Chapter 1332: A Pasture Behind Glass

After they left, the rainforest fell quiet for a brief moment.

Then—

BOOM!

A deafening blast rolled across the entire region.

Several energy spheres lost stability at the same time.

Violent power expanded in every direction, erasing anything it could erase.

Trees didn’t even get the chance to fall—one instant they existed, the next they vanished inside the glare.

Riverwater flash-boiled dry. The riverbed split under the shock.

The ground collapsed in layers.

Altars, tunnels, steel bridges, and the ruins beneath were all swallowed by the explosion.

Everything disappeared.

When the light finally thinned, rain began to fall again from freshly gathered clouds.

The terrain sat far lower than before. Where the rainforest used to be, there was only a massive depression. Water slowly pooled, forming new puddles and thin streams between the charred layers of soil.

In a few years, trees might grow back.

Or maybe it would turn into wetlands.

As for Ethan’s group... Catheryn’s Umbral Servitor had already taken them to a distant plain.

No trees.

No buildings.

Just endless grass, rolling under the sun in the wind like green waves.

Ethan raised a hand to shade his eyes and looked into the distance.

After staring for a long time, he found exactly nine cows.

He couldn’t see a single person. Nothing else worth noting, either.

"Catheryn." Ethan turned to look at her. "Did you bring us out here because you’re worried Feylora won’t have enough to eat?"

Feylora had been refueling everyone the entire time. Her own reserves were basically drained.

She didn’t bother replying to Ethan’s joke. She simply lay down in the grass, eyes closed, soaking in the sunlight while her body slowly absorbed the surrounding life energy.

The four little ones also hopped out from inside Ethan.

Idra recovered her tiny dragon form first and flew up to scout.

But what she saw was no different from what Ethan had seen.

Empty.

Grass.

And several cows slowly walking toward them in the distance.

"Dad!" Idra pointed from the air. "There are cows over there!"

Anya and Nysera’s eyes instantly lit up.

They didn’t need to eat... but they still wanted to.

The two little girls rushed to Ethan’s sides, clinging to his hand and shaking it hard.

"Big brother, I want to eat."

"I’m kinda hungry!"

Ethan stared at them, speechless.

He was just about to say Can’t you learn from Auri for once— when Auri, up ahead, was already the first one sprinting toward the herd.

The other three kids’ eyes went red on the spot.

Ethan could only nod.

Anya and Nysera jumped in excitement, then both grabbed Idra’s feet in midair. Idra flapped her wings and hauled them upward—shooting past Auri’s ground sprint in an instant.

Ahead, the cows kept their heads down, chewing grass.

They also seemed to be arguing about something intensely.

The volume rose and fell, but it didn’t interrupt their eating at all.

The only issue was the topic.

Way too advanced.

Particle-state.

Material form.

Modification.

One term after another. They said almost everything...

And somehow explained nothing.

Auri and the other three little ones gradually slowed down.

Something was wrong.

Auri made branches grow up from the ground, lifting the four of them higher for a better view. But no matter how far forward they moved, the distance between them and the herd didn’t change.

However far it had been when they started—

It was still that far now.

Like they could never truly reach the cows.

Idra spread her wings and flew even higher.

After gaining a bit of altitude, her head smacked into something transparent.

Thunk.

Idra clutched her head, confused, then raised a tiny claw and tapped the air above her.

No sound.

Only ripples spreading outward from the contact point.

The next second, several pipes extended from above the transparent barrier.

Jet-black gun muzzles aimed at Idra’s head at the same time.

If she made one more noise, the barrels would spit out a storm of bullets—enough to blanket the surrounding space.

Idra froze.

Those dark muzzles were practically pressed to her scalp.

In this situation... how was she supposed to escape without getting shot?

Help. Urgent.

Down below, the other three kids saw Idra not coming back and assumed she’d found a way through the barrier—and was refusing to tell them on purpose.

Auri kept the branches growing upward.

The three of them were carried near Idra, and the moment they poked their heads up, they saw the gun barrels too.

They opened their mouths to shout—

But the guns vanished.

In their place, several groups of small War Machines drifted down from above, stopping right in front of Idra.

They didn’t attack right away.

One unit glided slightly forward, and a mechanical voice came from within it.

"Honored guests.

"As the Foreign Minister of the Nation of Misianke, I sincerely welcome you to visit."

As it finished speaking, a spatial gate appeared in front of the children.

Ethan’s group reached them at almost the same time.

The instant Idra had been targeted by those barrels, Ethan had already hopped onto Seraphina’s back and flown over with everyone.

The four little ones immediately turned pleading eyes on Ethan.

But they still didn’t forget the distant, sturdy cows.

Once they went through the gate... would they still get to eat them?

Ethan ignored their obvious little scheme.

His attention was locked on the small War Machine that had introduced itself as "Foreign Minister."

It floated in the air.

No jets.

No wings.

No flames or obvious energy fluctuations.

It was as if something invisible were holding it up from above like a puppet.

Ethan watched it for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Why aren’t you going in?"

The Foreign Minister hesitated.

Why would it go in?

It still needed to stay out here and receive other visitors.

"Guests from afar," the mechanical voice said more cautiously, "I may need to remain here to welcome others. Perhaps you could—"

It tried to push the question back onto Ethan.

Ethan clearly wasn’t in the mood to indulge some self-proclaimed diplomat.

He reached out, grabbed the small War Machine, and threw it into the spatial gate.

"So talkative," Ethan said. "And you just look like a bad guy."

When he grabbed it, Ethan distinctly felt a pulling force coming from above the War Machine.

Like it was connected to something by a line.

A phone cord?

Pretty smart, honestly.

Ethan gave a short laugh and stepped through the spatial gate.

The others followed.

Once everyone had entered, the gate closed.

The "phone cord" connected to the small War Machine retracted as well.

Above the transparent barrier, several Cyclopes descended slowly.

"What are those variants trying to do?" one of them asked, staring at the distant herd.

"Why do they keep staring at those cows?"

"And this is just an experiment zone. How did they get in?"

The Cyclops beside him thought for a moment, then raised a finger and poked his own eye.

Tears slid down from the corner.

Inside that teardrop, a streak of shadow slowly took shape.

"How did this black thing cross the barrier?"

An angry voice snapped.

"Tell me. Now!"

Looking closely, you could see the Cyclops shouting had a larger single eye than the others around him.

Call him Tier Two for now.

The ones with slightly smaller eyes were Tier One.

And so on.

After Tier Two finished barking, he turned and walked toward the rear.

A light-brain device marked with a sun symbol rose out of the ground.

He aimed his eye at it and fired a laser.

An unknown change immediately rippled across the device’s surface.