Chapter 49: Sweeping Clean
Ever since Nostradamus learned through secret channels that Joshua, Moria, Claire, and the others had gone missing in the Northern Lands, he directly selected a spellcaster brigade from among his students at the Royal Academy and, under the guise of an internship expedition, quickly arrived in Moldavia.
This was a major incident involving an Imperial border count and the leader of three hundred thousand Northern Dwarves. Furthermore, Claire, as a Gold-rank Druid and the guardian of an ancient Elven family, held a prominent position in the Far South Kingdom Alliance. A slight misstep could easily lead to an international dispute.
To avoid too many people knowing the details, he could only choose academy students with relatively pure backgrounds and a certain level of ability as his assistants.
With the old mage's knowledge, he naturally detected the residual space-time fluctuations in the Mana Resonance Detector. So he led his team at the fastest possible speed to sweep through the area near Blacksteel Town, checking for any potential space-time gates.
Over the years, it seemed the world on the other side of the space-time gates had been suffering increasingly severe erosion, so the number of hidden gates was actually much greater than a few centuries ago. Before this, the old mage and his students had indeed found many space-time gates, but upon examination, these passages were all too narrow to allow three living people to pass through; at most, they could transmit some stones and dust.
Now, above the lava lake, was the last space-time gate in the entire Dwarf settlement.
The instrument in his hand was vibrating slightly, and Nostradamus couldn't help but sigh.
The Empire was currently in a time of many troubles. Not only was there the Orc plain just recently conquered in the northwest and the Magic Tide incident whose aftermath hadn't been fully resolved, but new anomalies had also appeared in the Central Black Forest, which lay in the center of the continent bordering the Empire's south. Strange new dragon-like monsters were migrating out from the depths of the forest, as if being pursued by some terrifying entity from behind.
The last time a similar event occurred was four hundred years ago, when the Ancient Dragon Elbatrien appeared in the Great Aias Mountains, causing the local White Dragon clans to migrate en masse.
Pushing these thoughts from his mind, Nostradamus shook his head and gathered mana in his hands, releasing it as translucent ripples that spread outward. Countless minute yet incredibly solid forces cleared and expelled the surrounding fire elements, then smoothed out the spatial folds bit by bit, forcing the hidden space-time gate to reveal its original form—
*Whoosh!*
As the last spatial fold was smoothed away, a deep blue portal suddenly burst open. The old mage's eyes widened in shock as he watched the gate continuously expand and extend, its diameter reaching thirty meters in an instant. This was a super-massive space-time gate. He instinctively raised his right hand, the three gemstone magic rings flashing with light, and loudly chanted the incantation: "Dimensional Lock!"
Deep blue ripples flowed from Nostradamus's hand, transforming into mysterious runes that locked the still-expanding space-time gate. But even so, the gate's diameter exceeded fifty meters. Within it surged violent chaotic forces, threatening to flow backward at any moment. Sensing the danger, the old mage decisively used a second spell: "Space-Time Severance!"
An Ultimate-rank mage was a being capable of unleashing natural disasters. With his power, temporarily sealing the space-time gate before him was not difficult. As infinite streams of light flickered and deep blue runes rotated, the enormous gate began to slowly shrink. Yet a sliver of an extremely evil, extremely chaotic aura—like the embodiment of terror—still seeped through, causing every living creature within several kilometers to instinctively shudder.
Nostradamus frowned, staring warily at the space-time gate now sealed by his spells. His eyes, reflecting countless energy flows, seemed to see the entity on the other side.
"What... is this aura?"
---
On the other side of the space-time gate.
Exerting his full power, Joshua flew upward like a meteor in reverse.
Free from the endless harassment of monsters on the ground, he could now unleash one hundred percent of his strength. Behind his helmet, his crimson eyes locked onto the massive flying-type Wild Gods.
The flying crab Wild Gods, which had been harassed by the Number 3 Cluster Cannon from afar, noticed this small creature charging directly at them. Having been somewhat embarrassed by its earlier attacks, they gathered their power and fired another volley.
With a buzzing roar that shook the atmosphere, hundreds of Wild Gods in the sky shot out hundreds of scorching rays. Intangible, formless waves filled the sky, tearing even the pervasive black mist apart.
Joshua raised his great axe and swiftly parried. Black light left scratches in the air as he used his Divine Mechanism to slice through the dense incoming waves, shattering them into countless specks of light.
"The second time is useless!"
Joshua sneered. Now, unhindered by other monsters, he was like a wolf entering a flock of sheep, utterly unstoppable. The power of these waves could reduce steel to ash and solid rock to crumbling sand, posing some threat to him. But now that he could use his hands to defend, these attacks were naturally no longer a problem.
Even the occasional wave blast that struck his body couldn't break through the dual defenses of his Battle Qi and armor, leaving only a slight scratch on the hard scales meticulously forged by the Dwarves.
Seeing the enemy, who had endured all their attacks and seemed completely unharmed, continuing to charge at high speed, these Wild Gods specialized in ranged combat fell into chaos and panic.
They fired all kinds of rays, no longer limited to the intangible, formless beams used in their earlier ambush. Now, blasts of various colors appeared—frost, acid, decay, and gale winds. They attacked with full force from all directions, countless beams crisscrossing the sky, shooting toward the warrior, creating a suffocating pressure that filled the entire area.
But Joshua stood as immovable as a rocky mountain in a storm. No matter how fierce the Wild Gods' attacks, they couldn't shake him in the slightest. Shielding himself with a crimson Battle Qi barrier, he charged at the nearest Wild God with a speed too fast for the naked eye to follow. Then, a swift flash streaked across the sky. With one swing of his axe, he cleaved the Wild God—cannon barrel and body alike—into two halves.
"...Master! That was very dangerous!"
After the attack ended, Lin's panicked voice came through the mental link. "If I weren't a Divine Mechanism, an ordinary weapon would have decayed from that kind of attack long ago. If you had been hit just now, Master, you would definitely have died!"
On the ground, Claire and Moria, who had suppressed almost all the low-rank Wild Gods using the Steel Magic Tree, also stared in shock at Joshua's rapid advance through the sky, as if seeing him for the first time.
"Relax."
Joshua, his eyes scanning the sky and locking onto his next target, grinned. "Nothing will happen."