Chapter 640

Chapter 640: .

A roar louder than thunder and more terrifying than a collapsing mountain echoed between the two worlds. It shook again and again between the two inverted lands, even driving away the sea of fire and smoke around Atlantis. It pierced the calm brought by the Wall of Silence and startled Lucretia and the others from their short rest.

Shirley almost jumped up from the ground at once. She lifted her head toward the source of the roar and shouted: “What just blew up?! What was that?!”

Nina ran to the edge of the Protective Ward. She craned her neck to stare at the upside-down desert continent in the sky and pointed: “Look up there! There was a huge explosion over there!”

Shirley looked toward where Nina was pointing, and her eyes slowly widened.

On that upside-down land, she saw a raging storm. Faint storm clouds swept over the ground like a moving wall. Inside the storm, she could see large bursts of light. Every time a light burst flared, the storm itself seemed to be driven back for a moment, and a terrifying roar echoed between the two worlds. Then the storm rebuilt itself and once more gathered toward a bright region of flame.

With each blast and explosion, pieces of the “other world” were thrown out into the space between the two worlds. Countless sand and dust now floated over Atlantis. They drifted without order in the gap between the two worlds as if there were no gravity, forming rivers of flowing sand hanging in the sky, and clouds of dust of all sizes.

The slow collision of the two worlds had already stopped at some point, as if some outside force had jammed the process. Only the constant roaring was left between heaven and earth. The material that kept being thrown out between the two lands gathered into larger and larger clouds.

“We cannot stay here any longer,” Morris said suddenly. “Something may have happened to Vanna. We have not been able to reach her since just now.”

“So we are going over there?” Shirley raised her hand and pointed to the other world hanging above their heads. “I do not mind, but how do we get there? The paper boat Lucretia folded before turned to ash when we ‘landed’…”

Before she finished, Lucretia had already pulled out a sheet of white paper from who knew where and waved it in front of everyone: “I still have paper. I will fold another one.”

Shirley stared blankly at the witch as she took out the white paper, her expression a bit odd: “We are still… folding it out of paper? We do not have anything sturdier?”

Lucretia thought for a moment, then took out another sheet from inside her coat.

“I will stack two sheets together.”

Shirley clearly still felt this was not very reliable, but she could not beat anyone here, so she wisely and carefully kept her opinion to herself. While she and Dog watched with great caution, Lucretia threw a new paper boat out beyond the barrier.

The paper boat grew and stretched quickly in midair. In the blink of an eye it became a small white boat, floating outside the translucent curtain of light like a light, drifting cloud.

Nina stared, dumbfounded, then could not help letting out a cry of amazement: “That is amazing! How did you do that?! Can I learn it?”

“Just a witch’s trick. I suggest you do not get too interested,” Lucretia glanced at Nina’s face full of envy, waved her hand, and walked toward the barrier. “At your stage, it is more useful to learn math, physics, and chemistry first…”

Nina pressed her lips together with a strange look, then lifted her head to look at the ruined world beyond the barrier.

She took a light breath, then turned back to look at the small tree that was holding up the last Wall of Silence.

Two seconds later, she and Shirley both raised their hands at the little tree at the same time and softly said goodbye.

A moment later, the Origami Skiff rose silently into the sky. It carried them away from the scorched earth and flew toward the upside-down world at the end of the sky.

Shirley lay on the edge of the boat, leaning out to look down at the forest that was slowly being covered by darkness and smoke. She watched the small cone-shaped curtain of light sink into the thick smoke and vanish after a few flashes. Only after a long time did she finally mutter in a low voice: “Are we ever going to see that tree again?”

“No. Everything here will eventually fade away, and that is the best result for the Mortal Realm,” Lucretia’s voice came from beside her, calm and almost inhumanly cool and rational. “This place is only a part of the elves’ racial memory. Everything here already died in a very distant past. Atlantis, Celine, Saslokar… they all died a very, very long time ago.”

“I know, I know,” Shirley waved her hand, a little annoyed, and her tone held a complaint. “You do not have to say it that clearly. I was just feeling a little emotional…”

Lucretia ignored Shirley’s grumbling. She focused on steering the little paper boat, and soon shifted her attention from the forest below to the distant World Tree.

Even though the slow collision of the two worlds had paused for now, the collapse of Atlantis still went on. The huge canopy that had once covered the sky had been completely burned through by the sea of fire flowing across the heavens, becoming a terrible tangle of charred remains in the flames. Embers still flowed along the branches that wound like mountain ranges, and some of the fire had even spread to the “other world”.

But those flames that spread over seemed to be blocked by something. They could only float above the desert and could not truly touch that world.

Thunderous sounds rolled from the direction of Atlantis as the great collapse of the World Tree neared its peak.

The canopy, burned by fire, began to break off in whole sheets, falling to the ground like great cities dropping from the clouds. Mountains tore apart under the tree’s collapse. Gorges and ravines slowly filled and were covered by the tree’s ashes. Smoke and dust blotted out the sky. Atlantis was slowly turning into the sight Nina and Morris had first seen.

The little boat slowly approached the boundary between the two worlds.

“Everyone be careful. We may have a Gravity Inversion in a moment,” Morris called out. “Do not panic. Hold on to the rail.”

Nina and Shirley reacted at once. They were very obedient and grabbed the edge of the paper boat. Dog dug his claws tightly into the raised folds in the floor of the boat.

Lucretia made ready for the Gravity Inversion while carefully guiding the boat higher.

But just when she was ready for everything, a huge sense of danger suddenly surged up from her heart.

An attack.

That thought had barely formed when Lucretia jerked the boat to the side. But she was still a step too late. In the next second, a streak of light suddenly appeared in the air and slashed past. Even though it only grazed the side, the edge of the paper boat was instantly torn and set on fire.

The next moment, endless light appeared before everyone’s eyes.

It was a web of rays, a hidden barrier in the gap between the two worlds. It only showed itself when uninvited guests tried to approach the desert world. The interwoven light was bright and pure, shining like sunlight, yet it carried burning malice and a twisted, mad, terrifying aura.

The vast curtain of light surged in the sky. Streams of flame rose from its edge like a rainstorm falling from the heavens, pouring down over the shaking little paper boat.

In that “rain” of fire and glare, Shirley and Dog shouted in unison: “What is this thing?!”

“It is the power of the Creeping Sun Wheel…” Lucretia had already recognized the familiar, blasphemous aura in that rolling light. She hurried to force the boat downward and spoke quickly. “I knew it… The Sunspawn slipped in. That thing has sealed the sky!”

Before she finished, a dazzling flash suddenly cut across everyone’s vision.

The flash almost tore the entire paper boat apart.

The shredded boat lost control and started to wobble and fall toward the ground.

Shirley wrapped her arms around Dog’s neck at once and yelled at the top of her lungs: “I cannot fly!”

Her shout echoed in the sky, but at that moment a strange sound of some giant thing tearing and rumbling suddenly came from far away, cutting her voice off.

The strange sound was so intense that it felt as if the whole world went quiet.

In the shaking, falling paper boat, Lucretia opened her eyes wide and looked toward the source of the sound in surprise.

It was the trunk of Atlantis’s World Tree.

Somewhere near the base of the trunk, a ripping roar was bursting out.

The ground trembled. Cracks big enough to be seen from this distance spread across the trunk that loomed like a giant mountain. In the next second, the cracks widened, and a blazing ghostly green flame burst out from within.

In the rapidly spreading spirit form flames, a huge shadow pushed out from Atlantis’s trunk. First came a proud prow, then tall masts and half-transparent spirit-form sails, then a wide deck, neat rows of gunports, and a towering stern…

It was the Vanished, now fully transformed into its spirit form. It had torn through the remains of Atlantis and entered this world near the roots of the World Tree.

Then it began to rise. It flew over the scorched ground, over the forest where the fires still smoldered, sailed across this broken, ruined world, and headed steadily higher.

The ghost ship sailed in the sky under the afterglow of Doomsday.

Its unreal spirit form flames rolled behind it like foam and wake on the ocean, spreading out in layers. They washed over the sea of fire surrounding Atlantis, as if trying to set the whole world alight once more.