just crashed through the tunnel wall.
It was indeed a Nox Worshipper, far bigger and more daunting than the ones she'd just faced, and with a far stronger aura as well…
…however, it already had a massive hole in its chest where its heart should've been.
"Eh?"
Elena peered into the dusty opening in the tunnel wall, her eyes barely making out the figures of a group of people.
She raised Yggdrasil's Branch warily.
"Friend or foe?" She asked.
It was a bit arbitrary, but she felt the need to make her presence known.
As she watched, four people stepped through the smoke and entered her tunnel.
She looked at them and they looked at him.
"Pink and white…" Elena muttered.
"That blue…" Rose and Ruyue said together.
Three women suddenly felt like an explosion went off in their minds.
In this nondescript tunnel, with no witnesses but two men who awkwardly took steps back with no place in this moment at all, Damien's three wives reunited.
It truly was a spectacular coincidence!
***
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
It was silent before the explosion, and it was silent after.
Like a tree falling in the middle of a secluded forest, none noticed the unfortunate fate of the man who hit the ground.
When the dust cleared, he didn't move. He lay there on his back, letting out pained gasps as he turned his gaze over to check on the woman who'd fallen with him.
'It looks like…she's okay…haa…fuuuuuuck…!'
To say he was in extreme pain would be an understatement!
He'd fallen at least several hundred kilometers after hitting the restriction. When he landed, he felt like he broke every single bone in his body!
'Nngggh…dammit, if I could just control teleportation…'
He found as he fell that the restriction didn't just prohibit one from escaping to the surface, it confused one's senses and mana.
Whenever he teleported, the direction he ended up in was random. He couldn't even hover in the air without being randomly displaced several meters.
Damien let out another moan of pain as he felt and heard his bones snapping back into place.
Within a minute or so, he was sitting upright again, scanning the surroundings.
'This place definitely holds a supreme treasure. That's what the confusion effect of the restriction is hiding. There's no other explanation for putting something like that in a secret realm.'
He gritted his teeth and stood up, cracking his joints and readjusting to his body for the second time in recent days.
'Also, the Angels are definitely spouting a load of bullshit. They definitely didn't build this damn world. Hell, I don't think they've even explored it properly!'
The Angels likely just built the surface to match the height where the two tombs were located. It was like they put a wrap on a car and said they built the car from scratch, when, in fact, even the wrap was filled with air pockets and tears!
"It has to be that damn Luciel guy. He was staring at me all creepy before I came in, that's definitely some foreshadowing right there…shit, did my nightmare of meeting a trickster god finally come true…? Damn Angels…"
Damien muttered a load of complaints to nobody in particular, which happened to wake Pandora up as well.
"Hm? Where is this?" She murmured as she opened her eyes.
However, she immediately went alert and flared her mana.
"Hey, hey, relax. Maybe spread your awareness first instead of making a commotion and letting everyone know your location?" Damien said, suppressing her aura with his own.
"You are…Damien Void…?" Pandora questioned.
"We've been over this already. Did you lose your memory during the fall?"
"Nonsense. You saying 'Oh, by the way, I'm the one you've been looking for' isn't quite the explanation I was looking for."
"Wow, I didn't know you had it in you to talk so casually. It's almost creepy."
"I should kill you here."
"You don't have the ability."
Pandora sighed in concession and spread her awareness to see the same scene Damien viewed moments ago.
Currently, the duo stood in the middle of a massive amphitheater-like area.
There were 16 tunnels leading out of the large cavern they were in, spaced precisely and intentionally, unlike the natural formations that populated most of the realm.
Damien turned to Pandora and grinned.
"You good for an adventure?"
Pandora glanced back at him, unamused.
"I am not."
"That's not your line. Follow the script."
"Haa, stop with your joking. Let us first understand the situation and then discuss how to proceed."
It couldn't be stressed just how deadpan Damien's expression was as he stared at her.
With this kind of person…
Could he really survive going on an adventure with this kind of person?!
