Magical Girl's Knight Brother

Chapter 726 No Way Out

Inside the sanctuary, the oppressive atmosphere was almost frozen solid.

Tan Zhixin frowned, and Chang Lei clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white. The two had just learned the truth about Tang Zijun's journey to annihilation, and the immense shock and worry weighed on their hearts like a boulder.

In that suffocating silence, the branch of that lifeless tree, which had lost all its luster and seemed to be nothing but a withered shell, suddenly flickered very faintly...

This time, it was no longer the emerald light of life, but a kind of... extremely weak yet clear fluctuation of will, mixed with the breath of the sea and the pulse of the earth.

"Listen..." Trova's voice rang directly in their minds, broken and intermittent, like a candle flickering in the wind, yet carrying an unprecedented gravity and urgency. "You'd better... prepare immediately..."

The sudden sound startled all three of them, and they all looked sharply at the branch.

"A beacon left behind by a mental projection..." Trova's voice continued to convey the message. "...Not only... the coordinates of Tang Zijun's... and Langya's... return..."

Her speech suddenly quickened, carrying a sharp, warning tone.

"...It is also...a bright flame in the darkness..."

"The nightmare's... gaze... will... follow... this line... and be projected upon me!"

"If the beacon is destroyed..." Trova's voice carried a chilling heaviness, "Tang Zijun... will truly... never have a chance to come back!"

Another heavy hammer blow landed, and Chang Lei's expression changed drastically in an instant.

"You mean..." he asked, his voice trembling. "The mental projection channel that Tang Zijun opened... will act like a lighthouse, guiding the nightmare's 'gaze'... towards the coordinates of the dream world?!"

This is the worst possible chain reaction. The passage that Tang Zijun opened in order to find the source could actually become a fatal flaw that invites wolves into the house.

Trova did not answer immediately.

The faint ripples on the withered branch subsided for a moment, as if gathering their last strength.

Immediately afterwards, a completely different, more powerful and majestic yet equally weak male voice replaced Trova's thoughts and rang in the minds of the three of them—it was Poseidon.

"Although the Void Realm is shattered..." Poseidon's voice was like a muffled roar from the depths of the ocean, carrying the insight and weight of a god. "But before the Void Realm... is completely annihilated... and vanishes... the true form of the Nightmare cannot directly... completely descend upon the Dream World..."

Upon hearing this, a faint glimmer of hope rose in the hearts of the three.

"But..." Poseidon's voice suddenly turned cold, like a chilling undercurrent. "If it's... the minions of nightmares... or..."

His tone became unusually solemn, uttering each word slowly and deliberately.

"...Something...from the same source as nightmares..."

"Well...that's not necessarily true."

The minions of nightmares? Something of the same origin?!

Tan Zhixin's mind raced like lightning, and in an instant, a chilling term flashed through her head.

"You mean..." Tan Zhixin's voice trembled with a hint of coldness as she blurted out, "...those who were sealed in the inner world by the gods back then..."

Before she could finish speaking—

Splash! Splash! Splash!

A rapid, chaotic flapping of wings, accompanied by an anxious shout, suddenly came from the entrance of the sanctuary.

"Sister Tan! Old Chang! Something terrible has happened!"

Little Gray's body, shimmering with a faint blue light, rushed in like a cannonball. Its small body trembled slightly from the extreme speed of flight, and its voice was filled with unprecedented panic.

"Quickly! Lady Scáthach and Gloriand have ordered me to find you immediately. Emergency! Highest level! The Council Chamber! Now! Immediately! Something terrible has happened!!"

The appearance of Little Gray and its urgent, almost hysterical cries were like adding another layer of pressure to a taut string. Poseidon's warning was still ringing in their ears when Little Gray's urgent report arrived one after another.

A bone-chilling cold instantly swept through the sanctuary, and the expressions of Tan Zhixin, Chang Lei, and Shi Yao all turned extremely grim.

"Let's go!" Chang Lei reacted the fastest.

Without the slightest hesitation, the three figures followed the panicked Little Gray, rushing towards the Black City Council Hall like arrows released from a bow.

Council hall.

The atmosphere was as heavy as if it were filled with lead.

Scáthach sat in the main seat, her amethyst eyes flashing with a cold light, and her whole body exuded the iron-blooded aura of someone who had been through many battles.

Qin Nan and Ge Lilan sat on either side of each other, the former with a furrowed brow and the latter with a somewhat gloomy expression.

As Tan Zhixin, Chang Lei, and Shi Yao hurriedly entered the hall, they heard a dusty-looking elven guard giving an urgent report.

"...The energy nodes of the Ghost Mist Forest are fluctuating violently again. Eyewitness reports indicate that the number of those corrupted, distorted shadows has surged, and their range of activity is expanding. They seem to be systematically attacking the defensive barrier at the edge of the forest."

Tang Cao, sitting to the side, looked on in surprise. "Wait! The Ghost Mist Forest? Wasn't the Pleasure-Crawling Creature completely dealt with by Tang Zijun? How can there still be contaminated creatures moving around?"

Scáthach did not immediately answer Tang Cao's question. Her deep gaze swept over Tan Zhixin and the other two who had just entered, especially lingering for a moment on Tan Zhixin's pale face before she slowly spoke, her voice carrying a heavy weight.

"The Pleasurable Creature is just one of many Great Old Ones sealed on the continent of the Dream World."

Her words were like a cold stone thrown into stagnant water, stirring up layers of chill.

"Beneath this vast continent, in those forgotten abysses, distorted spatial folds, and nodes forcibly suppressed by the power of the gods... slumber an unknown number of Great Old Ones."

"They are large or small, strong or weak. The powerful ones, like the sleeping lords of the deep sea or the wriggling creatures of pleasure, possess terrifying power to distort reality and erode star fields. The weak ones can easily tear the earth apart and turn an area into a dead zone."

"For countless ages, the seals left by the gods and the barrier of the Void Realm itself have acted like invisible shackles, firmly imprisoning them and preventing them from truly descending into this world. They can only influence reality through faint pollution and projection."

Scáthach's fingertips tapped unconsciously on the armrest of her seat, making a dull sound.

"However, now that the Void Realm is shattered, the remaining power of the gods is almost entirely tied up on the front lines against the Nightmare itself, leaving them no time to spare. The power that holds these ancient seals together is rapidly diminishing."

"These lurking monsters sensed it; they smelled the seal weakening. They had thought they would be bound by the seal, returning to chaos with the fall of the gods and the formatting of the world..."

"But now it seems that our plan to use the power of the reverse world to try to eradicate them at their root has provoked them!"

Scáthach's gaze swept over Chang Lei and Tan Zhixin, finally landing on Shi Yao, as if confirming something.

"They will not sit idly by and wait to die. Before they completely spiral out of control, before we complete our 'elimination' operation, they will launch a final, most frantic counterattack, targeting us!"

The hall was deathly silent.

Everyone's face turned extremely ugly.

This is no longer a localized threat, but a collective uprising by all the sealed Great Old Ones in the entire dream world. Black City will become their primary and only target!

Just then, Tan Zhixin and Chang Lei exchanged a glance, and a thunderbolt flashed through their minds at the same time. They instantly understood what Trova and Poseidon's previous warning meant.

It was the channel of mental projection that Tang Zijun opened, the beacon he left behind.

That beacon was not only a signpost for Tang Zijun's return, but also like a huge bonfire in the night. While guiding Tang Zijun, it also announced the coordinates of Black City to everyone who sensed its existence, and announced the intention of some people to try to eliminate the root of negative energy.

Chang Lei stepped forward, speaking rapidly. "Trova and Poseidon just warned that the minions of Nightmare, or beings of the same origin as Nightmare, have already set their sights on Black City, and the Great Old Ones—"

"—They are the aggregation of the negative energy of the gods, fundamentally...the same origin as 'nightmare'." Tan Zhixin's voice carried a desperate understanding. "How could they possibly allow us to wield the power to reverse the world and uproot the foundation of their existence? They will stop at nothing to destroy us."

"Same origin... henchmen..." Scáthach chewed on these two words, her amethyst pupils suddenly contracting. She instantly pieced together all the clues and then looked at Tan Zhixin. "Where is Tang Zijun?"

When Tan Zhixin heard this question, she felt a pang in her heart. She took a deep breath and then spoke calmly.

"this time..."

"I'm afraid we can only rely on ourselves."

An unprecedented sense of crisis, like a cold, giant hand, gripped everyone present!

"Report! Urgent report!!"

Another messenger practically tumbled into the hall, his voice distorted with extreme fear.

"A massive energy reaction is occurring in the permafrost glaciers north of the coastline; the ice is cracking, and something indescribable is awakening!"

"The Blood Plains have been engulfed by a sea of ​​sand. A giant vortex has appeared at the center of the sandstorm, and countless twisted skeletons and sand worms are gathering!"

"Giant, eye-filled tentacles have emerged from the mines of the Blackrock Mountains; something is trying to break free and emerge from the mountain..."

"And...and..."

The messenger's voice was choked by fear, and he could not continue.

But he didn't need to say anything more; everyone understood.

The signal has been sent.

The target has been identified.

The counterattack of those ancient beings has begun!

Throughout the entire dream world, the ancient rulers and their minions, sealed away for countless years, are like ferocious beasts awakened and ravenous for billions of years, surging towards Black City from every corner in their most ferocious form!

Their primary objective must be to destroy the beacon that represents the possibility of "elimination".

Black City is the location of the beacon and the sole epicenter of this apocalyptic storm!

Inside the hall, the deathly silence was replaced by an even more terrifying sense of impending doom.

A

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