In the center of the crowd, Bogula’s three beauties were still “lecturing” Sliv, while the other people watched the play happily. Song of the Deep tried to intervene, but the onlookers stopped them.
They were still frustrated at Sliv for trapping them in his waterfalls. They would not let Sliv go so easily.
Considering the man’s self-ego, they expected Sliv to hide from public eyes for several years after this incident.
“The Path of Infinity is almost complete,” Danae suddenly spoke out loud.
Everyone checked. The vortex inside the fusion spot was now almost as big as the blackness area. Like Danae said, the path would become stable very soon, and the “Time of Plunder” they were expecting drew near.
They prepared. Even Bogula called his three beauty puppets back. Sliv could finally relax. He was blushing all over his face and only wished to leave right away. However, when he thought about the rich resources, he swallowed his embarrassment down his throat.
He would regret his decision soon.
As the vortex overlapped with the black area, people felt the surging origin energy unleashed by the world’s consciousness and power that surpassed all pressing against their minds. Even watching from afar made them felt defeated.
They thirsted for the power of origin but their lives were too futile. It was impossible for them to reach for it now.
The vortex kept spinning.
After waiting for some time, someone questioned, “Am I the only one that thinks the vortex stopped growing?”
No one replied.
After another moment, another person spoke, “That’s not all. Do you think it’s becoming smaller instead?”
It was like dropping water into boiling oil, arousing intense discussions among people.
“He’s right! The white vortex is shrinking!”
“It’s spinning slower, and in reversed direction too. Lady Danae, do you know what happened?”
As an experienced scholar, she became the obvious target for people’s questions.
Lady Danae already noticed the situation. She went through her mind and found no knowledge related to what she saw.
She shook her head, which brought up some disappointed looks among the wizards. Their profit was in danger!
“Let’s wait. Maybe it’s temporary,” said Danae.
They kept waiting while holding onto a small trace of hope. However, as time went by, the vortex’s shrinking speed only became faster.
Lady Danae looked at Gandolf beside her. Danae read a lot while Gandolf traveled a lot. Maybe the old gentleman’s experience could get them an answer.
To her disappointment, Gandolf was frowning. He looked as puzzled as herself.
Someone suddenly screamed, “Bogula! What the hell are you doing!?”
They looked towards the scene. Bogula’s beauty puppet dashed to Sliv like a lightning bolt and held the man up in the air by his throat.
Sliv kicked the air and struggled to no avail. The beauty puppet was using a completely different strength level compared to the “performance” before.
“Jajaja… I think you should explain what you just did in your waterfall.” Bogula stared at Sliv with different sized, bulging eyes. Sliv’s panicked reflection appeared in those pupils.
Of course, Sliv would not give in so easily. His face went red. Maybe he was choking, or because he was embarrassed, or both.
Sliv clenched his fists. Rage built up in his eyes.
“Let, me, go.”
“Jaja” was Bogula’s answer.
“Let me go, you SON OF A BITCH!” Sliv bellowed. A mighty mana aura came from his body. Countless spell patterns appeared behind him and assisted each other like spinning gears.
“Shit. He’s using spells!” Sliv’s action startled everyone. They scattered away in all directions using various tricks. Falling behind meant being dragged away by the world’s consciousness.
Numerous monsters emerged from the spell arrays behind Sliv, shredding the space around them.
Monster sharks with countless tentacles, flying fish with goat horns… They were all fishes. However, these were different from the fishes one would normally see.
The summoned fish monsters quickly tackled the beauty puppet to the ground.
Soon, the puppet was torn into a lump of non-human scrap. Bogula laughed maniacally and snapped his fingers. The puppet exploded to pieces under an unknown force.
Next, dozens of beauty puppets appeared around Bogula.
At the same time, various fish monsters summoned by Sliv also swam around.
A fight was imminent.
“Strange. The world’s consciousness isn’t reacting? The summoning spell already ruptured the space, it should have done something by now,” commented Lady Danae. She had gained some distance before she turned back to look.
All the people who were escaping stopped and looked back.
Lady Danae was right. Someone used such strong spells and the world’s consciousness completely disregarded it.
Someone spoke out, “Look, the vortex is disappearing faster!”
That was not all. People could sense that the power of origin was decreasing drastically as well.
What was going on? Nobody knew. The Path of Infinity was vanishing, the origin power was fading, and the world’s consciousness was non-responsive. Nothing made sense!
Lady Danae suddenly felt the “origin” moving somewhere else.
She closed her eyes in puzzlement and released her own spell ripples. Soon, she reopened eyes and dashed to Sliv, ignoring the fish monsters nearby.
“What have you done in the waterfalls?” She demanded.
Her abrupt question surprised Sliv. Why would they keep asking him about the waterfalls? Could Sunders have something to do with this?
“What do you mean? I didn’t do nothing,” Sliv refused to spill.
Lady Danae was not convinced and she asked, “Oh yeah? Then tell me this, where did Sunders and Flora go?”
“How should I know??”
“You don’t know? Then why did Sunders disappear? Don’t you see the origin energy is flowing to Flora’s spell?!”
That surprised Sliv again.
People began to sense the origin energy. Yes, all energy was rushing to one spot.
If observed using wizardry sight, people would see a strange gap in the space at an inconspicuous spot drawing origin energy like crazy.
With the situation revealed and everyone was demanding an answer, Sliv finally spoke the truth. Part of it.
He omitted everything about Crow. He only said he was using a special trick to force Sunders into handing over the Fragments of Eternity. He failed, and Sunders left by teleportation.
There were many problems with his explanation with the biggest one being Sliv’s strength. Sliv was someone way weaker than Sunders, so how did he actually force Sunders to escape?
They did not buy it. However, Sliv insisted.
No matter what really happened, people were more interested in the fact that Sunders opened a strange rupture and escaped through it. The rupture caused the origin power to leave, and the ultimate reason why all of these things happened, was Sliv, who plotted to seize the fragments to satisfy his own greed.
People gazed at him in anger. Even the wizards from Song of the Deep kept their distance. Sliv did not know if his situation could get worse now.
It did.
The strange rupture was drawing origin energy quickly. It took a long time and when the process finished and the rupture disappeared, the plane fusion failed.
A plane fusion was a double-edged sword for the wizarding world. The world’s consciousness used lots of origin power. Even if the fusion was successful, the power was still lost. The world’s consciousness acted like a scale. It absolutely would not allow its own world to suffer any loss. The scale should at least be balanced. This time, the consciousness decided to stop the fusion to maintain balance. Thus, the entrance to the other plane was cast away into the void, never to be found again…