Chapter 1399: The Lost Dimension
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The entrance to the cave leading to the alien dimension was located in the quarry. In the rock perpendicular to the mountain, the hard granite wall had cracked open. It was wide at the bottom and narrow at the top much like a triangle. The opening was a dozen meters tall. Three people could walk side-by-side in the broadest part. Broken rocks and mud were strewn around the stone wall while damaged machinery and equipment were scattered in the open s.p.a.ce. It was the aftermath of the small-scale collapse.
“The management of this place is going south,” Hessiana said, looking at the aftermath and shaking her head. “The Hessianite Family may be influential, but the law is far away, and these little Napoleons are taking matters into their own hands. Supervising them is difficult. The supervisor was initially a trustworthy guy. I gave him some of the Blood Clan’s strength to extend his life span for nearly a century. But the guy has been slacking off ever since.”
Two young vampires followed Hessiana. The woman asked, “Matriarch, should we replace the supervisor?”
“No, not for the time being. Piero is loyal. From the perspective of this accident, the blame should be on the quarry’s foreman. There are no major lapses in Piero’s follow-up action. Just that he hasn’t chosen the right people and he’s been poor in his supervision. You may remind him, and I believe the guy will know what to do,” Hessiana said while shaking her head. “But if he still makes the same mistakes after that, then I will have no choice but to replace him.”
There was no light in the cave, and the sunlight coming in from the entrance was quickly left behind them with only darkness greeting them in front. Since the accident, no humans had entered the cave, and those who came to investigate were the vampires of the Hessianite Family. They did not need any illumination in the dark. The cave remained dark.
Hao Ren and his men had problem maneuvering in the dark. But they could miss some details in the darkness. So Lily had summoned her Flamejoy as a torch to illuminate the path ahead.
“We are still in the natural crack of mountains up until here,” Vivian said as she carefully observed the nearby rocks. “It is dry here. No traces of flora and fauna. The rock textures match each other. It is the same body of mountains that has cracked.”
“It requires ma.s.sive energy to create this crevice, by no means the result of a ‘small scale collapse,"” Lorissa said. “I have just used magic to measure the strength of the rock, and from what I have observed, the situation on the outside is not that bad. So the source of the energy that caused the body of the mountain to crack open should be deep inside the mountains. The energy was concentrated. It erupted instantaneously.”
“So the overlapping borders between the alien dimension and the real world are inside the mountain. The impact caused by the dimensional tremor is enough to create this effect,” Vivian said.
Hao Ren took out the MDT. It was going to perform a high-precision scan of the environment. The MDT floated in the air, sweeping a blue light beam on the surrounding rocks and gravel. But still, it did not detect any signs of dimensional distortion.
But it detected an abnormal change in the gravitational reading ahead.
“It is a typical ‘continuous dimensional distortion,"” the MDT said. “There is no obvious s.p.a.ce crack in the cave. Instead, the boundaries between the alien dimension and the main material world are gradually blurred as it gets deeper inside the cave. Everyone, keep your eyes open. Take out whatever protective spells you have. We should be partially in the alien dimension now.”
The cave in the rocky mountain was not very deep, and it was almost a straight path. Soon, everyone reached the end of the cave. Here, Hao Ren realized that the surrounding s.p.a.ce had actually been separated from the primary material world to a large extent.
At the end of the cave was an open cavern of tens of meters high and one hundred meters wide. The ground was flat, covered in a layer of fine yellow sand. It felt like walking on the dry and hot desert. There was sand rolled up by hot wind in the air, which was utterly different from the fresh air in the previous section of the cave.
This cavern was not a natural formation of mountain cracks. There was only one explanation for its existence: an alien dimension.
Very quickly, Hao Ren found the entrance to the lost city. It was situated deep inside the cavern, behind the crack in the shape of an arch. Murky light with a strange ‘texture’ diffused out from the crack.
Hao Ren checked his Steel Membrane s.h.i.+eld, came to the crack and poked his head to take a peek of the inside.
He stopped breathing.
There was indeed a vast alien dimension on the other side of the wall.
Endless chaos wrapped the dimension in behind the rock wall, and swirling yellow sand shrouded the boundary of the dimension, forming countless of whirlpools. Inside this chaotic boundary, it was a magnificent ancient city, built of granite, temples, palaces, and houses in the same earthy yellow.
Most of the buildings in the ancient city were in the shape of a square prism of different sizes. There were sculptures and columns of religious totems at the top of some more expensive-looking buildings. The most important building in the city seemed to be the temple, or rather the palace, in the center. It appeared like a combination of several pyramids, some in Egyptian style but was very different from the Egyptian pyramids in the real world.
Hao Ren’s gaze moved slowly on this lost city trying to capture as many details as possible. As Hessiana said, the town was built on the skull of a colossal creature.
The skull was located below the city and carried all the granite buildings above. It should be roughly ellipsoidal when it was intact. But now, most parts of the skull had crumbled. What remained was just a large piece of curved bone with three deep hollows in front of the bone, and a few bone joints that connected the spine in the back of the skull. Hao Ren was unable to determine what kind of creature it was. He was totally awestruck.
It was definitely not a species found on Earth, or even a carbon-based life form—carbon-based life form could not support such a vast body. Unless it had some supernatural ability to support its weight.
Also very quickly, Hao Ren had confirmed the other situation that Hessiana had mentioned.
The alien dimension was falling apart, and it was only a matter of time that the lost city would disintegrate.
The chaotic boundary of the alien dimension was shrinking inward, breaking everything within it into elementary particles. As the whirlpools that looked like sandstorms were tearing the edge of the city apart, walls and houses could be ripped from the city and swallowed by the violent sandstorm vortex before breaking down. Even the ma.s.sive skull below the city could not escape the same fate. Its robust physical structure was no match for the force of dimensional disintegration. Large chunks of bone fragments were peeled off from the foundation of the city and disappeared in the vortex at the base of the dimension.
“Cool.”
Lily’s exclamation jolted Hao Ren out of his stupor. Hao Ren turned around and saw Lily was swaying her head beside him with a pair of furry pointed ears flicked continuously. It turned out that when the husky maiden saw her landlord froze in front of the crack, she could not hold back her curiosity and came up to check it out herself. When Lily saw what was inside, she was instantly astonished.
The sight might not be as spectacular as when moving inside the body of the First Born, but the scene of the whirlpool swallowing up the lost city was also breathtaking.
“It seems that even if I don’t blow up this place, it will disappear after a few days,” Hao Ren said and shoved away Lily’s head. “The main material world is rejecting this alien dimension, but the alien dimension could not sustain itself. Like ripples in normal s.p.a.ce, it will soon dissipate.”
“Mr. Landlord, why do you always think of blowing it up?” Lily asked while wagging her tail.
“Hmmm, why do I always think of blowing it up?”
Lily was stupefied.
“How is the situation ahead?” Vivian asked with concern after Lily came back down.
“There is indeed an alien dimension. It shrinks gradually. If I am not mistaken, it is a defective dimension that is about to collapse, because the original closed state has been broken and the collapse process is accelerated,” Hao Ren said. “There is an ancient city in the dimension. It looks very similar to that of the ancient desert cities, but unlike that of Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia. As Hessiana said, this city is built on a huge skull.”
“But I did not see any light curtains,” Lily said. “There is just a piece of yellow.”
“You will only see the light curtain once you enter the city,” Hessiana said. “This is something perplexing.”
“Optical discontinuity is not unusual,” Hao Ren said.
“Well, I know you are knowledgable, okay?” Hessiana said,, rolling her eyes.
Hessiana then turned to her two subordinates. “You two stay on the outside. I will go in with them to check out the situation. No matter what happens, no one, including you two, is allowed to get close to the cave.”
“Matriarch, when are you coming back out?” the female vampire asked with concern.
Hessiana glanced at Vivian who mumbled, “Three days at most. After three days, we will come back out whether there are findings or not. The alien dimension is too strange. It would be too dangerous to stay too long inside.”
Everyone, except the two young vampires, stepped across the hole and entered the lost world that was wrapped up in the yellow sandstorm.
A hot and harsh wind blew into their faces.
The alien dimension was crumbling. The same happened to the lost city. The hole through which Hao Ren and the rest crossed had been affected by the collapsing dimension. It was located at the edge of the town, hundreds of meters above ground, about a thousand meters from the chaotic border. But when Hao Ren looked back, he saw the edge of the s.p.a.ce crack had apparent signs of distortion, and the twisted lines all pointed to a whirlpool closest to the city—it was a bad sign.
“We must first stabilize this pa.s.sage. Otherwise, the collapsing dimension will crush the only entrance and exit before it crushes the city,” Y’zaks said with a frown.
“I am not worried about that. We can use the portal to go back out,” Hao Ren said with a shrug. “It will only be a little troublesome when we want to get back in.”
Having said that, the collapse of the s.p.a.ce-time tunnel was indeed an inconvenience. So, Hao Ren reached into his Dimensional Pocket for the dimension stabilizer and placed it near the exit. It would not stop the collapse of the dimension but it could delay the destruction of the s.p.a.ce-time tunnel.
After that, the group traversed the yellow sand toward the lost ancient city.