Chapter 117: Another Eye - XII

Above the Living City of Hispe.

Plummeting from the skies was a tangible aura in rapid decline. The source of that aura was a wingless Dragon, humiliated and defiled like a ragdoll. Its proud stature had been reduced to that of pure failure.

It was a disappointment to the great race of Mortal Gods.

—BOOM!

There was no flash of white, no blossoming flame, and no merciless inferno. Only a dust cloud dispersed into the sky like a tsunami of debris, turning flesh and stone into—what Aventine would liken them to—Swiss cheese.

A huge seismic wave rocked the earth, dissolving the many skyscrapers and melting through millions of lives. Many had perished even before the impact, overwhelmed by the Dragon’s remnant aura.

Then, the impact itself wrought havoc on anything nonliving, crushing everything else that managed to survive.

Today, the Living City of Hispe had been effectively wiped off the map. The corpse of a 100-meter-long Dragon lay at the center of its grave, emanating a deep, empty sorrow that could force mortals into unbelievable despair.

Whatever the Grand Druid had built up in her long, ten-thousand-year life was annihilated in an instant. The tree that she’d grown so devotedly evaporated, crushed into smithereens.

Death became the fate of nearly every being in the vicinity. 800 square kilometers were reduced to rubble.

All life forms that had failed to undergo Evolution, rising to S-Rank and above, and looking down upon the world from the heights of endless pursuit, perished.

Those at A-Rank and below were basically hopeless.

***

Aventine, who had stacked three A-Rank <Traits> together to protect himself and his companions, knew of such helplessness by <Perfect Estimate> alone.

Even before the Dragon struck the surface, and before the tremors reached him in the depths of the Layers Beneath, his senses had encompassed all the surrounding variables—searching for any chance that could help them survive.

No matter how slim it would be, he would take it.

’We just need one window!’

A possibility that could weaken the destruction to ensure their survival.

Otherwise, he would face his death along with everyone else in the Living City of Hispe.

However, he only had so much mana.

Despite blanketing the environment, hoping for something that could save them, his mana would vanish, chunk by chunk, having touched something that consumed too much for what it was worth.

There were too many things in Walvaskaz that could drain his mana in an instant. He could only do his best and hope that he wouldn’t lose the gamble.

Thus, he looked into every crevice, every beam of support, and every material above his head.

He scanned the basalt layers underneath him, searching for caverns where he could hide along with his companions.

Nothing.

Among the twisting corridors and hundreds of thousands of rooms, there was nothing that could save them.

Even if there was—perhaps an item or a formation of sorts—getting there was impossible given the short time they had.

What Aventine needed was—

"Shit...!’

His mana had been drained because of a mysterious sword with a deep, tumultuous history.

—Pop!

A Mana Potion was swiftly uncorked, allowing Aventine to swallow mouthfuls worth of liquid mana. In the meantime, he was siphoning mana from the <Wyrm With No Name>, hoping for the best.

This time, he looked through Hispe’s roots, searching for a portion that could offset more force. Just enough so that his Storm-Shadow Barrier could keep them alive.

Still, there was nothing.

And the impact was imminent.

—[ LET ME OUT, HUMAN CHILD! YOUR USELESSNESS HAS ENRAGED ME. LET ME SHOW YOU TRUE, UNWIELDING POWER. ]

The <Wyrm With No Name>, having sensed the situation, hummed with bristling power from within the <Sword of Light>. His voice screamed into Aventine’s mind, hoping to be unsealed.

Hoping to escape the sad fate of being a mere battery.

—[ Yes! Let the Wyrm out! Let him out! ]

—[ Let him protect you! Don’t join us! ]

—[ No, don’t let him protect you! He will crush you the moment he leaves! He is your greatest foe! ]

Even the great choir of invincible souls erupted with a cacophony of demands. The crystalline Soul Permanence could still exert influence on him despite being stored within the Sub-Dimensional Ruby Ring.

’You lot aren’t helping with your screams!’

Aventine roared inwardly as he perceived the moment before pure destruction.

The Dragon’s body was milliseconds away from impact, but the chaotic grey buildings of Hispe had already begun crumbling merely from the air currents alone.

Then—

There was silence.

When the Dragon’s body struck the ground, a vacuum occurred in the surrounding atmosphere. No sound travelled through the air.

Only a deep, bellowing boom, like a giant bass drum had been struck, resonated in the earthen walls in the Layers Beneath.

A single seismic wave shocked the ground, tearing apart foundations en masse. The tremors damaged a radius much greater than the annihilated crater. Fatal, destructive debris flooded the Living City’s periphery, drowning the fringes of other cities in a suffocating death cloud.

Aventine watched as the seismic waves fractured the Layers Beneath, spreading downwards, and appearing before him in a mere instant.

The annihilation brought nigh-instantaneous change, which [Absolute Awareness] encompassed in the same moment.

’What can give me a chance to survive the shockwaves? What force can give us all a chance of survival?’

These were his questions that needed answers.

<Perfect Estimate> flooded his mind with the sudden changes, informing him of a great deal of possibilities.

In this moment of utter devastation, the heir to Omniscience spotted several windows of survival. Different situations that could help him keep his life. Each with its own benefits and respective effects.

But only one was within range of exploitation.

Only, he wasn’t sure as to how—only that it could. There wasn’t enough mana in his reserves to spare an extra inquiry.

The only other thing he could ask for was the method to trigger that focal point to pry open that one single window of survival.

His eyes gleamed with a rabid desire to live. The thrill of the situation made his blood surge with thoughts and sheer iron-clad intent. Even his bones joined him in his desire to continue his journey in the realm of the living.

So, he made that vital, split-second decision the moment he received an answer from [Absolute Awareness].

"This should be enough!" 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

—Boom!