Chapter 78 – White Robe

“Two,” Ah Lan said indifferently.

They were nearing the Valley of Wind, the towns fading into the rolling hills to the south, a canal shimmering under the sunlight, bustling with activity.

But at this moment, no one was in the mood to admire such scenery—no one knew what was happening in the Valley of Wind, and the three of them were all acutely aware of the danger this journey entailed.

As the sparse towns gave way to an endless expanse of dense forest, the trees gradually thinned out. Sandra descended lower, and the wind against their faces grew stronger. The few remaining trees were twisted and gnarled, leaning precariously. After this stretch, the landscape turned into a desert, marking the edge of the Valley of Wind.

The giant dragon soared past the edge, and the ground ahead suddenly dipped. In the distance, towering canyons stretched across the horizon, barren and lifeless. Here, the dense wind elements could be directly sensed.

Sandra was recalled, and two mages from the Valley of Elements took her place, jointly erecting a barrier as they flew into the valley.

“Can you handle it?” Duan Yu asked Lin Wei midway through the flight.

“I’m fine,” Lin Wei replied.

In truth, he could already feel the chaotic elemental currents leaking through the barrier, causing a faint, stinging pain all over his body—but it was still bearable. It seemed the Valley of Elements was indeed as dangerous as they said.

Duan Yu said nothing, merely reinforcing the barrier, and the chaotic elemental currents weakened significantly.

“One more thing—thank you for helping me get here,” Ah Lan suddenly said. “In a little while, neither of you will be able to go any further. It’s best if you return to the edge now.”

“If the elemental chaos spills out of the valley, it means I’m dead. Remember to take the news back.”

Ah Lan suddenly sped up, leaving the two of them behind. Like a wispy shadow, she was swept into the canyon by the fierce winds.

Lin Wei watched her carefree figure heading toward certain death and felt the urge to drag her back and give her a good beating.

He thought to himself that he still couldn’t understand the world of mages. Knowing full well the unknown dangers within the valley, she didn’t even try to conceal her presence or scout out the situation first. Instead, she swaggered in—as if seeking liberation.

But upon further reflection, if her family had died and she was left alone, it was natural to feel sorrow and grief. However, if she knew she might not return, the grief would be diluted. This girl had trapped herself in the fate inherited by her family, unable to break free, and had no choice but to accept it. If she went to her death, at least she could feel the illusion of having resisted bravely, of dying gloriously—Lin Wei felt he could understand this. When he had used a scroll to take down a certain leader in his previous life, he might have harbored similar thoughts.

But it was a pity that she had resigned herself to her fate at just twenty years old. Lin Wei, with his curious streak that bordered on recklessness, was itching to know what exactly had happened in the Valley of Elements back then and how far its effects had reached—and Duan Yu had indeed survived until the war began, giving Lin Wei a strange confidence that as long as he stuck with this guy, he probably wouldn’t die either.

Meanwhile, Duan Yu clearly had no intention of turning back. He took Lin Wei higher, to a point where the chaotic elemental currents weren’t as severe—the golden barrier constantly clashed with the gale. This guy was probably one of the few people who could fly amidst the elemental chaos.

The full expanse of the Valley of Wind unfolded before their eyes from above. Apart from the bizarrely shaped rocks carved by the unceasing gales, there was really nothing particularly scenic about it. In the center was a vast, open space, etched with an enormous and intricate magic array—the array was nearly half the size of Siren Island, deeply carved into the ground. From the shallow knowledge of magic arrays that Duan Yu had drilled into Lin Wei’s mind these past days, he could roughly discern the meaning of “suppression” from its shape. The array was a deep reddish-brown, resembling dried blood. When viewed with spiritual perception, it was filled with a terrifyingly pure concentration of wind elements, carrying an indescribable aura of solemnity.

Within the array lay several corpses. Ah Lan had disappeared somewhere, but two figures at the center of the array stood out starkly.

Duan Yu cast Eagle Eye on the two of them, and Lin Wei could clearly see that one of them was standing calmly—a young boy with blue hair, wearing blue robes, a water mage—an oddly out-of-place figure in the Valley of Wind. The other lay flat on the ground, a young man with long brown hair resembling Ah Lan’s.

The scene was unmistakable—the blue-robed figure was the murderer.

“Why…” Lin Wei was puzzled when he suddenly noticed the elemental vortex around this person’s body—bright, solid, and massive, slightly surpassing even the gray-cloaked old man from the Floating Sky Capital.

And that old man had already transcended the level of an Archmage.

Meanwhile, the wind elements from the array were continuously gathering around the figure lying on the ground.

“The array has been altered,” Duan Yu said.

“That blue one—who is he?”

Duan Yu was silent for a moment. “He seems to be from the Valley of Ice.”

Indeed, Ah Lan had mentioned that the youngest member of that family wasn’t even old enough to attend the academy, matching this boy’s youthful appearance.

But hadn’t the Valley of Ice been wiped out? Lin Wei stared intently at the scene—the figure slowly floated into the air, and the ground beneath them began to tremble faintly. The magic elements flowed along strange trajectories, and the blue-robed figure suddenly picked up the other person and leapt to an extremely high point—much higher than Lin Wei and Duan Yu, but since the two were close to the canyon wall, they remained unnoticed.

He wore an unsettling smile, holding something golden-red in his hand. His lips moved slightly, as if reciting a spell.

—Lin Wei recognized that thing!

Not only did he recognize it, he…

It was the Forbidden Scroll “Molten Gold.”

The spell was short, and this person’s strength was truly unfathomable—even when activating a Forbidden Scroll, he seemed to expend very little energy.

A light burst from the Forbidden Scroll, and the blue-robed figure casually let go—it began to fall!

“He’s going to destroy this place,” Lin Wei murmured.

Gungnir hummed, clearly indicating its master was ready to try to stop the Forbidden Scroll before it fully activated.

Duan Yu was looking for the right moment, but someone acted faster—Ah Lan’s slender figure appeared at the foot of the cliff. She drew her silver bow to its fullest, and a brilliant light shot into the sky like a meteor, colliding with the Forbidden Scroll.

The Forbidden Scroll paused briefly. The blue-robed figure above seemed to say “Huh?” and then recited a spell, gently pressing down—”Molten Gold” continued to fall. At the same time, a fierce gale whirled around Ah Lan, clashing with her water-based attack magic.

Gungnir struck again, interrupting the scroll’s activation process. This time, the scroll was flung upward by the immense force of the collision.

The two of them were now exposed. The figure above leisurely held the scroll in his hand, looking at them with a low chuckle.

His words seemed to echo directly in their souls.

“The bravery of youth is always admirable.”

—He spoke in the Common Language of the Continent.

Ah Lan shouted, “Who are you?”

She flew up to join Lin Wei and Duan Yu, whispering, “My brother is over there.”

The figure sneered but didn’t answer. Layers of icy cages pressed down, carrying a bone-chilling cold. He also set up a barrier in an instant, as if toying with insignificant pets—the two mages’ spells couldn’t penetrate the barrier.

Seeing that the figure was about to activate the Forbidden Scroll again, Lin Wei suddenly let out a malicious laugh.

He knew the activation spell for “Molten Gold” too—and it was the most absolute kind, the kind that couldn’t be stopped once started. He remembered it clearly—and had already done it once before.

It was also this person’s fault for being so confident, insisting on maintaining a bizarre sense of elegance. If it were Lin Wei, he would’ve thrown it down hard from the start to avoid complications.

Lin Wei’s spiritual tendrils reached for the scroll—he began reciting the same short spell, and the golden-red flames on the scroll flared up. The blue-robed figure frowned, glaring fiercely in their direction.

With the Forbidden Scroll’s activation now unstoppable, the figure’s first move wasn’t to escape but to turn and take Ah Lan’s brother with him, flying even higher into the sky.

The light erupted, and the three below quickly descended, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the center of the Forbidden Scroll.

Lin Wei wasn’t in great shape—he was still just a novice summoner, relying on the soul power he’d gained from the Death Swamp to dare recite the spell without suffering the “burning” fate that would’ve consumed him.

He looked up at the sky. The blue-robed mage was now engulfed in “Molten Gold.”

“No matter how fast you fly, you won’t escape,” Lin Wei thought. “You’re strong, sure, but you’re still afraid of the Forbidden Scroll. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have flown so high earlier, slowly igniting it to ensure you wouldn’t be caught in it—but unfortunately, you ran into me.”

He didn’t have the mental capacity to wonder why “Molten Gold” was here. He only hoped to see the corpse of the person who had taken his thing fall from the sky—that person couldn’t escape. Even Duan Yu in his past life hadn’t been able to escape the effects of “Molten Gold” at such close range.

The entire sky was covered in a blinding golden light, as if filled with thousands of suns. But as the light gradually faded, an almost impossible scene unfolded—the two figures reappeared. The blue-robed figure was pale, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, his expression dark as he looked down at the three on the ground.

Duan Yu glanced at Ah Lan. “I’ll go up. You stay here.”

Ah Lan bit her lip and nodded, maintaining the protective barrier around Lin Wei.

“Don’t go,” Lin Wei said, having already taken out the plectrum of the Goddess’s “Sigh of the Abyss.” “I’m afraid of dying. We can’t beat him… let’s go back to the swamp.”

Duan Yu reached out and ruffled his hair, a faint smile on his face.

Ah Lan suddenly gasped, staring at Duan Yu. “You’ve already…”

Lin Wei took a good look at the mage in front of him and nearly choked.

This world had gone mad—someone had jumped two levels in less than thirty days. Those old mages stuck at the peak of High Mage, unable to don the white robes, would be lining up to throw themselves into Siren Sea in despair.

The aura Duan Yu exuded now was all too familiar—it immediately brought back Lin Wei’s memories of being dominated by a certain white-robed Archmage on the battlefield in his past life.

He couldn’t help but shrink back. “So fast?”

“Because of his Forbidden Scroll,” Duan Yu said, locking eyes with the blue-robed figure in the distance. The figure sneered and descended toward them.

A Forbidden Scroll—a scroll that contained the life’s work and understanding of elemental laws of at least one Archmage.

And as luck would have it, that “Molten Gold” was of the same element as Duan Yu.

Lin Wei: “…”

This guy had been “seeing” the world of magic elements since childhood, already having a vague understanding of the laws. After becoming a High Mage, his accumulation of power was already profound, only needing to gradually comprehend the so-called “laws” over time. But the activation of the Forbidden Scroll had directly replaced this process. The realm of Archmage only required that bit of “understanding”—and with it, his strength had changed completely in an instant.

But… Lin Wei frowned as he watched the two figures clash in mid-air.

“Hey, Ah Lan,” he asked, “what do you think lies beyond the realm of Archmage?”

The two of them exchanged a glance, realizing their expressions were strikingly similar.

“A realm humans can’t reach… must be that of a god,” Ah Lan replied, turning her gaze back to the sky.