Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 1425: Chapter 152: Just Messing Around

Each and every one of those stone bricks was a full ten meters long… the moment they fell, it really felt like a giant mountain was collapsing.

Of course, just this kind of massive falling stone, for the Godly Land… or for people like the Luminous Tower Master, still didn’t really count as a desperate situation.

The Luminous Tower Master merely flicked his Magic Wand to activate an inner border, and easily blocked these enormous blocks—only now came the real problem: why was the castle starting to collapse at this moment?

This castle had been taken over by the Magician’s Association ever since the great war a hundred years ago. For this entire century, the castle had always been very calm and quiet, and it had never once suffered a collapse.

Yet the moment they thought of the Undead Warriors outside, this abnormal movement of the castle did seem like it could be explained in some way.

“These bricks can’t be falling just to welcome us, right?” Long Xiruo frowned. Once all the massive bricks had finished crashing down, she casually hopped up onto one of them and looked up.

She crouched down, reached out, and tapped the material of the brick under her feet, only to find that the thing was ridiculously hard… no joke, even for her as the Godly Land, she had to use a bit of Power to crush this stuff—her “bit of Power” was already enough to crush vajra diamond to dust.

As she was silently pondering this, the stone block under the Godly Land’s feet suddenly shot up on its own—at a downright terrifying speed, it rocketed straight up into the Sky.

“The hell… what’s happening now?” Long Xiruo looked down, totally dumbfounded, just in time to see those giant bricks that had just fallen now flying back up one by one.

She only felt a huge shadow appear over her head… she looked up and saw an enormous brick coming straight down to smash her.

She instinctively jumped to another spot, where another huge brick immediately came crashing down… after this happened four times in a row, the Godly Land, now thoroughly pissed off, snorted coldly and swung a fist at the fifth massive brick that was about to drop on her!

She shot up like a spring coiled to the limit, her whole body straight as an arrow as she blasted into the Sky.

But that fifth giant stone brick suddenly shifted aside, then pulled off a beautiful rotation like a piece in Tetris, and slid neatly into another slot.

The Godly Land who had rocketed into the Sky… really did just rocket straight up into the Sky.

“Fuck… what a cheap shot!!”

…

After turning one of the components of the castle in her hands and then slotting it into another place, Luo Ya looked over the part she had just rearranged outside… it seemed a little different from how it looked before.

She couldn’t help showing a hint of panic and timidity, and looked up pitifully at the Maid.

The Maid, of course, was being very gentle right now. She patted Luo Ya’s shoulder lightly in encouragement, then said softly, “It’s okay. If you’re not satisfied, you can just knock everything over and then slice it back together however you like.”

Luo Ya blinked… for all this time, this big sister had been very nice to her.

As if she’d read what was in Luo Ya’s eyes, the Maid smiled and said, “This isn’t anything important, it’s just a toy. If Luo Ya likes, you can take it apart and reassemble it again, that’s totally fine… when it was made, they already considered allowing different combinations. So just play around with the parts however you like.”

Maybe because she could feel the Maid’s encouraging and supportive gaze, Luo Ya nodded, then looked again at the section of the castle she’d accidentally messed up. After thinking for a moment, she simply stretched out both hands.

Push~~

Crack, la-la-la—like a Jenga tower that had been shoved over, a large section of the front of the castle model instantly collapsed and scattered.

…

After spiraling into the Sky and hitting absolutely nothing, the Godly Land dropped back down to the ground in a very sulky mood. The little butterfly monster and the Luminous Tower Master, who had been scattered around, quickly regrouped and ran over.

“Old… Ms. Long, you okay?” the Luminous Tower Master asked with concern.

The Godly Land shook her head, then rolled her neck and said, “I’m fine. I just don’t know why, but ever since a moment ago I’ve had this really gross feeling… like someone’s just done something really disgusting to me. It made my whole body break out in goosebumps.”

The Luminous Tower Master nodded heavily, his expression serious. “Yeah… this castle is definitely weird. Just now, the way those giant bricks moved looked like they were alive… everyone be careful, there might be more dangers inside.”

“Then let’s hurry up and get in already… only a few chunks have fallen so far, that’s still okay. If they all come down, that’ll be no fun at all,” Kuluo Luoya said casually.

The main gate of the castle was open; they could see it clearly and get in easily.

But at that very moment, as if to prove this legendary old werewolf hero’s guess right, hundreds and thousands of enormous stone bricks suddenly came crashing down from the Sky all at once.

In that instant, it was like the earth was being pelted by a burning meteorite swarm that had ripped through the atmosphere from the Stars above!

“G-Get… get inside, now!”

Even the First Tower Master, Dazzle, was finding it hard to stay calm at this point. He shouted, swung his Magic Wand, and a light shield wrapped around himself, Bylegang Swift T. Toredo, and Kuluo Luoya, lifting them up and sending them straight through the castle gate.

As for Long Xiruo, she flipped the bird at the falling rocks by way of greeting, then grabbed the little butterfly monster by the back of the collar with one hand and, right on Dazzle’s heels, also made it safely through the gate.

…

Crack, la-la-la… little Luo Ya bent down and picked up a piece of the castle model that had fallen to the floor when she shoved everything apart. She brought it up close to her eyes and started examining it.

The components were almost transparent… grayish, crystal-like things. Her eyes seemed to be refracted by a triangular prism, suddenly becoming round and wide.

The Maid smiled slightly at this moment and said, “Miss Luoya, I’ll go prepare your afternoon tea. It’s rare that you’re not sleepy today… During this time, if you feel bored, you can play with this model. Don’t worry about breaking it, it’s fairly sturdy.”

Luo Ya nodded silently, then turned around. Looking at the components of the front section of the castle model scattered all over the table, she picked up one piece from within and began to ponder.

The Maid kept a faint, indistinct smile on her face as she slowly withdrew from this attic… Since it was afternoon tea, it naturally had to be a bit more refined.

So spending a little more time was naturally necessary, because Miss Luoya was… the master’s personally acknowledged younger sister.

As a qualified maid, all of this was part of her self-cultivation!

…

“…What was that sound?”

Right at the entrance of the inner border, the Thunder Tower Master and the two Deacons guarding the inner area of the ancient city felt the tremor of the earth and could not help but be secretly shocked.

“It seems to have stopped.” The Thunder Tower Master frowned slightly. “But I haven’t received any communication from the Luminous Tower Master… They should be fine, perhaps they just discovered something.”

The two Deacons naturally took the Thunder Tower Master as their head; they immediately nodded, their expressions also growing much more quiet.

The two Deacons had not been in office for very long, and both had only been promoted after the great war a hundred years ago. As for that war, they had only seen some records of those years in the internal archive of the Association’s headquarters—now that they had a rare chance, they could not resist asking out of curiosity.

“Thunder Tower Master… I once read some documents. According to what was written there, ‘they’ were existences even more terrifying than Devils… In the end, what exactly is it that makes ‘them’ so terrifying? Why did they incur the crusade of the entire Unhuman Domain?”

“You both know about Ares’s previous incursion, don’t you?” The Thunder Tower Master spoke after a moment of silence.

Of course they knew, even vividly—because that had happened just a couple of days ago… It was even the most terrifying disaster they had encountered since joining the Association and becoming Deacons.

The Thunder Tower Master sighed and said, “Back then, Ares was still the Association’s former First Tower Master, held in high esteem by everyone… But at some unknown point, after Ares came into contact with ‘them’, he became like a different person. Not only did he secretly conduct many taboo experiments, he even, in order to obtain enough Souls as bargaining chips to trade with ‘them’, went so far as to stir up wars between nations in the present world… In the end, the ever-unsatisfied Ares even planned to offer up the Souls of his own wife and daughter…”

The two Deacons were now breaking out in a cold sweat.

The Thunder Tower Master looked dispirited. “In fact, it wasn’t just Ares; a fair number among us were also secretly making deals with ‘them’ in private… Can you imagine it? When in a country, all of its administrative organs, every department from top to bottom, have corruption and graft entrenched to the point of becoming an activity everyone tacitly accepts as naturally flowing with their blood—what kind of sight do you think that country would be?”

“Then… that country would not be far from destruction.” The Deacons spoke softly… very softly.

“Yes, destruction wouldn’t be far off.” The Thunder Tower Master nodded. “Fortunately, the Luminous Tower Master returned from his travels in the east. He sensed that if things continued, Non-Humans would face the most terrifying annihilation—this kind of transaction is itself like a Devil’s temptation; while it allows individuals to be continually satisfied, it is also clearly a bottomless abyss. The day we can no longer meet its demands, what it Devours will inevitably be ourselves.”

“So that’s why there was the great war a hundred years ago…” The Deacons suddenly understood. “If that’s the case… but according to the documents, all races participated in the Allied Forces back then, and the casualties were enormous… Then why is it that figures like the Luminous Tower Master, the Crimson Flame Tower Master, and even the Beast King and the Clan Dukes of the Thirteen Clans did not take the field?”

“You’re thinking that if our strongest batch of people had joined the battle back then, the casualties of the Allied Forces wouldn’t have been so tragic, aren’t you?” The Thunder Tower Master said calmly. “You even count me among them, you just feel embarrassed to say it to my face, right?”

They could only let out an awkward, bitter smile.

The Thunder Tower Master exhaled. “It’s not that we didn’t want to fight… it was that we had no way to fight.”

The two Deacons immediately showed puzzled expressions.

The Thunder Tower Master explained, “I just said that this ‘country’, every department from top to bottom, had already been drawn into this vortex… Though the Allied Forces were finally assembled thanks to the efforts of the Luminous Tower Master, in the shadows there were those who opposed it—those who were in the vortex and unwilling to pull themselves out clearly did not wish to see this ‘shortcut’ destroyed.”

“You mean…” The Deacons were greatly shocked. “At the time of the great war… there were actually two factions?”

“We needed to keep our highest-end combat strength back to hold those opposition forces in check.” The Thunder Tower Master smiled bitterly. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? Our own high-level insiders actually helped the enemy deal with their own people… Do you think the Luminous Tower Master wanted to watch so many young Lives with such potential throw themselves away like that? It was truly, back then, a last resort. So that the Allied Forces could set out smoothly, the Luminous Tower Master, all by himself, forcibly suppressed the Clan Dukes of the Thirteen Clans, as well as six of the top ten most wanted criminals in the Unhuman Domain at the time, leaving him utterly unable to pull away… And we each had our own tasks as well.”

The two Deacons fell silent at once… They were young and had had no idea there were such inside stories back then; at this moment their feelings were rather complicated.

“Afterwards, the Allied Forces scraped out a victory.” The Thunder Tower Master shook his head. “As for the opposition, they naturally lost. Many of them were directly locked away—that was the origin of the Association’s Zero Degree Hell. As for figures like the Clan Dukes of the Thirteen Clans, because they involved entire groups, for the sake of stability in the Unhuman Domain, the Luminous Tower Master could only impose some minor penalties and then had no choice but to release them back to their respective territories—from then on, the Thirteen Clans were only allowed to restrain the bloodsuckers, forbidding them from hunting humans in the present world at will. As compensation, the Tower Master also agreed to let the Clans move their Farms in the present world into the Unhuman Domain free of charge. Otherwise, with the cost of living in the Unhuman Domain, even if the Thirteen Clans sold themselves, it still wouldn’t be enough!”

“Indeed… For the Association to have a Luminous Tower Master is truly our blessing.”

The Thunder Tower Master, however, shook his head and, in a voice only he could hear, said, “A blessing? Perhaps… But in truth, we’ve even been holding him back. Otherwise, with his talent, he might already have been able to cross the final step.”

“The final… step?”

The Thunder Tower Master muttered, “The ultimate of magic… Meeting the God!”

“The ultimate of magic… Meeting the God?” The Deacons felt as if a new door had opened today; they stared fervently at this most senior Tower Master, hoping he would say more.

The Thunder Tower Master merely shook his head. “You’re still improving, you haven’t brushed against your limits… Even if I told you now, you wouldn’t understand. Finish the path in front of you first. The Luminous Tower Master once said, ‘Bite off more than you can chew, and you choke!’ Remember, never be anxious for quick success; everything must proceed step by step, haste makes waste!”

“The Luminous Tower Master truly is a sage… a sage! We will definitely remember this!”

Suddenly, a fog rolled in.