CHAPTER 212: THE GUARDIAN

As they came closer, the thing slowly lifted its head.

Shiao Yi and Dominic said nothing, watching it silently.

Its upper body still looked somewhat human, but everything below its waist had melted into the ground, merging with the stone itself.

Through the tangled strands of blue-black hair, one single eye remained. It was staring at them with a hollow lifeless gaze.

"Heh... cleaned it up nicely, didn’t you... hee, heehee..."

The sound it made was rough and hard to understand yet Shiao Yi couldn’t hide his shock that it was even capable of talking.

Even after turning into a monster, it still held a trace of human reason.

"I... am the guardian. Heh... that’s why... I can’t move. I’ve been here... a long, long time. Hee... heehee."

It seemed half-crazed.

And no wonder, who could stay sane after spending so long in this cursed demon world?

Madness was the only natural outcome.

"What are you guarding?" Dominic asked, sliding his sword back into its sheath.

It was clear that the creature could no longer move from that spot.

"The exit... and the entrance," it rasped.

"In other words, the path that leads outside the demon world?" Dominic pressed.

"Heehee... the exit... and the entrance."

"Are there others like you — other guardians?"

"I don’t know. I’ve been here... all this time. I can’t go anywhere."

"How long have you been here?"

"I... forgot. I’ve just... always been here. Heeheehee..."

For a while, the creature let out a dry, unpleasant laugh that echoed faintly through the hollow space.

"How do you reach the world outside? Do you know the way?" Dominic asked again.

"Exit... entrance. You can’t go outside. I keep it that way. I... am the guardian."

Dominic exhaled softly and muttered, "This is getting us nowhere."

Noticing the troubled look on Dominic’s face and the sigh that escaped him, Shiao Yi quietly spoke up.

"Dominic... maybe that man is a guardian who sealed the path, so the black slime can’t reach the surface."

The towering rock wall before them was clearly part of the earth’s crust leading upward toward the surface.

If the black slime ever tried to rise from the depths, it would have to use a connected pathway like this.

A thought came to Shiao Yi’s mind.

Perhaps that guardian, the humans who had turned into beasts and even the ruins scattered across the ground, maybe all of them had been sent here from the surface.

Or maybe... they had fallen.

All for one purpose, that’s to keep the black slime trapped within this underworld.

Maybe they had sacrificed entire buildings, even whole cities or nations, casting them down to seal the darkness below.

A massive, tragic sacrifice to protect the surface world.

Then that meant... there had to be a path here.

Shiao Yi placed his hand against the sheer stone wall. Closing his eyes, he began to search for a teleportation path, just a tiny gap would be enough, any connection leading to the surface.

"The path... it’s cut off. No good. A barrier... it’s sealed," the guardian stammered, his tone suddenly panicked.

"Just a little gap is enough," Shiao Yi said, his voice calm but determined. "Even for a moment, can’t we break through the barrier for just that long?"

A look of fear flickered across the creature’s dull eyes.

"Barrier... open?"

"I’m not trying to destroy it," Shiao Yi said gently. "We only want to go home, back to the surface."

But then, the guardian’s expression changed.

He froze completely, and his voice shifted, the tone became hollow, mechanical, ancient. The words that left his mouth weren’t of this age.

It was as if some long-forgotten recording had been activated, replaying an ancient spell.

Shiao Yi used telepathy to interpret the old words and translated them aloud for Dominic to hear.

"The barrier is firm and vast. It spreads across the world, layered and sealed.

When the barrier is set, both sides are opened. Thus, it is both entrance and exit.

A guardian is sent forth, to serve as the living key."

Dominic frowned, thinking aloud. "So when the barrier was first cast, both directions were open and even now, those points remain as both entrance and exit?"

Shiao Yi nodded. "Exactly. That’s what it means. He was made to be the seal, the living lid that guards the point where the barrier was tied."

This guardian must have been a powerful mage once, one of great renown and discipline.

It was likely that he had volunteered for this mission and choosing to seal himself away for eternity.

He must have been noble, selfless... so much so that even after all this time, even after his body decayed, he still retained a shred of his humanity.

"But looking at him now," Dominic said quietly, "it seems he’s reached his limit."

As soon as the last of the recorded words left his mouth, the guardian collapsed onto his back.

His form began to melt and fall apart, his body dissolving into dark fluid.

At the same time, a faint light shone from the center of his chest.

The light spread, tracing lines across the air, forming a glowing octagonal shape.

"A magic circle!" Dominic exclaimed. "It must lead us to the barrier itself!"

Hearing that, Shiao Yi grabbed Dominic’s arm. He didn’t stop to think, his instincts screamed that this was their one and only chance.

Without hesitation, Shiao Yi jumped straight into the magic circle that was glowing upon the guardian’s chest.

The jump was reckless, so reckless it could hardly even be called a gamble.

If Shiao Yi appeared inside solid rock or underground layers filled with dense matter, the result would be instant fusion and an explosion.

No matter how he thought about it, there shouldn’t have been any empty space waiting on the other side.

As he followed the path opened by the glowing magic circle, Shiao Yi used telekinesis to send his needle gun ahead, toward wherever the portal would take them.