Chapter 716 – The Real Inner City

Chapter 716: The Real Inner City

After dropping Korie off in a random uninhabited town, Saul straightened up his clothes and prepared to directly enter the inner city of Kaukoust.

The last time he came over, he had inadvertently discovered the existence of the Inverted Tree, and then left in a mess after being chased by a bunch of tree branches and roots.

“So this time it’s kind of like returning to my home town in good clothes and honor, so exchanging a little bit of the branches of the Inverted Tree shouldn’t be too much to ask for, right?”

There were no people here who could make Saul teleport, so he followed the commoners and entered through the gates of the outer city.

This time he had paid attention to his disguise, and the ordinary sorcerer apprentices guarding the city gates definitely couldn’t recognize him.

However, when Saul blended into the outer city, he looked around and surprisingly did not recognize a single person.

He had also stayed here for more than half a year, but now the place had changed and the people were different.

Things were really different now.

Saul felt sentimental while skulking around the outer city, observing for half an hour.

However, after observing, he discovered a strange phenomenon.

There was only one entrance and exit between the outer city and the inner city, and this entrance and exit was embedded in the mountain, and it was the only place without water between the circle of waterfalls in the inner city.

Presumably, the inner city was entered through a passage inside the mountain.

However, the gate of the entrance and exit was tightly closed, and it looked as if people were not allowed to enter or exit.

There were people coming and going all the time in the outer city near the passageway, but no one was going in.

Seeing that no one had been entering, Saul knew that he shouldn’t be able to blend in.

“Then let’s use the second option.” Saul approached the waterfall and looked up at the vapor in front of him.

There was a high concentration of magic elements here, but there was no sustaining spell formation in sight, clearly another newly developed sorcery prop from Archaeust City.

Sol’s figure suddenly became transparent and merged with the waterfall in front of him.

Looking at Saul’s face, there were a few sorcerer apprentices in the outer city who had been staring at Saul’s movements.

However, this group of people all lost sight of Sol in an instant.

Just as they realized that someone was trying to break into the inner city and were about to report it, a silver butterfly suddenly appeared before their eyes.

This butterfly fluttered and circled around each of them.

These few apprentices suddenly forgot what they were originally going to do.

They looked at each other, and for a moment they couldn’t figure out how a few of them had gotten together.

Although they were puzzled, because each of them had their own tasks to do, the several people quickly put their inner puzzles behind them and spread out again.

At this time, Saul had already flown into mid-air, waiting for the Nightmare Butterfly to return.

“Brother Saul, complete the mission.”

Saul retrieved Penny and thought, “We can’t go through the normal passage, the surrounding passages don’t seem to have any protection, but there are definitely few mechanisms in them. It’s fine to go through it the hard way, but that Inverted Tree is a bit evil, it’s best not to expose the power of the Third Order before finding its core, lest it runs away straight away.”

Whether it was the Inverted Tree running away or hiding deep in the earth, it would still be difficult for Sol to track.

Next, Saul moved forward carefully all the way, avoiding every suspected mechanism and trap, and not disturbing the magic fluctuations in the vicinity.

For a short distance of a dozen meters, he actually took almost twenty minutes to drill through.

At the last moment of crossing the protective barrier of the inner city, the resistance in front of Saul plummeted, and his entire body stepped forward, smoothly arriving at the inner city.

However, at the sight of the inner city, even Saul, who thought he had seen a lot, could not help but be shocked in place.

The inner city of Kaukoust, the location of Baidong Academy, was surprisingly like the end of the world!
The once towering buildings and spacious roads were covered in a thick layer of dust.

The ground was filled with broken parts and collapsed buildings.

Although the sunlight was able to penetrate the protective layer of isolation above the entire city, it was unable to change the gray hue of the place.

Saul took a step forward and stepped into the thick dust.

“This …… should be near the high rise I originally rented.”

However, looking around, it was surprising that there was no longer any high-rise building with more than ten floors to be found. There were more that had turned into ruins, or wreckage lying directly across the ground. “The magic fluctuations here are unusually chaotic.” Penny also couldn’t help but burrow out of her diary and flew around Sol a few times, taking in the bleakness of the surroundings, “Even if we directly cast magic, we won’t attract other people’s attention.”

A black shadow drilled out of Sol’s chest and transformed into a youth.

He clasped his hands to his chest, “I highly doubt that there are other people here!”

Thor retracted the cloak he was wearing into storage, leaving only the more slimming black shirt and pants.

He half crouched down and examined the dust on the ground.

“The dust is more than a palm’s worth thick, and judging by the looseness, hardly anyone has set foot here.”

Saul took off again and went to the top of the tallest building in the neighborhood and stood on a steel bar that stood pronged on the outside.

A view of the earth from above would give more information.

There were no buildings taller than ten stories tall, not just in the neighborhood, but in the entire inner city as far as the eye could see.

“The entire inner city has turned into this appearance.”

Herman also flew alongside Saul, “It looks as if some kind of raging force exploded in midair and then directly destroyed the upper half of the city. The dust from the explosion directly put a dusty outer covering on all the buildings in the city.”

Sol nodded, “Now the question is, at what point did the inner city look like this?”

Was this inner city turned into the ruins in front of them because of an accident; or was it artificially divided into inner and outer cities because it was turned into ruins?

Then did the people in the outer city know that the inner city had become like this?
And where were the people who were originally in the inner city?

When Saul observed the outer city, he did not see any official wizards; all positions were held by apprentice wizards.

And they were all newcomers.

“Archester, it seems that Baidong Academy has really undergone a huge change.”

When Saul didn’t find any trace of the Inverted Tree, coupled with the chaotic fluctuation of magic power in the inner city, he instructed Penny and Herman, who were on the side.

“You guys split up to find out if there are still survivors in the inner city.”

“Yes!” *2
Two people went to explore separately, one on the left and one on the right.

Saul didn’t stay idle either, jumping off the tall building and hovering half a meter above the ground, looking for possible survivors.

Or corpses.

But after searching the ground and the interior of the building for half a day, he didn’t even see a single figure.

On the contrary, I saw a lot of rotting food and dusty furniture.

Most of the homes were neat and tidy, and there was no messy scene caused by people fleeing in chaos.

“People should have evacuated in an orderly manner.”

Saul drilled through a window and saw several plates of food on the dining table that had turned green and black and could not be seen in its original state.

He rummaged through the cabinets of storage again, and saw in them full of food and booze. There were also some locked cabinets with silver coins and bills unique to Archaust.

“At the time of the evacuation, I’m afraid these people wouldn’t have known they wouldn’t be coming back. Otherwise they wouldn’t have not even taken the necessities and money with them.”

An hour later, Saul, Penny, and Herman rendezvoused again at the top of a tall building near the center of the city.

“Did you guys find anything?” Saul asked them.

Herman shook his head, “It’s like no one ever lived here, not even a finger to be found.”

Penny, on the other hand, brought back good news.

“I haven’t found any silhouettes either, it’s as if the people here disappeared out of thin air. However, I sense active dreams in the center of the city.”

There’s a dream realm?
If there is a dream realm, there should still be living people.

Sol immediately decided, “Let’s go, let’s go to the center of the city!”

(End of chapter)