novelraw Chapter 727 More shit storms?
Chapter 727 More shit storms?
Chapter 727 More shit storms?
Damon had done his due diligence. He had observed the rift, tested its edges with probes of mana and blood, and even used live test subjects to confirm his theory. He knew logically that this was survivable.
That did nothing to make the act itself feel any less insane.
The moment he threw himself in, reality turned hostile.
An overwhelming pressure slammed into him from every direction at once, as if space itself had decided to crush him for daring to exist inside it. Forces pulled, twisted, and tore at his body simultaneously. Up, down, inward, outward, there was no orientation, and no mercy. It felt less like traveling through space and more like being fed into the grinding gears of a god.
Damon swore under his breath and reacted instantly.
Mana roared out of his core in a violent surge as he conjured a barrier around himself, layering it again and again, reinforcing it with blood essence, will, and raw desperation. The barrier screamed under the strain, its surface rippling as unseen forces gnawed at it relentlessly.
He poured more mana into it. Then more.
By the time he was halfway through, he was burning through nearly his entire reserve just to keep himself intact. Even with the obscene amount of mana he possessed, the barrier wavered, threatening to collapse at any second. Had he been even slightly weaker, even a fraction slower, he would have been torn apart, body, soul, and existence without leaving so much as a trace behind.
Then, just as abruptly as it began, it ended. Damon was spat out the other side, wherever that was.
He crashed onto solid ground and rolled several times before coming to a stop. For a full minute, he lay there unmoving, chest heaving, vision completely useless. The world around him was a smeared mess of colors and light, spinning and folding in on itself. His inner senses screamed incoherently, as if his soul had been partially dislodged and was struggling to find its way back into place.
Damon clenched his fists and forced himself to breathe, slow and steady, anchoring himself through sheer will. Seconds stretched into minutes. Gradually, the vertigo dulled. The twisting sensation receded. The universe stopped trying to rearrange itself inside his skull.
Only then did his vision finally stabilize. "…Fuck," he muttered hoarsely. At least this place was different.
Damon pushed himself upright and planted his boots firmly into the ground, savoring the sensation of something real beneath him. Not cracked black stone this time. Instead, fine red sand stretched out in all directions, warm and granular under his feet. Sparse but living vegetation dotted the landscape.
He looked up and the blinding sun was still there. Was he in the same place just a different side? Or perhaps… in another world in the same planetary cluster? He scratched his head and gave up on that thought.
This was a system event after all. Just like how there was a way in, there should be a way out. Probably. Damon was not sure but that was something to worry about later. First, he needed to see what this place was all about.
Unlike the endless black wasteland, this place was more lively. There were sandstorms all over the place. In fact, one was coming right at him. Damon quickly moved a few paces back to avoid the storm. Shockingly, the storm changed its course and was now coming at him.
"Fuck!" Damon quickly teleported several times draining more of his mana, getting the hell out of there. He still did not know if the sandstorm was actually harmful or not but judging from its speed alone, it was nothing to joke about. He decided it was best to err on the side of caution.
Damon once again looked around and the land was pretty much the same, red barren lands with sparse trees and shrubs here and there.
And of course, there was another storm in the distance.
"It couldn't possibly tag me from that distance, right?" Damon pondered as he gazed at the storm when his expression changed. Yup. There was no doubt about it. The sandstorm was now coming right at him and as if on cue, its speed had already increased several folds.
Damon once again started teleporting like there was no tomorrow. He might just be wasting mana over nothing but something told him that the storm wasn't all that harmless. After teleporting a few times, he was at a new spot again. He had successfully lost the sand storm that was chasing him.
However, before he could even sigh in relief and take a stock of the new location, three other storms stared at him. Damon's face twitched. "Fuck it. If I can't get away from these storms, might as well check what the hell are these."
His first thought was to once again test with someone else but there was not a single soul near him. It was just him and three storms coming to him.
He contemplated simply staying here and facing the storm but on second thought, he teleported yet again. Three might be too much for a beginner like him. It was best to start with one.
Damon did not have any problems finding a storm. As soon as he stopped teleporting, it only took a moment before another one started forming in the distance and of course, this too was coming right at him.
This time Damon did not run. Without wasting any time, he summoned five of his shadow beasts and send them into the storm. He was fully prepared to lose those five shadow beasts and expected them to be torn apart but unexpectedly, the storm did not harm them at all.
Damon frowned. This definitely did not mean that the storm was harmless. He was not naive enough to think that. In fact, it was probably the opposite. The damn thing should be extra tricky to deal with and this place just happened to be full of it.
The difficulty level of this whole Golden Throne event just went up by several levels!
Damon stared at the approaching calamity and wondered. What were the chances that his luck would help him out here? Maybe he was worrying over nothing? He then chuckled as the storm finally grazed him. "Let's go." He muttered, fully prepared to defend whatever came his way.
Mental attack? Soul attack? Sand magic attack?
Damon was wrong on all three counts. Instead of attacking him, the sandstorm merely surrounded him doing nothing to him at all.
"What the…" Damon opened and closed his mouth when the scenery around him unexpectedly changed. He was no longer in a red barren wasteland. Instead, there was lush greenery all around him. He was in the middle of a forest?
"Okay. This is new." Damon looked around, wondering what the hell was this sudden change. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't make heads or tails of the situation. "Fuck it. I should just go around and see where I am now. Maybe the sandstorm was another portal?" At this point, he was ready to go with the flow, rather than try to analyze the rules of this event.
He was just about to take a jog in the direction of a river that was flowing in the distance when a loud cry resounded from somewhere nearby.
Damon hurriedly blinked to the spot to find a small burrow hidden in a mess of tress and bushes. Without stepping in the burrow, he could already sense the woman lying inside. She was deeply wounded. Her life energy was barely there. There was no other danger in the vicinity and no other person or beast nearby.
Damon waited for a few seconds and nothing happened. He then decided to step into the burrow and talk to the woman. Maybe she had more information than him?
He walked in and the woman's gaze fell on him first. "Faron… ahh… I can't hold on anymore… Faron… please just kill me… I cannot bear this pain… Faron."
The woman was clearly delirious and completely useless to him at her current condition. Damon let out a sigh and took a step back, observing calmly to see what exactly was wrong with her. Coincidentally, the woman was poisoned.
But the poison wasn't all that simple. In fact, it was a poison he had never come across before.