Chapter 36 – Within the Barrier

The speed of the fall was extreme, yet time and space seemed to stretch infinitely.

If one were to fall from a great height at such speed, it would inevitably feel as though a fierce wind was rushing towards them.

But now, it was different. The thick fog was eerily silent, like a stagnant deep pool. The only indication of movement came from the shifting black cracks around them.

At the beginning of the fall, Lin Wei was in front. However, after a moment, the two swapped positions, and now Duan Yu was below, taking the brunt of the impact upon landing.

The two of them were extremely close, falling in a posture that, if they were standing, would resemble a tight embrace—this was the safest position, far better than both of them falling face down.

Lin Wei looked down at the grayish-black fog. Its color seemed to gradually lighten, and as the two continued to fall, the fog below began to show signs of flowing.

When its color lightened further, becoming a pure gray, and the thick fog swirled into a vortex, it became indistinguishable from the exit of the soul passageway.

Lin Wei’s eyes were fixed on it until the cracks no longer flashed, the color of the fog became more pure, and the dizziness intensified—

He slowly tightened his grip on Duan Yu with his arm: “We’re almost there.”

The moment his words fell, his entire vision was filled with a blinding white light. After a brief but intense moment of dizziness, the stagnant, suffocating atmosphere around them disappeared, and the sound of wind whistled past their ears.

Fortunately, this process was extremely short, and the place they emerged from wasn’t too far from the ground. They landed directly on the ground—rolling to dissipate the momentum.

Lin Wei propped himself up with his arm and stood. As the one being protected, he only suffered a minor scrape.

“Duan Yu, are you okay?”

A noticeable wound had been cut into Duan Yu’s right cheek, and blood was slowly seeping out.

“I’m fine,” he said, touching the wound on his face. The crimson blood smeared slightly. “I could have flown completely, but the elements here are too sparse.”

Indeed—falling couldn’t cause much harm to an elemental mage. Lin Wei felt slightly reassured.

He looked around, trying to identify where they were now.

The sky was covered in a thick grayish-white layer, like the thin paper used to cover windows in common households, obscuring the sun and making the place appear extremely dim.

Everything was filled with desolation and lifelessness. Lin Wei and Duan Yu were now in a place resembling a forest, but the trees showed no signs of life. Almost all of them were reduced to blackened trunks and bare branches, twisted and frozen in grotesque poses, like withered, skeletal hands pointing towards the sky.

The withered trees were sparse, some tall, some short, with some still entwined with dried vines. The ground was uneven and damp, emitting an uncomfortable smell.

Duan Yu walked over to him: “Are we still on the continent?”

“We’re definitely on the continent,” Lin Wei replied, “but I don’t know where.”

What they had just passed through was undoubtedly the soul passageway, and both he and Duan Yu were now in physical form, so it was certain they were still on the continent and hadn’t been taken to some unknown place by that strange plectrum.

Lin Wei quickly recalled the records and descriptions of the continent’s various landscapes.

“It’s not cold here, so we’re not in the north… The ground is damp, maybe because we’re near the southern coast or the rainy west.”

“In the distance, I can see mountains, but they’re too short to be in the south, which is all flat plains.”

The undulating terrain matched the characteristics of the west, but no matter how one looked at it, this lifeless place didn’t seem like an ordinary landscape.

Whether it was the coast or the west, this season should be a time of lush vegetation. Even in the coldest winter, it wouldn’t be as desolate as this.

“Use your spiritual energy, look up,” Duan Yu suddenly said.

Lin Wei released his spiritual energy as instructed and found that what he saw in front of him could almost be described as completely empty!

Even in places on the continent completely unrelated to magic, one could still see floating and flowing elements. But here, there was only empty void, with only the occasional light dot drifting by.

However, when he guided his spiritual energy to look up at the sky, he saw a completely different scene.

The sky—no, perhaps what he was seeing wasn’t the sky, but rather a radiant, colorful arch that enveloped this land. Above it flowed dense, multicolored magic elements, like paint covering an entire canvas.

“A magic barrier?” he asked.

Duan Yu nodded.

—And a large, high-intensity magic barrier at that.

If that was the case, they were now inside a magic barrier, and the area it covered was vast—almost as far as the base of a rainbow.

The plectrum was now safely in Lin Wei’s hand, but when he tried to pluck its strings again, there was no response.

A subtle action, using the plectrum as a medium, had opened the soul passageway and sent him and Duan Yu here, without violating the laws of space—clearly, they were still alive.

A place related to magic, damp western continent, eerie and lifeless, with no sunlight—what could it be?

He looked at Duan Yu: “Do you think… this could be a place we know?”

“I can’t be sure,” Duan Yu said, “but magic barriers of this intensity only exist in the Death Swamp and the Floating Sky Capital.”

Lin Wei took a deep breath. A passage surfaced in his mind, one he had once read word for word to Duan Yu from the first volume of the Chronicles of Time in the Magic Academy’s library:

“At that time, the only place on the prosperous and fertile continent that was a forbidden land devoid of life was the Death Swamp in the west. Legend has it that deep within the swamp, there is a statue of the Dark Goddess Katanaphia, and only dark mages and undead creatures can enter…”

He looked around again at the lifeless surroundings: “The Death Swamp—maybe. This place does resemble the west.”

In the magic world, there were three places that were off-limits.

The area north of the mountain range where the Astrology Tower was located was called the “Far North,” and no one had ever returned from there.

From Siren Island, traveling east across the vast sea, one would reach a vast area where storms raged endlessly. All ships could only stop here, and the endless ocean beyond was an unknown world. The first-generation leaders of the Magic Association had disappeared here.

The third place was the Death Swamp in the west.

Unlike the first two, the Death Swamp was a region actively sealed off by magic.

The Dark Age lasted for a long time, and during the chaotic wars, all races suffered heavy casualties. Knights perished silently, and the number of mages drastically decreased—but this war had an outcome.

According to the records passed down, the war originated from the conflict between dark mages and light mages, and in the end, the light mages, who claimed to be the messengers of the gods, emerged victorious. They gathered all their strength, eradicated all dark mages, and sealed everything related to dark magic, including dark elements, into the Death Swamp, where the dark mages had lived.

The light mages declared: “The power of dark magic ends here. There will be no more war or chaos on the continent, for we have finally completely eradicated these evil heretics!”

From then on, only two magical attributes remained on the continent: light and nature. In later developments, nature magic began to branch out, forming the five main attributes of wind, fire, metal, water, and earth—the system now used in the magic world.

The Death Swamp was heavily sealed and locked away by barriers, becoming a place future generations could not set foot in.

“But if this really is the Death Swamp,” Lin Wei said, sensing the emptiness around him with his spiritual energy, “why, apart from the barrier in the sky, is there no trace of magic—those ‘evil dark magic elements’ from the legends?”

“No matter where this is,” Duan Yu said calmly, “we need to find a way out.”

“Right…” Lin Wei sighed. “My egg is still in the Floating Sky Capital. It can’t be away from us for too long.”

—If the magical beast egg’s incubation process was interrupted, the hatchling might not be strong, or it might not hatch at all. Luckily, Lin Wei had placed all the crystals he obtained from the Trade House next to it, though he wasn’t sure how long they would last.

Not to mention, he hadn’t yet informed the Magic Association about the stolen scroll, and Haitie and Daniel in the Floating Sky Capital—who knew what had happened to them?

This incident had indeed happened too suddenly. Who could have guessed that an unassuming little object in the alchemist’s hands would have such a mysterious power?

“If this is the Death Swamp,” Lin Wei checked his space ring, which contained a considerable amount of magical food—those unpalatable fruits that could sustain them for a long time. He felt slightly relieved but still not optimistic. “Do we really have a chance to get out?”

The skill level of mages during the Dark Age, combined with the layers of seals and barriers added by later generations, made this not a place one could simply leave.

Duan Yu said, “We need to find the edge of the barrier, and then you’ll start learning the Book of Contracts.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“Either break the barrier directly, or—you can open a soul passageway.”

The Book of Contracts, written in the Common Language of the Continent, was now in Lin Wei’s space ring. According to the old man, it was indeed related to the soul passageway.

“I’ll follow your lead,” Lin Wei said. “But it seems you’ll need to teach me this language first.”

It seemed they would have to stay here for a long time to find a way out—if they didn’t starve to death by then.