Chapter 118 The Silent Wall

Another continent fell from the sky, two worlds destroyed in a “slow collision” beyond comprehension. This was a surreal "impact," not merely a physical touch—after seeing the twisted chaos and madness spreading in that forest, Lucrezia vaguely realized this truth.

If it were another occasion, she would probably be happy to launch a long and arduous research project for this, willing to contact scholars from various city-states, uniting the minds of clever people to understand all the secrets of this collision.

But now was clearly not the right time.

The paper boat was shaking wildly in a violent shock, like a small boat caught in a storm. This shock was centered on the constantly collapsing Silindus, wantonly released towards the entire world, and then reflected as if by the "end" of the world, echoing back and forth between heaven and earth.

In this violent shock and tearing, far beyond what human power could resist, the little paper boat made an unsettling tearing noise. Even the powerful "Sea Witch" felt her control over the boat was rapidly reaching its limit.

Shirley saw the solemn look on Lucrezia's face at a glance, and immediately shouted in alarm while hugging A'gou's head, "Are we going to fall down!!!"

Lucrezia frowned tightly. She didn't answer Shirley's shout, but quickly scanned the shattered and rapidly collapsing world with her eyes, then suddenly raised her hand and pointed to the distant land: "We'll land over there."

"Isn't that courting death!" Shirley immediately yelled, "Do you see any place to land on the ground?!"

"'Erosion' has stopped, and the current stage is fire burning everything—it's just fire, much friendlier than those weird and distorted shadows." Lucrezia turned her head and glanced at Shirley, ignoring the latter's reaction, and began to control the crumbling paper boat to fly quickly towards the less fiery area of the forest.

The paper boat broke through the smoke in the forest amidst Shirley's scream, traveling between the two worlds that had become a purgatory. The canopy of Silindus collapsed above them, and burning giant trees and leaves fell around the boat like a collapsing nightmare. The inverted land was still slowly falling. Now Shirley could almost see the ground ravines and rolling sand dunes above—

It fell so slowly, as if this process could last forever, but this fall was so unstoppable, continuous, like a slowly grinding doomsday, crushing everything in the world inch by inch.

Lucrezia fully controlled the small boat, constantly scanning the forest with her eyes, trying to find a relatively "safe" landing spot in that purgatory.

A blurry flash suddenly caught her attention.

The next second, the boat flew quickly in that direction—so fast that Shirley thought it was a crash after losing control—it passed extremely dangerously through the rain of fire falling from the sky, through the phantom-like floating and swirling dust that had begun to fill the sky, and rushed straight towards the flash in the depths of the forest.

The flash gradually became clearer.

It was a cone-shaped protection barrier supported by a light curtain.

Shirley also saw the light curtain. She leaned curiously on the edge of the paper boat, widened her eyes and looked down for a long time, and finally recognized the two familiar figures in the barrier: "Ah! It's Nina and the old man!"

Accompanied by Shirley's joyful shout, the paper boat carrying her and Lucrezia whizzed across the last distance, and finally reached its limit at the last moment of touching the ground. It shattered in the impact and turned into fine dust in the blink of an eye.

Shirley hugged A'gou, jumped out in a disheveled manner at the last moment, and the person and dog hugged each other and rolled a dozen circles on the ground before finally stopping in front of the cone-shaped faint light.

She raised her head and saw Nina standing inside the barrier, and old Mr. Morris next to her with a look of astonishment on his face.

A pile of swirling colored paper landed steadily beside Shirley, and Lucrezia condensed her figure from the paper.

Nina waved to them in the barrier.

Shirley and Lucrezia looked at each other and walked into the "light curtain" that seemed fragile but actually blocked the tide of destruction in the forest without hesitation.

In an instant, the whole world seemed to quiet down.

The terrifying noises whistling in the forest became barely audible, the scorching storm that swept across the land was blocked outside the light curtain, and the pungent smoke and poisonous fog evaporating in the firelight were also isolated outside. Shirley even felt a breath of fresh air coming towards her—she lowered her head and even saw a few green grasses under her feet, and a small bush next to her.

"Amazing..." She raised her head in shock, looking at Nina and Morris, "How did you make this? Lucrezia and I could only escape to the sky..."

"It's not us." Nina just shook her head gently, then turned sideways, raised her finger and pointed in a direction behind her and Morris.

Shirley looked there in surprise, and the next second, she widened her eyes slightly.

A small tree was quietly rooted there, rooted in this crumbling land.

Her trunk was slender and weak, and the long branches stretched all the way towards the sky, and then hung down at the edge of the canopy, swaying gently in the breeze.

With this small tree as the center, the cone-shaped light curtain constructed the last safe haven.

In a trance, Shirley seemed to hear a voice—

"Follow me, I will take you to the Silent Wall..."

Then, the voice dissolved in the wind.

"We have now arrived at the Silent Wall," Nina turned her head, looking into Shirley's eyes, "The last, real Silent Wall."

Shirley was stunned for a while, and slowly came to the small tree. The branches hanging from the edge of the canopy brushed her shoulders, feeling a little itchy.

She turned her head and looked outside the thin light curtain.

The world was collapsing, the towering canopy of Silindus was gradually bending, disintegrating, and crashing under the "weight" of another world, the forest was burning, and the distant land was lifted by invisible forces, slowly curling up towards the inverted desert in the sky. The flames seemed to have spread to that desert as well. In a daze, the surface of "that world" was showing a hazy mist.

But all the sounds were distant, as if from another world, like the gentle waves coming from outside a closed window at dusk.

"Yeah... it's really quiet."

Even Shirley knew that this silence probably wouldn't last long.

But at least for this second, the crumbling world was no longer chasing her, even if what was blocking all this... was just a pretty bubble.

What will happen next?

Vanna squinted slightly in the wind.

She saw that the inverted world had gradually touched the land under her feet—the first to touch was the amazingly large "World Tree", its canopy was now touching the ground, which was where the giants last disappeared, and now, it had become the "point of contact" where the two worlds first met. Then the distant mountains touched, the mountains in that forest and a mountain range at the end of the desert touched, where continuous flashes were now erupting, as if brewing a storm that could tear the world apart.

The sea of fire spread and flowed above her head. She could see that the lush world was falling apart in the flames—and so was the desert under her feet.

But the "collision" of the two worlds was becoming slower and slower, as if some force was forcibly slowing down its progress, intervening in this doomsday.

Vanna lowered her head and looked at the dazzling ball of light in her hand—tiny flames were flowing on the surface of the sun, and the brilliance that burst out from those flames once illuminated a glorious civilization before the deep sea era.

To this day, the sunlight still remains.

She raised her head again, looking not far beside her.

The huge staff was still quietly stuck in the sand dunes, the fire sea spreading upside down in the sky illuminated its rough staff body and head like tree trunks and rocks, the firelight flowed on its rock-like surface, and countless texts carved by the giants on it were reflected in the light and shadow.

In a daze, Vanna seemed to understand them—she looked at the dense words and symbols on it line by line, as if hearing the giants' low and gentle voice still telling in her ears.

"...Here, they learned to use fire.

"Here, they discovered the secret of farming.

"Here, there was a flood—the flood flooded the land, bringing death and panic, but leaving fertile soil behind...

"They learned to build ships...

"They learned to use the power of thunder..."

Vanna slowly came to the staff, raised her head and looked at the last blank space at its end.

Now it was no longer blank.

At some point, the giants had already carved the last line of text there—the god who recorded history, completed his last record on the Year Pillar:

"Tarekin and the Traveler completed their last journey."

A strange aura and unsettling rustling sounds came from afar, and unusual heat was flowing in the air, condensing invisibly.

Vanna turned around and looked in the direction she sensed.

She saw the constantly converging streams of light—in the raging fire and distorted light and shadow produced by the collision of the two worlds, the disordered streams of light drilled into this place from some kind of "gap". Those streams of light gradually emitted scorching heat, and converged into an increasingly large fireball in the sky not far away.

The fireball began to present a sun-like appearance, its edges trembling, differentiating into gushing flames. It began to float between the two worlds like the sun, wantonly releasing unsettling pressure and heat—then, it gradually lowered its height in the desert, and slowly turned its true face towards Vanna.

Countless twisted and stacked tentacles were hidden in the solar shell of that light. Eyes that did not resemble human eyes coldly stared at the judge standing beside the sand dune between the tentacles.

"Kneel."

The offspring of the god said.

(End of chapter)