Bruno the Dragon-Qilin glanced anxiously in every direction, terrified that the buildings, houses, and palaces might come alive again.
Junwood City was eerily silent. The entire metropolis was empty—though the Western Lands map marked Junwood as a major city with over a hundred thousand inhabitants, now its residents had vanished without a trace.
For someone to force an entire city’s population to abandon their homes, they must possess unimaginable power.
Junwood City was deserted, leaving only Quinn and his companions. Just moments ago the city had been full of life, but now it seemed to have suddenly died.
The quieter it was, the more terrifying it felt.
Suddenly, the entire city began to shake violently. The ground beneath their feet churned as buildings, houses, and palaces all sank down at once, transforming Junwood into a bare expanse of white earth in an instant.
Bruno quickly stomped on a cloud of fire and soared into the air. Quinn leapt onto his back, while Kira Bear clung tightly to Bruno’s mane, nervously peering down below.
Suddenly, the empty city below split apart as square stone blocks rose from underground. These blocks stacked layer upon layer, forming rows of square stone pillars that shot up at astonishing speed. In less than a breath, a forest of stone columns surrounded Quinn and his companions!
Standing amidst the stone forest, they seemed utterly insignificant.
The pillars were moving rapidly, clearly concealing the workings of a formation. Each time a pillar shifted, it would suddenly grow taller or shorter; the square stones slid sideways or upward, slotting themselves into other pillars.
Some pillars lay horizontally, bridging the gaps between others like beams—yet these beams were constantly lengthening and shortening. One moment a path seemed open ahead, but in the next instant, pillars would thunder together, merging into an impossibly thick wall.
Junwood City seemed to come alive again, but unlike before—when the entire city rampaged, devouring everything—now it had become a perpetually shifting, three-dimensional labyrinth.
Previously, Junwood City was just a massive monster that swallowed all in its path. It looked dangerous, but its sheer size made it unwieldy and less threatening. Now, as a multidimensional formation, its menace was vastly amplified!
Each of those perfectly square stones had six faces, every one engraved with a different rune pattern. As the blocks shifted and reassembled, the rune surfaces of adjacent stones always aligned seamlessly, forming new structures with every movement.
This was the most extraordinary aspect: the rearrangement of stones was just a façade. The true killing intent was hidden in the endlessly splitting and recombining rune structures.
Every unique combination of rune patterns created a different formation. With countless stone blocks, each bearing distinct runes, the possible combinations—and the variations in the formation—were inexhaustible!
“The divine arts of the Western Lands are truly magnificent!”
Quinn Shepherd couldn’t help but praise them from the heart. Though the divine arts of the Western Lands didn’t emphasize raw power like those of the Everpeace Empire, their ingenuity and wild creativity deeply impressed him!
He had studied the All-Gods Natural Art, but had never devoted himself to mastering it. Yet what Junwood City revealed was the collective wisdom of countless Western divine artists!