Death… And Me

Chapter 3597: Red Smoke

Suddenly, something like red smoke began to come out of the ground. No, that wasn’t correct. It actually appeared everywhere, as if it came out of space itself.

”What is this thing?” Everyone looked at the smoke, confused.

Roan narrowed his eyes. To make sure, he looked into the medallion again, but the message continued the same. Work together to cross this region, and in the end, a choice must be made. Since it hasn’t changed, they were still, technically, inside the Molten Ocean Region.

*Tsss...*

Then, the barrier around the sphere began to get corroded by the smoke. The sphere shone brightly in response, and a lot of its saved energy began to pour out to regenerate its barrier.

”Shit! Let’s get out of here, quick!” Royer spoke in a hurry.

Naturally, that caught the attention of the whole team. ”Why? What is this?”

”How the hell would I know?” Royer answered, angry. ”However, back in the Molten Ocean, we all attacked the sphere’s barrier, trying to get away from the sphere’s range, didn’t we? Yet, we didn’t even scratch this shit! Now, this red smoke is corroding the barrier like fire on thin paper! Can you imagine what will happen if it touches us?!”

Everyone felt a chill running through their bodies, and they immediately began to pour Divine Energy into the platforms like crazy.

As a response, the sphere’s speed increased again, and it shot into the distance. No one held back.

*Tsss...*

Still, the red smoke was everywhere. Soon, it was so thick that it was hard to see more than a few tens of meters ahead. That also increased the amount of energy being used by the sphere. It had truly accumulated a lot of Divine Energy in the past four months, but it felt like all it acquired wouldn’t last an hour at that pace.

No one wanted to admit it, but they were thankfull Royer convinced them to stay inside instead of trying to get out. Had they been outside when that Red Smoke appeared, they would have died already. There is no way they could have fought against such powerful corruptive power.

Rean tried to check that Red Smoke with his Divine Sense, and he didn’t need to do it for long. ’It’s like the gases that come out when you melt metal. Some special metals give harmful gases during that process, and this seems to be what we have here. However, this is just too powerful.’

Roan glanced at him. ’During our entire journey in this region’s Molten Ocean, we were never met by this kind of gas. Could it be...’

Rean nodded. ’It is very possible that everything was sent to this place. This land should be very small, and everything was concentrated here... I think.’

’You are the blacksmith here. How do you usually deal with this kind of problem?’ Roan asked.

’I don’t, actually,’ Rean shook his head. ’I simply isolate it or send it out of the Dimensional Realm as soon as it appears. If I’m using an outside workshop, I seal the gases and release them somewhere later where they won’t cause any harm. This, however, is way beyond what my methods can deal with.’

Twenty minutes passed, and their sphere continued to fly at full speed. Everyone’s Divine Energy Reserves began to run critically low, especially those who didn’t have much to start with. At this rate, they wouldn’t need to worry about the sphere’s energy lasting an hour. They would fail to make the sphere move due to their own lack of energy.

However, it was at that moment that they came out of the area with Red Smoke, entering what seemed a dome where the Red Smoke couldn’t follow. It kind of reminded them of how the lake back then kept the entire area around it clean.

They weren’t the only ones there, though. Just in front, another four similar spheres could be seen, and inside, experts from different universes.

”The line, it ends here...” Shonror commented.

The others looked forward, and sure enough, the gray light line that the sphere was following ended right in the middle of this place. That wasn’t all. The four spheres that had arrived in this place earlier seemed to be slotted into spaces made specifically for them. Those slots surrounded a circular ring construction, its use unknown.

The twins’ team didn’t feed their sphere all the way, though. They seemed to have a mutual understanding, and they stopped pouring their Divine Energy into their platforms just as their sphere was about to slot itself into another similar opening.

It goes without saying the experts inside the other spheres noticed their presence.

”Finally, another one is here!” An expert with a Blue Light on his chest spoke from one of the spheres. That was a sign he was an expert from Universe F953.

That didn’t mean everyone inside his sphere was from there. Just like the twins’ sphere, there were four groups inside, and each group had lights from different Universes.

Rifindio easily found the sphere that contained experts from his Universe, F956. He recognized some of those with Green Light, as he knew those Camazotz Bats. The female bat elder from his past wasn’t there, though.

”Hey, stop wasting time,” someone else shouted from another sphere. This one is a guy from Universe F952, easily identifiable by the pink color of the light on his chest. ”Just get your sphere into the slot already!”

”Hmph!” Shonror snorted in response. ”We are doing no such thing. What the hell is happening here? Why should we move our sphere into one of those slots?”

A Camzotz Bat laughed from one of the four other spheres. ”Is that so? Don’t worry, you will do that. After all, it is not like you have another choice. Take a look behind you.”

The twins’ team looked back, and there, they saw the Red Smoke growing thicker, creating a channel that invaded that dome. It seemed to be following the gray light line created by their sphere, and it was getting closer. It would soon start to corrode their sphere’s barrier again. They had no choice. They had to do as they said.