Party Ace returned to the Nightmare Realm after that. They were all exhausted by now. Aziz went directly to the recovery room and lavishly spent a large amount of utility points for a recovery session. The recovery room had some high-tech recovery devices not available in the real world that could rapidly heal injuries and relieve fatigue.

Sheyan first went to the Honour Area to confirm that his rank had reached Lieutenant General. Then, he went to the auction house to get some information. Besides contacting the Miner, he also provided the auction house with information about ‘Aladdin’s Magic Lamp Body’, which he wished to purchase, and the ‘Black Arrow’.

The auction house apparently placed a great importance on this matter. They immediately got into contact with Sheyan. While yawning wearily, Sheyan signed several contracts which were mostly to ensure that his divine artifact was real and to confirm some commission problems.

At first, the auction house shamelessly proposed a 25% commission! Sheyan turned around and left without another word. He knew that the demand for divine artifact far outweighed the supply, because how many people could supply a divine artifact to be auctioned off?

The president of the auction house rushed out to retain Sheyan. In the end, the two sides reached an agreement they were both happy with. The commission was set at only 1%, but the interests of the auction house would not be damaged, because the remaining cost would be shared by the market.

The remaining cost would not only be paid for by the buyer, but also by those attending the auction. When the divine artifact was displayed in the auction, only two properties would be shown. If an auction attendee wished to see more properties, they would have to pay. There would be many people who are willing to pay for a look at the properties of the divine artifact. This was not only a matter of curiosity, but also to gather intelligence. If they happened to encounter someone wielding the divine artifact in battle, their knowledge of its properties might save their life.

After confirming the date of the auction and other miscellaneous details, Sheyan instantly went back to the real world. He could hardly endure the exhaustion any longer. He ended up sleeping for two whole days after that. When he returned to the real world, he was like a tree that had dried up and was close to withering, but after getting ample sleep, he was now feeling as fresh as a sponge full of water.

When Sheyan woke up, he was so hungry that he instantly grabbed a handful of fried peanuts at Aunt Di Gu’s place and gulped them down just so that his stomach would not feel so empty. At that moment, he happened to see Uncle Dasi returning from the ocean with the fishing boat. He instantly went onto the boat to see if there was any fresh seafood that interested him.

Uncle Dasi smiled and lifted a rope tied to the side of the boat. The other end of the rope was tied to a sack. The fish contained inside the sack was a foot or two long at most, but when one of the sailors went to grab it, he could not get a firm hold on it at all, even through the sack. When the fish’s tail slapped on his hand, it left a large patch of red mark behind.

There is a saying that seafood which tastes good must be fresh and lively. The seafood must be freshly caught, and it must be lively, displaying a strong vitality.

This fish no doubt fit these descriptions. It was what the locals called a fanfish. Sheyan loved eating it ever since he was little. The fanfish lived in the deep sea and would only occasionally swim to the shallow sea. They grew slowly, but they swam really fast. They were very rarely seen in recent years. The fanfish caught by Uncle Dasi this time was so big that it must have been among the three largest fanfish he had ever caught in his fishing career.

Sheyan grabbed the fish with a big smile on his face. With his strength and skill, of course he would not be slapped by the fish. However, he could still feel an amazing strength in the small body of the fish. The contraction and expansion of the fish muscles produced a tyrannical strength that almost pushed his hands away.

He made a fish soup with the fanfish using his own secret recipe. The soup was thick and creamy and rolled off the tongue nicely. Because the fish had shrunk after being cooked, its meat was compact and chewy, like the meat of a chicken drumstick. It was really nice to bite on.

What’s more, delicious fat would gush out from the gaps between the flesh, making the fish taste really smooth. It was precisely because of the fat in the fanfish’s body that their taste was so memorable.

(TL: There are actually a few more paragraphs explaining how Sheyan gutted and cooked the fish in his own secret way. I omitted them.)

Uncle Dasi squatted down beside Sheyan, smoking a hookah and smiling at him. He looked like he was happier seeing Sheyan devour the food with such relish than if he were to one to eat the food instead.

After Sheyan was done with his meal, Uncle Dasi told him in a serious tone, “Yan, you’re not that young anymore. It’s about time you find a nice woman and settle down. I was just talking with your Aunt Digu about this the other day. If you get your own child now while we can still move, we can help you look after your child. I know that Digu has a very nice niece. Why don’t we arrange for a meeting between you two?”

Sheyan was flabbergasted. He could not believe something like this could happen to himself. He could only mutter something incomprehensible and ran away awkwardly. When Sanzi found out about it later, he ruthlessly laughed at Sheyan for a long time.

But Sanzi also proposed that Sheyan should ask Zi to come here for a meal. Uncle Dasi would definitely stop nagging at him after that. Sheyan felt like it was not a bad idea, but how should he persuade Zi? Sanzi, though, felt pretty confident. After all, he had been calling Zi sister-in-law for quite a while now. He slapped his chest and said to leave it to him.

Speaking of the devil, Sheyan actually received a phone call from Zi a few minutes after that. He was a little embarrassed because of his guilt, but Zi did not seem to notice. Zi’s tone was rather solemn. She said that there was an urgent matter and she had dispatched a plane to pick them up. However, because it was not convenient to say too much on the phone, she did not give any specific details.

***

They boarded the Gulfstream. Zi was waiting for them on the jet. Now that they were face to face, she could finally tell Sheyan what the matter was. The Elves who settled down in the Chernobyl area had sent an urgent message, saying that there was some anomaly in the space. The Elves invited them over to have a discussion about it.

The Gulfstream flew across thousands of kilometres in very little time at all thanks to its powerful mobility. The Chernobyl area looked as desolate as ever. The old buildings constructed in the style of 1980s Soviet Union looked particularly depressing with their dilapidated walls and broken tiles. The cement roads that were originally 50 metres wide had become narrow trails, having been occupied by low, lush plants. The cracks on them were a testament to their tragic fate of having been abandoned for decades.

Continuing deeper into Chernobyl, one would find the vegetation there showing very obvious signs of mutation. They were beginning to look like a mix between earthen and Elven plants.

If an ordinary human were to step foot into this place, they would immediately step into a magical illusion. Not only that, they would also face multiple threats in the form of magic, Elven sentinels and Tumoured Ents, which were Ents that had failed to evolve. Nature was the Elves’ eyes and ears; no one could sneak inside undetected. As for aerial photography and satellite scanning from above, the wide-area magical illusions of the legendary Ents were enough to mask everything.

When they arrived at the core zone of the famed nuclear accident, they saw Mr. Ferrell standing there like a towering mountain. The environment there was already quite similar to that of Dawn City. What’s that? The threat of radioactive contamination? Are you kidding?! For Ents and Elves, radioactive contamination was a precious power driving their evolution. Letting even a tiny bit of it to go to waste would be an intolerable sin!!

Sheyan went into an Elven tree house. The Elves that he saw inside were all really happy. The powerful legendary Ent, Mr. Ferrell, had told Sheyan that their evolutionary speed in this Holy Land was beyond imagination. Two of the legendary Ents had already begun to evolve towards the higher tier World Tree. Melody was also starting to break through to a higher tier.

However, precisely because of this, they had sensitively detected that the deviation rate of this world had started to show some abnormal changes recently. Even the gravity had been weakened by 3/10,000, and this speed was decreasing at a rate of 15% per hour.

These numbers were giving Sheyan a headache. He sighed and asked, “Can you tell me what’s happening in more direct terms?”

“Well, the residents of this planet will experience unstable internet connections, bad cell phone signals, shortened female menstruation cycle and so on,” replied Mr. Ferrell very directly. “Okay, okay, I’ll be more direct. You know how there are multiple planes in the universe?”

“Yes!” Sheyan nodded.

“Simply put, the Earth from another plane is attempting to break through the dimensional barrier to get closer to us,” said Mr. Ferrell.

Sheyan gasped upon hearing Mr. Ferrell’s explanation. Of course he understood what it meant. The barrier between planes enabled the world to have infinite possibilities. When the Earth of two different planes moved closer to each other, it was definitely not good news!

Because, in a plane, there could only be one Earth. In order to maintain the strictness of the dimensional barrier, one of the Earths must disappear from the plane!

Sheyan did not even dare imagine the consequences. Even if he could live on the other Earth, would Uncle Dasi still be there? Even if he was, would he still love Sheyan like a son?

The Elves were even more unwilling to see this Earth disappear. They simply could not afford to make the gamble. What if the other Earth did not have a “Holy Land” like this one?

The good news was, the dimensional barrier was not so easy to breach. Based on the current speed, they had at least one more year to do something about it. And now that Sheyan knew how humanised the Realms were, he was confident that he could ask the Realm for help, so he was not actually that worried.

At this time, after seeing the environment of Chernobyl, Sheyan and his group were very interested in taking a look around. The former core area of the death zone had been transformed into a wetland like Dawn City, lush with water and forest. The air was fresh, and many new species had emerged. Nuclear radiation was chaotic and disorderly, so creatures that mutated because of it usually looked fierce and sinister, but thanks to the help of the Elves, the mutated creatures were slowly evolving in a positive way. Along the way, the group of humans saw little fairies with dragonfly wings, rainbow butterflies, fauns watering the plants, and even large beetles that could be used to pull boats in the wetland.

Of course, humans would go anywhere, so the Elves had also captured some humans. Some of them were drug lords, some of them were outlaws, and some of them were even government agents. All of them had now been put under the Elves’ enchantment.

The most notable one among them was a high-ranking spy official from Kiev. He was now the umbrella protecting the Elves from above. Whenever a proposal to change the current situation in Chernobyl was put forth, the official would become its most determined opponent, and he was even immune to all kinds of bribes, including money and women.

Suddenly, Sheyan, Zi and Sanzi all felt a pain in their chest at the same time. Then, the voice of the Realm, calm and dignified, transmitted into their ears.

“My warriors, I now call upon you! You shall fight with the great power I gave to you! Those bastards who have no honour have refused to pay the compensation they should rightly pay, so we shall take it by force!”

***

In the depth of the endless universe, there was nothing but darkness!

Even the dazzling stars could not illuminate this place. This seemed to be the edge of the universe. All materials would start to become chaotic and marginalised here. Even time seemed to flow at a different speed here, sometimes fast, sometimes slow.

Logically speaking, nothing could survive in this place. However, in the endless darkness, something seemed to be surging violently! Soon, a huge tentacle appeared, followed by a second, a third….

These giant tentacles weaved together and merged, then thrust hard into the deepest part of the universe. Amidst a terror-inducing noise, a horrifying wormhole was formed. The violent dimensional energy inside overflowed outwards and raised a large dimensional storm in the area tens of millions of kilometres around it. Planets, meteorites, and every other celestial object were reduced to nothingness in an instant.

Then, from the dark, emerged a monster that seemed to be dressed in a thick layer of bright red coat made of flesh and blood! It was as big as a planet. If the Noah Realm C Sheyan saw before looked like a giant octopus, then this Noah Realm E looked like a giant crab with a pair of exceptionally well developed pincers.

The left pincer had been destroyed right at the base. An oil-like substance kept dripping down from the wound. The creature was a combination of flesh and machinery, but it was unlike a Terminator that was basically just a metallic skeleton coated in a layer of flesh. Its bones may be metallic, but its bone marrow was organic. Its combination of metal and organic matter was much more perfect.

Tearing the dimensional barrier apart was obviously a very energy-consuming task. After Noah Realm E tore open the wormhole, several grim wounds had appeared on its body. Oil-like substance was frenziedly spraying out of its body, but despite that, it still attempted to escape into the wormhole in a hurry!

But right at that moment, there was a disturbance in the darkness nearby. Another colossal monster emerged, and the darkness was completely dispelled by a domineering force!! The one who broke through the darkness was none other than Noah Realm C!

Right now, Sheyan and the entire Party Ace were filled with an indescribable sense of wonder! Witnessing such a spectacle, their brain had almost stopped working. They could only stare at the scene in silent awe.

An hour ago, when they were urgently summoned back to the interior of the Realm, they immediately felt a consciousness descending upon them. It gathered on the surface of their body like solid armour.

Then, from their Nightmare Imprints, the majestic voice of Noah Realm C sounded.

“You did an excellent job in the last war. That war was a conspiracy by three other Realms that have joint hands against me, but we managed to shatter their conspiracy with brute force. The other two Realms have willingly paid up like we agreed upon, but the despicable Noah Realm E has the audacity to run away from his debt! It is not in my nature to tolerate this kind of thing. What belongs to me, I will retrieve with my own hands!”

Then, the urgently summoned contestants were sent to the combat zone located at the top of Noah Realm C’s front section, where they were protected by the thickest armour and had the best view!

They watched Noah Realm C drag his body through space with seven or eight long tentacles, the balance in its movement containing an unspeakable beauty. The tentacles, which seemed to hide the ultimate secrets of the universe within the mysterious patterns on them, gently moved close to his body on both sides and swayed. It was thanks to these tentacles that the Realm could roam the space freely and crawl through dimensional turbulence without fear. The crazy experience made everyone stare in awe and disbelief!

The two Noah Realms confronted each other. The terrible tension seemed to have annihilated even the violent dimensional storm. All that was left was a frightening silence, so quiet that even the wormhole that had just been torn open appeared to have lost its roar. However, Sheyan could sense a reckless darkness accumulating and surging around this abnormal stillness – violent, dense, and raging!

Suddenly, a column of white light erupted from the mouthpiece of Noah Realm E on the opposite side. The column of light persisted for a long time after it was shot, hitting Noah Realm C head on. A protective shield had appeared at the spot where Noah Realm C was struck. Although the flesh and blood at the spot was evaporating, the light column also dispersed to the surroundings like a large mass of water vapour. However, Noah Realm E’s mouthpiece moved once again. It had been oppressed for too long, and now it was retaliating in rage. It was about to shoot again!

Noah Realm C was furious after taking the first hit. A large number of light red and dark purple scales began to grow on its bright red skin. Its tentacles, which were already very long to begin with, had now expanded to thousands of metres long, flailing about like serpents! Noah Realm C used its tentacles to wrap around the body of Noah Realm E at the risk of being shot by the second light column which may very well pierce through its body! Huge pieces of flesh were torn off by the horrible suckers on the tentacles.

Noah Realm E made some changes in response to Noah Realm C’s attack. Countless pustules bubbled up from the surface of its body like the bulges on the skin of a toad. The pustules then exploded, coating its own body as well as Noah Realm C’s tentacles in a large amount of white liquid. Corrosive hisses rose from the tentacles.

Following that, a loud voice, though filled with pain, spoke in a mocking tone, “Don’t be silly, you fool. You may cause me pain, but the Creator has made it so that we can’t kill each other. You’ll never break through my immune system! You can only look at my Evocation Crystals and drool over them, but you’ll never get them!”

The one who spoke was naturally Noah Realm E. Noah Realm C appeared calm, but the contestants could vividly feel its anger!

“E, you lost your Evocation Crystals to me in the last war.”

“So? If I can find a loophole in the rules to not hand them over, then I can keep them! What can you do to me? Come on, give me more pain! I’ll only feel double the happiness seeing your dejected face!” Noah Realm E laughed wildly.

“Very well, if that’s what you want,” Noah Realm C replied calmly.

“I will harvest your brain nucleus then. Do you think you’re the only one who has been trying to find loopholes in the rules left by the Creator? I’m much stronger than you. I’ve started doing this since the 31st Era.”

“Lies! Empty boasts!” Noah Realm E scoffed.

“You’ll soon find out if they’re empty boasts,” replied Noah Realm flatly. “Unfortunately for you, the loophole I found is a way to circumvent the Creator’s rules to kill another Noah Realm!”