Novel Full Chapter 815: Departure [2]
Chapter 815: Departure [2]
Rynne’s eyes swept the surroundings once more before she added,
"If I had been Rank Four already, and my mastery over spatial authority had deepened further, I wouldn’t have left it behind at all."
Michael’s eyes shifted back to her.
"What do you mean?"
She smiled faintly.
"I mean I would have taken the secret realm away with me."
Michael blinked.
"...Taken it?"
Rynne nodded casually, as if she had just spoken about something common.
"Secret realms like this are anchored spaces," she explained. "If your spatial control is strong enough, you can sever that anchor and relocate the realm’s core framework."
Michael stared at her.
That... was not something he had known was even possible.
"You’re saying someone could just move a secret realm?" he asked.
"Not someone," Rynne corrected lightly. "A Rank Four with deep spatial mastery at the very least."
She gestured loosely toward the ruin.
"It wouldn’t be simple. You’d need to suppress the realm’s internal resistance, stabilize its dimensional shell, and bind it to a new anchor."
Her smile widened slightly.
"But once done, the entire secret realm could be attached to anything."
Michael’s silence deepened.
He thought back to his Damaged Coffin of the Forgotten and its internal space.
Looking at it from another angle, did this not mean it was a secret realm contained within a coffin?
Michael had seen many treasures. Part of which was his own.
But an entire secret realm as a movable asset was an entirely different scale of value.
Rynne noticed the shift in his expression and chuckled softly.
"Don’t look so surprised," she said. "High Rank spatial users are walking strategic assets for a reason."
Michael exhaled faintly.
"...I see."
He cast one last glance toward the ruin’s depths.
Two thousand years of silence.
And now, once again, abandonment.
Whether it would sleep for another era or open again tomorrow was something neither of them could predict.
Michael turned back to the portal.
Without another word, he stepped forward.
Rynne followed beside him.
Together, they crossed the threshold of swirling light, leaving the ancient secret realm behind as the portal folded inward and vanished from existence once more.
The transition was instant.
One moment there was only the layered distortion of the portal swallowing their figures.
The next, the world reformed around them.
Michael and Rynne stepped out onto cracked stone ground beneath an open sky.
Or what passed for a sky.
They had returned to the ruins.
But not the same ruin they had just left behind.
This one was vast and sunken, half swallowed by swamp water that stretched endlessly in all directions. Broken pillars jutted out from the marsh like the bones of a dead civilization, their surfaces coated in thick moss that glowed faintly violet.
Everything was purple.
The sky above shimmered in murky shades of amethyst and black.
The swamp water below reflected the same hue, bubbling faintly as if alive. Even the mist that hovered low across the marshlands carried a dim lavender tint that distorted distance and depth.
The Fifty Sixth Floor of Hell.
Michael recognized it immediately.
Michael had just opened his mouth to speak.
He was about to bring up what Rynne had mentioned earlier. That she possessed a method to carry them quickly back to the First Floor of Hell without traversing the intervening layers.
But before he could say anything, Rynne spoke first.
"Michael," she said quietly.
Her voice had changed.
It was no longer casual.
He glanced at her.
She was not looking at him.
Her gaze was fixed somewhere behind him.
"You should be ready to run."
Michael did not ask why.
He turned.
And then he saw them.
Flying insects.
Hundreds of them.
They hovered in the purple mist, their bodies elongated and segmented, wings thin like blades of glass that vibrated fast enough to produce a constant shrill hum across the swamp.
Their compound eyes glowed dim violet, reflecting the same hue as the environment around them.
But what made Michael’s gaze sharpen was not their number.
Every single one of them had locked onto their position the moment they appeared.
A ripple moved through the swarm.
Then the sound began to rise.
A synchronized vibration of wings that stirred the swamp mist violently.
They had been detected.
Without hesitation, Michael moved.
His aura shifted instantly.
The Spartan State receded.
In its place, spatial currents surged.
Wisdom State.
His perception expanded sharply.
He did not waste time speaking.
Nor did he wait for the swarm to attack.
He stepped forward, wrapped an arm around Rynne’s waist, and vanished.
His figure blurred from existence.
The ground beneath where they had stood shattered from the recoil force of his acceleration.
Behind them, the swarm reacted instantly.
A violent screech filled the swamp as hundreds of insects lunged forward in pursuit, their wingbeats slicing through the mist like blades.
But Michael was already gone.
He moved across the ruined marshlands at terrifying speed, Rynne secured firmly in his grasp as he navigated the hostile terrain without slowing even once.
Only the rippling mist marked the path they had taken across the Fifty Sixth Floor of Hell.
Wind tore past Rynne’s ears.
The world around her had dissolved into streaks of violet and black, the swamp below reduced to blurred smears of color that warped and twisted the longer she tried to focus on them.
She could feel the pressure of movement even without looking.
Air resistance parted unnaturally around them, spatial currents folding and smoothing their path as Michael cut through the Fifty Sixth Floor like a living distortion.
Her body was secured firmly against him, one arm locked around her waist to stabilize her position as he moved.
Yet despite that, her heart felt strangely unsteady.
Not from fear of the swarm behind them.
But from something else entirely.
Helplessness.
Her fingers curled faintly.
This was not the first time she had witnessed Michael’s overwhelming displays of power.
She had seen the suppression of the breathing metal.
She had seen the abyssal flames.
She had seen the way an enhancer had turned him into something monstrous for a brief window.
But this...
This felt different.
Her gaze shifted slightly, studying his profile.
This speed...
It did not look like something a normal Rank Three should possess.
Even peak Rank Three specialists who focused purely on mobility would struggle to reach this level of sustained acceleration.
And Michael...
Michael was not even Rank Three yet.