Chapter 266: The End of the Road
If even someone like Oliver Skye is considered mad, then perhaps there isn't a single sane person left in all of Northend...
Leon Merlin couldn't help but think that Oliver Skye might be one of the deepest scholars of Ashan Script in Northend's history. He could hardly imagine what it was like for the Eye of the Sky to spend a hundred years imprisoned, obsessively researching the Ashan Dynasty—how could he possibly have achieved such mastery over Ashan Script?
Judging from the Ashan Script written in blood, Oliver Skye was able to use the ancient language without any difficulty, as if he himself were some primordial god or demon.
Of course, Oliver Skye was definitely not some ancient god or demon.
Otherwise, those three court mages wouldn't have been able to stop him from assassinating the Emperor, let alone imprison him in the tower for a full century—even if all three had reached Sky Rank.
At this moment, Leon Merlin was certain.
When Oliver Skye wrote that passage of Ashan Script in blood, he was completely lucid.
So here comes the question...
Leon Merlin could barely guess at the meaning of the first passage, but the ones that followed left him utterly baffled—destruction, no way out... What kind of situation was Oliver Skye in when he wrote these passages of Ashan Script in blood?
Wait, no way out, no way out...
At that moment, Leon Merlin's expression froze.
Earlier, the Sky Rank Alchemical Golem I found in that abandoned warehouse seemed to have said the exact same thing.
"There is no road ahead..."
Yes, that's the phrase.
There really is no road ahead!
Wait, there was another phrase before this.
"Is anyone still alive?"
Put together, these two phrases sound utterly baffling. Yet what’s truly unsettling is that one of them appeared again here on the Plane Path—spoken by none other than the legendary Eye of the Sky, Oliver Skye!
Leon Merlin couldn't help but ponder...
Gale winds, torrential rain, thunder, and lightning—strange phenomena began to manifest. Leon Merlin knew these were the result of that immense power being suppressed by the Plane Path, unable to break free.
"Everyone, be careful—we’re almost there!" Leon called out, then began to channel all his magic, fending off the terrifying phenomena unleashed by the suppressed power.
Time crawled by. Amid the howling winds, thunder roared, lightning flashed, and rain poured down. The team’s progress was agonizingly slow, like snails struggling forward—each step a battle, each moment a torment. No one knew how long it lasted, until suddenly, the boundless light ahead burst forth...
In a daze, Leon Merlin seemed to hear a deafening "boom"—or perhaps he heard nothing at all...
Then, everything opened up before his eyes...
"We finally made it..." Leon stood there, stunned. Beneath his feet shimmered a field of stars and endless void; above, a vast vortex slowly turned. Leon remembered, back in Prince Barov’s tomb, when he touched the Eye of Reincarnation and witnessed the dawn of creation—he’d seen this very vortex. Here was the origin of everything, and its end.
Ahead lay a boundless, infinite void—no end in sight. Magic poured forth from the emptiness, limitless and overwhelming. Even after the Plane Path’s suppression, Leon felt a crushing pressure he could not resist...
That place was the legendary Apocalypse Plane, known as the Mythic Plane...
However...
This plane, spoken of only in myth, was nothing like the legends—there was no river of gold, not even the faintest trace of life. All that remained was endless loneliness and decay. Standing there, Leon Merlin even thought of his own subrealm, where earth, water, fire, and wind had yet to take shape.
Yes, it was exactly that feeling...
The entire plane was as silent as death. The air no longer moved, life no longer existed, and even time seemed frozen. All Leon saw was endless, empty void—the Mythic Plane of legend was dead...
"How could it be like this..." Leon stood there, staring into the infinite emptiness, utterly stupefied.
How could the legendary Mythic Plane be this way?
The entire Apocalypse Plane held nothing but endless magic—no other existence remained.
No, even this boundless magic carried the scent of death.
Leon Merlin once tried to absorb a trace of the leaking magic, attempting to analyze it with his Mana Harness. But as soon as that sliver of magic entered the device, his face turned ghostly pale. He instantly activated the Mana Harness with all his strength, forcing the magic out.
Just that single attempt left Leon seriously injured.
The power of this magic was unlike anything Leon had ever seen—even a single trace rivaled a Soul Magic Crystal. If Leon could freely meditate on it, he might reach the rank of Titled Archmage in mere days.
But unfortunately...
This magic couldn’t be used by anyone.
When Leon absorbed that trace of magic, he immediately sensed its strange, lifeless nature. It entered the Mana Harness, but couldn’t circulate at all—like a corpse, it clogged the device completely.
The Mana Harness was Leon’s very foundation—if it couldn’t function, his magical journey would end right there. In that instant, cold sweat broke out as he risked damaging the device, forcing the magic out by sheer will.
Luckily, Leon’s fortune held...
The Mana Harness survived intact, but the forceful expulsion left Leon’s body badly wounded.
Just a trace of that magic was more terrifying than facing a Titled Archmage head-on...
After that lesson, Leon didn’t dare relax for a moment. He drank a recovery potion to heal his wounds, all the while standing on high alert, rapidly cycling the Mana Harness and analyzing the endless void before him.
"Hm?" Leon didn’t know how much time had passed before he finally detected a strange magical fluctuation—coming from his Crystal Balance.
Since Leon had suppressed the Relic Spirit of the Crystal Balance, the magical device had operated silently, maintaining the Plane Path but never emitting any magical waves.
Leon never expected that, after traversing the long Plane Path and finally approaching the Apocalypse Plane, the Crystal Balance would suddenly emit such a strange magical fluctuation.
Sensing that magical fluctuation, Leon instinctively activated the Mana Harness. Without the Relic Spirit, the Crystal Balance now operated purely on instinct. With little effort, Leon easily captured the fluctuation using his device.
Then...
Suddenly, Leon felt a flood of information streaming from that magical fluctuation. At first, he was cautious, carefully filtering the data through the Mana Harness, wary of hidden traps.
After all, the Crystal Balance didn’t have the best reputation...
But soon, Leon realized this information wasn’t from the malicious Relic Spirit, but from the Crystal Balance itself.
A magical relic had no consciousness. No matter how cunning or malevolent its Relic Spirit, once suppressed, the device could only act on instinct.
With that, Leon sped up his reception of the data.
After about ten minutes, Leon finally grasped the full meaning of the information.
"It’s the method for controlling the Plane Path..." Leon was stunned—the information the Crystal Balance delivered was this!