Read Novel Full Chapter 578 - 37: Just One Step Away
Chapter 578: Chapter 37: Just One Step Away
Lynch stood by the remnants where Agit had assimilated with the stairs, his domain isolating the decay. Baggen’s solidified ashen body, Sophia’s twisted wailing phantom in the chaotic currents of time, and the remains of Agit transformed into withered vines at his feet...
The eight mystical companions had now withered away. The remnants of mystical embers in the air were all devoured by the cold decay.
Surveying the dead silent stairs, there was only the writhing roots and endless darkness.
There was no other way,
this was the Wizard’s Road.
The cornerstone at the end of strength is often paved with bones. Every breakthrough is accompanied by lonely trekking and terrifying risks. Companions may walk alongside for a time, but before touching the core secrets, one must ultimately face the absolute peak alone.
The road to the end is destined to be lonely.
The fall of Baggen and the others was but the eternal footnote of this thorny path. The Time Wheel and magic array phantoms turned in Lynch’s eyes. The control brought by the domain prototype made him see the weight of the end more clearly—that was the lone throne to be borne with absolute will and awareness of solitude.
Sinking into the icy layers of rational thoughts.
He raised his head, his gaze penetrating the decaying darkness, towards the shadow of the tower’s summit.
Without hesitation.
Lynch stepped over Agit’s remains, the body shrouded in the faint light of the domain appearing more isolated, yet his steps became more steady and firm, continuing upwards. Behind him lay the end, ahead was the endpoint reachable only alone. This path destined to be solitary, he would keep walking.
...
Meanwhile, within the Decaying Tower, the decaying hall.
The topmost hall of the Decaying Tower now resembled more a heart chamber of a giant creature than a hall.
Thick, living blood plasma-like, gray-green decaying fog surged and boiled, each motion accompanied by a nauseating smell of humus and the sizzling sound of energy overload. The air was heavy as lead and mercury, each breath like swallowing toxic sludge.
At the center of the hall, the massive magic array vortex constructed by dark green roots and dark red energy lines had expanded to a terrifying scale, almost occupying the entire space.
At the core of the vortex, that dark red "Heart of Decay" had swelled to the size of a human head!
It was no longer just beating, but pulsating wildly!
Each contraction greedily devoured the energy stream "offered" by the eight mystical wizards, drawn from the crystal ball; each expansion spewed forth a more viscous, deeper dark red glow, as if containing the ultimate secret of cosmic decay!
Altonia stood at the edge of the boiling vortex, his body’s form undergoing terrifying transformation.
The cloak of vine and moss he wore had long been torn apart and annihilated by his own violent decaying energy.
The exposed body, patches of skin peeling, cracking, turning to ash, revealing beneath the gnarled, twisting black substance like the roots of an ancient tree thousands of years old.
These "roots" were not dead but writhing and extending like living snakes on his mutilated body, with tips deeply embedded into the magic array’s root network beneath his feet, as if he was forcibly merging with this tower, with that raging "Heart of Decay"!𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂
Only half of his head remained intact, the other half covered and replaced by writhing black roots.
Those eyes had completely turned into burning dark red embers, leaping with frenzied and greedy light, fixated upon the floating crystal ball—especially the image belonging to Lynch within it!
In the crystal ball, Lynch’s figure was steadily climbing, wrapped in the domain prototype.
Each time he unraveled a stair trap, absorbing the decay rule fragments, the zone in the crystal ball belonging to him would emit extremely pure energy streams with a silvery gray temporal sheen and a deep gray decayed intent. The magic array vortex greedily captured these energy streams, like the highest-quality fuel, injecting into that pulsating dark red core!
"Ah... Ah, it’s here! Again!"
Altonia’s ruined mouth opened, emitting broken, hoarse howls like dry branches scraping, saliva mixed with dark green liquid dripping from the corners, "What a... glorious spark of knowledge! How... pure the power! Look! The ’heart’ is rejoicing! It’s... resonating!"
His claw-like right hand excitedly waved, pointing to Lynch’s figure within the crystal ball:
"It’s him! It’s him! The favored child of decay! The miracle of fusion! His every step... every unraveling... injects divine radiance into the ’heart’!"
"More! Saphiro! Climb faster! Understand deeper! Sacrifice your comprehension of the ’domain’... your fusion of time and decay... everything! Burn it! Ascend it! Then... become part of the ’heart’!"
His voice was at times high-pitched and sharp, like an owl’s screech; at times low and hoarse, like echoes from a crypt, filled with hair-raising psychosis:
"Not enough! Still not enough! Baggen’s flame embers... Sophia’s twisted temporal wailing... Agit’s silent shadow annihilation... Karija and Insightful’s pitiful residues of order... too little! Too fragmented! Only you! Only Saphiro’s ’spark’... is the ’heart’s’ most desired nectar!"
"Soon! Soon! I can feel it... the critical point... that transcendental boundary... right before us!" His remaining half-face twisted and spasmed with extreme excitement, the dark red pupils seemingly about to bleed,
"More... more strength! More knowledge! Drain Jeraf’s desolate enlightenment! Crush Kano’s gutter darkness! Feed it all... to the ’heart’!"
He suddenly pressed his face close to the crystal ball, nearly touching it, his burning pupils fixedly staring at the steadily advancing Lynch, the fragmented throat uttering dreamlike whispers, almost a malevolent curse:
"Climb up... climb up quickly... my dear ’kindling’... the top of the tower... it’s not for inheritance... it’s the most splendid furnace prepared for you!"
"The moment your feet step on the tower’s summit... the moment your domain prototype touches the ’heart’... the ’Star Core’ will provide you an eternal base! The ’Tear of Void’ will open the dimensions of ascension for you!"
"And your soul... your knowledge... your ’domain’... will become the ignition for this all... the first light to reveal that ’Fourth Tier’ supreme rule truth! Ah hahaha—!"
The frenzied laughter echoed in the dense fog of decay, yet was drowned by the increasingly loud humming of the magic array vortex, like the wails of billions of souls.
Altonia’s body violently trembled in the midst of laughter, more skin fragments peeling away, the exposed black roots writhing more frantically, as if he himself was about to be completely assimilated and consumed by this violent "Heart of Decay," becoming the first and also the last mad martyr in this ultimate sacrifice ritual.
Within the crystal ball, the scene belonging to Lynch remained stable, the silver-gray energy streams emitted like the purest streams, continuously merging into the seething, greedy, and soon-to-undergo ultimate transformation dark red core below.
The hall at the top of the tower was suffused with the final prelude of destruction and rebirth, awaiting only that climber bearing all hope and despair, to step into this ultimate furnace.