Chapter 104

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Chapter 104: Net of Karma

A current of air coiled around the Elf King’s hand as he drew the bow.

The vibrant power had no color, only the increasingly sharp sound of the activated airflow bursting forth. The people around had retreated to over ten meters away, vines rising under the Great Druids’ command unlike any Arborist Tasha had ever seen. The vines they pulled up were as sturdy as steel, as heavy as a wall, seeming to have grown for a thousand years in an instant, like the plants entwined around Sleeping Beauty’s castle in a fairy tale.

In the narrow prison cell entwined with vines, the heavy ebony bow was slowly pulled back, the bowstring full like a full moon.

The Elf King now looked more down-to-earth than before.

His teeth clenched, brows furrowed, the hand pulling the bow motionless, but the veins on the back of his hand bulging. The Forest Elf King no longer appeared regal like before, now he resembled a weapon unsheathed, sharp and dangerous. In this moment, his identity was not of an elf or a king, but of a legendary archer, a pure warrior.

The silver tips of his long hair were lifted by the sharp wind, some caught in the airstream were quickly shredded. Next, his armor suffered, the runic symbols embroidered on the cuffs lit up one by one then dimmed, blending into a dull thread. Both sleeves shattered at the same time, revealing his pristine white arms, the soft and delicate skin holding up against the fierce wind, tiny blood marks beginning to spread like cracks.

The next scene was unbearable to look at.

Blood burst open in the increasingly strong airflow, the Forest Elf’s blood was also red. Even if someone stood inside the vine wall erected by the Great Druid, even if someone stood by the Elf King’s side watching, no one could see the appearance of the ebony bow clearly. The turbulent airflow turned into a vortex, countless miniature tornadoes swirling around the Elf King, as if startled, as if loading. That area became more and more unstable, the light distorted, staring at that spot was like looking through frosted glass.

In the end, even the Elf King’s figure became blurred. Amidst the mirage-like unstable scene, only the arrow grew brighter.

"Release – the shot!" the Elf King shouted sharply.

The arrow was released.

The dark wood bow shattered in that moment, a Divine Artifact crafted by a legendary Dwarf Craftsman that had accompanied the Elf King for hundreds of years was completely destroyed. The magical arrow had been brewing for a long time, consuming a huge amount of energy, using special materials as its carrier. The force of the long bow’s destruction ultimately sent it on its final journey. The magical arrow was imbued with incredibly powerful energy, shining brightly and unstoppable.

The brilliance was even brighter than before it was released, by the time it reached halfway through the air, it was too bright for the naked eye to look directly at, like trying to stare at a falling meteor that you couldn’t quite see – maybe even a star.

The star falling from the ground to the sky burst in a certain place in the sky.

Its appearance was grand, but its disappearance was silent. The radiance suddenly extinguished, starting off strong but ending weak, as if it had been swallowed by a mouth in the air.

Only a moment later, the place where the meteor disappeared began to distort.

There was no big mouth in the sky, but this arrow could tear one open. Rather than being swallowed, it was as if the power of this arrow had entered an invisible place to the naked eye. The sky began to distort, the distortion turned into collapse, and the collapse spread through cracks. A dazzling light suddenly spread out from the point where the arrow disappeared.

This scene was somewhat like The Day of Red Rain, but the energy of bloodline detection devices, even after strengthening, could not compare to this arrow.

Like the moment a bullet shatters a glass dome, everything froze under the tremendous impact.

The Elf King holding the bow stood proudly, with the shards of the dark wood bow still floating in mid-air; the surrounding Great Druids formed a circle, the reinforced vine wall showing the legendary creature’s hardness, and the vines’ flexibility as they twisted and absorbed the spreading impact; the Forest Elves looked up, squinting their eyes, some shielding their eyes from the bright light; the half-breeds of Aryans looked up, they saw…

Saw the blue sky shattered.

It seemed like an eggshell just cracked, with a large crack but a small hole. The space crack twisted for a moment, beginning to shrink as if it were alive, seemingly returning to the moment before the damage, yet the arrow firmly held the opening in place. A circular tunnel shape fixed in the air, Tasha took a breath, peering through the passage in the sky, she saw the "infinite".

This is the path to the Astral Plane.

The Astral Plane in the illusion seemed to have been softened many times, but only to reproduce such a small imitation, the world in the mirror shattered.

Is it unable to bear or has the energy been exhausted? The vivid forest just now became as thin as a scroll in a moment. The figures in the painting shattered, all superficial appearances fell apart, turning into the essence of the fantasy world.

The connection of cause and effect.

The Heart of Nature recorded the scene before the Forest Elf and Great Druid left. The Oak Elder witnessed the magic arrow shooting into the sky that year, although the young Oak Guardian at that time did not understand what he saw and heard. Based on this knowledge and memory, various information reconstructed this illusion. And when this arrow shattered the azure sky, spatial fragments fell in various corners of Aryan, spreading "connections" to the distance; cause and effect entangled each other. Tasha’s gaze expanded along the invisible line, in the moment of the world’s fragmentation, sweeping over Aryan.

Countless creatures looked at the sky, some confused, pointing to the sky with their fingers, some seemed to have known in advance, clenching their fists and furrowing their brows, as if holding their breath. What exactly happened back then? While pondering this, Tasha saw it.

What would it look like if the world fell ill?

In Aryan’s land to the east, some areas had no grass growing, and it looked similar to where the Magic Cannon had destroyed, but even more disgusting. If the Magic Cannon’s destruction was like burning skin with a hot iron, the scene in front of them was like rot caused by disease, with rust-colored liquid seeping from the soil, almost forming a river. Bordering these contaminated areas, the edges of the blue sky had a strange white tint, not from smoke or haze, but like aged corpses. And above these polluted areas, the sky had completely changed due to the sickness.

Who would have thought that in the Primary Material Plane, they could see a purple sky?

It wasn’t a beautiful colorful sky, but rather frostbite that was about to decay. Storms with lightning suddenly came and went, huge hailstones fell one after another, as if this nauseating purple sky was about to collapse. The land here was oozing, waters were festering, and the living beings that hadn’t died were becoming aggressive and bellicose. Red-eyed deer were attacking their own kind, thin bears were gnawing at sharp-toothed strange fish, with bald patches on their bodies revealing smooth red skin.

Various disasters erupted on the Eastern Continent, some claimed it was a curse from demons, while others swore it was the evil fruit of forsaking the gods. Rumors spread about the sky cracking open, hail and lightning falling freely; they said the eastern seas were boiling like magma, with red on the sea either magma or the blood of merfolk; they spoke of withering spreading across the land, death slithering like snakes everywhere… Mavis once recounted the rumors her grandparents and mother heard, the reality was as bad as the rumors, deep down worse than the rumors.

Tasha recognized familiar signs of disaster at a glance.

In another place, the indigenous people were born in purple-black soil, already learning to kill each other before opening their eyes, this fighting lasted their whole lives, from the sky to the ground, from ice caves to lava fields all were battlefields. There, the earth dragons constantly shifted, blood rivers flowed, and stars fell to the ground; there, the sky hung high for three days, the purple sky incomparably magnificent.

Aryan’s Eastern Continent did not face doomsday, it only became somewhat similar to the abyss.

In the network woven by the cause and effect line, Tasha heard various sounds.

"If we don’t cut off the rotten sores, the entire body will be contaminated, and it will be too late then." an unknown wizard said, "Abandonment is necessary."

"Who else can do it besides the Sons of Nature?" shouted the unknown hero, "Do you think I don’t want to help? How could I just sit here and wait, watching my wife, the mother of my children, go on a distant journey? What if something goes wrong? You also said…"

"I don’t think so," said the red dragon, "They are too confident, do they think they are dragons?"

"Don’t worry, my dear, I am a warrior who survived the Battle of the Heaven and Earth," said Mavis’s grandfather, "I will find out what’s happening. Then I will come back and tell you all a fascinating story."

"We fought alongside humans for centuries, sacrificed nearly half of our people, lost a quarter of the land, just to drive the creatures of the abyss out of the surface. They will destroy all beauty on the surface, crush the bodies of living beings, and devour the souls of the dead," said Oak Elder.

"This is a good idea, very clever," said Victor.

Tasha’s vision and hearing suddenly narrowed.

It was like being in the spotlight on a pitch-black night, everything around was blurry, only able to see a huge demonic figure sitting on a large luxurious chair, resembling a final boss from an electronic game. He crossed his hands, kicked his feet, staring at something in front of him.

"I never thought the idea of dividing Heavenly Realm was feasible, they are not dead, and the creatures on the Primary Material Plane are not fools," Victor shrugged, "Yes, pollution is more feasible."

An unseen visitor made a sound.

"Why should I oppose?" Victor raised his eyebrows in surprise and said, "Yes, my relationship with your honored Rasheda has not always been great, but we both acknowledge each other’s rare intelligence, don’t we? Even though we may have different focuses and views on certain things, dealing with a clever mind still… What? Assimilated by the Primary Material Plane? Me? Oh, dear Raste, you really know how to joke. I think I understand why Rasheda keeps you around, what great entertainment!"

The conversation seemed to come to an end as the visitor left. Victor maintained his posture, and the smile on his face slowly faded.

"’Contamination’ and ‘division’ are much alike," he muttered to himself, "What a pity, the Primary Material Plane, akin to the abyss, how dull it must be."

However, there was no third possibility – Tasha read such thoughts from his heart.

Polluting the Primary Material Plane, dividing the Primary Material Plane, both equally dull, yet one must be chosen. It had to be so, because…

Time began to flow again, and Victor’s memories entangled in the cause and effect line burst like bubbles at that moment.