1621 Calamity of the Collapsing Dome
Holy Spring City…
“Say, big oaf. Just lying here in your body is really comfortable. It feels like I’m floating in the clouds.”
“When wee heading back, don’t stay out here in the murky darkness anymore, okay? Come with me to the mainland. There’s plenty of good food and fun toys to play with. It’ll be a thousand times better than this wretched place.
“When that time comes, I’ll bring you to the seaside for a well-deserved vacation. You can lie there on the sandy beach, while me and Xia Fan will lean against you. Everyone could eat and drink our fill, and live out our days in bliss,” Traveling Buddha said.
!!
At the moment, he was lying on the big belly of Icy Rain, his eyes closed, almost as if he was about to doze off.
Icy Rain was a fat Water Elemental, his body extremely soft and comfortable. It was an indescribable sensation, similar to a huge ma.s.s of soft feathers, but also with excellent elasticity.
Adding to the fact that Icy Rain was constantly absorbing the Darkness energy from Traveling Buddha’s body, the latter was feeling such coziness that he even began to feel reluctant to be away from the big oaf, and really wanted to bring him along everywhere, becoming his living sofa.
“Yay! Let’s do that,” Icy Rain excitedly agreed. The moment he heard that there was plenty of delicious food he could eat, he really began to get excited.
But it was not long before Icy Rain doltishly scratched his head, “But my big brother isn’t willing to leave this place, so I don’t think I can tag along with you.”
Traveling Buddha was confused, “Why would your elder brother be unwilling to leave this place? What’s good about this city, anyway? It’s so dark and cold; out there in the mainland, there’s an actual sun hanging above in the sky, which all the good tasting food needed for them to grow. All in all, the mainland is far better than the buffer zone by a hundredfold, and there are no monsters there, unlike this place where Demi-dragons lurk in every corner. Those things are an absolute nuisance.”
Icy Rain shook his head, “Big brother said that there’s something we need to guard here, so we brothers should remain here, as that is our duty.”
“Guard? Could there still be treasure?”
“Big brother says there’s no way for me to explain it, so he did not tell me just what we are guarding.”
That was when the ground rocked vigorously. The water in the pool churned all of a sudden, splas.h.i.+ng water all over Traveling Buddha’s face.
“Dammit. It seems like there’s an earthquake. Please don’t let this be like what happened to the North Sea, causing the entire area to collapse. Big Oaf, quick follow me and take a look.”
—
Arriving at the city central plaza, Traveling Buddha saw everyone running out from their homes, looking up at the sky. There were people hugging their heads, screaming in fear, as if there was something frightening over their heads that had caught everyone’s attention.
Traveling Buddha looked up curiously, and what he saw was a crack on the dome above. There was a powerful force repeatedly hammering the dome over the city, almost as if it was intent on smas.h.i.+ng the dome to pieces.
The glowing crystal hanging in the dome was beginning to sway and fall off. It was the huge crystals that provided light for the city. It was about the size of a watermelon; falling from a height of several hundred meters like that would surely create a cannonball-like lethality.
The people below scattered as houses began to collapse one by one. A single crystal landed on the school, the largest building in the entire Holy Spring City, and a sixth of it instantly collapsed. Fortunately because of the big commotion this episode had caused, the children in the school had all curiously made their way out to the plaza, otherwise the consequences would have been unimaginable.
“Dammit, the dome is about to collapse!” Traveling Buddha shouted. He waved his arms, releasing his golden Light, smas.h.i.+ng the falling stone debris into smithereens while coordinating the crowd to escape out of the city.
*Bang*
*Bang*
Columns and fountains of white water suddenly appeared unexpectedly, striking with an accuracy that matched Traveling Buddha’s golden light beams. Like sniper rifles, they struck out like they were hunting the falling rocks. From time to time the water columns would criss-cross with his golden beams, forming a tightly-knit net of firepower.
“Big brother!” Icy Rain shouted.
Traveling Buddha turned to look and saw Icy Wind. He was stunned, because he did not expect to find Icy Wind to look so skinny and small. The two Water Elementals were twins, yet they looked completely different from one another. Icy Wind would be considered scrawny even when compared to humans, while his younger brother Icy Rain was as large as an elephant!
In the blink of an eye, Icy Wind arrived at the central plaza. He leaned back to back with Traveling Buddha and kept up his long range attack. Meanwhile, Icy Rain was panicking, flailing his thick arms at the falling rocks. This silly big oaf had a powerful body, but no idea how to use it! The sight left Traveling Buddha flabbergasted.
Perhaps it was because his elder brother had taken too good a care of him, but even as the sky was falling, Icy Rain still had his good elder brother helping. All Icy Rain needed to do was spend each day eating, drinking, and playing with the little children of the s.h.i.+mmer race, and that was enough.
“Looks like the dome can’t hold for much longer,” Icy Rain did not even have the time to introduce himself as he spoke to Traveling Buddha loudly. “The enemy has finally found the weakness of this city. If they were to attack from around us, I’d be able to use the city moat and protect it. But now, their target is the dome. The moment this dome collapses, a great horde will descend upon us from the sky.”
“Curse it! Speed is not my strong suit. If only Xia Fan was here, then no matter how many rocks fell, that guy would be able to catch them all,” Traveling Buddha grumbled.
When Xia Fan encountered trouble, the first thing he thought about was why Traveling Buddha was not by his side. Similarly, Traveling Buddha also subconsciously searched for Xia Fan’s figure, but now that he was not around, he felt momentarily at a loss over what to do.
Perhaps this was the friends.h.i.+p between men, full of loyalty and honesty, and yet it was also inexplicably simple. No matter how much death and fear could be found in a battlefield, the friends.h.i.+p between friends could turn the entire battle into wonderful bonding time for the two.
“Mousse! Where’s Mousse?”
The princ.i.p.al came crawling out from under the ruins, bleeding profusely from a wound on his forehead. He looked around for the Holy Spring Guardian’s figure everywhere, yet at this crucial moment, Mousse, the strongest warrior among all the s.h.i.+mmers, was not protecting or consoling his people, and had disappeared without a trace.
“Have any of you seen Mousse?” the princ.i.p.al shouted as he came hobbling toward Traveling Buddha with a limp.
“Say, why are you being more of a ha.s.sle than necessary? Quick go find a place to hide, and call your warriors out as well. This city is full of orphans and widows. Not a single one of them can fight!” Traveling Buddha said.
At the end of the day, Holy Spring City was also the s.h.i.+mmers’ home. Even if they had no way of holding off the enemy, they could at least maintain order. In any case, what they needed now was manpower, and Traveling Buddha was quite angry at not seeing any of the men from the s.h.i.+mmer race step up during this time of need.
“Mousse has led all the warriors away!” the princ.i.p.al shrugged, helpless. “He told me he was bringing the warriors to train in the vicinity, and wouldn’t be too far away. Yet I’m completely unable to get in touch with him right now!”
Icy Wind nodded, “I witnessed them leave with my own eyes. Mousse brought the men marching past the moat, heading in that direction. I reckon they could not have gone far, and should be able to return in time.”
Traveling Buddha turned toward the direction Icy Wind pointed, and saw it was the deep and dark cavernous area. There was no sign of any one there. All he saw were many panicked citizens, fleeing toward the darkness after getting past the moat.
*Crack*
A loud sound thundered out, yet another strike on the dome above the city. This blow caused a crack that was several thousand meters long to suddenly appear. The sound of shrill cries could be heard coming through the crack. It sounded like countless crows had gathered and were crying out eagerly.
Meanwhile, outside the city, those citizens who had just managed to get past the moat were running back the way they came from. Hostile tribal warriors had appeared and had the entire Holy Spring City surrounded. They were killing the old indiscriminately, while abducting the young children under their arms.
All around, and above, the city was completely surrounded. Countless enemies were closing in, while the citizens wailed. Unable to get to the drawbridge in time, many of them directly jumped into the moat around the city, then swam their way to sh.o.r.e.