Legend of the Heroes of Another World's Divine Tower

Chapter 7 Hallucinogenic Grenade

At this moment, Lin Chi was hiding in that secret tree hole that only he knew about.

He sat on the rough edge of the tree hole, his feet dangling in the air, swaying gently. His whole body was cleverly concealed within the shadow cast by the hole, but his gaze was fixed on the orange-colored sky outside the hole.

As dusk falls, the power of the hallucinogenic sunlight gradually diminishes, transforming into a honey-colored hue that is both the gentlest and the most dangerous, coating every leaf tip and the mist in the forest.

This is Lin Chi's favorite time of day.

The wind rustled through the tree hollows, bringing the whispers of the leaves in the forest. High above, the occasional faint calls of birds returning to their nests could be heard, clear yet distant.

Lin Chi relaxed his body backward, his back pressed completely against the uneven trunk of the ancient tree. He tilted his head back slightly, resting his head against the wood, and closed his eyes.

The usual composure and tension on his face, beyond his years, slowly dissipated like the receding tide, leaving only a faint weariness and a hint of almost greedy tranquility.

He could clearly feel the rhythm of his heartbeat beneath his chest, gradually synchronizing with the rustling of leaves in the wind and the breath of the forest at dusk.

He wasn't thinking about anything; he simply let himself sink completely into this brief and precious peace. The light outside the cave was fading at a visible speed, and the originally golden-orange skylight was gradually mixed with a deeper blue and gray-white.

The fog in the forest began to thicken, no longer the thin veil of daytime, but as if it had come to life, seeping out and gathering from the ground, from the tree roots, and from every shadow, slowly flowing and spreading.

He knew that when the orange was completely swallowed by the mist, and when the last ray of light disappeared, a familiar, slight dizziness would arrive as expected—it was the subtle distortion and fluctuation of space itself when day and night met on this level.

Then, the real night will fall...

If daytime is a restless, desire-driven hallucinatory theater, then nighttime is a deathly silence that chills to the bone. When darkness completely envelops the forest, it seems as if all the sounds of life have been sucked away, sinking into an absolute, oppressive stillness.

Any tiny movement—the breaking of a withered leaf, the rolling of a pebble—would be magnified to an astonishing degree at this moment, becoming jarringly clear.

Beyond the halo of the Soul-Suppressing Light, the impenetrable darkness is more like a substantial "emptiness," like a living black hole, greedily sucking in light, sound, and even the breath of all life.

Those tower climbers who died during the day from hallucinogenic sunlight often had extreme emotions frozen on their faces—ecstasy, grief, or anger—as if they were frozen in the most beautiful dream or the deepest nightmare.

If an unfortunate soul is swallowed by darkness at night and is found the following day, only one thing will remain on their face—"emptiness".

Expressionless, lifeless, with deeply sunken eye sockets and pupils dilated into two empty black holes, the entire body often adopts a strange and devout kneeling posture, as if, at the last moment, it has sacrificed everything to the all-consuming darkness.

Lin Chi took out the soul-suppressing lamp that his mother had carefully made for him from his backpack.

The lamp frame is carefully crafted from the forty-fourth layer of unique white ironwood, which feels warm and cool to the touch.

He lifted a corner of the leaf curtain, and the specially treated sun-dried grass leaves inside immediately emitted a stable and soft pale golden halo, just enough to illuminate an area a few steps around him, firmly holding back the lurking darkness at the edge of the halo.

He hung the lamp on the leather buckle at his waist, took a deep breath of the cold, thin night air, and began to carefully climb down the tree trunk.

After landing safely, he used the light from his waist to slowly walk towards the direction he remembered, which was also the possible location of the teleportation array that he had detected earlier that day.

He soon located the teleportation array after the transfer, and then instead of returning to the camp mansion, he went to his secret base.

Lin Chi walked very lightly, testing the ground with his toes before stepping on any dry branches that might make a sound.

The light of the Soul-Suppressing Lamp swayed gently with his steps, casting a small, trembling safe zone in front of him, like a lone boat on a dark ocean that could capsize at any moment.

After walking for about half an hour, he arrived at the edge of a relatively open valley hidden deep in the dense forest. The mist in the valley seemed to be lighter than in the forest, but the darkness appeared even purer and deeper as a result.

He stopped there. After confirming once again that there was only boundless silence around him, he took out the object he called the "hallucinogenic grenade" from his backpack.

The inspiration for this thing came from his reverse thinking about the principle of his mother's "soul-suppressing lamp".

He discovered that the key to locking in the light of the sunflower was not the wood itself, but the extremely thin, naturally textured "shell" of the bark of a particular tree. This shell seemed to possess some strange light-guiding and binding properties.

So he tried stuffing large amounts of grass leaves, which had absorbed the daylight, tightly into thin bags carefully tanned and shaped from the bark of this tree, and made the shape of the bags just to fit his palm so that they could be easily held and thrown.

He named it the "Hallucinogenic Grenade".

The principle is simple: when thrown at night, the thin, brittle bark shatters upon impact with a hard object, exposing the compressed Sun Grass inside to pure darkness. Its accumulated light energy then bursts forth violently due to the drastic change in environment, releasing a powerful, hallucinogenic light far exceeding the natural luminescence of a single blade of grass.

Luckily, we found the teleportation array quickly today, so we can start the secret test. After all, this is a "dangerous toy" that he secretly made behind his mother's back using scraps he collected, and it must not be tried near the camp.

"It has been confirmed before that a collision can indeed trigger a light burst." He muttered to himself in a low voice, as if he were organizing his thoughts.

"But the scope, intensity, and lasting impact of the outbreak... all require data."

As he spoke, he pulled several tree shell grenades from his bag, all the same size but slightly different in weight. Each grenade contained a different amount of sungrass leaves.

The standard for measurement was roughly determined by the fact that the diameter of the glass bottle's opening was about the size of his palm. The height of the bottle was approximately equal to the thickness of his two clenched fists joined together.

Following this "standard unit," he prepared test samples containing different volumes of grass leaves, such as one-tenth, one-eighth, one-sixth, one-quarter, and one-third.

Then, he walked to the edge of the valley, tied one end of a long, flexible vine to the sturdy old tree root beside him, and let the other end hang down into the dark valley.

He needed to use the length of the vines as a reference to estimate the approximate height that the hallucinogenic light that suddenly burst forth would reach when the light erupted.

The light spreads in a spherical shape, and as long as the vertical height is known, the range of influence can be roughly calculated.

"It's a pity that we can only estimate by sight." He muttered to himself with some regret, his gaze sweeping over the Soul-Suppressing Lamp at his waist and then looking at the dark valley.

"If there were a material that could leave a mark on this light... we could make a more precise 'light recorder'."

He shook his head, dismissing the unrealistic idea, and focused on the present. He gripped the first grenade—the one with "one-tenth of its capacity."

"First test, one-tenth capacity." He spoke calmly, and with a flick of his wrist, he forcefully hurled the lightweight tree shell grenade into the darkness of the valley below.

The grenade traced a low arc and disappeared from sight. A brief silence followed—

"Crack!" A crisp cracking sound came from below, and then a pale golden sphere of light, not dazzling but definitely eye-catching, suddenly bloomed in the darkness!

The light instantly illuminated a small patch of jagged rocks and twisted plant remains at the bottom of the valley. The sphere of light rapidly expanded to its limit, and then, as if squeezed by an invisible hand, slowly contracted and dimmed inward. The whole process lasted about two or three seconds.

Lin Chi held his breath, his eyes fixed intently on the ball of light. At the moment the light reached its peak, he quickly compared it to the vines hanging into the darkness beside him, firmly marking that visual location in his mind.

Once the light had completely dissipated and darkness had returned, he pulled back the vine and, relying on his memory, carefully carved a deep scratch on the vine at the corresponding height using his small knife.

"Recording complete. Next, one-eighth of the capacity."

He repeated the process: take out the grenade, report the parameters, throw it, concentrate on observing the deadly brilliance that flashed and disappeared in an instant, remember the highest point, pull back the vines, and carve a new mark.

Every so often, a cluster of golden orbs of varying sizes and brightness would briefly illuminate the valley, like eerie flowers blooming only briefly in this land of death, before being swallowed up again by the boundless darkness.

Lin Chi was completely immersed in this tedious and dangerous test, his face showing absolute focus and a thoughtful expression that gradually emerged as the data accumulated.

He seemed to have forgotten the terror of the forest at night, and the menacing "Void" outside the Soul-Suppressing Lamp at his waist. His entire mind was focused on the fleeting light and the deepening marks on the vines.

And so he tested them one by one, the marks on the vines increasing in number and the spacing gradually widening. Until he threw the grenade containing about a third of its volume of sungrass leaves…