Chapter 1068: Kundara (1)
As Lennok stepped into the spatial rift leading to Kundara, blinding darkness unfolded before his eyes.
Flash!!
All surrounding scenery seemed to twist and distort into pure white light.
Even the thick fog everywhere transformed into a handful of light sources, becoming part of the path that formed the passage.
His entire body bent as if crushed, like light passing between gigantic refracting lenses.
Vwoooom…!!!
Amidst a deafening resonance, the thick fog parted to either side, glowing like the Milky Way.
Beyond the universe of fog unfurled within the hidden side of the veil, a rotating satellite existed, emitting a faint light.
‘A moon floating in a universe of fog…’
Was that satellite, luminous and drifting through the fog like a small, pure white moon, Outer Tribulation City Kundara itself?
The city of Long-lived Beings, hidden behind a veil called the Shadow of the Star, shifting its orbit in accordance with a planet’s revolution cycle.
An eternal satellite, pursuing a response called ‘outer tribulation’ to escape destruction.
At this moment, having twisted the veil through Celestial Spellcraft and finally opened the gate to the Outer Tribulation City.
At the very moment Lennok felt his body and mind bend to their limits on the path to Kundara—
Flash!!
Lennok found himself standing in the middle of a colossal bridge.
“This is…”
A path made of solid marble.
A massive bridge, spread wide to either side as if built for giants, not humans.
The scale of the surrounding structures was so immense that even Lennok himself looked incredibly dwarfed.
If not for the dense fog spread everywhere, he might have been able to perceive its size more clearly, but even the sheer size of the shadows cast beyond the mist felt overwhelming.
Kwooooh!!!
A sense of déjà vu, as if the entire massive bridge Lennok stood upon had transformed into a mighty presence, pressing down on everything around him.
The moment Lennok, his expression hardening, raised his gaze toward the colossal shadow looming beyond the fog—
“[This is Kundara’s first Tribulation.]”
Olivera stood behind him, arms crossed.
“Olivera.”
“[I heard it existed in a very abstract form, but its manifestation is quite different from what I imagined.]”
She glanced up at the misty, colossal bridge and murmured.
“[However, this is only the simplest and most basic trial, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to pass.]”
“……Now that you mention it, Alohan also talked about the Tribulations.”
Didn’t he say one had to reach the Eight Tribulations to exchange the lifespan contained in a Ruyi Orb?
He had only half-listened at the time, but it seemed Olivera knew more.
Lennok, belatedly recalling Alohan’s words, asked.
“Is the entire Outer Tribulation City comprised of gates called Tribulations?”
“[Well…… I’m not sure if you could call them gates.]”
Olivera said languidly.
“[They are merely a type of trial given to those who seek to ascend. There are no clear criteria for passing or failing. In some cases, I’ve heard people simply overcome the trials by the passage of time alone.]”
“……”
“[However, it is clear that the very concept of the Tribulations is intimately intertwined with the essence of Kundara.]”
“As one ascends and the stages of Tribulation increase, is it a way to differentiate the city’s level and facilities…?”
Lennok murmured, his chin in his hand, lost in thought.
“It looks less like the city is divided into districts or floors, and more like the hierarchy itself has been materialized into the city’s structure.”
“……”
According to Alohan, it was clear that the entirety of Kundara was composed of at least eight Tribulations.
Would it be a misconception if that number felt quite similar to the number of hierarchies Lennok knew?
The city of Long-lived Beings, created outside the Tribulations to escape destruction.
Perhaps the very structure of Kundara itself was the result of artificially recreating multiple self-transformations.
Lennok, deep in thought in the middle of the misty bridge, reached into his coat.
“Before we cross the bridge, let’s sort out what needs to be done.”
“[Sort out?]”
Olivera retorted with an amused voice.
“[In my experience, not much has gone according to plan when I’m with you. Will it even be meaningful?]”
“……I always had a plan. It just didn’t go according to plan because various things kept overlapping mid-way.”
Originally, he should have ridden the Thorben War-Mage Tower to the veil of the Western Continent, cast Celestial Spellcraft, and entered Kundara.
However, the intervention of the Headro Warlords, druids, and the Order Alliance Leader had significantly derailed the schedule.
It was also true that even after things went awry while hearing about the decisive battle between the Alliance Leader and the Second Apostle, he had managed the situation as best as possible.
Lennok, ignoring Olivera’s remark, rummaged inside his coat and said.
“First. Locate the corpse of Kaiser Bajour, which is stored somewhere in Outer Tribulation City Kundara.”
“……”
“It’s the most important reason for visiting Kundara, and an essential process to understand the end Kaiser met in the Project.”
At Lennok’s mention of Kaiser, Olivera’s will-thought momentarily chilled, but Lennok paid it no mind.
“Second. Investigate the identity of the significant ‘event’ that the Outer Tribulation City is currently anticipating.”
Lennok said, raising two fingers.
“If Alohan, the Water God Dragon King of the Deep Sea Domain, is personally concerned, it can’t be an ordinary matter. It could greatly impact our own affairs here.”
“[Wasn’t it because of that event that all paths leading to Kundara were temporarily blocked?]”
Olivera replied with a languid telepathic transmission.
“[It must be impossible without the cooperation of all of Kundara. The investigation itself might not be as difficult as one might think. Is there a third?]”
“This might be the most necessary task for achieving the two objectives I just described.”
Lennok said, raising a third finger.
“Third. Find the Fearsome Blood King and seek his counsel.”
“[The Fearsome Blood King……]”
Olivera, apparently not unfamiliar with the name, murmured it softly.
“According to what I learned while investigating the Project’s prohibition, he was one of the two individuals involved in concealing Kaiser’s body.”
Lennok said.
A few secrets he had uncovered while investigating Kaiser’s past actions after meeting him.
He remembered several facts about the secret history surrounding Kaiser Bajour’s death and the events that followed.
“If the Fearsome Blood King cooperated in hiding Kaiser’s body, we should meet him directly and hear his story. Of course, I don’t expect him to cooperate willingly…”
Lennok said, glancing over.
“Olivera. If you were with the Project until the very end, there’s no way you wouldn’t know about this.”
Whoosh…!!
A cold wind seemed to blow through the dense fog.
As the fog gradually receded, Lennok gazed at her face, visible through her translucent veil.
“Do you know anything about the Fearsome Blood King, or can you tell me anything?”
“[Everything was a mess after Kaiser died.]”
Olivera, arms crossed, replied with a chilling telepathic transmission.
“[We gathered all the failures of the world to defy fate… and failed more miserably than any scenario we had envisioned.]”
“……”
“[As Ars Nova was destroyed, the world’s timeline collapsed, and causality twisted into chaos. Because of that, even I don’t know much about what happened after Kaiser died.]”
Her Mystic Eye, glimpsed through the veil, seemed clouded with complex emotions.
“[I hate to admit it, but I’m no different from you.]”
Olivera murmured, looking toward the far side of the colossal bridge.
“[The reason I accepted your brazen proposal to bring me to Kundara was that I had a vague inkling of what you intended to do in this city.]”
“……”
“[If you’re ready, let’s go.]”
She glanced back at Lennok and smiled.
“[Didn’t you call me because you intended to go to the very end of this city, to pick up the pieces of the Project’s failure?]”
“……Indeed.”
Lennok shook his head with a bitter smile.
“But it’s not time yet.”
“[Not time?]”
“Because before we pass Kundara’s first Tribulation, there’s one method I want to experiment with right here.”
Saying so, Lennok finally withdrew the hand he had been rummaging with inside his coat.
Olivera’s aura subtly shifted the moment she saw the old notebook in his hand.
“[That’s…]”
“It’s an artifact called a Blood-Thought Scribe.”
Lennok said, opening the old notebook.
“It’s an artifact created by the Fearsome Blood King, a recording device that primarily deals with themes of blood and life.”
“[So it refers to a blood-attribute database created by a vampire.]”
Olivera, who immediately understood Lennok’s explanation, asked.
“[Do you intend to ask it directly for the Fearsome Blood King’s location?]”
“No. When I experimented with it before, it said it couldn’t disclose information on administrators like the Fearsome Blood King.”
Lennok, who had slightly cut his finger to draw blood, dropped a single drop onto the notebook page as he answered.
The Blood-Thought Scribe was a recording device Lennok had received as a gift from Madam just before heading to Machina.
Lennok had once used this notebook to obtain information about the Ascendant Seonjong, Faud Older.
Through it, he had secured clues about the existence of the Outer Tribulation City, Faud’s rebellion, and Kaiser’s corpse.
“However, information about Ascendants and Long-lived Beings seemed to be recorded in surprising detail. In that case, there’s a way we can use it.”
“[You mean—]”
“If it records information about Long-lived Beings, it should also include information about their habitats.”
Saying so, Lennok began to write on the notebook page with his blood-stained hand.
“Then, naturally, wouldn’t information about the Outer Tribulation City also be recorded to some extent in the Blood-Thought Scribe?”
=Blood-Thought Scribe Zyble.
The moment Lennok inscribed the blood-stained words, they seemed to soak into the page and vanish.
At the same time, new words began to appear one by one on the pages of the old notebook.
=Greetings, Transcendent, worthy of challenging a great destiny.
“……”
The exact same phrase as when Lennok first used the Blood-Thought Scribe.
Lennok already knew what the Blood-Thought Scribe would answer next.
=Ascendant. What do you wish to know?
“……”
Olivera, watching the words appear in the notebook beside Lennok, turned away with an incredulous look.
“[You really do everything. Are you now defrauding even a vampire’s relic?]”
“It’s not fraud. Though I have a rough idea of what you usually think of me.”
Lennok, casually dismissing Olivera’s remark, turned the page.
“The Blood-Thought Scribe’s internal criteria evaluate me more highly than anticipated. The experiment on this aspect is complete.”
Still, the Blood-Thought Scribe continued to mistake him for an Ascendant after tasting his blood.
Since Lennok’s skill had only continued to increase since he first used the Blood-Thought Scribe, in a way, it was only natural.
If so, there was still room to exploit this blood-attribute database in Outer Tribulation City Kundara.
Thinking so, Lennok squeezed blood from his fingertip and wrote on the page again.
=I wish to know the method to pass Kundara’s first Tribulation.
The answer came immediately.
=There are 40,320 methods to pass the first Tribulation. Would you like to view them consecutively?
“……”
The number was quite large, more than he had expected.
Lennok, scratching his cheek, wrote again.
=Tell me just one, the simplest and most convenient method.
If he were to ask for all 40,000 methods, not only would the notebook’s pages be insufficient, but he would have to draw all the blood from his body to serve as ink.
Naturally, he had no intention of dying in such a manner here.
“……No.”
Lennok, after a moment’s thought, rewrote the question before the Blood-Thought Scribe could answer.
According to Lennok’s memory, there was a limit to the number of questions the Blood-Thought Scribe could answer at once.
Rather than wasting his turns on minor questions, it would be better to choose a question that could penetrate to the core.
=I wish to know the simplest and most convenient method to pass all of Kundara’s Tribulations.
The Blood-Thought Scribe responded immediately.
=Displaying the simplest and most convenient method among all ways to pass the Tribulations.
=Look behind you.
“……What?”
At that completely unexpected answer, Lennok instinctively spun his head around.
“Hmm?”
A black-haired girl with blood-red eyes met Lennok’s gaze and tilted her head.
“……”
“……”
The two, their gazes meeting for a moment, remained silent without a word.
The trial of the first Tribulation he faced immediately after arriving at Outer Tribulation City Kundara.
An outsider he never imagined he would encounter on the massive, fog-shrouded bridge.
Lennok’s eyes turned chilling as he stared at the girl standing silently behind him.
“……She’s no ordinary child.”
She had approached right behind Lennok, yet he couldn’t even detect her presence through mana perception.
No, in fact, he couldn’t even read a life response or presence from the girl before him.
She might appear ordinary at first glance, but she was undoubtedly a dangerously chilling presence.
Most importantly, the fact that the Blood-Thought Scribe had pointed to this girl as the method to pass the first Tribulation—
“Has Kundara’s highest-ranking Long-lived Being come out to meet us personally outside the city?”
Kiiing…!!!
Lennok said, rapidly drawing up mana and reinforcing his shield.
“State your name. What race are you from?”
“Hmm?”
The girl replied nonchalantly.
“From my perspective, it seems I should be getting an explanation from you first.”
“What?”
“You’re the one who called me here. I merely answered your summons.”
The girl, looking up at Lennok askance with a hand on her hip, said with a peculiar smile.
“I felt a strange sense of déjà vu outside the city, so I came out to investigate, and you’ve brought stolen goods I made decades ago.”
“Stolen goods?”
“That.”
The girl pointed to the notebook in Lennok’s hand.
“I made that.”
“……”
Only then did Lennok, understanding the girl’s words, fall silent.
If someone in this Outer Tribulation City could recognize the Blood-Thought Scribe and claim ownership…
“[As I’ve said many times, when I’m with you, nothing ever goes according to plan.]”
Olivera muttered with a laugh.
“[Did the Fearsome Blood King come all the way to the front of Kundara to meet us personally?]”