Chapter 162: Back to the Wasteland

Chapter 162: Chapter 162: Back to the Wasteland

When the dizzying sensation faded, the first thing that hit Jeremy’s eyes was a magic scroll flying close to his face.

Before his body could crash to the ground, he reached out and grabbed it. His dragon wings unfurled reflexively, his feet kicking against a block of a ruined wall for leverage, then landing on an open patch of ground amidst the ruins.

Stone dust plumed around his ankles. He stood steady and opened the scroll.

On it, a route was hastily sketched with a few scribbles, the ink lines broken as if written while moving. The endpoint was marked with a rushed "C", the final stroke dragged out into a long streak.

The ink stain was still very fresh, slightly sticky to the touch. Following Griffin’s usual habits, this route had likely been drawn not long ago — perhaps right while he was sitting there pouring medicine over his wounds.

Having finished reading, Jeremy passed the map to his teammates, signaling them to read it over quickly.

Meanwhile, he began observing his surroundings.

Compared to their first encounter with an F-rank rift area in the first half of the semester, the environment in the C-rank area was several tiers worse.

The sky bore a murky gray color as if smoked. There was no sun, yet it wasn’t entirely dark either — a dim light of unknown origin blanketed everything evenly.

The extent of ruin in the structures was also more severe. Stone pillars that once supported roofs were now only half intact, their cross-sections jagged as if bitten off by something. The vegetation had lost all vitality, leaving only a shriveled patch that crumbled into powder when stepped on.

There was no sound of birds. No sound of insects. Only the wind whistling through gaps in the ruined walls.

Griffin once said those ancient lines of text indicated the ruins were a clue leading to a palace at the bottom of the sea. But judging by the route on the scroll, to reach the sea area, they first had to traverse a forest located to the east.

"Didn’t expect to return to the Wasteland so soon." Leon returned the scroll, glancing up at the murky gray sky, the corner of his mouth drooping. "While it’s still early, let’s go."

Jeremy nodded: "I’ll lead the way. You guys stay close, don’t get lost."

Finished speaking, he spread his wings and flew ahead.

The four gave an affirmative response and followed.

The group’s formation had basically been finalized this semester, through dozens of practical combat sessions on Griffin’s island.

Jeremy took the lead. Phoenix and Evelyn were in the middle. Leon and Lucius brought up the rear.

The forest appeared after less than ten minutes of flying. The tree trunks were pitch black, twisted as if someone had broken them and they had regrown dislocated. There were no leaves on the branches, only rough tumors emitting a pale green light.

And from those tumors, flying magical beasts burst out simultaneously.

Jeremy didn’t decelerate. The Sacred Weapon in his hand transformed into the Order card.

Order Domain - Silence deployed. A massive light phantom erected behind his back. The magical beasts opening their beaks to shriek halted simultaneously in mid-air, their throats torn apart from the inside before they could emit a second sound.

The rest that hadn’t entered the range were cleanly swallowed by Death’s Abyss. Undead thrust up from the darkness beneath the forest canopy, grabbing their legs and pulling them down.

Behind him, Phoenix and Evelyn channeled magic power to support him while synchronously unleashing wide-range magical attacks. Evelyn’s ice rain poured down from the left. Phoenix’s death aura mist rolled up from the right. The flock of magical beasts relentlessly surging from deep within the forest was worn down layer by layer before they could touch the formation.

Leon and Lucius handled the cleanup and observed the overall situation. Leon’s lunar blades circled the formation like a hawk; any beast that slipped past the first two layers was severed by it. Lucius almost didn’t lift a finger, only occasionally swinging his chain blade once — and every time it struck perfectly at a magical beast no one else had noticed in time.

The five tried to suppress consumption to the lowest possible level. No one knew what lay within that seabed palace, and no one wanted to step inside with a half-depleted magic power reserve.

Fortunately, after the insane training intensity of the past half semester, everyone’s realms had nudged up.

From someone who bore a zero-star number on enrollment day, Jeremy had remained the fastest climber in the team over the past nearly a year.

In these past few months, he had jumped straight from Intermediate Stage Three-Star to Intermediate Stage Six-Star, hitting the exact realm of Evelyn — the one who had always led the group since day one.

The remaining three were all at Intermediate Stage Five-Star.

Coupled with the synchronization honed through hundreds of hours being thrown into the same ring by Griffin, clearing these two-star magical beasts (two stars in the Wasteland is equivalent to Intermediate Stage magical beasts locally) posed no difficulty.

An hour later, the group reached the endpoint of the route without a single scratch.

The edge of the forest opened up to a pitch-black reef shore, and ahead lay the sea.

The environment in the Wasteland sea area was so harsh that even the water surface bore a murky grayish-blue color, as if someone had stirred ash into it. The waves crashing against the reef shore weren’t white but muddy, leaving a slimy scum layer on the rocks.

Floating around were bizarre motes of light, the size of fingertips, drifting aimlessly on the water surface. Every time they collided with water bubbles rising from the bottom, another violent wave would crash out, higher than the previous one.

One such wave was currently rolling straight towards the shore.

Evelyn raised her hand and drew her bow. Vines shot up from beneath the reef, weaving into a curved wall that blocked the wave. The water smashed against the vine wall, shattered, and poured down around them like rain.

Waiting for the wave to disperse, she used cyan magic power to create a transparent water bubble layer wrapping the entire team, preventing those motes of light from touching them.

Then stepped beside Jeremy: "I remember the instructor once said the golden liquid of the Nightmare Demon monster can point the way to the ruins’ location. Do you still have it?"

"Of course I do."

Jeremy took out the bottle of liquid collected from the previous semester. The liquid inside still rippled with a bright golden color, not turning murky at all after all those months. He removed the magic sealing layer on the glass vial, walked to the water’s edge, and carefully dripped a few drops down.

The golden drops fell onto the gray sea surface, not dissolving, but gathering into small suspended round beads.

One second... two seconds... ten seconds...

Three minutes passed. The golden beads still lay motionless on the water surface. No reaction.

Leon furrowed his brows: "Is it broken?"

Jeremy didn’t reply. He crouched down, intending to drip a few more drops, wondering if the amount of liquid was too little...

Then the wind and clouds abruptly changed colors. The sea surface transformed.