Chapter 22: Nine Moons in the Sky
Meanwhile, inside the flying car, suspended in midair.
“Hey, those were elves, right?”
Inside the car, after making sure his staff was in working order, the spellcaster curiously sidled up to the alchemist. He lowered his voice and asked, “I heard you have half-elf blood in you? You should be able to tell if those guys were really elves, right?”
“…What bloodline are you talking to me about? I’ve swapped that stuff out twice already, you know?”
The alchemist, a firm believer in body modification, looked utterly speechless. He pointed at his own face, which, while still somewhat handsome, carried a wild and ferocious edge, and said with annoyance, “Aside from this face having a bit of elven features, there’s not a single elven element left in my whole body… But you’re right.”
With that, the alchemist nodded seriously. “They were indeed elves. I could smell it—all pure-blooded elves with untainted bloodlines.”
“How is that possible? Why would a pure-blooded elf appear in a foreign world on the edge of a world star river?”
Sitting in the very front of the flying car, the clergy member rubbed his chin in confusion, unable to figure it out no matter how much he thought. “An ecological environment similar to Mycroft World is one thing—the multiverse is full of wonders; I wouldn’t even be surprised to see a demon paladin. But a foreign world with elves? That’s just not holy light!”
“Are you sure we’ve shaken off those elves? Good, that’s fine. First, let’s look for a high vantage point—yes, head toward that mountain.”
The knight was focused on driving, while Priest didn’t join the discussion. Instead, he guided the knight toward their target, muttering, “Strange. Why didn’t those elves chase us? Judging by their energy fluctuations, the leader definitely had Gold High-rank strength. They could have easily caught up.”
“Who knows? Maybe they just wanted to drive us away.”
By now, the sky had darkened. As the knight controlled the steering wheel and various instruments in the night sky, he shrugged and said, “Maybe the direction we’re heading is dangerous, and they didn’t dare follow? Hahaha… hah?”
Halfway through his sentence, the knight started laughing to himself, but soon noticed four dangerous gazes fixed on the back of his head. This forced him to let out a nervous chuckle. “What’s wrong? Why are you all staring at me?”
“You beast, can’t you learn to shut up?!” “I really should use a Law: Silence on you…” “I’ll force-feed you a dose of high-concentrate sulfuric acid later. Let’s see how you talk without vocal cords!”
“Turn around quickly. We’re not going to that mountain.” Priest wasn’t as agitated, but he still shuddered involuntarily. For the first time, the exploration team leader issued an order in a stern tone: “Head anywhere—turn around!”
To be fair, Priest’s order was quick and decisive.
But sometimes, speed alone isn’t enough.
“Captain.”
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, the knight initially intended to make an effort. But after glancing ahead, he said with some embarrassment and helplessness, “We’re already here.”
The other four members of the exploration team looked down in unison at the ground below. Indeed, as the knight had said, they had already entered the mountain range. From the base to the midsection, the mountain was lush and green, but beyond that, it turned into a rugged cliff of jagged rocks.
The flying car was now turning under the knight’s control, but such a vehicle couldn’t pivot on a dime like a person turning around. It needed to make a wide arc to complete the turn—and just as the turn was halfway done, and everyone was starting to relax, thinking the knight’s jinx might not have worked this time…
Suddenly, the flying car’s mana engine stalled.
No, it wasn’t a stall. In an instant, all the energy within the mana engine was stripped away and drained by some inexplicable force. Before anyone could react, the powerless flying car, thousands of meters in the air, was pulled like iron filings to a magnet, plunging toward the mountainside at a bizarre and terrifying acute angle!
“Prepare for impact!”
All five were at Gold-rank strength, so they weren’t overly panicked by the loss of control. But the eerie force that could instantly disable a mana engine was deeply unsettling. Priest shouted, “Get ready to defend…”
Before he could finish, the flying car slammed violently into the mountainside.
Boom!!
Since the mana engine had no power left, the expected massive explosion didn’t occur. When the five of them crawled out of the scattered wreckage, they were all still dazed and disoriented.
“Don’t look at me like that!”
Facing the complex gazes of the other four, the knight raised his hands in surrender and defended himself, “I just guessed there was danger here—guessing doesn’t count as a jinx, does it? Even if I hadn’t said it, we’d still have run into trouble!”
No one paid attention to the knight’s excuses. The clergy member directly cast a Law: Silence to ease the tense atmosphere a bit. Then, without any further instructions, the well-trained team quickly began salvaging the wreckage.
And they kicked the knight over to do the heavy lifting.
“Without the flying car, our mobility is going to take a serious hit…”
While hauling scrap metal and recovering magical components, Priest sighed. He crouched down, picked up a stone, and examined its material with a puzzled expression.
“Just ordinary rock… What kind of force could disable our mana engine?”
He was baffled and wanted to leave this eerie mountain as soon as possible, but he was also wary of venturing too easily into the dense forest, which might harbor hostile druids.
Only a fool would fight a druid in the woods. Anyone who dared would have grass three feet tall growing on their grave.
Soon, night fell.
Originally, when they were walking through the forest, it was already late afternoon. By the time they noticed something was wrong, the sun was nearly setting. After the crash and the subsequent delays, it was now nighttime in this foreign world.
In the deep blue sky, sparse stars began to twinkle—a typical sight for a world on the edge of a world star river. Only within the star river’s core could one see a brilliant galaxy. Otherwise, due to distance, even the side facing the center of the star river would see few stars at night from the edge.
Using illumination magic in such darkness would be like painting a target on themselves. The team could only work in the dark, recovering valuable parts from the wreckage, such as special components and the core of the mana engine—a tiny ‘Fusion Core Star.’ This miniature engine, modeled after the core furnace of the Lord of Moldavia—the man whose name must not be spoken—had surging, powerful energy. Yet even such power had been nullified by that strange, inexplicable force.
“Huh?”
Just as Priest was still deep in thought, the clergy member, who was cleaning up the wreckage, let out a soft exclamation. Then he said gravely, “Wait, look! There’s something strange here!”
Instantly, everyone’s gaze followed the clergy member’s pointing finger. Priest, who had been thinking, also stepped forward to look at the spot the clergy member indicated.
It was a large crater created by the crash, about seven or eight meters deep, with most of the car buried inside. Such a terrifying impact would have injured all of them if they were still at Silver-rank. But having advanced to the Gold Realm, their physical abilities had undergone a qualitative change, allowing them to handle it so easily.
However, the clergy member wasn’t pointing at the crater itself. He used holy light to create a light source within the pit, casting a faint glow that illuminated everything clearly.
Then, everyone saw what had surprised the clergy member.
It was a piece of metal.
To be precise, a large expanse of metal.
At the bottom of the crater lay a vast, flat sheet of metal. The crash had shattered the surface rock layer but hadn’t left a single scratch on this metal. The silver-white surface was flawless.
“What’s buried underneath?”
The spellcaster touched his staff and cautiously stepped back. “Be careful. It seems our flying car was ‘pulled’ here by this thing…”
As he spoke, he instinctively looked up and scanned his surroundings. Since they were on the mountainside, he could easily see half of the pitch-black night sky.
And so, the spellcaster froze.
“What’s wrong, Wayne? Why did you suddenly stop talking?”
The clergy member was puzzled as to why the spellcaster had cut off mid-sentence. He looked up at the mage, then followed his gaze to the sky.
Then, he too froze.
Soon, everyone else turned to look at the night sky. Priest also followed his teammates’ gazes, looking at the starless, pitch-black sky.
And then, he saw this world’s ‘moon’ slowly rising.
“By the Seven Gods…” “Truth…” “My god!” “Mmph mmph mmph?!”
“What the hell…” Everyone, including Priest, gasped in shock, letting out bewildered exclamations. The young warrior swallowed hard and said in a dreamy tone, “Hey, didn’t Clark say before we set out that we might encounter some giant monster?”
“I don’t remember… but no matter how big, it couldn’t be this big…”
The clergy member spoke in the same dreamlike voice, “God… this, this…”
What was this?
No one could answer that question. Not even the most experienced alchemist. Priest stared at the pitch-black night sky and the rust-colored ‘moons’ slowly rising on the horizon, instinctively clenching his fists before helplessly releasing them.
Those were moons.
Those were also giant beasts.
Reflecting the sun’s light, with a filthy, murky color, those enormous, roughly circular bright moons had thick tentacles clearly visible even across the vast starry sky, and fangs unmistakable even over the immense distance between planets.
Massive tentacles swayed slowly, covered in obvious gaps and scars. Facing this side of the world, the giant beast bore a huge, unblinking single eye—was that an eye, or some kind of supernatural attack organ? No one knew, but without a doubt, it was dead. Yet even in death, its colossal body could still drive the planet’s tides.
Priest could sense that gravitational pull. It was the pull released by the corpse of this spherical tentacled giant beast—this world’s ‘moon.’
And there were nine such moons.
: . :