The damages caused to the secret realm were devastating, and Shane assumed that more than half of the ancient magi trees had either been reduced to mere hollow stumps or severely burned down.

Shane had been too late, and could only shake his head in frustration about the losses as hundreds of treants seemed to have died too.

Sighing deeply, he asked Talia to communicate to Levi to stop using her high grade water affinity before he focused on the secret realm once again.

‘Something must have happened when I was not there!’ He thought, which made Shane walk around the destroyed area.

Even if it was possible for everything to be an extremely unfortunate incident, the chances were pretty slim.

Furthermore, Shane felt as if it was too coincidental, thus he focused on the surroundings and if it was possible for him to find clues to make sense of the situation.

Not a single treant was in sight when he walked through the area that had been burned down, but that was only obvious.

The treants were still scared and far away from his current location.

It would probably take them a while before they regained their composure.

In the end, treants might not be beings out of flesh, but they had sentience and a wide range of emotions that made them no different from highly intelligent beasts!

As such, they were still afraid of the fire spirits’ attack and filled with agony owing to their brethren’s death.

Never before had they witnessed such an incident, thus it was even more shocking.

Thus, while the treants were fighting the demons in their mind, Shane first checked the secret realm.

In the end, the entire realm was at least as large as his Soul world with the size it had enlarged to not long ago.

As such, it took him quite a while to run through the entire burned forest, while inspecting every nook and cranny.

Yet, in the end, Shane found what he had been looking for as he reached the end of the secret realm.

There was nothing but empty air that had replaced the surrounding soil with a dome enveloping the entire realm.

This dome released faint energy currents, but Shane wasn’t impressed by that.

‘Maybe the necessary energy to maintain the dome has lessened?’ This was one thought Shane had in his mind to explain the sudden emergence of the fire spirits, and maybe his own, not long ago.

However, it didn’t take long before he found something else which clearly didn’t belong to the secret realm.

The dome was mostly translucent and one could only see a faint milky hue, indicating that the dome was still activated.

Yet, at one particular place, Shane found a huge crimson crack.

It released dense energy currents, and it was as if there was not only mana but something else intertwined in it.

As such, feeling the foreign energy, Shane’s mind blanked out for a moment, only for him to regain his senses soon after.

The memories transmitted by the Creator flashed through his mind, and Shane could assume what the other energy was.

Nevertheless, this was not the most important fact right now. What was important was the fact that the big crimson-colored crack was pulsating, just like a heart.

This made Shane extremely uncomfortable, and he couldn’t help but feel that it may as well be best to leave the secret realm behind.

Devouring the silver soul world core in such a state would be a reckless act, thus Shane didn’t think to do that while the crack was still present.

In the end, the only advantage was that he could see just one crack in front of him and that nothing else seemed to be off.

Unfortunately enough, the crimson-colored crack was already more than enough to make him feel eerie and a huge threat.

‘Just who created this crack?’

Shane felt weird sensing the energy ripples because they were powerful enough to destroy the entire secret realm.

At least, that was what he estimated by further investigating the pulsating crack.

It was only some time later that Shane realised something that made him exclaim.

‘The pulsating crack is absorbing the dome’s energy, drastically decreasing the protection layer’s might.’

With that thought, Shane also estimated that the crimson crack should have been there for quite some time and that it had been nurtured over a long duration.

Shane came up with several theories for the attack of the fire spirits because it was weird that there had not been a direct attack of the being that had created the crack.

‘Maybe it needs the secret realm for something, just not the treants and trees?’ This was one solution Shane had in mind, while another one was that the being simply couldn’t emerge through the crack, or attack through it.

As such, it might have been forced to attack using external help because time was running out.

With the System and Primordial dimensions that were bound to disappear soon, said being could have been pressured, making it attack earlier than it had initially planned.

Despite these theories, Shane was unable to figure out a certain answer.

As such, he could only wonder if it was possible to let the crack disappear because it was the only reason for Shane to feel uncomfortable about devouring the silver soul world core.

He didn’t want to be under the constant threat of some unknown being attacking him, after all.

Just as Shane thought about this, the entire soul world began to shake, and a premonition filled his entire body.

Owing to that, and the distinct changes his instincts perceived, Shane couldn’t care less about the crack at the moment.

Out of a sudden, he sensed death approaching him, which was something that shouldn’t happen right now.

‘What the hell is going on? Is the crack doing something?’

Shane’s thoughts were a mess, and he could only turn around, circulate a tremendous amount of mana through his entire body before he utilised his entire physical strength to rush through the burned forest that had begun to glow brightly.

This caused his eyes to widen as he witnessed how the severely damaged ancient magi trees were veiled in a blue hue, only to disperse into millions of mana currents.

It was only then that Shane noticed that everything which had been irreversibly damaged, was veiled in blue, only to be turned into a mana current.

Shane’s first thought was that the damaged trees were rapidly decomposed to create more mana, and from the looks of it, this didn’t seem to be entirely wrong.

The enormous mass of mana currents gathered around the center of the secret realm before it was absorbed by the silver soul world core, causing the secret realm to shake.

When Shane arrived in the center of the secret realm, he saw hundreds of treants, but not even an ounce of their former vigor could be seen.

They looked like old, dying trees, whose time had long since elapsed.

This was a shocking sight, but Shane couldn’t really focus on that because the secret realm’s shaking intensified, making him wonder whether it would be better to leave the secret realm or to stay behind.

In the end, he chose the latter because his instincts told him that something huge was about to happen!

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