Death... and me

Chapter 3663: Zangeshu Didn’t Forget Them

Kentucky and Rifindio also gathered back with the twins and Celis.

"Is there really any point going forward now?" Rifindio asked, confused. "We have been here for seven years. If there are truly clues to the Celestial Realm ahead, would we reach it in time or before the others who went ahead? We are truly, truly far behind. We haven’t seen a single new expert in the last two years, so everyone is definitely far ahead or dead by now."

"That reminds me," Kentucky looked up. "We have seen quite a few groups and experts making their way here on branches, and they all went up. Yet, not a single one of them ever came down. Just what is up there? A portal?"

"It’s a possibility," Rean nodded. "Let’s go up and take a look. Perhaps we can find something."

[Keep one thing in mind,] Sister Orb’s voice echoed in their minds. [Since the System gave the new reward and time limit, it probably means there is enough time for us to find those so-called clues.]𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The twins had to admit Sister Orb was right. The system always gave quests and rewards for things that were possible to achieve.

"Anyway, let’s first check the top." Roan didn’t waste time and began to climb the Astral Tree again.

The leaves shimmering like constellations increased in number, and after going up for over an hour, they found it quite difficult to proceed. It felt more like they were having to travel through tunnels made of those leaves than moving up a tree. Destroying those leaves was also out of the question. They had nowhere near the strength to cut them down.

But that didn’t mean the leaves were as hard as rocks. They were still maleable like normal leaves... although they were enormous. Each of them was as big as Kentucky or bigger.

*Uff...*

Kentucky pushed one of the leaves away, opening the passage for everyone to go through. And, as always, more and more leaves were ahead and the branches they were on too.

Rean looked back at where they came from, scratching his head. "I can’t even tell how to go back down anymore. Sure, gravity at least tells us which direction is ’down,’ but we might not find the way through all these leaves to leave this place at all."

"It matters not," Roan looked up. "Sooner or later, we will get to the top. These leaves will be over at some point, and we can simply use Kentucky to glide down."

Kentucky’s mouth twitched. "Glide? With this kind of gravity? I will still need to flap my wings a lot if we don’t want to fall like a meteor."

They continued going further up, and several more hours went by. Saying they went up wasn’t entirely correct, as they had to make several different turns due to the density of the leaves. They even had to go back as they found various dead ends. Gravity was pretty much the only thing that told them which side was up.

But then, they noticed a change in the environment, a kind of power Kentucky knew very well. "Hey, spatial powers!"

Kentucky quickly followed that flow, and soon, they came out in an open space between the leaves and branches. At the center of that space, there was a flower, similar to the ones where you found the Starlight Fruits. Yet, there wasn’t a fruit inside or a pod inside. Instead, it was a portal!

"So there is really a portal in the end..." Rifindio commented, not surprised. Many of the groups before seemed to know a portal existed in the Astral Tree. This was simply confirmation.

"Seems like things didn’t go very well here," Rean also commented, but this time pointing around. There, they could see several bodies, some had been dead for a while already. "Ambushes?"

Roan was certain. "Yes. It makes sense since this is a good place to get rid of the competition."

He walked around, checking the marks of the battles. There were remains of runes, no doubt used in formations, and other things. One or some of the first groups to arrive at this portal likely set up these traps to ambush latecomers. "Perhaps the top power of one of the Universes gave an order to their groups to stay behind and kill everyone who got here."

"There is no one around now, though..." Celis couldn’t feel any spots of energy.

Kentucky also couldn’t feel anyone inside his Natural Spatial Perception, and he had the biggest range in that category. "Whoever was here has already departed."

"It was only worth ambushing others for the first few years," Rean observed. "After that, whoever they wanted to help would have been gone for a long time. So, those who stayed behind decided to press forward as well at some point. Rifindio said it, we haven’t seen a single new group or expert in the last two years, and the ones who were here noticed that as well."

"So be it," Kentucky walked in the portal’s direction. "Good for us since we won’t need to waste time against those guys. Let’s enter the portal and continue."

’I have a better idea,’ it was then that Zangeshu’s voice echoed in their minds.

Zangeshu had been doing nothing more than cultivating and working on his formations and blacksmithing. But that didn’t mean he didn’t pay attention outside. Sister Orb could easily make the walls of the Dimensional Realm show the outside world, after all.

Everyone stopped, waiting for Zangeshu to talk. After a while, they all fell into pensive expressions.

"It might actually work..."

"It also explains why the system thinks one year would be enough to find those clues..."

"Or maybe Zangeshu is wrong. If he is, we would actually lose a lot of time."

In the end, everyone looked at Roan. He was always the one to make the final decision in these kinds of situations.

"Seems feasible," he accepted Zangeshu’s idea. "Worst case scenario, we will be out anyway. We’ve got the fruits, so this trip has already paid for itself more than we could have wished for. Ignore the portal. We are going up."

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