Chapter 377
The scenery changed once Fubei Li sped through the gate to the realm of the Fog Dwellers. He had never been to this realm before, for this realm had been quite closed off from the rest of the world. The elementals only gradually opened up their realms to external and non-voidborn and non-elemental visitors in the past few hundred years, with the edgelands as the forefront of this opening up. And amongst all elementals, the Fog Dwellers remain the ones that were the most closed off, the only ones that are more isolated were the Depth Dwellers, whom no one regarded as elementals.
The realm of the Fog Dwellers was far from colorful - Fubei Li could only see different shades of grey and almost no other colors. All the light that made the scenery visible to anyone with eyes, including Fubei Li, came from three pale suns that were rotating around a mutual center in distant space. Right around them were pillars, temples, bunker and watch towers made with strange designs with winding and twisting main structures that would surely never work on earth, for example, there was a watchtower on which some magical weapons were mounted that looked like a reversed “L” with a round corner; and beside this reverse L shaped watchtower, there was a floating bunker shaped like a triangular pyramid, with a door on each surface, into which he could see some Fog Dwellers who were prepared for war went.
There were floating globes, cubes and polyhedrons made of fog and some kind of transparent crystal walls in the air, and within each was a space that only looked small from outside. When Fubei Li looked closer at the floating spaces in the air, he realized that the land they were treading on was also in a floating globe, one that without a doubt would look like just another floating globe when one was looking from inside of other floating spaces.
“It’s the creatures from the gaps.” the talking praying mantis made of fog told Perketta in their own language, but since it had the same basic origin from the language of the Depth Dwellers, and Dave had already taught Jianmen and therefore Fubei Li the language, all three non-Fog Dwellers present could still understand most of what they were saying.
“Speak freely, they can be trusted with this information.” Perketta’s eyes glowed in pale white light, and she switched to the common language among the elementals: “How many are there? How are you holding up?”
“They are still incoming, we estimated the number could be in the thousands, but these are no weaklings, they came from a rather big portal, and most of them came out of the portal unharmed.” the praying mantis made of fog said: “Our defences are still holding, but I’m afraid we might see casualties soon.”
“We should go and help.” Xyankor said to Dave and Fubei Li: “The Fog Dwellers can’t spare any more manpower to help us locate the new voidborn if they’re caught up in a full scale assault on their realm.”
“I agree.” Dave nodded, then looked at Fubei Li: “Mr. Yu, you’d better find a place to take shelter - you’ve expended too much of your power in the previous fight, you need rest.”
“I’m okay. Thank you Dave.” Fubei Li took out a clay jar and took a big gulp from it: “But I need to fight alongside you - I am worried about these creatures of the gaps, so I’d better see them for myself.”
“Good, mortal.” Perketta smiled and turned to the fog praying mantis: “Take us to the front lines, Celian.”
“On it.” the fog praying mantis conjured a small ball of fog with one of its claws, and in the next second, he clenched his claw and sliced the ball of fog. A path made of thick white fog appeared by his feet and rolled forward and upward into the air like a roll of carpet with anti gravity properties, and found its way to one of the floating cubes, then a floating globe, then a few other floating spaces.
When the team stepped onto the path, they saw that the scenery around them flashed backwards like they were on a high speed rail. Fubei Li noticed that he didn’t see any gaps in scenery while he traveled, meaning that the path skipped the empty spaces between different spaces directly. Eventually they stopped at a mountainous land, with thick fog and mist covering the bases of the mountains, and defensive magical towers built on several of the mountain tops. Similar paths made of fog stretched among the mountain tops and all of the paths connected back to a base station just in front of them.
Fubei Li raised his head to look at the space far away, he could see an energy vortex that was radiating unstable energy as well as shooting out lightning bolts of different colors. Countless creatures of all shapes, sizes and colors were coming out from the center of the vortex, many of which were crushed or shredded by the unstable space around the portal, but more of them made it out and started swarming the mountain tops with defensive magical towers and arrays.
The magical powers on the mountain tops were already firing nonstop when Fubei Li and the team arrived, and they could already sense the explosive waves of energy coming from the front line of the battle.
“Here. Come with me.” Celian went ahead and hopped on one of the paths, and within the blink of an eye, his figure disappeared in a puff of smoke.
“Be careful, this is the biggest wave we have seen yet.” Perketta nodded and said: “Especially you, mortal, be extra careful. We don’t have a lot of healing material for you.” Then, she disappeared on the same path on which Celian jumped on.
“I’ll go first.” Xyankor looked back at Dave and Fubei Li: “See you there.”
“Mr. Yu, here.” Dave conjured a grey and shiny coin and handed it to Fubei Li: “Keep it with you, and please stay close to me.”
“You’ve got it.” Fubei Li chuckled and put the coin in his pocket: “I wouldn’t want to leave your side.”