Chapter 783: Shadow Realm
However, the other four high priests had already focused their attention on Zoquila. Others couldn’t notice the shock on their faces, because their faces were special.
Even till now, Lin Li still didn’t know why Sendros had invited him to the Darkness Shrine. Hence, he naturally wouldn’t consider too much. He said, “Sure. I’ll have to trouble you tomorrow then, High Priest Zoquila.” He then bade goodbye to them and left the arena.
After Lin Li left, the four high priests finally couldn’t bear it any longer, but Gergila was the first to question them. He initially had no idea what Sendros had said to Zoquila and the rest, but after hearing their replies, Zoquila, who was already convinced with Lin Li’s abilities, similarly looked to be in disbelief. While Gergila was digesting the news and feeling astonished, the Werewolf, Vampire, and the Black Knight surrounded Gergila and questioned him.
“Zoquila, where were you referring to when you spoke to Mage Felic? Could it be…” Culostein asked worriedly. In fact, as a high priest, he had already guessed it vaguely. However, he was still in disbelief, and dared not believe that Zoquila would be so bold.
“Yeah, isn’t this an opportunity to confirm the identity of Mage Felic?” Zoquila asked, seemingly intending to go all out as well.
“Sendros just mentioned it to us a short while ago. Have you forgotten it already? I think we might as well accompany Mage Felic for a few more sparring sessions in the next few days. Maybe we’d be able to tell something,” said the Werewolf high priest Poladio, who was much more cautious than the other two who were into magic.
“Yes, we shouldn’t doubt Sendros’ words,” the black knight Nostalo said in a rough voice.
Faced with the persuasion of his peers, Zoquila shook his head, and said, “No, this idea is not as bad as you guys think. Sendros was rather conservative with his words, so that means that he isn’t too sure about Mage Felic’s identity, either. If we can confirm his identity, we would be giving Sendros great help. He won’t blame us for this. Besides, even if it turns out that Mage Felic isn’t that person, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with what we did.”
“Well…” After hearing Zoquila’s explanation, the other four high priests remained silent; they had no choice but to admit that Zoquila’s words still seemed very reasonable. Now that the Darkness Shrine was in a crisis that the believers of Darkness did not know about, the high priests would have to be concerned about it. If they got it right, they would be doing Sendros a favor, but if they were wrong, it would only be Lin Li’s misfortune. Although it would be good to forge connections with Lin Li and the Tower of Dusk, no one could be bothered about that now.
On the following morning, which was yet another one that did not resemble daybreak, Sendros went to the Eternal Darkness Altar, while Zoquila brought Lin Li to a rather remote place deep inside the Darkness Shrine.
“Were you referring to this place?” Lin Li asked while staring at the view in front of him peculiarly, only to see an ancient gate that had a magical barrier in the middle, on which there seemed to be water ripples. Lin Li thought that Zoquila would take him to a place where all the books of the Darkness Shrine were kept. However, the place in front of him didn’t look like a library at all.
“Master Felic, please rest assured. You are the most distinguished guest of the Darkness Shrine, and although this is a forbidden place for other believers of Darkness, you are definitely qualified to enter this place. All of us, including Sendros, come here to get some enlightenment about the Darkness Laws. Please come with me,” Zoquila said as he walked towards the gate.
Lin Li thought, He probably wouldn’t hurt me, I don’t seem to have any feud with this Necromancer, and I was invited to the Darkness Shrine by Sendros. Since Sendros and the rest come here to be enlightened about the Laws of Darkness, it should be the same as a Darkness canon. After Zoquila entered through the gate, Lin Li stroked his chin and paced back and forth in front of the gate before finally deciding to go in and take a look.
Lin Li had the debris of the stars Gloomy Dark which contained the purest Darkness nomological power. However, just like a mage apprentice who had an advanced magic book, Lin Li had needed a long and arduous process to find some clues and information from the book even though he could figure out some things. Moreover, his knowledge was still limited and incomplete. Hence, mage apprentices had to build and strengthen their foundation in magic by reading some basic books about magic in order to study advanced magic books better. What Lin Li needed the most now was basic knowledge about the Laws of Darkness so that he could better understand the Laws while gaining a better understanding of Gloomy Dark. That was also why he studied theurgy at the Brilliance Shrine.
However, Lin Li began to regret it as soon as he stepped through the gate. The high priest Zoquila who had entered first had long disappeared, and Lin Li looked around to realize that it was a completely different world. There was soft and dense grass beneath his feet, but the grass was black. There were wild flowers blooming in the grass, but they were also black, just like the dense forest in the distance where the trees were black. The sky was black, and so was the entire world. If it weren’t for his understanding of the Laws of Darkness, Lin Li wouldn’t be able to see anything at this moment.
Damn it, what kind of a damned place is this? What is that disgraceful Zoquila trying to do!? Lin Li cursed. However, he had no choice but to walk forward, because the door behind him was long gone as well.
When he first entered, Lin Li still felt that he had a chance of getting off scot free, but after he walked for a while and stopped in his tracks, he knew that he had definitely been duped, for he “saw” around him countless all-black magical beasts, which would look like vivid sketches against a white background.
Shadow Creatures, this is the damned Shadow Realm! Lin Li finally thought of a place that was the most disgusting version of the Endless World and a parallel of the world of Anril in legends. It was the Shadow Realm. Just like the World of the Undead, the Shadow Realm was dependent on Anril, but it was also relatively independent and composed of relatively individual World Laws at the same time.
By using the Tide of Death, a Necromancer would be opening a door to the world of the Undead, and the Undead creatures would swarm out in armies while feeding off of the aura of life in Anril. Otherwise, the decaying bones in Anril alone would never form terrifying combat power.
The difference between the Shadow Realm and the world of the Undead was that the Shadow Creatures couldn’t leave the Shadow Realm, even though they were much stronger than the Undead creatures—even the most common Shadow magical beast was at least level-10. However, a single ray of light would be lethal to Shadow Creatures.
After the Shadow Creatures appeared around Lin Li, the first thing Lin Li thought of was the Holy Light Magic. However, he got a great shock after giving it a try. The entire Shadow Realm seemed to have a force that would prevent all light from appearing. In the Shadow Realm, it was impossible for Lin Li to even release a small fireball, let alone use Holy Light Magic. It could be said that any magic related to light was forbidden by the powerful World Laws there.
Magic was not the only aspect restricted. Lin Li took out the Helios’ Scepter in a bid to cast a bunch of stones, because he thought that stones had nothing to do with light. However, when he induced mana into Helios’ Scepter, he discovered that the Helios’ Scepter had also lost its function. It seemed that the introduction of man would make the gemstone on Helios’ Scepter glow and emit light. Hence, that behavior was also prohibited by the World Laws.
Lin Li had no choice but to put away the Helios’ Scepter and throw some rocks with his bare hands, after which countless huge black stones suddenly smashed into the surrounding beasts. However, although the spell was cast successfully, the damage done to those Shadow Creatures was extremely limited. One reason was the incredible agility of the Shadow Creatures, while the other was that the Shadow Creatures were highly resistant to magic and physical attacks alike. If they were struck by boulders, they would still be able to get up after rolling around unless they were hit in the head.
Lin Li’s attack obviously angered the surrounding magical beasts. Although they had long wanted to rip Lin Li, the outsider, apart, his provocation made them furious. They didn’t roar, and instead pounced on Lin Li silently from all sides like trained assassins.
Lin Li could not distinguish between the different types of Shadow Creatures, and only knew that there were different forms like wolves, lions, and tigers, and most of them could not be identified by their appearance. Moreover, he did not care to distinguish them, because he couldn’t launch his Elemental Shield anyway. Hence, he had no other choice but to evade the attacks using his own body. It was extremely dangerous.
In fact, there were also defensive spells for Earth magic. If one were to simply use Stone Armor which had poor defensive power, he would cause himself to become the target of those Shadow Creatures. Fortunately, Lin Li had read through some books about Dark Magic when he headed back after the fight with Gergila. He immediately thought of the Dark Shadow Armor used in Dark Magic.
“Damn it, do you really think I can’t do anything about you? Try this then!” Lin Li used the Dark Shadow Armor to temporarily resist the attacks of the Shadow Creatures. With the end of a chant for a spell, he pushed his hands forward forcefully, and caused a black ice ball to fly towards the beasts. Ice seemed to be shiny and glistening, but there was no light in this world of darkness to be reflected off of the ice ball. Hence, it was not prohibited by the World Laws.
The black ice ball flew towards the herd of magical beasts while spinning and continuously releasing ice cones. The ice ball was a Legendary-level magic spell. Regardless of how defensive the shadow magical beasts were, they were just like fragile paper in front of Legendary magic spells. As the ice cones were launched, they collapsed in the blink of an eye. The ending explosion of the ice ball caused a vacuum zone to appear instantly amongst the beasts.
The 10-odd ice balls finally repelled the Shadow Creatures, but Lin Li wasn’t relieved, because those Shadow magical beasts were obviously the lowest-level creatures of the Shadow Realm, and there were probably more powerful creatures, such as the Shadow Wyrm in legends.
The worst things tended to always happen. Lin Li’s worries soon became reality as the shadow magical beasts that had been wandering in the distance seemed to have gotten a fright and fled. There was then a massive oppression in the air, and Lin Li “looked” into the sky, only to see three Shadow Creatures in the form of wyrm—just as he expected. They were all flying towards him, approaching from afar.
Shadow Wyrms were said to be the descendants of the survivors amongst the Ancient Wyrms which had fled to the Shadow Realm in the late prehistoric times and the Shadow Creatures. Lin Li had no idea how strong the strongest Shadow Wyrm was, but it was still a descendant of the Wyrms, after all, and wouldn’t be weaker than the wyrms of Anril. He could only be thankful for the fact that none of the three Shadow Wyrms were at the Sanctuary-realm, and should have just reached level-20.
In the blink of an eye, the three Shadow Wyrms had already flown above Lin Li’s head, and as soon as they arrived, they began blowing black flames—their dragon breath—at Lin Li. However, they weren’t exactly black flames, because the black flames of Shadow Wyrms were not meant for burning the souls of their enemies, but for turning them into shadows. In other words, once Lin Li was sprayed with their dragon breath, he wouldn’t have to think about leaving, because he could only stay in the Shadow Realm forever in the form of a shadow. Even if he were to make it out, he would die instantly.
Lin Like didn’t want to stay in this dark place forever. Hence, he tried to dodge the black flames by using his Power of Flight to fly straight into the air, after which he shot an ice ball at the three Shadow Wyrms. However, they were clearly even more magic resistant because of their form. The Legendary-level ice ball wasn’t lethal to them, even though it did cause some damage.
Since he couldn’t use the Helios’ Scepter, and his usage of magic was also limited, even his eyes would’ve become completely useless had he not had some understanding of the Laws of Darkness. Fortunately, there were only three level-20 Shadow Wyrms. Although Lin Li couldn’t kill them, he would still be able to neutralize the danger they posed.
While dealing with the three Shadow Wyrms, Lin Li thought about how he could leave the horrendous place as soon as possible. Obviously, there was a World Law that would prohibit all light, but compared to the perfect rules of Anril, the Laws here seemed to be of the level of Magical Domains, just that this Magical Domain was much stronger. At the thought of this, Lin Li felt that the Shadow Realm seemed to be somewhat similar to the Seven-Realm Spiral. Otherwise, the Shadow Creatures definitely wouldn’t be that weak.
In order to leave this world, Lin Li could choose to either go through the gate again or seize control of the Laws of this world. However, the gate was out of bounds, and seizing control of the Laws didn’t seem that feasible, either. Lin Li naturally had some control over the Laws of Darkness since he could create the Light and Darkness Domain. However, at this moment, he clearly felt that the Laws of this world were far beyond his control. Only a Sanctuary Master would be able to create the Seven-Realm Spiral. Since the Shadow Realm was similar to the Seven-Realm Spiral, it had to have Sanctuary-level Laws.