Chapter 969: Well of the Sun
I originally planned to get close to the Brilliance Shrine’s team, and try to maintain a certain balance with the Tower of Dusk with the power of the two forces. However, the Brilliance Shrine’s team is obviously standing on the Tower of Dusk’s side now. Doesn’t that mean that my team is in danger now!?
Donald now had to consider whether he should also find a chance to impress the Sanctuary powerhouse of the Tower of Dusk and curry his favor. However, the problem was that there was nothing he could offer. His only forte was his techniques in creating Alchemy Colossuses. However, the Tower of Dusk had a dwarf master of alchemy slash metallurgist whose attainments he was unclear of.
In fact, Donald even wondered if the dwarf metallurgist was a legendary Guru of Alchemy because he’d managed to discover so many issues with the work of the best metallurgist of the Rotterdam Kingdom. In the past, Donald and the others would still try to find excuses by saying that Angelano had probably discovered some secrets that already existed in the Alchemy Colossuses in the first place. However, now that he thought about it, he felt that the excuse was way too ridiculous. How could the metallurgist under a Sanctuary powerhouse really be incapable? Actually, he had just found excuses in the past because he had been unwilling to face reality.
Alchemy was the forte of the people of the Rotterdam Kingdom, but their skill in alchemy was of no value to a Guru of alchemy. Donald thought about the miserable situation that his team was about to face, and was suddenly at a loss for what to do. Not to mention the cooperation between the Brilliance Shrine and the Tower of Dusk, even if the Brilliance Shrine decided to stay in a neutral position, the Tower of Dusk’s team would be able to destroy them easily just with the strength of the Sanctuary powerhouse alone.
While thinking about it, Donald couldn’t help but fix his gaze on the Undead servants, Ujfalusi and Norfeller, who were on the Tower of Dusk’s side. All of a sudden, a beam of light flashed in his eyes, as if a bolt of lightning had cleared the fog in his brain. He immediately came up with an idea.
However, after getting an idea, Donald did not immediately look for Lin Li. Since Lin Li had just had an intimate conversation with Archbishop Martin, it was clearly not the time for him to suck up to him now.
The expedition recuperated there for a while. Actually, the Alchemy Colossuses of the Rotterdam Kingdom were what required the most of their time. The members of the team from the Brilliance Shrine had all been baptized by Holy Light, and had their abilities improved greatly. They only needed to rest their minds for a while.
However, Lin Li did not want to give up the cannon fodder of the Rotterdam Kingdom just yet. Even though he was racing against time and against Osric, he still gave the team from the Rotterdam Kingdom enough time to repair the Alchemy Colossuses. Once the team from the Rotterdam Kingdom had prepared everything, the expedition finally set off again. According to the information that they had gotten during the exploration while some were resting, they arrived at a gate of this floor.
To be frank, the people from the expedition couldn’t help but feel terrified at the thought of the gate with the black vortex and the intense battle in the two realms previously. G.o.d knew what kind of world was waiting for them behind the gate. It might just become their burial ground.
However, they had no choice but to enter, because other than that gate, there was no other door for them to pa.s.s through on this entire floor. Hence, at the instant that they stepped through the gate, almost everyone couldn’t help but take a deep breath.
Pa.s.sing through the gate, the expedition arrived in yet another world. However, when Lin Li saw this world, he was stunned because it had an extraordinary significance to Lin Li. It was something that he could never truly forget no matter how many years had pa.s.sed.
It was an absolutely unimaginable and majestic palace that emitted a golden glow and grandeur, as if only the supreme celestial G.o.ds were fit to set foot in it. Facing such a palace, almost everyone felt small and insignificant. It was as if standing there was an unforgivable blasphemy.
The ma.s.sive palace was large and majestic, and it resembled a G.o.d looking down on the mortals. The golden rays of light filled the entire s.p.a.ce, and no one dared to look at it at all. Standing in front of the glorious palace, everyone involuntarily began breathing softly even though it was just a lifeless palace. The incomparably somber ambiance made each and every one of them feel oppressed.
They had never felt that kind of shock and pressure before, even when they were facing the Sky Castle that was a condensation of the wisdom of the High Elves. They could not imagine that such a palace which could not be described in words at all would exist in this world. Even the most magnificent High Elven buildings described in history were probably far inferior to the palace before them now.
However, the reason for Lin Li’s shock was different from others. He was not stunned by the grandeur of the majestic building, but because of the overlapping of his memories and reality. Yes, in the eyes of others, they had never seen this palace before. However, Lin Li was no stranger to it, because it was called the Well of the Sun.
The name Well of the Sun came from the world of the game that Lin Li had played before he transmigrated. According to the background story of the game’s setting, the Tree of Eternity collapsed and caused the entire world to enter a frenzy of mana, forming a ma.s.sive collapse of the s.p.a.ce. It also caused a huge rift on the mainland.
Of course, Lin Li was not familiar with the Well of the Sun only because he understood the background story well. It was because he had entered the Well of the Sun before. Technically, it was his main player character, the Hunter, who did. However, that made no difference. He had also obtained the Stars of Fury from the Well of the Sun.
After Lin Li arrived in Anril and discovered the relations.h.i.+p between Anril and the Endless World, especially after obtaining the seven pieces of the debris of the stars, he had also once tried to find some information about the Well of the Sun. He wanted to try and see if he could regain the Stars of Fury from the Well of the Sun in this world.
However, to Lin Li’s surprise, there was no information about the Well of the Sun in the world of Anril. Besides, it was not because of an information blockade, but because neither the Brilliance Shrine and Darkness Shrine nor the Supreme Council had any information about the Well of the Sun in their archives.
In the Endless World, the Well of the Sun was a rather peculiar and terrifying place. Rumor had it that one end of it was completely connected to the Endless Abyss, and after the collapse of the Tree of Eternity, there had been endless Abyssal Demons that swarmed into Anril through the Well of the Sun, causing ma.s.sive disasters.
Besides, the disasters caused by the Well of the Sun had never ended even during the era of human civilization in the Endless World. Every now and then, the major kingdoms of the world in the game issued large-scale group quests to rally players to go deal with the Abyssal Demons that surged out of the Well of the Sun.
If those disasters had also occurred in Anril, they would have definitely been recorded in history as such matters simply couldn’t be covered up even if one tried.
At one point, the outcome even made Lin Li who thought that there had to be a relations.h.i.+p between the two worlds to begin doubting his own conjectures.
However, in the world of Anril, the collapse of the Tree of Eternity did cause some consequences. In fact, the collapse caused one of the largest spatial rifts in the entire world, in the spot where the tree had collapsed. However, it was also the safest one.
The mention of a spatial rift would often make people change their expressions, for several famous Black Currents in history had brought about absolute horror to the people in the world. Besides, there was also the fall of the Darkness Shrine. The great rift in the Eternal Darkness Altar caused the disaster that almost completely annihilated the Darkness Shrine from the world. Pope Rosario of the Brilliance Shrine had also gotten poisoned by a Viper during a Black Current.
However, there had never been any magical beasts that surged out of the rift in the s.p.a.ce where the Tree of Eternity collapsed to harm humans. In fact, in the surroundings of the spatial rift, the environment was no different compared to other places, and there were no leakage of mana or any vigorous and abnormal fluctuations.
Rumor had it that the largest s.p.a.ce rift was almost harmless in the world of Anril. As long as one did not go too close and end up getting caught in it, they could just pretend it didn’t exist. Due to the fact that the large spatial rift looked like a whirlpool, it was also known as the Great Whirlpool.
Hence, Lin Li had always been troubled about whether the Well of the Sun existed or not. Facing this glorious palace, Lin Li finally understood that Anril did have the Well of the Sun, but the Immortal King had integrated it into his own World Domain.
However, that matter gave Lin Li another question. How did the Immortal King move the Well of the Sun there? Of course, Lin Li believed that it shouldn’t be difficult to do with the Immortal King’s strength, but the issue was the timing of the appearance of the Well of the Sun.
According to the legends of the Endless World, the Well of the Sun appeared due to the fall of the Tree of Eternity. In reality, before the Tree of Eternity collapsed, the Well of the Sun should have been named the Sun Palace, which was one of the two greatest palaces of the High Elves. The other one was called the Moon Palace, but it was nowhere to be found after the great war, and it did not leave behind any traces or clues in Anril.
However, in the history of Anril, the Tree of Eternity was destroyed by Geresco, the G.o.d of Mages, roughly at the end of the Dark Age. The collapse of the Tree of Eternity was precisely what caused the High Elves to lose all hope of turning the situation around, thus allowing the rebellion forces of the various races to achieve the final victory.
However, at that time, several years had pa.s.sed since the Immortal King had gone missing. How did he appear again to take the Well of the Sun away? Could it be that he had been watching coldly from the sidelines all this time as the High Elves got wiped out?
In the past, the Dragon of Destruction Azardas had foreseen the rise of the High Elves, and tried to destroy the Tree of Eternity, but he ended up getting killed by the Immortal King. If the Immortal King had been watching Anril, why did he protect the High Elves at first before allowing the Tree of Eternity to fall and the High Elves to be annihilated later?
Could it be that the Immortal King feared Geresco’s strength? Although that conjecture seemed a bit ridiculous, the Immortal King wasn’t far from Geresco who was already close to the existence of a G.o.d. The fact that he could kill the Dragon of Destruction was enough to prove that the Immortal King was probably just as able as real G.o.ds!
However, in the history of Anril, there had never been records of Geresco fighting the Immortal King, and it seemed that the two powerhouses that appeared one after another in Anril did not have a chance to meet at all.
At the thought of the issue of time, Lin Li couldn’t help but remember another thing—when he had first explored the Sky Castle, the elves’ team found the unicorn that had supposedly given them hope when they had been held captive in the prison of the Central Tower. In the legends of the elves, the unicorn was the mount of the G.o.ddess of Nature who had purified the entire poisonous land of death and turned it into the current Emerald Forest that was full of vitality.
However, after the purification, the unicorn somehow disappeared for no reason. Legend had it that the G.o.ddess of Nature had once given the elves an oracle, but the elves settled down in the Emerald Forest after the end of the Dark Age.
Could it be that the Immortal King already possessed the ability to transmigrate and time-travel? Although his conjecture seemed a little absurd and far-fetched, Lin Li knew that such a possibility existed in Anril. In fact, the Dragon of Time, which was one of the five Dragon Aspects, had the ability to travel through the past and future, thus making it the most mysterious Dragon Aspect.
However, no matter what the truth was, there was at least something for Lin Li to rejoice about. After all, compared to the two previous worlds, he had explored the Well of the Sun before. Even though it would not be exactly the same as what he remembered, he would not be wandering around aimlessly like a headless fly.
Besides, precisely because of his familiarity with the Well of the Sun, Lin Li was well aware that it would be more dangerous to wander around the Well of the Sun as compared to the previous two worlds.
By now, the members of the expedition had already been standing in front of the palace gate of the Well of the Sun for a long time. They had just recovered from shock, and finally had the mood to carefully scrutinize the palace. In fact, if they took a close look, they would discover that the beautiful and majestic palace was not really perfect, and the bedazzling, gilded palace was actually incomplete too.
Despite the collapse of the Tree of Eternity that caused a ma.s.sive rift to appear in Anril, the palace actually managed to stay largely intact, with only just some slight damage. That was actually a miracle. Of course, apart from Lin Li, the rest of the expedition did not know the reason for the damage. They merely felt that the damage didn’t seem to make the palace any less magnificent or resplendent. In fact, it even made the entire palace give off a vicissitudinous vibe.