There were no nameless strange creatures in the corridor, no terrifying evil spirits with transparent bodies, and not even any visible creatures.
There was nothing in the corridor with flickering candlelight.
Deep in the corridor where the fire was completely extinguished, the wall emitted a faint light that almost merged with the darkness, flickering at a frequency almost as fast as a heartbeat.
Just by looking at the dim lights, Xia De really felt that he heard the sound of a huge heart beating. At this moment, his body and soul were completely frozen in time and space, and he vaguely understood something.
What he was looking at was the Dreadfort. There was nothing chasing him from the beginning. The thing that exuded fear, that seemed to drive away any outsiders, was the Dreadfort itself.
Those deep dim lights represent the Dreadfort itself. And the so-called "Dreadfort" actually has consciousness, it is a living thing.
The fear beyond his limit made Shad almost completely lose consciousness in an instant. The impact of the fear even made him feel that he was about to fall into a deep sleep from which he would never wake up.
"No, will I be afraid of fear?"
Under the tree in the Thousand Tree Forest, after the gods temporarily left, the memory of him and the two witches facing the boundless darkness of terror came into his mind. This fear seemed to arouse some kind of power lurking in his soul, and the Tree Kiss Spirit Rune, which had never been associated with any magic, trembled slightly in his soul.
This moment was a fragile one close to complete emotional collapse. The primitive fear of the body and the clarity of the soul after its recovery in courage formed a distinct sense of dislocation, allowing Shad to clearly feel the strangeness of his soul for the first time.
Not only were there two drops of divinity protecting him in his soul, he also felt as if there was something warm yet somewhat cold hugging him from behind.
"That is..."
Even though facing the source of fear in the Dreadfort froze his body and soul, the impulse and desire in an instant still miraculously made him turn his head.
In front of him was the Dreadfort, but when he turned around, he saw endless white fog. In the glowing white fog, there was a giant tree that he couldn't see the whole picture even if he looked up.
The tree seemed to connect heaven and earth, and also seemed to support heaven and earth. Its root system was well-developed, its canopy was luxuriant, and the veins on its transparent trunk seemed to record the story of an entire civilization.
Looking at the tree, a warm feeling washed over his body and soul, allowing him to quickly wake up from the negative state of seeing the source of fear. But at the same time, the most real spiritual feeling that his soul felt at the moment of breaking also disappeared.
The transparent treetops swayed gently in the white mist. Xia De reached out his hand with a sense of loss and took two swirling green leaves that were falling.
"It was you I felt just now?"
He asked softly.
The white mist around him shrank towards the door of the door-shaped pendant that appeared at his feet. The scene of the open space in the center of the dark cornfield slowly emerged as the white mist disappeared. Darkness was invading the space around Shad's body.
Not getting a response, he sighed and wanted to bend down to pick up the twenty-sided dice of fate. After all, the battle with the powerful demon was not over yet.
But unexpectedly, before the white mist around him completely disappeared, the demon holding black fire human bones rushed up, as if he was eager to make Shade sleep here forever.
Stranger, you have returned to the present time.
Message from the ancient god "Father of the Infinite Tree":
"Will you not answer my question?"
Xia De kept bending over to pick up the dice, preparing to stand up and throw the dice. Because after the dice was thrown, it would definitely be twenty points.
Infinite time protects you.
The demon, wrapped in darkness and suppressing the silver moonlight on Shad's body, finally appeared in front of him.
At this time, there were still a few wisps of white mist around Xia De that had not completely disappeared, and the appearance of the demon seemed to have disturbed something. Behind Xia De, the shadow of a giant tree that seemed to penetrate the sky and earth, which had disappeared with the disappearance of the white mist, unexpectedly reappeared at this moment.
Thick fog suddenly emerged from behind Shade, as if he had returned to the corridor of time again. But the target of the fog was not Shade. As the branches of the giant tree behind him swayed, the fog rushed forward and swallowed the demon in front of Shade, and then quietly disappeared in the surroundings.
The disappearance of the white fog brought darkness back, but there were no demons around, not even a trace of them.
"What does this mean?"
Xia De straightened up holding the entry dice and looked at the metal door pendant under his feet. It had returned to normal.
Infinite time protects you.
She repeated this sentence, and Xia De nodded thoughtfully:
"So, every time I complete the mission of a key and return from the past time, anyone who wants to attack me at this moment will be counterattacked by the power left behind by the Infinite Tree Father?"
But this seems to be useless. Not only is this treatment only available after completing the key mission, but there is also not always a fool who will attack Shade at this time.
"But in any case, it's a good thing to have dealt with the enemy."
He bent down to pick up his relics and spell materials on the ground, then looked at the two leaves in his hands.
After a little thought, he casually covered his right eye with one of the pieces.
The veins on the leaves sparkled with golden light, which gradually gathered and entered Shad's right eye, and a whole new power surged into Shad's soul.
"Breath of Time?"
It took him at least half a minute to take the leaf off his hand, as the voice in his heart was already giving him the specific information about the magic.
Breath of Time, a magic that corresponds to the Spirit Rune of Time and Space. This is an active release magic that requires casting materials.
There are two magic effects, corresponding to the actions of "exhale" and "inhale". When Shade uses magic and "inhales", he can restore an old object to its appearance at an earlier time.
Shade took out his pocket watch that had been damaged by water in Coldwater Harbor, summoned the life ring behind him and activated the magic. As he took a deep breath, some gray air flow split into two streams from the pocket watch and entered his nose. The rust on the surface of the pocket watch peeled off, and the hands began to move again.
"For ordinary items, with my second-ring spirit, I can at most restore them to the state they were in three months ago. It is ineffective for relics, but it is effective for living things and other special items because I am not interfering with the items themselves, but with time, but it consumes more spirit."
Of course, Shad's interference with the pocket watch only made it return to the moment when he and Leicia jumped off the ship. He couldn't consume all his spirit just to test the magic.
When Shade uses magic and performs the "whoosh" action, he can make the target object quickly corrode by time. This does not mean that the time point of the object will come to the future, but that it will decay naturally. If the target is in the air when using magic, it will be quickly oxidized, and in the wind, it will be quickly eroded.
Although I didn't waste my spirit to try again, it was easier to speed up the target time than to restore it. If the restoration of ordinary items currently takes up to three months, then the acceleration can reach up to one year. Of course, corrupting the target can also be used on living things and some special items, but the corresponding difficulty will be much greater.
The most crucial information about Breath of Time is that the material for casting is lifespan. Once a month, a spell can be cast without materials, which is the one Xia De just did. Before the end of this natural month, that is, before the end of today, the time of the effect will be affected, and one tenth of the lifespan of the affected time will be consumed as the material for casting.
"Although it sounds magical, and can even allow a low-level sorcerer like me to directly affect time, the price is too high, isn't it? Even if the spirit is sufficient, the longest time it can affect at one time is only about a thousand years... Well, thinking about it this way, it seems that the price is not too high."
Xia De sighed in his heart, but he did not put another leaf representing a piece of real information - the dark dungeon in front of him to read it. The leaf can only be used once, but he doesn't have the mind to memorize such complicated information now.
Whatever help this information might give him, he planned to wait until his adventure in the Dark Realm was over before investigating.
After making sure all the items were picked up, Shad turned into the cornfield and found Luvia curled up next to God's gift box.
She was sleeping soundly, and Shade was terrified, thinking that she had fallen into that kind of eternal sleep again. But when she heard the footsteps, Luvia woke up slightly. Although her mental state was still very bad, it was actually better than when Shade left.
She forced a smile at Shade:
"You're back? Oh, I actually fell asleep."
"Something happened, but it's not dangerous anymore."
Shade carefully helped Luvia up, then turned around and put the box back on his back. The God's gift box glowed very quietly, with nothing unusual.
"Come with me, I have found the location your divination directed me to."
With Shad by her side, Luvia felt much better. The two of them returned to the center of the cornfield where Shad had just fought the demon, and Shad briefly explained what had happened in just a few minutes.
Then, Shade, who was extremely sensitive to spatial traces, found the spatial gap that connected to an unknown location. They held hands and stepped into the gap. It was just like using Ragnarok's jump, and there was no special feeling at all.
When I lifted my legs, I was surrounded by cornfields, and when my legs touched the ground again, I was surrounded by a flat road in the dark.
Behind him was a forest, and on both sides were roads extending in the direction of the road. Some figures of the past were floating around, blurry and difficult to identify. Xia De raised his finger and pointed forward. With the dim light, his eyes could barely see a manor standing quietly in the deep darkness.
"This is... Miss Carina's manor. We are at Miss Carina's manor!"
The witch's manor was as dark as the surroundings, but seeing the familiar building in the darkness still made Shade smile. He didn't believe that the manor had also fallen into darkness.