Chapter 560 - 19: Decay Level 2 and Time Wheel Level 12
Chapter 560: Chapter 19: Decay Level 2 and Time Wheel Level 12
The Desert of Decay, this gray and white graveyard forgotten by time, became Lynch’s new domain. Unlike the Spring Garden, where he hunted various monsters, here his adversaries were the silent, ancient stone monuments scattered throughout the sea of dead silence.
As far as the eye could see, the gray-white dunes undulated like petrified waves of death. And in the valleys, the shadows of the dunes, and even beneath the flowing lines of sand, those dark gray stone monuments stood upright like gravestones, dense and countless in number.
They took on various forms—some towering like towers, some low like steles, some covered with ghastly cracks, and some with surfaces as smooth as mirrors. But without exception, they were all inscribed with twisted, intricate runes that contained the ultimate essence of decay.
Lynch’s figure became the only “living thing” in this absolute silence. His days were divided into simple yet perilous cycles.
By day, he conquered the Tombstone Forest.
Whenever the bleak daylight once again covered the desert, Lynch began his “pilgrimage.” Like a pious monk in a barren wasteland of knowledge, or a ruthless conqueror, he precisely pinpointed his next target among the grave stones.
Approach, touch, decode—these simple actions each time became the fuse for igniting a battle of rules.
At first, the battles were extraordinarily arduous. Every gravestone seemed to be an independent, powerful core of a Decaying Domain. The rules’ violent erosion erupted simultaneously from three dimensions: Spirit, body, and energy. The gray-white particles of death clung like maggots on bones, while the intention of demise pierced the soul like an ice spike.
Lynch needed to exert all his strength, deploying every Time Mystical Level he had to gain a moment’s respite, using Space Magic to create barriers or transfer attacks. Finally, by relying on the newly formed power of his Decaying Domain Lv1, he navigated through the fierce collisions of rules, searching for that fleeting “resonance gap” to deliver a lethal strike.
Each victory was accompanied by the lament and collapse of a gravestone. A massive, systematic flow of rune knowledge of decay surged into his Sea of Consciousness like a breach in a dam. This knowledge was no longer isolated fragments but a complete rune system on how to construct, operate, and amplify the Power of Decay!
His Decaying Domain, etched in his Sea of Consciousness, greedily absorbed these nutrients, growing slowly in size. Its light became increasingly profound, with the swirling shadows of runes around it growing more numerous and substantial. The system in his consciousness coldly recorded the progress.
[Knowledge fragments of the Decaying Domain +3].
As the number of conquered gravestones increased, Lynch’s understanding of the rules of decay rapidly deepened. He was no longer content with passive defense and seeking weaknesses.
He began to actively “analyze” the energy flow of rune patterns on the gravestones, predicting their attack patterns. He started utilizing the newly absorbed rune knowledge to construct more subtle and erosive decay power to “pollute” the rune structures on the gravestones. He even attempted to harness the decay floods that erupted from the gravestones, like riding a wild, raging horse, converting some of it into energy to nourish his domain.
The time for battle shortened. From initially needing several days of hard fighting to take down one gravestone, to breaking multiple gravestones in a single day later on.
The gray-white power of decay surrounding his fingertips became more restrained yet more terrifying. With a wave of his hand, he could cause a small area of sand particles to instantly turn to ash or make the rune lights on a gravestone dim. As he walked among the Tombstone Forest, the aura of decay he naturally exuded made some of the weaker gravestones tremble slightly as he approached, their rune lights flickering as if in fear.
And whenever night fell, he would find a relatively calm sand valley, set up a simple alert and a Time Delay Barrier, and enter deep meditation.
Meditation was no longer merely about recovery. In his Sea of Consciousness, it transformed into a battlefield and a furnace.
The vast fragments of rune knowledge he absorbed during the day, like countless meteors burning with gray-white flames, were captured and drawn in by his powerful spiritual power, cast into the central, ever-growing imprint of the Decaying Domain.
Like the core of a furnace, the imprint refined and purified these rune fragments, discarding chaotic and rampant wills contained within the gravestones, leaving only the most refined rule structures and truths of power. New, more complex chains of runes formed and linked around the imprint, continually perfecting the foundational architecture of the Decaying Domain.
At the same time, he did not abandon his own core—the twelve silver Mystical Circuits shimmering brightly in his Sea of Consciousness.
Lynch forcibly introduced the newly understood Power of Decay into these Mystical Circuits as if quenching them with venom! This was an extremely perilous process. Any slight misstep would lead to the decay power eroding and disintegrating the Mystical Circuits.
Yet, relying on his increasingly profound control over the rules of decay, and his understanding of the essence of time and space Mystical Levels, he cautiously guided this power. The power of decay was like the cruelest whetstone, constantly scouring and honing the time-space Mystical Circuits.
As the circuits resisted corrosion, their structures were forcibly compressed and purified, becoming tougher and more efficient, even faintly carrying a trace of gray and white, representing the “end.” The seemingly contradictory rules of time and decay began a difficult, initial fusion and coexistence in the high-pressure furnace.
The eleven Mystical Circuits tempered to the extreme had energy and understanding of rules accumulated at their ends, already reaching the critical point of overflow.
In the accumulation of countless deep meditations, the powerful pressure and new perspective brought by the rules of decay catalyzed a new Mystical Circuit to emerge, flashing with a more refined silver brilliance, and resiliently, clearly extending from the core intersection of the eleven circuits like a sprouting new shoot!
Day after day, month after month.
Countless sun and moon cycles silently passed through this dead silent desert. Lynch treaded over countless dunes, conquered innumerable stone monuments. His footprints seemed to carve a winding, twisting path on the gray-white canvas of the Desert of Decay, composed of countless ruins of gravestones.
His aura became increasingly deep and restrained, seemingly merging with this dead silent desert. Occasionally, a barely noticeable gray-white glow would flow over his skin, a manifestation of the highly concentrated Power of Decay. His gaze remained as sharp as ever, but now bore a new depth of seeing through appearances, gazing directly at the ultimate end of all things with an icy profundity.
Finally, on a night ravaged by storms.
Lynch sat in meditation within a natural refuge formed by the remnants of three enormous stone monuments. He entered deep meditation once more.
Within his Sea of Consciousness, the Decaying Domain imprint had grown severalfold, like a slowly rotating gray-white star, surrounded by layers of intricately functioning rune star rings.
The twelve Mystical Circuits traversed his Sea of Consciousness like twelve dazzling galaxies. They were no longer purely silver, with every circuit twining with delicate gray and white lines perfectly integrated into the circuits themselves, emitting the strange rhythm of time’s flow and the intertwining decay of all things.
At the moment when the core rune knowledge of the last conquered gravestone was completely refined and absorbed by the imprint—
Buzz!
His entire Sea of Consciousness trembled violently!
The imprint of the Decaying Domain erupted with brilliance! The power and rule comprehension it contained reached a whole new height! The progress for [Decaying Domain Lv1: 30000/30000] instantaneously achieved perfection!
[Decaying Domain Lv2]
Simultaneously, that twelfth Mystical Circuit suddenly burst forth with unprecedented resplendence, its gray-white patterns also lighting up clearly!
An energy far more powerful, more refined than the total of the previous eleven circuits, perfectly fused with the Power of Decay, thunderously connected! The twelve circuits linked at the ends, forming a more complex, stable, and powerful energy circulation system!
[Time Wheel (Second Tier) lv12]