Chapter 585 Sumesh's News <TOC> Chapter 587 Mysterious Aura
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Translator: SumTLMan
The sound of the harp came without warning, carrying a touch of leisure. The sound was crystal clear, as if the musician was playing nearby.
Gloria looked around but did not find the musician. However, she didn’t mind, as she was not familiar with musical instruments nor passionate about music. She thought it was just a wandering bard trying to be elegant.
Gloria turned and continued to fly towards the outskirts of the city.
But Gloria hadn’t flown for long when suddenly, the pleasant harp music changed, transforming from leisurely tunes to eerie, haunting melodies. The tone became more and more bizarre, shifting from peaceful and soothing to unsettling and shocking, with surprisingly smooth transitions.
It seemed as if the harp music itself was intended to be a composition of contrasts, changing from uplifting to somber.
In the end, the strange melody fluctuated in pitch, like the accompanying music for a ghostly choir in a haunted theater, singing beautifully late at night.
Chilling and terrifying, just listening to it raised goosebumps all over. And it lingered in the ear, impossible to shake off.
This sudden change left Gloria momentarily bewildered.
“Who is playing the harp? Making it sound so creepy during the day.” “Why do I feel a chill down my spine?” “If there were a female choir singing now, it would be even more terrifying.” The pedestrians on the street frowned and showed expressions of disgust and doubt.
As everyone began to criticize the harp music, a strange, fluctuating voice entered everyone’s ears.
“Quack, praise the Queen, praise Shava, praise the moonlight… Quack, quack, damn, there’s no moonlight here! Not being watched by the moonlight is a filthy and foolish concept.”
“No matter, this place will soon become clean.”
With that statement, everyone suddenly felt their vision go dark.
Gloria looked up sharply, only to see a black vortex appear in the center of the Eternal Day magic array above the Sleepless City, slowly rotating like the eye of a hurricane.
Endless darkness emerged from the vortex. This darkness, like sentient beings with wisdom, spread directly along the dome of the Eternal Day.
In the blink of an eye, the darkness completely enveloped the Eternal Day!
The Sleepless City was divided into the inner and outer cities, similar to Sky Mechanical City. The inner city corresponded to the backside of Sky Mechanical City and was home to the formal wizard organizations, while the outer city corresponded to the front side, resembling a wizard market with various shops stationed.
The area covered by Eternal Day was the outer city.
In the space of a breath, the outer city spanning hundreds of miles fell into the realm of darkness. Day and night inverted in an instant.
Not long after the outer city was engulfed in darkness, several light figures flew out of the inner city of Sleepless City. They hovered above the dark dome of the outer city, looking at each other, unsure of what had happened.
These light figures represented formal wizards. Moreover, they were able to react immediately, which made them the top figures of Sleepless City’s hierarchy.
“What’s going on? Does anyone know what happened?” The speaker is a middle-aged man wearing a white robe with golden embroidery, with a stout figure, square face, and a very righteous appearance, his light brown beard covering his chin.
This man is one of the three pillars of Sleepless City, “Radiant” Douglas!
“Lord Douglas, I suddenly detected a huge spatial energy reaction just now. When I came out to see, I found that the outer city had already fallen into the realm of darkness,” said a masked man in a purple robe, who was responsible for overseeing the security of the entire outer city. He was also the first wizard to discover the problem in the outer city.
“Could it be that someone is attacking our Sleepless City?”
“But who would attack us, and without any warning?”
“Is it the group from Twilight’s Edge? They like to oppose us, don’t they? We have an Eternal Day City, and they create an Eternal Night Mountain. This thick darkness might be their doing.”
“But even if the Twilight’s Edge were to strike at us, they wouldn’t start with the outer city.”
Everyone speculated, and Douglas furrowed his brow. With too much noise in his ears, he shouted, “Enough! What’s the point of arguing now? The outer city has the residences of various wizard organizations, and we cannot afford any mistakes; otherwise, it would be a great harm to our Sleepless City. What we need to solve now is where this darkness comes from, what its meaning is, and whether the people inside are safe!”
After Douglas finished speaking, everyone stopped arguing and looked at him.
“Let me see what secrets are hidden in the darkness.” With a thought, a huge sun-like light source shone above Douglas’s head.
As his heart moved, the dazzling light source slowly descended into the outer city covered by the dark dome.
This was merely a simple aggregation of light spells, with no negative effects. At most, it would cause some degree of damage to ordinary people’s eyes, but it would not affect extraordinary beings.
So he dared to release it directly to the outer city, fearing no one would be affected, only to dispel the darkness.
However, when the light source entered the dark dome, a strange change occurred.
The darkness was completely opaque, pitch-black and deep, and it also absorbed all light. When the light source slowly merged into the darkness, it was like pure water falling into filth, quickly assimilated, without causing any ripple.
“This darkness is not right!”
Almost everyone noticed this, and Douglas’s mood began to tense. The outer city of Sleepless City, concerning the residences of various wizard organizations, absolutely could not have any problems.
As people debated, some wizards stepped directly into the darkness.
But after a while, there was only entry and no exit. Some wizards even used magical pets or golems to enter the darkness and share their vision to observe the situation inside the darkness.
However, it was still useless. Whether it was alchemical pets, golems, or magical servants, once they entered the darkness, the information chain between the two parties would be completely blocked, and they couldn’t feel the situation inside at all.
They could only vaguely sense whether they were alive or not.
“I’m going in to assess the situation; you all immediately organize the others to prepare for evacuation.” In such a situation, Douglas made a prompt decision to enter the darkness and assess the situation.
“Master Douglas, is this really appropriate? We don’t know what’s going on in the darkness, and it could be dangerous for you to rush in like this.”
“There’s no need to worry. I’ll make my judgment. Whether it’s dangerous or not, I’ll know once I go in.”
After Douglas spoke, glowing armor appeared on him, like a meteor, bringing a streak of radiance and plunging directly into the dark dome.
Not long after Douglas entered the outer city, many figures emerged from the inner city.
Even many secluded wizards were startled out of their seclusion by this sudden event. Among all the wizards who emerged, one was particularly eye-catching—an old man with wrinkled skin, wrapped in a dark robe, with a white beard that almost reached his chest.
“Master Quete, Master Douglas just…” The man in the purple robe tried to report the situation as he saw the newcomer.
Quete waved his hand to stop him, “I already know, you don’t need to say more.”
Quete then cast his gaze towards the distant dark dome. His expression was strange, with surprise in his eyes, and a hint of joy.
“Is this… the aura of the Nightmare Plane?” Quete’s expression was both fearful and greedy, “Could it be that a passage to the Nightmare Plane has appeared here?”
Quete had once entered the Nightmare Plane and was sensitive to its aura. Not long ago, he had also tried to bid on the —Dream Realm Travelogue— at the Sky Mechanical City auction. Although the Dream Realm Travelogue was eventually bought by Sanders, his desire for the Nightmare Plane had never been concealed.
If a passage to the Nightmare Plane appeared here, it would be an enormous opportunity!
However, opportunity also came with significant risks. Remembering his last experience in the Nightmare Plane, Quete began to tremble all over.
Quete’s white beard swayed in the wind, his eyes flickering with hesitation and struggle.
Should he go in?
As Quete was struggling with his decision, rifts in space suddenly appeared around him.
“This is a planar crevice!” “Someone’s coming out! It’s Lord Douglas!”
Under the surprised gazes of everyone, a disheveled Douglas emerged from the planar crevice. At the same time, several injured wizards followed behind him.
“Lord Douglas, what happened in there?”
Seeing Douglas appear, the crowd immediately gathered around. At this time, they also identified the identities of the wizards behind Douglas, who were mainly members of other wizard organizations stationed in the Sleepless City.
Their expressions were somewhat strange, and some even had flickering eyes, wanting to return to the darkness.
Douglas’s expression was also strange, and at the same time, he showed a thoughtful look: “I am not sure what happened, but the outer city was completely sealed off, and only by gathering the power of the wizards could we barely open the planar passage.”
“However, I feel a familiar presence inside…”
Everyone asked in succession, and Douglas was silent for a long time before he uttered a word: “Mysterious.”
…
Returning to Gloria’s perspective, she had become alert when the darkness began to spread. She wanted to leave the Eternal Day dome, but she was one step too slow.
When the darkness completely enveloped the outer city, Gloria found that no matter how far she tried to walk out, she would end up back in the city. It was as if the darkness had created a separate world.
With no other choice, Gloria turned back to see if the teleportation circle could be used.
Grumbling about her bad luck, she thought that if worse came to worst, she would return to Mechanical City, teleport to Twilight’s Edge, and then travel from there to the Savage Grottoes.
On the way back, Gloria found that the sound of the harp in her ears became more and more piercing, and a wave of evil desires rose from the depths of her heart.
“Spell of Wicked Desires?” Gloria frowned, trying to suppress the desires within her.
But she couldn’t completely suppress it for a moment, and in the end, it was the soul of the True Knowledge Wizard that suppressed the desires within her. However, it was impossible to completely get rid of them.
“This level of wicked desires cannot be resisted by anyone below the True Knowledge level. Could it be a follower of the Ominous Evil Play?”
The Ominous Evil Play is a great abyssal demon, also known as the Demon of Wicked Desires, who likes to manipulate desires and human hearts.
The sudden darkness did not cause much emotional turmoil in Gloria. But the wicked desires stirred up by the sound of the harp suddenly made her feel uneasy.
With this uneasiness, Gloria ignored the others who were being invaded by wicked desires and quickly arrived near the teleportation circle.
When she arrived there, she didn’t see the teleportation circle, only a ruin.
And standing on top of the ruins was a red fox standing on two feet.