Chapter 169: Collapse and Fall, Survival

(Big chapters, big chapters, please leave some comments, brothers. Seeing comments from you dear readers makes me a hundred times more passionate, haha.)

"Crack." A sound of shattering, as if it existed yet never truly resonated, echoed throughout Wang Yu's mental space the moment he smashed his fist into the bedrock beneath the lake. He had intended to do this the moment he realized this object was both a key and the path to the treasure vault.

In his mental space, Wang Yu watched the foundation collapse. The boundless lake, which had existed since he first entered this space and awakened his wizarding abilities, plummeted downward along with the crumbling bedrock beneath it.

Wang Yu could feel his ability to wield Void energy fading. His wizarding power, tethered to the key residing within his mental space, began to vanish bit by bit as he crushed it. These waters represented his reserve of Void energy; when they drained away, his wizarding power would be extinguished forever.

Having lost the key and the foundation that bore the waters of the Void, Wang Yu would never again be able to attain the power of a wizard. This single punch had shattered not only the key but also Wang Yu’s path of sorcery.

"Heh, power that wasn't mine to begin with. So be it. Fall into the Void with me, you old bastard..."

Wang Yu watched the fragments of the bedrock collapse, feeling his wizarding strength ebb away, and wore a ferocious grin.

His mental space was now vast and empty. Without the clear, luminous lake reflecting the brilliant starry sky above, the interior of his mind had become monotonous and deathly still.

Yet, it was not entirely void of content. Wang Yu looked at the old door frame floating above the endless dark abyss that had opened beneath him. He knew then that this, indeed, was his true mental space; the lake that had vanished was merely a gift from the key.

"Let me see what the situation is like outside."

Wang Yu withdrew from his mental space and looked out at the material realm Roland had left behind in the Void.

As he had expected, the moment he shattered the key within his mind, the thirteen-level staircase—which the old man claimed protected them from the encroachment of the Void—began to collapse in unison.

Cracks appeared in the ground beneath his feet, spreading in all directions, splintering the solid masonry into fragments of varying sizes.

Soon, these broken sections lost their connection to the whole and began their endless descent into the Void, the debris of stone falling into the infinite darkness below.

The fracturing did not stop with Wang Yu; it spread to the ground where the other key-holders stood.

Just as the old man had said, these thirteen keys and thirteen steps were inseparable. They were a complete entity; once a part shattered, the entire structure faced an unstoppable destruction.

"What is happening?" The old man, distracted from his study of the sorcery books Roland had left behind, noticed the abnormality in the material realm meant to select a successor.

Starting from where Wang Yu stood, cracks proliferated, the process of collapse spreading from beneath his feet to the entire material realm. The sanctuary Roland had left in the Void was meeting its end.

"What have you done!?" The old man stared in disbelief at the crumbling realm. He was an expert among experts in the field of the Void, yet for that very reason, he could not comprehend what was happening before his eyes.

In his view, this material realm was indestructible; even a forbidden spell could not cause a scratch. Yet now, it was disintegrating, and soon, the entire domain would fall into the Void.

The origin of the collapse was beneath Wang Yu’s feet. The old man knew who the culprit was. The sheer incredulity, combined with the shattering of his ultimate goal to obtain Roland’s secret treasury, drove the old man into a hysterical frenzy. He demanded to know what the damned wretch had done.

Wang Yu watched the material realm collapse. He felt himself beginning to fall into the Void; the ground beneath him had loosened, no longer able to support him as the integrity of the realm failed.

At this moment, Wang Yu could do nothing. This weakling had done nothing but smash the key, flip the game table, and ruin everything.

But it was enough. He raised his middle finger at the old man and, as the ground beneath him gave way, he plummeted into the endless Void, far beyond the reach of Roland’s realm.

"What did I do? I remember a dying man asking me the same thing a long time ago. I didn't answer him then, but since I can't do anything now, I don't mind telling you: I just smashed the blind key that was sitting in my mental space. Old bastard, I'll be waiting for you in hell!"

Wang Yu smiled savagely, and under the old man’s gaze, he fell into the infinite Void along with the collapsing earth.

"Smashed the key? How is that possible? How! What power do you have? What right do you have to smash the key? How could anything affect these keys? I don't believe it! I won't accept it! Aaaaaah!"

The old man watched Wang Yu fall, feeling no satisfaction in his death. What Wang Yu had said—that he had smashed the key—shattered the old man’s entire understanding of reality. He knew what that key was; how could it possibly be destroyed?

Yet, it was a fact. The ground beneath Wang Yu, composed of the keys, had shattered. It was a truth happening right before his eyes. Even if he refused to believe it, the fact remained.

This truth, which tore his worldview apart, plunged the man who had plotted for countless years into an indescribable state of madness.

The cunning and the long-term planning had vanished from this ancient antique, leaving only exasperation and impotent rage.

When the thing he cared about most was pulverized and the possibility of obtaining the treasure was destroyed, his composure and his mental state shattered along with it.

"I will not give up. If the path is broken, I will force a new one into existence."

The old man muttered deliriously. He waited for the moment the material realm would collapse entirely, allowing the Void to reclaim the space.

The descent continued. The ground beneath the key-holders—now transformed into skeletal soldiers—was covered in cracks, breaking into fragments. The key-holder closest to Wang Yu had already fallen into the Void, just like him.

The cracks soon reached the old man. He felt the aura of the Void seeping into the material realm. He tried to use his wizarding power to manipulate the Void energy, but he failed.

For some reason, his formidable strength could not be channeled here. Even though the Void energy was everywhere, even though he was at the very source of his power, he could not call upon even a sliver of it.

The old man could not understand, but the Void would not give him time to reflect. As the ground beneath him cracked, he too began to fall. The power of the Void began to take over and consume everything, including the falling old man.

The Void surrounded the powerless old man, and the energy within it began to twist him—his body, his soul, his everything.

Just as the Void did to the material world, and just as the old man did when he borrowed its power to cast spells, the Void began to mercilessly distort the wizard who had once wielded it.

"Why, why?" The old man tried to channel his power to drive the Void energy, but it was useless. His usual methods of casting sorcery were ineffective.

His limbs twisted and mutated, and his soul was invaded by the madness and insanity of the Void. His consciousness began to disintegrate, or rather, to mutate; the self capable of rational thought grew smaller and smaller.

"Why, I can't use it... No... I used it, but why is it so little..."

The old man’s consciousness, in its final moments, still tried to use Void energy. His blurred mind felt something—a faint trace of energy was indeed being channeled.

But it was so little compared to what he had wielded as a legendary wizard, so little he could barely feel it. It was pitifully small compared to the force of the Void twisting his body.

"Could it be... I..." In his final moments, the old man’s remaining consciousness still pondered why he could not use his power. Perhaps he realized something, but it was too late, and for him, it no longer held any meaning.

He was completely twisted by the Void into a mass of deep purple energy, not even worthy of being called a fleshly mutation. Having lost his consciousness, he could no longer be called human; he was just another monster, shrieking as it drifted through the Void.

...

Wang Yu could not feel himself falling. The ground beneath him remained relatively still, and the material realm left by Roland, growing smaller above, was his only reference point for movement.

By now, that object was too small to see; he did not know if it had shattered or simply drifted beyond his field of vision.

He felt nothing else. Above was the starry sky, below was endless darkness. His sorcery was gone, but his Ripple remained, as expected. The concentration of Void energy around him was incomprehensibly high, yet he could not channel it, nor was he affected by it.

If things went as expected, he would keep falling until he starved to death in this Void world where time still flowed, or until he was discovered and killed by a powerful Void creature.

A rather terrible ending, but Wang Yu felt nothing. He was satisfied to have dragged that old bastard down with him.

If the key hadn't existed within his mental space, he might not have been able to smash it at all. He knew that within Roland’s material realm, he couldn't even fire a gun, let alone destroy a key.

But unfortunately, the key was in his mental space. Wang Yu didn't know the principle behind it, but nothing inside his mental space could contend with him. Even if he couldn't grasp it, it couldn't hurt him, and a key that couldn't run away could only be smashed by his fist.

What he did not know was that the moment he shattered the key, things contained within it were liberated, returning to the Void, and then to the material world, back to their original owners.

...

In the demi-plane of the Academy space, Aivia was constantly trying to locate Wang Yu using her newly mastered Phase Gate ability. But no matter how she searched, the only result was that he did not exist. Anxiety, agitation, and tension were forcibly suppressed by the girl; all that remained was focused searching, trying, and trying again.

Suddenly, Aivia felt a change. She lifted one of her arms in disbelief.

The arm that had been covered by the "Twin Star" gloves—first given by Aunt Lilia and later modified by the girl herself—the arm that had fused with the Void after saving Wang Yu’s life with secret energy, was now, for some reason, beginning to recover. It was no longer merging with the Void, but returning to the same state as her other arm.

Before she could be shocked or overjoyed, the girl noticed additional information brought by this recovered arm: the source of its recovery was a spatial coordinate she could not understand, chaotic and impossible to parse, constantly shifting.

"Is it there? Keep trying!"

And this coordinate was not only captured by the girl.

...

Wang Yu was still falling. There was nothing around him. He tried to channel some power—everything except wizarding power worked: potions, physical strength, the Furnace’s Fury, even the Weaver’s Book, and the Ripple—but none of it helped him escape the Void.

Wang Yu continued his meaningless attempts; at least he would keep trying until he starved. He raised an eyebrow; his Ripple had captured something behind him.

A door, similar to the one the Dark Ritual Codex had opened between the Void and the material world, had opened there. It was unstable and much smaller.

A hand reached out from within, grabbed Wang Yu’s leather armor, and pulled him in. The hand was familiar; Wang Yu did not resist.

Passing through the door, Wang Yu saw Samuel floating before him, his body already nearly fully etherealized.

"Thank you for saving me, Mr. Samuel." Wang Yu expressed his gratitude with the utmost sincerity; the librarian had truly kept his word and pulled him back from the brink.

"It was a confluence of coincidences, I suppose. At the very last moment, in the final hour before my silence—a brief window where I was finally unshackled—I reclaimed a fragment of my humanity. That allowed me to master the Grimoire of Dark Rites, a tome I had studied for eons without success."

Samuel, his form now translucent and ethereal, lifted the grimoire. His voice had grown rich with emotion, softened to a degree that reminded Wang Yu of Zieg.

The Void Gate above the grimoire was slowly sealing; it was this very portal that had reached into the abyss to drag Wang Yu home.

"I could not pinpoint your location before, but just now, something pierced the boundary of the void and passed through here, carrying with it a shifting coordinate."

"I opened the gate on a whim, never expecting to actually pull you out. To save an interesting fellow like you in my final moments of silence... that is not a bad way to go."

Wang Yu scanned the library. Like the material realm Roland had left behind, this space was disintegrating. The floor cracked, bookshelves crumbled into dust, and the ceiling peeled away in fading layers. Coupled with Samuel’s own vanishing form, this was the Silence, then...

"Mr. Samuel, is there anything I can do for you?" Wang Yu looked at the fading librarian and asked earnestly. The man had done so much for him; in fairness and by his own moral code, he owed a debt he wished to repay.

"The library must close one day. These truths are simply being freed from their bindings. They will return to where they belong, flowing back into the hands of sentient beings, no longer mere secrets."

"I shall use my final strength to send you out. But if you truly wish to do something... perhaps you can. Ha! Reclaiming my human nature has made me sentimental. Not a very good 'Firekeeper,' am I?"

Samuel laughed, a gentle, joyful sound. Though his face remained hidden beneath his hood, his tone was heavy with reflection and relief.

"I would like you to remember my surname: Hayden. I am Samuel Hayden, the last of the Hayden line, and a Firekeeper who was, perhaps, adequate enough."

"Indeed, even at the very end, one hopes to be remembered by someone in this world. You are special; telling you my identity will not trigger any occult repercussions. And later, when you tell others, it will simply become part of the concept of 'knowledge' itself."

Samuel had revealed his name and the title of "Firekeeper"—a role whose purpose remained a mystery to Wang Yu. The librarian seemed to crave remembrance, yet for reasons unknown, he had kept his identity hidden from all others until now.

"If I may be so bold, are you... a god?" Wang Yu hesitated, then asked, recalling someone else who had once spoken to him in a similar vein.

"You... how did you know? But it matters little now. It is true, I was once a priest of the God of Knowledge, and now I suppose I am that god. But there will be no God of Knowledge hereafter—only knowledge itself, in its purest form."

Samuel was startled for a moment before smiling to confirm Wang Yu’s suspicion.

"Because a friend of mine, who is a god, once said something similar."

Wang Yu replied.

"A god for a friend? Your uniqueness truly exceeds my imagination. Very well, with my final sixth-circle spell, I shall send you away. Your companion is still trying to find you—treat her well, lad."

With a sigh of quiet wonder, Samuel waved his hand, and the ripples of spatial teleportation enveloped Wang Yu.

"Mr. Samuel Hayden, if it is possible, may I take a biography of yours as a physical memento from this library?"

As the teleportation began to pull him away, a thought struck Wang Yu, and he made his request.

Samuel paused, then laughed, "You greedy boy! I have so little power left... take it, then, though it is but a small fragment."

As Samuel spoke and the magic took hold, a thin booklet appeared in Wang Yu’s hand. The next instant, he vanished from the crumbling library.

In the ruins, Samuel watched with a smile as the "fire" that had kept him company for untold ages flickered out, and he descended into the final silence.

...

In the academy’s demi-plane, amidst the constant entreaties of the Dean to cease, Evie continued her desperate search. Suddenly, she caught a tremor in the spatial fabric. She and the Dean, an Archmage who had also sensed the anomaly, turned their gaze toward a single point.

A stable portal opened, and Wang Yu stepped through, clutching a thin booklet.

He offered a smile.

"I survived, and I brought back a souvenir. Not bad at all!"