Chapter 585: Portal (2)
In Angele’s sight, he could see the sea of black crystals and the dark portal was moving closer and closer to him.
Suddenly, a white hand reached out of the portal and slowly moved toward Angele.
’Come to me... I’m ready this time...’ Angele decided not to resist; he just stared at the hand quietly but was ready to fully release his power.
*PA*
The hand grabbed Angele’s left arm.
Suddenly, a strong force started dragging Angele to the dark portal.
Strangely, the blue light dots disappeared from Angele’s eyes and the biochip was no longer zooming in.
It was like he was dragged into a different dimension. The whole world was spinning in his sight and he could not see anything. Angele thought he was falling down a white cylinder but he could see the white and black light dots flashing around him.
Several seconds later.
Angele slowly stood up on a platform over a black crystal under the gray sky. His face was pale and his head dizzy.
Raising his head, Angele checked the surroundings, but all he could see were the black crystals. He was also standing on a crystal.
"Where am I...?" Angele looked around.
His sight fell upon an area behind him. There was an irregular black hole with chilling air coming out of it. A pale arm was slowly returning into the hole; it disappeared after reaching the edge of the hole.
"My body shrank?" Angele was surprised, he walked to the black hole and peeked inside.
The only thing he could see was darkness. Although he had high Stamina, he still felt cold in the chilling air and goosebumps were rising from his skin.
Angele inhaled deeply but realized that he could not feel any gas.
’My body definitely shrank, but I’m too small and the elemental molecules are bigger than my body...’ Angele held his breath. ’Luckily, I can survive without breathing, otherwise, it’d be a problem...’
Angele moved away from the black hole and checked the platform he was standing on.
It was a relatively small platform about five meters long and six meters wide. He walked to the edge of the platform and looked down.
Below the crystal was an endless abyss.
The place was deadly silent, it felt like standing in a forest of black crystals and the platform under his feet was the only thing that he could stand on.
He looked at one of the black crystals, the top of the crystal reached far into the gray sky.
’I can’t see the top of the bottom... If my body is much smaller than before, it’ll take me a long time to reach the top or the bottom of the crystal...’
He moved to the other side of the platform but the situation was the same.
’Warning, warning... The time here is different... Do you want to adjust it?’ Zero’s voice suddenly echoed in his ears.
Angele checked the time that was displayed in his sight.
’15:42:12.’
However, the clock stopped and he had no idea what was going on.
’What’s happening...’ Angele stared at the clock and waited several seconds, however, nothing happened.
’Is it due to the power of the Lost Realm or is there something wrong with my nerve system? Am I moving and thinking faster than before? I need to give the biochip the permission to adjust the time for me. Zero, adjust the time.’
After Angele gave the order, he saw lines of blue data flashing in his sight. A lot of random numbers appeared behind the clock and it seemed like many things were changing.
He checked the clock again and it seemed like the biochip developed a new way to calculate the time. The number still looked the same but the clock started running again.
’I knew time might be different for different realms but this one is a bit strange...’ Angele checked the time—the smallest unit was not "second", it was something much smaller. ’This is a new unit that I’ve never seen and this is a whole new experience for me... Very interesting...’
Angele adjusted the time and sat down with his legs crossed on the platform. He rested for a while and tried to adapt to the new environment.
About half an hour later, he slowly stood up and walked to the edge of the black hole.
’This is a legendary realm... Let me see what’s so different about it...’ He stood in front of the black hole and jumped into it.
He lost to the gravity and started sinking into the endless darkness.
The hole above him was getting smaller and smaller, it turned into a small dot several seconds later.
The dot slowly disappeared into the darkness and there was nothing else in his sight.
Angele had no idea how long passed. He noticed that his feet landed on the ground steadily.
He was still in darkness but noticed that there was a stinky smell in the air.
"Cough... I can smell things again?"
*CHI*
He created a small ball of fire on his fingertip to brighten up the area.
The light revealed the surroundings and Angele realized that he was standing in a white tunnel.
There was a white wall behind him. It felt like that he was standing in a random cave that was full of stalactites.
’Wait... Those are not stalactites...’ Angele’s expression turned serious. He rubbed on the surface of the wall—it felt like touching a damaged wall.
Angele lowered his hand and sniffed at his fingers. They smelled like blood and he also noticed something rotten.
He took a step forward.
*PA*
His feet hit something in front of him with a noise.
Angele checked the ground using the light from the fire, there was a pile of white bones under his feet. The ground was covered with countless skulls and bones. His feet were almost buried in the bones.
He found some weapons, accessories, and damaged armor in the white bones.
*PA*
Angele picked up an iron leg guard, however, it broke into pieces when he tried to lift it up.
His brow furrowed as he picked some other items, but all of them broke into pieces right after they were lifted.
Under the dim light, Angele started proceeding in the tunnel. The bones on the ground were from human beings, random beasts, giants, and giant birds. He also found books, outfits, gems, crystals, and many other random things in piles of bones.
He kept trying to pick the items up but all of them crumbled in the air. Some of them were still glowing, however, none of them was still usable, and the books were unreadable.
’These are just garbage...’
Angele dropped a blue crystal pillar that was still glowing to the ground and started moving again. He was still checking the bones constantly.
’Those bones are from thousands of years ago but they are still in good shape. I think those creatures were strong creatures when they were still alive, but I don’t see any traces left by a battle... Those creatures were not killed during a war. I hope I can find something like the crystal orb used by the wizards here...’
Angele glanced at the bones. Suddenly, he found something that was releasing purple light under a bronze shield ahead.
He walked to the shield, crouched, and moved it away. There was a thick purple book glowing under a silver mace and a white bow. The book was old and its cover was slightly damaged.
There was a black keyhole in the center of the cover and there were some silver patterns that looked like flowers around the keyhole.
Angele carefully removed the mace and the bow before grabbing the purple book.
He slowly opened the book and started reading—the words on the red paper were written in the Chaos language.
’The notebook of the North Empire’s vanguards. This is our first day of the trip to Lost Realm and we entered the Bone Tunnel without any problems...’
The rest of the words were unreadable. Angele rubbed the page using his fingers but it made the words even harder to read.
He started turning pages. Most of the words were blurred, but he finally found something that was readable when he reached the 23rd page.
’Nate was killed, we returned to the Bone Tunnel. This is... Jump... Lost...’
Those were the only readable words he could find.
The rest of the pages had no valuable information. He closed his book and scrunched his eyebrows.
He checked the surroundings again and noticed the end of the tunnel turned from a white way to endless darkness. It felt like the tunnel would lead him into the abyss if he decided to go back.
The area in the front was also dark.
Angele stood in the tunnel quietly. With a flick of his left finger, he created a fireball over his left shoulder.
He put down the book on the ground and started advancing slowly.
He did not find many glowing items ahead, but he noticed some complete skeletons.
Angele had no idea how long had passed before he finally found some human bones under a purple robe. He checked the bones and found a translucent crystal orb.
The crystal orb was dirty and its surface was covered with cracks. It felt like the orb could explode at any time.
Angele picked up the orb carefully and rubbed it several times using his hands.
*CHI*
The crystal orb started glowing and made some strange noise.
"Well..." A young man’s face appeared in the crystal orb. The man’s face was upside down and he had a pair of yellow eyes.
"This is a crystal orb from my mother... This is the 153rd day of... Wait, let me double-check..."
"Come on, don’t play with my orb. Go sit down on the side." A hoarse female voice came from the orb.
The young man’s face slowly moved away from the orb, revealing the white walls of Bone Tunnel.