Book 15, Priceless Treasure – Chapter 33, The Strange Fog Sea
The Fog Sea had a circ.u.mference of hundreds of thousands of kilometers. It must be understood that Linley’s homeland, the ‘Yulan continent’, had a circ.u.mference of only thirty thousand kilometers. It was less than a tenth of the Fog Sea in size!
The people who had been originally harvesting amethysts at the borders of the Fog Sea, all together, were over a hundred million in number. But of course, a hundred million Deities, in the vast, endless Infernal Realm, was nothing at all.
These hundred million people were all swallowed up, leaving behind only the overseeing staff of the eighteen clans at the outer perimeter, as well as the staff of those eighteen castles.
“Haha…one can harvest for a trillion years without getting as much as we will today!” A violet-robed figure standing in the air above one of the castles was filled with eagerness, and he barked towards the people below, “Send the order. All oversight squads are to go collect amethysts. Any who take them for themselves, upon being discovered, are to be put to death!”
“Yes, milord!”
From within this castle, a flood of people flew out, numbering more than a thousand. They dispersed into the air around the Amethyst Mountains. The uniformed oversight squads also began to quickly harvest amethysts in accordance with the order. The staff members of the eighteen clans all began to wildly harvest.
Whoever harvested more and faster would earn more!
Outside the roiling fog banks, a large number of figures could be seen scurrying about, and many amethyst stones which flew out at high speed were collected into interspatial rings.
“So many amethysts?” A bald man dressed in a uniform muttered, while waving his hand, s.n.a.t.c.hing a flying pile of amethysts into his interspatial ring. “Is this harvesting? This is just grabbing money. I really want to get some for myself.”
The subordinates of the eighteen clans were all astonished and envious, but they didn’t dare to take any for themselves.
Because after each harvesting, their interspatial rings would be inspected. They weren’t permitted to take so much as a single amethyst for themselves.
“How many amethysts will the clan acquire this time? I’ve already collected more than a hundred thousand amethysts by myself. Our clan alone has at least a hundred thousand people like me. Good heavens, doesn’t that mean there will be more than ten billion amethysts? That represents more than a hundred trillion inkstones!” A simple calculation made by those uniformed harvesters frightened them out of their minds.
What’s more, they had only been harvesting for a short while.
The Fog Sea continued to roil about, with large amounts of amethysts shooting out at high speed everywhere.
It was indeed a fact that the rewards the eighteen clans had reaped over a trillion years would not be as much as they would reap from the Fog Wave of today.
“All of you, hurry up!” Those higher level staff members shouted. “Hurry up and harvest them! Don’t let the other clans take them away!” As they shouted loudly, they would occasionally deign to reach out and s.n.a.t.c.h some amethysts as well. After all, sometimes a single pile of amethysts had hundreds of thousands of amethysts in them.
That represented a fortune of trillions of inkstones!
Grabbing money! This money making speed was simply too ridiculous.
No wonder the eighteen clans were so excited about this ‘Fog Wave’.
The Fog Wave brought the eighteen clans enormous wealth, but at the same time, the Fog Wave swept those pitiable G.o.ds and DemiG.o.ds all into the depths as well. Because of the sudden expansion by nearly ten kilometers, the people who had been within the Fog Sea’s borders were all now nearly ten kilometers within it.
A hundred meters was the danger line. Ten kilometers?
None of them would be able to return!
Linley, Delia, Bebe, and Olivier had been chatting and laughing about going to a restaurant to eat. But who would have expected that the Fog Sea would suddenly expand?
It must be understood that normally, the Fog Sea constantly roiled about, and Linley’s group was within the borders of the Fog Sea. They weren’t able to notice that the Fog Sea had expanded. In addition, the actual expansion of the Fog Sea was simply too fast. In but an instant, Linley’s group of four entered the danger zone!
They didn’t actively go in, but the Fog Sea had expanded. Ten kilometers deep into the Fog Sea?
At a hundred meters distance, their heads would go dizzy.
Ten kilometers?
“Whoooooosh.” That low, rumbling wind constantly rang out, and one attack after another hammered against their souls. Most G.o.ds, upon falling into this environment, would immediately have their minds turn chaotic, but as Linley has a soul-protecting Sovereign artifact, he was able to remain clear-minded.
Linley had trained for twenty more years after parting with the Volcano t.i.tan, Phusro.
During these twenty years, Linley had refined a large amount of amethysts and further strengthened his soul, while at the same time he had worked diligently to repair the flaw in the soul-protecting Sovereign artifact. By now, the strength of the ‘patch’ over the flaw was excellent.
“What’s going on?” Linley fought to stay clear-minded.
“Boss, my head feels miserable.” Bebe frantically shook his head. “However, I can still maintain my awareness.” Bebe suddenly closed his eyes, then opened them again, trying to keep himself awake.
Linley turned and saw that although Bebe had been able to maintain his clear-mindedness, Delia and Olivier…
Although Delia had reached the HighG.o.d level, Delia didn’t have a soul-protecting divine artifact, and what’s more, she had fused with a divine spark to become a Deity. Although she had absorbed some Golden Soul-Pearls, under the attack of the strange sound of the wind, she was beginning to turn woozy.
“Lin…Linley….I….my head hurts…” Delia forced out a few words from her lips.
Linley immediately grabbed Delia by the hand. He understood what Delia was going through. In this sort of environment, staying clear-minded was already very hard, much less using divine sense to speak. Delia was only just barely able to say a few words. Even her eyes were occasionally clear, occasionally lost.
“Boss, Olivier has lost consciousness.” Bebe grabbed Olivier by the hand, afraid that Olivier would drift away from their position.
“Olivier isn’t able to stay conscious?” Linley was secretly shocked. Olivier had a mutated soul, and yet even he wasn’t able to stay awake?
Linley stared at the surroundings. The visibility within the Fog Sea was very low, and Linley’s group was only able to just barely see past a hundred meters. Linley forcibly suppressed his dizziness as he looked around himself, but no matter where he looked, all he saw was white fog.”
“Boss, there’s white fog everywhere. We can’t see the outside.” Bebe called out in alarm.
Linley couldn’t help but think back to what that person had said when they had arrived: “If you go so deep in as to be unable to see the outside world, you won’t be able to leave!”
“Boss, will we be unable to leave?” Bebe also suppressed his dizziness as he spoke. Bebe had a soul-protecting divine artifact. Although its level wasn’t as high as Linley’s, at least Bebe’s soul-protecting divine artifact was an undamaged one.
“Unable to leave?”
Linley’s face suddenly changed. “Bebe, have you realized that something’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” Bebe didn’t understand.
“Haven’t you noticed that even if we don’t use our divine power to control our bodies, we still won’t land?” Linley said. Just now, Olivier had been unable to stay conscious, and yet he was still floating. This was because this area had no gravity at all.
“There really is no gravity.” Bebe immediately realized.
Linley ground his teeth, forcing himself to ignore the pain and sense the strength of the wind around him. “All I can feel is that there are surges of wind gently pus.h.i.+ng us around, constantly drawing us in.” Linley pointed towards their front. “If we don’t resist, we will probably enter the dangerous area.”
“Therefore, we need to move towards the opposite direction.” Linley said.
“Boss, the direction of the wind just changed.” Bebe suddenly called out in alarm.
Indeed…
The direction of the wind was chaotic and disordered. Sometimes it would be here, other times it would push there. This immediately caused Linley and Bebe to feel stupefied.
“Swis.h.!.+” Suddenly, a violet light flashed over.
“Amethysts.” Bebe reached out, storing the violet light into his interspatial ring. “Boss, this pile of amethysts, although not large, has at least several thousand within it.”
Linley didn’t care about amethysts. He was pondering how to leave!
Linley’s face suddenly turned ashen. “No one who has entered the Fog Sea has ever been able to leave! If one really was able to so easily exit the depths of the Fog Sea, there probably would have been an entire pile of HighG.o.ds harvesting amethysts within it, but even those eighteen clans just quietly wait outside. Clearly, this is a place where you can enter but cannot leave!” Linley immediately deduced this fact.
But this deduction caused Linley to feel miserable, because the strange wind sounds were still causing Linley’s head to feel woozy and extremely painful.
“Bebe, forget about everything else. Let’s charge straight in front.” Linley ground his teeth.
At this time, nothing else mattered.
“Alright.” Bebe nodded.
Immediately, Linley held Delia’s hand while Bebe pulled Olivier along. The two headed straight forward. The white fog was hazy…and there was no gravity. Linley’s group wasn’t even able to determine where ‘up’ and ‘down’ was, much less the four cardinal directions. They could only blindly charge forward.
“Amethysts!” From afar, some more amethysts flew out. When they drew near Linley, Linley waved his hand and drew in the amethysts, immediately storing ten amethysts into the Coiling Dragon ring while the rest were stored into his interspatial ring.
The Coiling Dragon ring instantly refined those ten amethysts.
“Hey?” Linley’s face revealed a hint of delight. “I didn’t expect that while absorbing soul essences, the wooziness would weaken!”
However, after flying for a while, the ‘whooos.h.i.+ng’ wind came to an end.
“We finally flew out of that strange area.” Linley and Bebe all had small smiles on their faces, while at this moment, Delia and Olivier woke up as well.
“Linley, what happened?” Delia asked. “Just now, even thinking was difficult. Um, the surrounding area is all white fog. I can’t see the outside!” Delia was shocked as well.
As they were speaking, Linley’s group flew several dozen more meters.
Suddenly…
“BANG!” Very suddenly, a terrifying gravitational force enveloped them. This gravitational force was applied to every part of their body, including their blood vessels, heart, and even…soul!
Linley, Delia, Bebe, and Olivier all suddenly suffered this terrifying gravitational force. For a moment, they were stunned. At an astonis.h.i.+ng speed, the four of them were all drawn deep into the Fog Sea. Moments later, the four regained consciousness.
“This is the Supergravity Field!” Linley hurriedly said through mental messaging. “More precisely speaking, this is the Law of the Earth’s Profound Mysteries of Gravitational s.p.a.ce.” This sort of gravity was simply too ridiculous. Linley hadn’t been able to resist at all. At most, he was able to reduce his speed. All four of them were working hard to reduce their speed.
“Gravitational s.p.a.ce?” Delia looked towards Linley.
“It’s slightly different.” Linley said hurriedly. “Gravitational s.p.a.ce is just one type of powerful gravity which generally applies throughout one’s body. It doesn’t have any effect on the soul. But this d.a.m.n place…” Linley couldn’t help but shake his head as he spoke.
It seemed as though that surge of strange energy even had a strange, strong attractive force to souls.
“A gravitational affect that works on souls?” Linley felt that this was utterly senseless.
The white fog was everywhere. Linley’s group was only able to see so much. Right at this moment, however, an amethyst flew over at such high speed that Linley wasn’t able to react at all. In the same instant it arrived at Linley, suddenly…
“CRUNCH!”
The amethyst actually pierced directly through Linley’s ‘Pulseguard Armor’, then just barely pierced through Linley’s body. After having pierced through, though, the speed of this amethyst dropped dramatically, and it didn’t have sufficient momentum to resist that gravitational field. Immediately, the terrifying gravitational force caused it to halt, then reverse direction and move faster.
Linley was astonished. A single amethyst pa.s.sing through his body hadn’t caused too much damage, but…“The speed of this amethyst was too astonis.h.i.+ng. This sort of striking power caused even my ‘Pulseguard Armor’ to be unable to withstand it.”
“Boss, there’s people over there.” Bebe sent through a soul message.
Linley’s group of four struggled to resist the attractive force and slow down, but someone next to Linley flew past them at astonis.h.i.+ng speed, not resisting at all. Because…his skull had been riddled with gaping wounds.
“He’s dead.” Olivier sent through a mental message.
Linley nodded slightly. “He should have been killed by those suddenly appearing amethysts, which shot through his head!” In the white fog, visibility was lowered to a hundred meters. Given the astonis.h.i.+ng speed at which the amethysts shot out at, capable of resisting that gravitational effect and also piercing through the ‘Pulseguard Armor’, not even Linley was able to react in time.
Linley was lucky. He had been struck in the chest.
But the other person had been struck on the head by a pile of amethysts, instantly dying!
“Delia, behind me!” Linley immediately barked, while at the same time Dragonforming!
“Olivier, you hide behind me as well.” Bebe said.
Linley’s face was grave. This Fog Sea was an extraordinary place. First, that bizarre wind, which should have been present within the ‘chaotic region’, but now it was the ‘gravity region’. The gravity was so powerful that not even HighG.o.ds were able to resist it. More importantly…
Both of these regions were able to affect the soul.
“The place where amethysts are formed. How many secrets are contained within these Amethyst Mountains?” Linley was puzzled, but suddenly Linley’s face changed dramatically. “Amethysts!” From afar, a fairly thick ray of violet light appeared, instantly striking towards Bebe’s body.