A Sorcerer’s Journey

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Grimm and Millie landed at the Dark Sorcerer’s Headquarters together.

This time, they did not land on the ground in front of the headquarters; instead, they flew straight to the open-space plaza on top of the building. By the time they arrived, there were already over twenty thousand Dark Demon-Hunters gathered at the plaza.

They could see more Dark Sorcerers flying towards the plaza from afar too.

Grimm and Millie picked a less congested area in the plaza and observed the other fellow Demon Hunters quietly.

Judging from what he could see, Grimm observed that the Level 1 Sorcerers’ and Level 2 Sorcerers’ numbers were about 15:1 in ratio. In other words, there were less than two thousand Level 2 Sorcerers who could morph their bodies into elements, out of the twenty thousand people in the plaza.

As for the Level 3 Sorcerers?

It was quite rare to see a Level 3 Sorcerer under the defensive cover of the Seven Rings. Thus, it was even less likely to see one showing up in a Demon-Hunting mission.

This was due to the policies of the Sorcerer World that encouraged Dark Sorcerers to run experiments and meditations for an obscenely huge amount of time; this, in turn, was to encourage them to rank up to be Stigmata Sorcerers so they could reinforce and enhance the strength of the Sorcerer World itself.

Other than that, Level 3 Sorcerers were too busy with various duties and tasks. Therefore, their services would only be required when peculiar missions or tasks surfaced.

For example, the task of becoming a Sorcerer School, or to audit conquered worlds, or to repress and squelch rebellions, or to determine the coordinates of a potentially conquerable world before Demon-Hunting missions could be commenced, or to maintain the Holy Tower’s security system.

If Level 1 and Level 2 Sorcerers of the Sorcerer World were mere foot soldiers and elite privates in an army, then the Level 3 Sorcerers were the ones who possessed the opportunity to become sergeants and majors in the army—the ones with leadership roles.

Buzz… buzz… buzz…

Several dozens of agile-moving mirror images dropped from the sky and hovered steadily in front of everyone present in the plaza. After taking a closer look, these were actually huge mechanical bee mounts. Grimm saw one of these flying mounts, used by the Sky Holy Tower’s Sorcerer-apprentices, back when he was riding the giant turtle of Celestial Cordillera to the World Core.

Millie, though, was taken aback when she saw these massive bees; it would seem that she had never seen these flying mounts before.

Unshaken by the sudden appearance of the flying mounts, Grimm started to make deductions. He was curious about the origins of these bees—were they part of the Void Fortress’s facilities or were they specifically assigned by the Holy Towers to carry the Dark Sorcerers into the Void Fortress?

If they were part of the Void Fortress’s facilities, that would mean that these agile flying bees were meant to be the Elite Field Sorcerers’ mounts.

The Elite Field Sorcerers were Demon Hunters who had earned Honor Badges by delivering outstanding performances in their missions. Their Honor Badges were categorized by ranks: Rank 3, Rank 2, Rank 1, and Rank Superior. They were the best of the best amongst the Demon Hunters—thus, they were granted more resources, privileges, and status compared to the ordinary Demon Hunters.

These mechanical bees could, at most, carry ten people. After they were at maximum capacity, they zoomed up to the sky, leaving a vivid mirror image behind at the plaza. Their flight speed was so fast that they rose up higher than the Seven Rings’ defensive cover and clouds in less than a minute!

In just minutes, these mechanical bees had completed their first round and flew right back to the plaza with empty seats; and then, another batch of Dark Sorcerers boarded and were also sent straight to their destination.

Grimm and Millie sat close together as the mechanical bee’s unthinkable speed broke away from the gravitational pull of the Terran Stream. Several Sorcerers who had weaker stamina started to feel sick as they reached higher altitudes; to remain conscious, they needed to activate their defensive barriers or techniques to counteract the sheer inertia that was pressing on them. Grimm was not affected much by this due to his sturdy Constitution. With his Mystic Eye activated, Grimm was studying the bee’s mechanical gears that were spinning rapidly next to the window.

“This… this is such an interestingly curious mechanical design.”

Even though he was not familiar with machines, Grimm was able to observe the workings of the complex machine using his Mystic Eye. Astounded by what he saw, Grimm let out a sigh of amazement.

Poof!

After passing through the defensive cover and penetrating layers after layers of snowy clouds, the mechanical bee finally reached a serenely quiet dimension.

As though there was a layer of steam cloaked above the clouds, the “place” looked misty and surreal. This dimension was what they called “The Vacant” in the Sorcerer World—a vacuum of nothingness except for elemental energies.

Buzz buzz buzz…

Rapidly buzzing its mechanical wings, the massive mechanical bee hovered in place as it adjusted the position and angle it was heading towards; the seats within were also slowly turning to face forward instead of upwards. Then, in a flash, the mechanical bee zoomed towards a massive scarlet metallic structure, leaving yet another mirror image from where it was hovering earlier.

After traveling for half a second, a powerful sonic boom blasted around the bee, rippling the clouds below.

From afar, Grimm, Millie, and the other passengers could see the scarlet red moon ahead of them. They could also see three more identical moons suspended in the air on other sides too—there were a total of four scarlet moons hanging above the clouds of the Holy Tower of the Seven Rings.

As the mechanical bees flew closer to the Void Fortress, the metallic structure was so massive that Grimm was not able to see it in its entirety. On the contrary, he was now finally able to see the details of parts of the fortress now that they had inched closer.

The war machine of the Sorcerer World—the Void Fortress. It looked like a gigantic hemispheric metallic flying megastructure.

This metallic megastructure was approximately twelve thousand meters in length; its foundation was supported by countless of scarlet metal pallets, serving as a heat sink for the massive hemispheric fortress. Each of these metal pallets was hundreds of meters in length; the spaces in between these pallets were huge too—enough to accommodate one of the mechanical bees that Grimm was riding on at the moment.

Getting a rough measure with his bare eyes, Grimm was amazed as he realized that each of these scarlet metallic pallets were at least five meters thick.

Standing on top of these scarlet pallets were gigantic metallic doors which opened up as they flew closer. Other than the approaching mechanical bees, there were also several three-hundred-meter long voidships, shaped like sharks, flying through the doors. As they got closer, mechanical arms rose from within the doors and grabbed the voidships, pulling them into the lower part of the fortress.

The “lower part” of the fortress too had about twenty massive metallic doors.

They could see numerous Snail Emissaries escorting multiple flying creatures that were approaching the Void Fortress. At a closer look, one could see that there were huge numbers of Bright Sorcerers riding on top of these creatures.

Vroom! Vroom!

On top of the Tree of Life’s Energy Ring, the Heart of the Seven Rings was floating and hovering in place at the Vacant as it lifted several Voidships to the Void Fortress.

The seemingly quiet clouds were in fact riffed with bustling action as everyone scrambled to direct the incoming flying vessels into the fortress. Amongst the landing vessels was Grimm and Millie’s mechanical bee, which landed firmly on a wide open space within the Void Fortress.

When looking around, one could see a Sorcerer Tower standing near where they landed; other than that, there were also several visible entrances that led to the lower part of the Void Fortress. As the vessels settled down on their landing porches, the Bright and Dark Sorcerers were directed off of their transports before they were grouped into two massive groups.

The Bright Sorcerers’ group was several times the size of the Dark Sorcerers’. After lining up in an orderly fashion at the landing porches, one could see that there was barely any space in between each of these Bright Sorcerers’ shoulders. After they had settled down, they were led into the deeper parts of the fortress to receive their assignments.

As for the Dark Sorcerers, due to their smaller numbers they each had a huge space in between them after lining up at the landing porches. Unlike the Bright Sorcerers, no one displayed much emotion nor had any communication with one another. All they did was calmly and placidly wait for their next instructions.

Three hourglasses later.

Every single Bright Sorcerer had now marched into the deeper parts of the Void Fortress, leaving only the Dark Sorcerers standing calmly waiting for their assignments.

Having completed their duty as transports, the mechanical bees flew back into the basement of the Void Fortress.

Suddenly, a huge black dimensional crater, about several dozens of meters in length, was being torn open in the sky!

Whoosh whoosh whoosh…

Hundreds of dark silhouettes then emerged from the huge black crater and landed on the Void Fortress. A large of number of these newcomers leaped straight into the deeper areas of the Void Fortress while only a small number of them landed on the landing zone.

Grimm could feel a powerful Demon-Hunter aura from these “newcomers”. They were all Level 3 Sorcerers.

Nonetheless, the other Demon Hunters did not pay much attention to them. They were still raising their heads, looking at the black dimensional crater that was still open in the sky. Realizing something, Grimm and Millie too shifted their attention to the dimensional crater.

Slowly, three humanoid Sorcerer-looking silhouettes emerged from within the crater.

In an instance, the Demon Hunters in the Void Fortress started to breathe heavily; admiration glimmered in their eyes as they looked at the three sorcerers above.

They were the great Stigmata Sorcerers of the Sorcerer World!

Crack crack crack…

Yet, the three Stigmata Sorcerers, who were at most two meters in height, appeared to be stuck on the other side of the dimensional crater, which was at least several dozens of meters in length, and could not get through into the Void Fortress. This puzzled many low-level Sorcerers who were present.

Grimm quietly deduced what was going on.

“Perhaps it’s the incompatibility of the energy used? Or perhaps it’s the nature’s law that’s in the way? Wait… could it be that this is due to a miscalculation in the relative dimension when tearing open the crater? Or a miscalculation of the temporal flux?”

It was then several dozens of Seven Rings Snail Emissaries appeared around the black dimensional crater.

These Snail Emissaries then started to move around the black crater, gnawing up the space around it. Slowly, the black dimensional crater became bigger and bigger—turning into a massive round shaped dimensional hole.

A quarter of an hour later…

A massive round-shaped dimensional hole, over hundreds of diameters in size, was fully formed above the Void Fortress.

Finally, the three Stigmata Sorcerers started to slowly step out of the dimensional hole. Each step they took was very cautious—as if they were afraid to ruin anything in the process.

As the Stigmata Sorcerers completely materialized into the Sorcerer World, the Seven Rings Snail Emissaries shot out surges after surges of energy waves from their mouths, mending the dimensional hole in a rather short period of time.

As countless Demon Hunters looked at the three Stigmata Sorcerers hovering above the massive Void Fortress, overlooking everyone below, they felt as if their hearts had gotten a tight squeeze, causing them to hold their breaths in awe.

There were three massive dark shadowy silhouettes, over a hundred meters in size, standing behind the three ordinary-looking Stigmata Sorcerers. Despite doing their best to observe, no one was able to see clearly what these giants were.

And yet, a powerful pressure, an existential level of pressure caused each of the Demon Hunters’ hearts to quiver.