Chapter 19: The Mysterious Realm

Ye Mi’s toes lightly touched the ground as she landed atop the flat-topped mountain. She surveyed her surroundings; the sea wind was fiercer than usual, humming with a low resonance.

Her electronic eye’s intelligent data measurement system quickly displayed the results: [Vertical drop: 87.53 meters. Rock structure: stable.]

A perilous yet solid foundation.

The only conundrum for Ye Mi was how to transport construction materials and supplies up here. Should she rely on the Rust Tide creatures to slowly crawl their way up? That would be terribly inefficient—only a last resort. She cast a glance at a seagull perched quietly in a nearby tree.

If she wanted the kind of transport she envisioned, a flying beast would be ideal.

The night sky was utterly silent; apart from a waning moon soon to be swallowed by clouds, nothing else was visible.

Even if she wished to search for such a creature, it was impossible at this hour. Ye Mi could only wait quietly for dawn.

Time passed slowly.

As the first light crept over the horizon, a thin mist of blue-gray still veiling the sea, the Rust Tide King—like a cold shadow—borrowed the seagull’s form to silently glide down the island’s cliffs, heading for the larger, resource-rich sea island.

Ye Mi speculated that large flying monsters might indeed exist on such a bountiful island.

With that hope, she flew above the forest canopy. Suddenly, a fleeting, eerie glow caught her eye.

What was that?

Her curiosity piqued, Ye Mi swiftly descended, landing lightly on the soft earth below, nearly stepping on a hard-shelled beetle that turned to stone in fright.

The scene that greeted her made her pause.

Before her, on the forest floor, stood a small “alien ruin.” She called it that because the alien triangular structure was all too familiar.

Aside from lacking the breathing blood pupa and being reduced to the size of a small house, it was otherwise identical to the alien ruins she had seen before.

Why was such a structure here?

Ye Mi was momentarily at a loss, her mind racing with possibilities—was it deliberately constructed, or had it crashed here with a meteorite strike?

Perhaps there were more such buildings scattered elsewhere in the Light Ruins.

What kind of force lay behind all of this?

She approached the alien ruin.

Previously, the entrance to such a ruin could only be opened with a life sacrifice as the key, but this one appeared different.

At the entrance, several mismatched bronze metal plates were seamlessly fitted together, their edges engraved with mysterious, fluid markings. At the center was a shallow circular recess, its smooth lines merging with the grooves around it.

Ancient and silent.

Did this one require a sacrifice too? Would a self-proclaimed missionary of the Suffering Faith appear here as well?

Ye Mi waited quietly for a while, but nothing happened.

The differences—the missing blood pupa, the altered “key”—all suggested that, although it looked much like the alien ruin in District Two, this was not quite the same thing.

Then how was it to be opened?

Without much hesitation, Ye Mi took out an energy crystal.

The size of the round recess matched the crystal perfectly, though the recess was circular and the crystal faceted.

It fit inside without trouble.

A deep hum resonated.

The structure responded.

Ye Mi raised an eyebrow—she’d guessed right.

After all, everything in the Light Ruins seemed connected to that mysterious energy. When in doubt, trying the Light Ruins’ energy was rarely wrong.

The door opened successfully.

Inside, there was only darkness—until Ye Mi suddenly sensed a familiar energy fluctuation emanating from the shadows.

She reflected for a moment—it was the same transmission pulse that had once sent the Gray Hawk squad and the others to the Bronze Giant City from the other alien ruin!

In other words, this was a teleportation device.

But where would it lead?

Ye Mi narrowed her eyes. The Rust Tide King remained still as she sent the seagull diving into the darkness.

The instant it passed through, the seagull’s form vanished, erased as though by a swipe of a rubber.

Suddenly, the world opened up before her.

Towering giant trees pierced the clouds above, their overlapping, umbrella-like leaves filtering the sunlight into dappled patterns that illuminated motes of dust floating in the air.

The ground was soft beneath her feet, blanketed with enormous ferns and glowing, supple mosses unlike anything she’d seen before.

The air was exceptionally fresh, the ecological environment thriving—utterly unlike the Bronze Giant City she’d previously been transported to.

This was like a primordial forest from a bygone age.

Guiding the seagull’s body, Ye Mi wove cautiously between colossal trees and ancient ferns.

She had not ventured far into this strange forest when she noticed something peculiar—scattered among the giant roots and under the moss were not ordinary rocks, but variously shaped, lifelike fossils, each containing different creatures.

It was as though time had frozen them in an instant—a metallic-shelled beetle, gleaming, was forever sealed in a transparent, amber-like casing; nearby, a half-encased, clawed arthropod, its sharp talons still visible in terrifying detail; farther off, even the skeleton of a tusked beast the size of an elephant, its massive frame encased in a pallid, mineral-like shell, drained of all vitality.

Ye Mi felt a surge of confusion.

For these monsters’ remains to be so perfectly fixed and petrified—this could not be the work of mere weathering.

What was this place? How had these creatures become like this?

At that moment, a heavy, dragging sound came from the forest floor.

Ye Mi instinctively hid atop a massive branch, watching as a creature the size of a car lumbered out from the shadows.

It resembled an enormous tortoise, its shell thick, rough, and dark brown, mottled with moss and cracks as though weathered by countless years. Its limbs were short but powerful, each step thudding into the earth.

This ancient beast seemed unaware of the seagull’s presence. It shuffled to a patch where the moss was thin, exposing the black soil, and stopped, rumbling deep in its throat.

Then, lowering its head, its jaws opened and a jet of viscous, nearly transparent gel shot forth, coating a beetle before it.

The instant the fluid touched its prey, it hardened and solidified at a speed visible to the naked eye, soon encasing the beetle in a lifelike “fossil.”

So that’s how it worked!

Watching this, a sudden thought arose in Ye Mi’s mind: just how tough would the fossils created by this land tortoise monster be?