Pillar of Yita

In the beginning, Fang Hong was worried about whether this thing posed any threat to them, but it turned out he was overthinking it. The light orb seemed simply curious about them, the Outsiders, and continuously hovered around them.

Over time, the three of them couldn’t be bothered by this little tail anymore. Perhaps it might lose interest and naturally drift away. Eteliria has countless peculiar creatures, some like little elves, which isn’t particularly unusual.

Only then did Fang Hong attempt to let go of his previous fear and began to explore the platform’s contents. Regardless of what the Crystal intended for them, since they had arrived in this place, even at the risk of losing a life, they had to uncover what secrets lay here.

This stone platform standing over the Deep Gorge wasn’t very large, and its internal structure was relatively simple, almost visible at a glance.

The platform was littered with corpses of those Constructs and Crystalysis Beasts, most torn into pieces. They fought desperately around an array in the platform’s center until both sides were utterly exhausted.

But this battle might have a final victor.

Fang Hong stepped onto that array. It was a newly inscribed array.

”This array is...”

Fang Hong froze slightly. To an Alchemist, arrays weren’t unfamiliar, but this one in front was evidently not included.

Its composition was filled with strangeness, not engaging any elements, nor containing spell components, with extensive descriptions about space-time—a Teleportation Array? But it didn’t quite seem like that either. Fang Hong had never seen a Teleportation Array without providing even coordinates. Moreover, there were many ambiguous talismans on this array.

As Fang Hong stepped onto the array, he furrowed his brows. The air around the array was filled with a peculiar aura, a form of Ether he had never seen before. It was certain that the same power once densely existed around this array, possibly erupting with sudden force from within.

Is this a summoning array? But what did they summon that required harnessing the entire Nogness underground Ether River’s power?

As he pondered, Parker interrupted his thoughts with a discovery from the array’s center.

In the array’s very center, there stood a towering crystal, and Fang Hong speculated that the crystal army probably came for this. However, they seemingly failed to stop those Invokers—the followers of darkness.

In the distance, the light orb was circling around Xiesta, appearing very curious.

Parker found a dragon scale under the crystal and ran back, eager and excited.

Fang Hong glanced at the dragon scale, half of it was a vibrant emerald green, while the other half was pitch-black like ink. This was a Green Dragon’s scale, but not entirely.

In an instant, a name flashed in Fang Hong’s mind: Toragotos.

He pondered the scale, then looked at the Mountain of Crystal, and then at the enormous array. The scenes once depicted by miners churned within his heart, and an incredible idea involuntarily surfaced in his mind.

The death of Toragotos indeed had its issues. Rolin, Wanderer, Dragon Worshippers, what were they plotting?

Was this a Ritual Magic for resurrecting Toragotos?

Could that array full of space-time and summoning phrases really be for this purpose?

Unfortunately, the platform could yield no more clues. If there was anything more to be discovered, it was probably confirming that the leylines of Nogness indeed existed here and were altered through some means by human intervention.

But as for the consequences of such an alteration, at least for now, they might remain unknown.

Everything still requires time for validation.

...