Chapter 479 The Gate Opens <TOC> Chapter 481 Daniel
Translator: SumTLMan
Angel sighed softly in his heart, unable to blame Cherie for her impoliteness, as she was a mentally patient after all. However, deep down, he didn’t like Cherie’s tone, even if she had the excuse of being a patient.
Angel shook his head, thinking that even if he didn’t like her, what could he do? It’s not like he would kill her.
Pulling down his hood, Angel stopped thinking about Cherie and walked towards the huge gate on the mountain wall.
On the way, he heard many whispers and observed the undercurrents of emotions. Most of them were fears of uncertainty about the future, anger due to unequal information, and even more confusion about the situation inside the Purification Garden.
Angel was also puzzled. If Rosen’s words “do your best to survive, live to the end” were the so-called rules, then this range was too broad. Breaking through with a bloody path would ensure survival, as would hiding quietly.
Angel remembered the wizard guarding the gate had said, “When it’s time to come out, you’ll naturally come out.”
The implication was that they wouldn’t be able to leave without meeting certain conditions. And this condition must refer to the successful promotion of the Purification Garden.
Upon further thought, the Purification Garden needed a blood sacrifice to advance. But what exactly was the method for this blood sacrifice? Was it to have people fight each other until only ten percent remained, at which point the Purification Garden would advance?
Angel frowned. If that was the case, the Purification Garden would essentially be a gladiatorial arena, with survival as the ultimate goal.
Under such a premise, the Purification Garden would have to be small, small enough that no one could hide, or at least it would be difficult to hide.
But… Totoro’s prophecy mentioned a vast ocean, so would a Purification Garden with a sea really be small?
With this doubt, Angel entered the gate of the Purification Garden.
After being submerged in the darkness for a while, Angel faintly saw a light ahead. He quickly gathered his defensive spells in his mind, leaped through the glowing exit.
Upon landing, Angel had not yet adapted to the dazzling sunlight when he suddenly saw a shadow appear beside him. He immediately flipped and leaped, raising an ice wall with a wave of his hand and then retreating rapidly.
After retreating a few steps, he realized that the shadow was not a human, but a winged flying fish.
This was an ordinary-looking fish with silver scales, green eyes, and a body over half a meter long. The only unusual feature was its large fins, which had golden wave patterns along the edges. Each time it swam, it could fly dozens of meters in the air.
This flying fish was not alone but was part of a group of dozens. Due to Angel’s sudden appearance, they quickly surrounded him.
“What kind of strange fish is this?” While Angel was puzzled, the flying fish suddenly shot an icy arrow at him, flashing with cold air.
Angel had been on guard against them, so he was not surprised by this water arrow. He placed an ice wall in front of him, but unexpectedly, the attack power of the ice arrow far exceeded its ordinary appearance. The ice wall failed to block it, and the arrow penetrated the wall without losing speed or power.
Angel was startled and instinctively shifted to the side, barely dodging the ice arrow.
When the small ice arrow hit the ground, a huge pit appeared, two to three meters deep. At the same time, the coldness attached to the ice arrow froze a large area of the surrounding green grass into an icy patch.
Even Angel’s black robe had a layer of frost due to the passing chill.
“What a powerful ice arrow,” Angel thought, with a hint of horror in his eyes. If he had been hit, wouldn’t his body be instantly frozen?
Dodging this arrow didn’t mean he was safe. Over thirty flying fish around him suddenly moved, and at the same time, they all shot ice arrows towards Angel from every direction.
So many ice arrows were enough to turn this grassland into an icy plain!
Scared out of his wits, Angel relied on his Gravity Lines to pull his body, flashing past in a puff of smoke, and escaped the net before the ice arrows hit him.
Using the extraordinary speed of his Gravity Lines, Angel dragged his body with his spirit and appeared on the other side of the grassland.
Angel looked at the flying fish a hundred meters away and sighed a bit of relief.
However, the flying fish didn’t seem to want to let Angel go, swimming towards him while still spitting ice arrows.
“What kind of weird fish are these? These ice arrows are at least at the peak level of a second-class spell, and they’re spitting them out like they’re free!” Angel grumbled as he frantically dodged.
To save mental power, Angel moved a hundred meters away again. While the flying fish hadn’t yet reached him, his spirit reentered his body, and he set up several illusion nodes along the path the flying fish were about to take, creating a misty illusion.
The flying fish had powerful attacks, but their intelligence was clearly still primitive. They unsuspectingly entered the illusory area.
In an instant, a thick white mist enveloped the fish’s vision.
The previously neat and uniform formation of flying fish became disordered in the mist, bumping into one another like confused drunks, unable to find their way out.
Under such circumstances, all it took was a little external stimulus… Angel squatted down, picked up a stone, and threw it at a bewildered flying fish in the misty illusion.
The stone hit the flying fish.
The fish, unable to find its way out and thinking it was being attacked, immediately spit an ice arrow in the direction of the stone. However, the coldness of the ice arrow affected another passing fish, which also thought it was being attacked and retaliated with its own ice arrow.
One stone stirred up several layers of waves!
Almost instantly, the flying fish began fighting amongst themselves, each thinking they were being attacked. However, their attacks were all misdirected, hitting their own kind.
The internal battle began—
Two minutes later, the smoke cleared. Angel dispelled the misty illusion and saw huge pits, shattered flying fish corpses, and frozen fish sculptures.
He wondered what kind of creatures they were, magical beasts or phantom beasts? They were indeed powerful. If Angel hadn’t used the illusion, he might have had to put in more effort or resort to using Boundless Silence to escape.
Angel reached out and touched the fish scales on the ground.
A freezing sensation immediately spread, and frostbite appeared on his fingertips in an instant.
Angel frowned, not caring about the minor frostbite. Instead, he took out a non-ranked dagger from his bracelet and scraped the fish scale.
There was no trace left.
“It should be usable as an alchemy material,” Angel thought to himself. Even if it couldn’t be used in crafting, it would serve as a defensive ice armor when used in tailoring.
He stood up and examined the other parts of the flying fish, such as its fins and skin, which all possessed extraordinary characteristics. If used correctly, they should also be valuable materials.
“It’s a shame that I can’t learn the Eye of Nalda yet. Otherwise, I could discern its purpose,” Angel sighed slightly.
The Eye of Nalda, also known as the “Eye of Alchemy,” could reveal the truth about objects. However, it was a third-level spell, and Angel’s current magic reserve was insufficient to learn it.
Although he didn’t know if it was useful, Angel still collected the scales and fins of the fish. As for the other parts, considering the limited space in his bracelet, he decided to leave them behind.
After dealing with the flying fish, Angel finally had time to observe the surrounding environment.
There was a vast grassland nearby, and mountains could be vaguely seen in the distance, but the details were unclear.
There were no people in sight.
The sky was blue, and the sun shone brightly. Clouds floated leisurely, creating a pleasant atmosphere.
Since there were no people around, it seemed that his initial guess about the small size of the “Purification Garden” was incorrect. With nearly six-figure apprentices entering the Purification Garden, if the garden were small, like the “Living Soul Garden,” there should be people around.
But he couldn’t see anyone. This indicated that the Purification Garden was the largest of the Wizarding World gardens he had seen. If Angel remembered correctly, the Purification Garden was not considered a high-ranking garden in the Wizarding World, but it was quite large… He wondered how the size of this magical garden was calculated?
Since the Purification Garden was not small, the fight to the death like in the arena, with only the final victor remaining, probably did not apply to this Purification Garden.
So how would the “Blood Sacrifice” be carried out?
As Angel pondered, a group of small black dots suddenly appeared from the sky, weaving through the clouds. Upon closer inspection, they were another group of flying fish. Their fins flapped gracefully as they flew.
This group of flying fish had at least a hundred members, and there was a golden fish among them.
Angel didn’t impulsively fight them. Preserving magic and conserving soul power were more important when the situation was unclear. Thinking this, Angel activated the Boundless Silence and concealed himself.
After hiding, he quietly moved away from the area.
He was completely at a loss, unsure where to go. However, he couldn’t just stay on this grassland, waiting for death.
After some thought, Angel followed his intuition and stealthily headed toward the area where he could see the shadows of mountains.
On the way, Angel didn’t encounter any beasts, but he did come across groups of flying fish in the sky, and not just one type of flying fish. Some had colorful ribbons trailing behind them, some looked like goldfish with bulging eyes, and others changed colors constantly. There were solitary ones and those in groups.
These fish seemed to be sea fish, but for some reason, they were all flying through the air here.
During his journey, Angel was fortunate to witness a fierce battle between a dolphin-like fish with a ring of icy whirlwinds on its head and hundreds of small, seemingly harmless ordinary yellow fish.
The dolphin with the icy whirlwind on its head unleashed several ice storms that were more powerful than third-level tricks.
Watching from afar, Angel found the scene terrifying.
However, the small yellow fish showed no fear. They completely ignored the ice storms, surrounded the dolphin, and eventually killed it, devouring its flesh and leaving only a skeleton behind.
Witnessing this, Angel initially wanted to take the Gondola and patrol the situation from the air. But considering the large number of terrifying fish in the sky, he had to abandon this idea.
Based on the density of the fish swarms, Angel deeply suspected that the other apprentices might have also encountered these flying fish.
He could rely on reducing his presence to avoid the scrutiny of the fish or use the Multidimensional Illusion to confuse them. However, others would likely struggle against these flying fish.
Could it be that the Sky Mechanical City intended to use these flying fish to kill 90% of the apprentices?