Chapter 567 Reaching the City
Chapter 567 Reaching the City
A distant rumble of sonic boom shattered the silence, the sharp sound waves reverberating through the air with an almost palpable intensity.
Heads turned, eyes seeking the source of this abrupt disruption, only to witness a brilliant flash of gold light streaking across the sky.
As the light grew closer, its trajectory shifted, beelining directly towards the position where the tens of thousands of adventurers gathered on the ground.
The adventurers, city defence officers, military personnel and other bystanders who had been ejected by the World Magic spell all silently parted and gave way, creating a small gap around the forefront area of the crowd as they sensed the same destructive aura that the Legendary had just used mere moments ago.
It was not as dense though.
**WHOOSHH!! BOOOM!
The streak collided loudly with the earth, but instead of kicking up a cloud of dust and debris as everyone had expected, a powerful gust of wind surged forth.
It spiralled around the landing site, sweeping around the landing area and funnelling all the dust high up into the sky.
"I guess I can use Vortex like that too."
A voice rang out as the wind settled, with the appearance of the figure in the small crater created by the landing being revealed.
It was a young boy in his mid-teens, wearing a plain grey t-shirt that matched the colour of his irises with a black undersleeve, atop a pair of black jeans and similarly coloured sneakers.
As he took a step forward, a bit of magic power flowed into the ground from his feet, repairing the cratered concrete floor in an instant.
"Huh? Evan?"
One of the SS Rank adventurers who recognized him called out his name, redirecting the boy's gaze from the dome barrier in front of them to him.
"?
Son of a-! So, this is where you ran to?!"
Evan exclaimed as he walked up to the adventurer and shook hands with him, fist bumping with the members of his party who were also nearby.
The Legendary level existences regarded the boy with surprised gazes as they could sense the purity of the essence of destruction radiating from him and how it was, despite the fact that the law energy concentration was strangely low.
This was simply because his BoD skill was not active but they didn't need to know that.
Though he noticed their gazes, Evan did not pay them any mind yet, instead pulling out a juice pack from his inventory and placing it in his mouth, sipping the potion inside to replenish the energy he spent speeding over here.
'Artemisia, can you explain to me what the heck happened while I was on the way here? Why's the World Isolation Barrier already up?
Or rather, why the heck did the dungeon break already?'
[The goddess 'Artemisia' says there was a slight miscalculation.
She further states that the artificial dungeon break drew a bit of power from the Lizard Lord, causing its strength to decline greatly.
This was supposed to make things easier for you and mess up the plans of the Demonic Hand, however, the Lizard Lord who was anxious about losing all its power triggered the dungeon to break using its 'Authority' as the 'Final Floor Boss' so as to escape the dungeon to attack and kill the beings outside to regain its power.]
The lengthy notification explained the whole situation to him, the reason why the Lizard Lord had been losing power for years, and why it triggered the dungeon break after finally not being able to take it anymore.
'I see…'
Evan nodded to himself in understanding, quickly figuring out the rest of the situation without needing further explanation.
'I'm betting that Kethryllia probably made a hasty decision and used the spell immediately after she noticed the break.
All the hard work they put into making the dungeon's monsters exempt from the World Magic's conditions—it was harder as they couldn't go around placing brooches on each individual monster as they did for themselves—she clearly didn't want that to go to waste.'
His thoughts didn't take more than a couple of seconds with the aid of his Time Difference, and he thanked the dead Dullahan King he got the skill from once more before turning his attention to the eyes who were on him.
'I did make a big entrance and all…'
Mutters about how the 'Irregular Evan' was 'strong for his age', was 'so young', or how they 'didn't know he was an S rank' entered his ears from all around.
"Just what the hell happened here, I heard there was a dungeon break. And this strange barrier suddenly showed up."
"There was. But just as we were reaching the dungeon area, we suddenly got teleported out of the city and this barrier came up, blocking us from getting back in.
Even 'they' can't get back in." 𝘣𝘦𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑐𝑜𝘮
The SS rank adventurer spoke, ending his words with a gesture towards the Living Legends nearby. Evan glanced at them momentarily before turning his attention back to the barrier and asking.
"What dungeon broke?"
"Which one was it again? I hadn't gotten there myself."
"It was the 'Lair of the Lizard Lord'."
"What she said."
The boy placed his hand on his chin with a pensive look on his face upon hearing the answer given by the two adventurers, muttering '200 to 500' to himself.
He then looked around him with his appraisal skill active, scanning for the lowest levelled person he could find, with his expression darkening when he saw someone who was level 470.
"Even a Level 470 got sent out?! The conditions are harsher than I expected!"
"Conditions?"
His words attracted quite a lot of attention as he made it seem as if he knew something about them getting sent out.
The angry Legendary Level wanted to move over to him but his companion grabbed him and pulled him back while the one who used the destruction law-based attack on this barrier stepped forward and spoke.
"Do you know anything about this situation?"
"Yeah. I know this barrier spell."
"Huh? And how do you know it, if I may ask?"
One of the Mages nearby looked at him with a sceptical gaze as she questioned, but the boy only apported the medal he received in February to his palm and held it up.
"If you know who I am, then should you not know how and why I received this 'Medal of National Service'?
If you forgot, then it was because of a certain 'spell tome' that had 'hundreds of ancient spells' in it."
His words made them remember the news from two months ago, and some pieced things together and figured it out.
"You saw this spell there?"
"Indeed."
Holding up three fingers, Evan continued.
"It was Listed, described, and Illustrated there. And from what I can see and have been told, I'm sure it's the exact same spell."
Right after he spoke, they all sensed multiple incoming sources of energy, which preceded the arrival of dozens of S-SSS rankers to the scene.
"What's going on? Why are you guys crowding here?"
Evan glanced at the man who spoke, recognising him from the game, not because of his strength, but because he was one of the few people on Aidos who possessed the Lie Detection skill.
Unlike Laurene's which was an offshoot of her Unique Skill and could work on anyone within her field of vision, and on multiple targets at a time, his was only single target.
"Hmm? Aren't you that Westerner Hero guy?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm the 'Hero guy'.
Anyway, this barrier is created by a 'World Magic' spell known as 'World Isolation Barrier'."
He hovered his palm a few centimetres away from the barrier as he spoke, feeling the gaze of the Lie Detection wielder on him intensifying and figuring the man was using his skill.
"World Magic? I've heard of this before. They are spells that exist outside our Tier Magic system.
Aren't all of those spells exceedingly dangerous?
You're telling me one of such spells is currently active over Lacertilia? During a dungeon break of all times."
When Evan heard the Legendary's words, he calmly turned to the man and nodded, but before the man could say anything further, the boy had already started speaking.
"This one is a bit special.
It has Zero Offensive Capabilities, but in return, it has off-the-charts Defensive abilities that would make even you would have a hard time breaking it."
[The goddess 'Artemisia' says that Legendary Level Existences are incapable of damaging the current 'World Isolation Barrier']
'The fuck?'
Evan was flummoxed upon seeing Artemisia's message, as this was not something that happened in the game, and he clicked his tongue, wondering why this had to be the thing that changed from the game.
'Then Princess Malaya's guard wouldn't be able to do shit!'
The boy frowned lightly as he realised a need to change his plans, but first, he had to explain the situation to these guys here as they would be the ones to explain things to Malaya when she came over.
"This spell is an 'Isolation Barrier', and its working process is pretty self-explanatory.
In return for 'Isolating' certain things within the barrier, it sends everything else that does not meet that criteria out of the Barrier."