Chapter 172: In Full Swing

Boom!

The blustering explosion of energy released a colorful display of light.

The entire sky was instantly filled with multicolored light, glimmering like a massive rainbow.

Then, Su Chen suddenly discovered that the sky was spinning, as was the earth.

The whole world seemed to be in flux.

It was as if something was stretching, expanding, and dilating.

This was the mountain flattening and the void stretching. The scene felt surreal, and it was as if they were riding on the shoulders of a massive person who had been asleep for a long time.

Ye Qiming unleashed a punch towards a Ferocious Race youth’s face. The blow was about to land when he suddenly discovered that his reach was much too short. Even though they seemed close together, it was as if they were separated by a massive ocean……

Cloud Leopard closed in on the spear-wielding Temple Warrior. He was faster than his opponent, but he found that the more he ran, the greater the distance became between them. Even though his opponent was slower, the gap between them only continued to widen……

Tang Ming gestured. A water dragon coiled around his body, then howled as it charged forwards. However, it didn’t return to Tang Ming’s side; rather, it continued its charge, quickly pulling apart from him. Tang Ming had lost control over it……

The other people also felt the effects of the world being thrown topsy-turvy.

The mountain was agitated, and the void was trembling. The whole world around them rocked as if it were being shaken by violent waves of energy.

At this moment, the void had suddenly gained physical substance. It was being squeezed and was beginning to collapse and destabilize.

Shockingly, the castle at the very top also began to enlarge.

Upon seeing it massively expand like a beast swallowing them up, everyone was stunned.

It expanded so fast that it quickly took over most of the remaining space in the void, including the battle happening below it.

The people who were still fighting saw the research lab’s door suddenly open. The pitch-black entrance opened like a giant maw and swallowed them up.

“AHHH!” Everyone let out frightened, panicked yells.

However, they were completely powerless against the void’s massive expanding power. They slowly gravitated towards the seemingly bottomless hole.

“Qingluo!” Su Chen yelled.

Gu Qingluo spun through the air towards the black hole. She glanced at Su Chen as if she wanted to say something, but she wasn’t able to get the words out in time before she disappeared into the entrance.

Su Chen wanted to chase, but he was still holding Pi Yuanhong. He could only watch as Gu Qingluo disappeared, allowing himself to be slowly drawn in as well.

Suddenly, he heard Ji Ruoyu cry out from beside him, “Senior Brother Su, save me!”

Su Chen waved his hand. An air tentacle wrapped around Ji Ruoyu and pulled him next to Su Chen. The three of them fell into the dark hole simultaneously.

————————————————

Bang! Su Chen, Pi Yuanhong, and Ji Ruoyu slammed into a nearby wall.

“Ah!” Ji Ruoyu cradled his head as he cried out in pain.

He found that he had collided with a wall made of metal.

At this moment, he was in a long corridor.

Su Chen placed Pi Yuanhong on the ground and began to take in his surroundings. He stared at the ceiling above him and said, “It seems that we are inside the research lab now. But Ruoyu, can you tell me why we ended up here if we fell through the front door?”

Ji Ruoyu replied, “It should be due to multidimensional interference.”

“Multidimensional interference?” Su Chen understood somewhat.

The concept of “multidimensional interference” was a void-dimension-related term. During the Arcana Kingdom’s reign, some Arcana Masters had proposed the concept of “dimensions”, splitting the perceivable world into three dimensions. Su Chen had heard of this theory before; two-dimensional objects were planar, while three-dimensional objects occupied physical space. Looking from three-dimensional space into two-dimensional space was like a person looking at a piece of paper. Everything on the piece of paper could be clearly seen. An ant, for instance, would need to crawl across the whole sheet of paper to get from one end to another, but to a human, all it took was a simple glance.

This was what Ji Ruoyu meant when he said “multidimensional interference”.

If it was because of multidimensional interference, Su Chen could understand why they had appeared in this particular corner of the research lab.

From a higher-dimensional viewpoint, the whole research lab was spread out and could be directly entered.

This was also the theory behind jumping in and out of ancient Arcana void spaces. Every void jump was actually due to temporarily bringing one’s body into a higher dimension and then going from that higher dimension back into a lower one.

However, this was different from Whitetower Teleportation, which relied on an alternative shortcut that isn’t worth mentioning here.

“Now what do we do?” Ji Ruoyu glanced at Su Chen.

“What else can we do?” Su Chen glanced at his surroundings again. “Since we’re already here, we’ll deal with things as they come up. Kill whoever needs to be killed, save whoever needs to be saved, and take whatever needs to be taken!”

“Okay!” Ji Ruoyu nodded seriously. “But we should move fast. I can sense that the void’s collapse is only accelerating. We might not have much more time left.”

“How long do we have left?”

“We originally had thirty days left, but if the collapse continues to accelerate, these thirty days could go by in three hours.”

“Dammit! What are we waiting for?” Su Chen grabbed Pi Yuanhong and began to walk in a certain direction.

As they walked down the hallway, they passed by room after room.

The rooms weren’t too large. Each room had a bed; based on the size of the beds, it seemed like they weren’t used by Arcana Race individuals but by humans.

Because humans were relatively intelligent, the Arcana Race preferred to use them as slaves.

They were probably in the slaves’ quarters right now.

It wasn’t possible for any valuable items to be here, so Su Chen just took a cursory glance before leaving.

Time was short. He couldn’t afford to slowly search every corner.

They walked through the long hallway and down a few more winding corridors when Su Chen’s eyes suddenly lit up.

They had come in front of a bright, spacious room. Through the window made of crystal in front of them, they could see all kinds of strange vials and jars containing unknown substances.

“It’s a research lab!” Su Chen said excitedly.

He charged in, holding Pi Yuanhong in his arms.

He was just about to enter when a Ferocious Race youth suddenly charged out of the research lab.

The Ferocious Race youth’s body was covered in blood. Evidently, he was pretty seriously wounded. However, he showed no fear upon running into Su Chen and the others as he pounced forwards.

Upon seeing that Ferocious Race youth charge at him, Su Chen threw Pi Yuanhong over to Ji Ruoyu, then charged forward to meet him.

The Ferocious Race youth howled as he charged forwards. Su Chen grabbed the Ferocious Race youth’s arm. The two briefly competed in strength, but Su Chen won. He pulled the Ferocious Race youth’s arm back, breaking it with a loud SNAP. Then, Su Chen launched a kick right at the Ferocious Race youth’s knee.

The Ferocious Race youth couldn’t even activate the inscriptions on his body after having fought for so long. Su Chen’s kick shattered his kneecap, causing him to instantly buckle to the ground.

Su Chen took advantage of the opportunity to cradle the Ferocious Race youth’s head in his arms before making a violent twisting motion.

With a crack, the Ferocious Race youth sagged to the ground.

“Beautifully done!” Ji Ruoyu yelled.

“The opponent was already badly wounded. That wasn’t much of a victory,” Su Chen casually replied as he glanced back at Ji Ruoyu.

Suddenly, his speed shot up as he kicked Ji Ruoyu, sending him flying.

Boom!

A ferocious flying axe narrowly whizzed by Ji Ruoyu’s body, slamming into the ground.