The black sun hangs high

Chapter 242 Gazing into the Sky

In the latter half of the night, Hugh conducted a series of tests on the abilities of the Fate Roots race. With his greatly enhanced and expanded magical reserves, he successfully figured out the help this peculiar ancient race could provide him.

While the Fate Roots are certainly not adept at combat, they are able to successfully compensate for Shug's strategic shortcomings.

Building fortifications, setting traps, creating massive illusions...

These are precisely the tricks of the Roots of Fate. Their intelligence is truly astonishing. Therefore, they are always extremely cautious and meticulous when acquiring the memories and emotional states of their targets and using them as a basis to create illusions. In this respect, they rarely make any major mistakes.

According to Hugh's personal experience, the illusions created by the Roots of Fate are enough to trap a large group of ordinary people or a small group of mages acting in groups.

In addition, Hugh was amazed by their ability to predict fate.

For the roots, this almost prophetic ability to predict fate is simply their instinct, a gift bestowed by the "God of Fate," and one of the important tools they use to obtain the most extreme emotions when capturing prey.

Yes, it is important, but not necessary.

Because they don't need to use this ability to predict the distant future, they are more interested in using it to obtain more nourishment, comfort and pleasure. In this respect, the nature of the Fate Roots is somewhat similar to Theseus. For both of them, so-called fate is indeed just a dispensable tool. It would be best if they could gain benefits from it, but if it is not helpful, they can discard it.

But for Hugh, this ability has a different meaning.

He walked out of his room and into the main hall of the Legal Committee's residence. Several Legal Committee mages on night watch nodded familiarly to him upon seeing him. Over this period of time, the abilities and character that Hugh had demonstrated had earned the trust of all the Legal Committee mages here. If the scene of the council members and Legal Committee members working closely together in this dead city were to reach the outside world, it would probably shock many people.

Hughes also had a good impression of these dedicated and resolute members of the Legal Committee. He smiled and nodded in response, then went to a corner of the hall and sat down on an empty soft chair.

This action surprised the mages present. The female mage who had previously taken Hugh to see Justine looked over in confusion and asked, "Mr. Ernst, what are you doing...?"

Hugh smirked. "I've been alone in my room for too long. I wanted to find a place where some people are around to sit for a while... Don't worry about me."

"Ah, that's right."

The mages present all showed expressions of agreement. Although they had not had an in-depth conversation with Hugh, they knew that this mysterious young nobleman was under unimaginable pressure. Under such circumstances, even a sword-wielding hermit like Genet, who had received special training, always needed to communicate and get along with others, otherwise he would be driven crazy by the oppressive atmosphere in Seren City sooner or later.

The female mage was actually only in her early twenties. She had a lively personality and took a liking to Hugh, a young man who was even younger than herself. So she stood up and said, "There are extra blankets and chairs in the lounge next door. Please wait a moment."

After saying that, she hurriedly went to the next room and soon came out carrying a stack of blankets and several soft chairs with the help of a mage.

She quickly pieced things together, and a makeshift bed was formed from a soft chair and a blanket.

“Mr. Ernst, this way you will rest more comfortably... Don’t worry, we will wake you up when it’s light.”

Looking at the makeshift soft bed in front of him, Hugh was speechless. But since it was someone else's good intention, Hugh could only nod gratefully and accept it. So he lay down on the soft chair and quickly wrapped himself in a blanket.

He was all too familiar with this feeling.

I've had similar experiences countless times before, when I was working overtime all night in another world.

There were only four mages in charge of the inner hall. They were all doing their own thing. Two male mages were playing Dragon Tooth cards in silence, which was a rare pastime for them these days. The young female mage was watching from the side with a water glass in her hand, while the other mage was holding a magic book and seemed to be studying some problem.

Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, Hugh silently invoked the power of the Roots of Fate. In a corner of the hall, Hugh's eyes were gradually filled with strange, psychedelic colors, and everything in his vision began to slowly change.

Hughes first noticed that the hall of the Legal Committee's headquarters was in a state of utter disrepair, just like the room he had been in before. The walls and ceiling of the hall had collapsed and crumbled severely, leaving behind a horrific scene. In the nearly sealed ruins, one could vaguely see the constantly writhing dark shadows, the traces of the Dark Abyss's offspring.

"So... the headquarters of the Legal Committee ultimately became a lair for the offspring of the Dark Abyss?"

Hugh squinted as he observed everything, pondering, "Does this mean we've abandoned the base? Or has the base ultimately been breached?"

As he thought this, he turned his gaze to the mages, and an even stranger scene unfolded.

In Hugh's eyes, the mage who was reading the book had been reduced to a pitiful remains. In that branch of fate, the mage had clearly been captured by the Dark Abyss Spawn, and like the other victims, his body had been severely dismembered.

Then, Hugh turned his gaze to the other side.

Then, an even more horrific scene came into his view.

He first saw the two male mages who were playing with the Dragon Fang card turn into two charred corpses in an instant. They looked as if they had been burned by some kind of terrifying flame, becoming utterly charred remains that even the offspring of the Dark Abyss would not want to touch. Beside them, the friendly and lively young female mage collapsed to the ground. In the future scenario that Hugh had glimpsed, she too could not escape the pursuit of death.

It appeared as if someone had pierced her chest with a crystal gun; blood had completely stained her clothes, and her face was filled with blankness and astonishment.

She was shot in the back by someone with a crystal gun and died.

Hugh's breathing and thoughts trembled slightly. He slowly released the power that the roots of fate had given him. After the hallucinatory color in his eyes faded, it was replaced by a complex emotion of pain, sorrow, and incomprehension.

The unfolding of fate he glimpsed in the lobby of the Legal Committee's headquarters largely matched what he had seen in that small room earlier. In other words, in one of the most likely future branches of fate, the Legal Committee's headquarters would eventually fall, and many of the mage members who were still persevering would ultimately perish for various reasons.

But this doesn't explain everything. In the struggle and effort, sacrifice is inevitable, and Hugh has prepared himself mentally for this. He wants to know the reasons behind all these problems and whether these sacrifices and deaths can help more survivors escape and survive.

With that thought in mind, Hugh had no intention of continuing to rest on the soft chair. He immediately got up and hurriedly walked out of the hall amidst the surprised gazes of several mages. He needed more samples to verify his ideas.

On the open ground outside the Legislative Affairs Commission's premises, many people had already started working.

The vast majority of these people were ordinary survivors in Seren City, and a considerable number of them were members of Iris Street. After Iris Street and the Legal Committee branch reached a cooperation and agreement, they were transferred here by General Butz's orders to make up for the shortage of personnel in the Legal Committee's headquarters.

Hugh had no intention of attracting their attention. He stood silently in the shadows of a corner, concealing his aura, and once again activated the predictive ability of the Roots of Fate.

With so many people in front of him, Hugh immediately felt his magic power being consumed at an accelerated rate.

Thus, in his view, these ordinary people who were originally busy moving, sorting supplies, and inspecting and repairing the defense line immediately showed a different attitude.

Hughes was surprised to find that, in the fate he had deduced, the ordinary survivors before him had not died. They all seemed to be alive and well. Some seemed to have returned to being farmers and merchants, while others seemed to have donned the uniforms of the Kingdom of Delan or the Kingdom of Walter. But most of them were wearing heavy coats, and it seemed that they had all gone to colder and more remote regions...

At this moment, Hugh finally couldn't help but let out a long sigh of relief. His tense face relaxed, and he leaned against the wall, his psychedelic eyes flickering slightly.

Throughout all this time, he had been constantly telling himself that he was prepared to perish completely in the city of Seren.

But he didn't want all the sacrifices to turn into an absolute tragedy.

Now, the results of the deduction brought by the roots of fate have reassured him a lot. At least it means that in the not-too-distant future, the survivors of Seren City will eventually have a chance to escape their predicament, which is his biggest goal right now.

Hugh emerged from the shadows, and as he released the divination abilities granted to him by the roots of fate, he instinctively looked up at the sky—this had become a habit of his, as everyone in the city of Seren looked forward to the arrival of daylight.

However, this is now destined to be a very wrong move.

Hugh's body stiffened.

As Hugh's gaze fell upon the sky, the psychedelic color in his eyes had not yet faded, so his deductive abilities continued to operate. The instant he witnessed the heavens, Hugh felt his abundant magic power surge forth like a flood bursting from a sluice gate. His metal disc began to spin rapidly, and his tranquil mental world was stirred up by towering waves.

Hughes witnessed a terrifying spectacle.

He saw a huge black celestial body appear in the sky above the city of Seren, right above his head.

In the deduced illusion of fate, this black sun was so clear and concrete, and so close to the city of Seren, that Hugh even felt it was a huge black sphere about to smash into his head.

Like the black sun that Hugh had glimpsed in his dreams, within that deep, dark color, a suffocating light and shadow of despair constantly emanated, as if it would devour all faith and hope.

The light and shadow kept converging towards the center.

Hugh's body trembled slightly. He saw the center of the black sun tremble slightly, and then the light and shadow suddenly spread out, and the purest darkness immediately burst forth from its center.

In the instant before losing consciousness due to excessive loss of magic, Hugh made eye contact with the enormous eye connected to the Dark Abyss Palace within that illusion of fate.

……

After entering that astonishingly huge rift, the sense of time became blurred.

As the second group, a mix of Ymir Legion soldiers and elite mages, descended along the previous rest stops, they grew increasingly distant from the ground. By this time, the light of day had become extremely limited; natural light offered little help to those in the abyss. Therefore, in the early morning, before the sun had risen, these brave explorers once again set out.

With the help of the crystal lamps he carried and the lighting magic, the dark and oppressive depths of the rift were illuminated with extreme brightness.

Everywhere were traces left by the first advance team; their rest stops and the iron nails used for temporary rest and securing ropes provided much convenience for the second team.

They are now at an incredibly deep depth.

Meanwhile, more and more detailed information about the interior of the rift was successfully transmitted back to the camp above by those cryptic nodes.

"According to the log left by the first team, there should be a large area of ​​high-quality crystal mine below... Heh, if those speculators knew, they might not need us to explore this place; they could figure it out themselves."

"Enough with the nonsense, get ready... We've been asked to inspect these crystal ores, so make sure to record the findings."

As the two mages talked, they slowly descended using ropes and anchor points on the wall. With the aid of magic, they could easily perform these dangerous maneuvers.

Soon, the crystal mine that the two had been discussing came into view of the team.

Under the illumination of the crystallizing lamps, these crystal minerals with high magical concentrations all emitted a very special luster. This luster was so dazzling that it indicated that the magical content in the minerals was very abundant and extremely active.

Similar situations are very rare in naturally crystalline minerals.

(End of this chapter)