CHAPTER 572: CHAPTER 82: PEOPLE FROM THE FUTURE

Before the Nightmare Barrier.

Everyone saw Aske walk over, pause for a moment, then turn back around.

"All set," Aske said calmly, "Too simple. You guys teleport back to Fire Island, and I’ll get you through this without a scratch."

"What about this book, though?" Medea took out the Ancient Book, "Should you come back for it first, and then we teleport in, and you carry the book over?"

"No need to complicate things; that would mean touching the Nightmare Barrier again," Aske pulled a hook claw with a rope out of thin air, "Just put the book on the ground."

"Teleport in."

"Then I’ll drag the book over, and that’s it."

The girls: ......

Conceptual weapons are really handy, even able to produce something like a hook claw.

So, everyone went to Fire Island with the Banshee Queen, granting her a certain level of trust, considering only Miel could bring her over.

Aske threw the hook claw, landing it precisely behind the book, then he jerked and pulled the rope.

Hooked.

He dragged the Ancient Book over, picked it up, and dusted it off.

After continuing forward for a few hundred meters, he felt the strange atmosphere around him fade slightly— it seemed he had exited the range of the Nightmare Barrier.

Then Aske went back to Fire Island and called everyone out, and they proceeded towards the core of the Spiritual Tree. Along the way, Mia suddenly asked curiously:

"Aske, what was your nightmare?"

"My nightmare is just a ’dream,’" said Aske, with a play on words.

"What do you mean?" Mia paused for a moment, then asked, "Why did it seem like you weren’t affected by any negative impacts when you broke out of the nightmare? Eleanor was crying, after all."

"That’s why I’m the Squad Leader, and you guys are just regular team members," Aske replied.

"Cough cough," Nora coughed to remind him that there was a Demigod senior present! Maybe save the boasting for later.

"What will we face after getting through this layer of the Nightmare Barrier?" she casually asked Aske.

"Uh..." Aske hesitated.

According to the usual instance conventions, after puzzle-solving in the plot, the next challenge is often combat.

However, having experienced that nightmare, he somewhat hesitated to still see this place as a game world. Since it’s not a game, what comes next is anyone’s guess; it depends on the mood of the Spiritual Essence Tree.

"We can only take it one step at a time," he finally said ambiguously.

The group continued onward, and, after about half an hour, they again felt the distortion of time.

The time-related Mutant erupted at Ratlan Palace, with the phenomenon weakening the farther from the epicenter, indicating that the Demigod had perished within Ratlan Palace.

By the time they entered the body of the Spiritual Tree, the anomaly had all but vanished. However, here they encountered traces of temporal disorder once more, meaning...

The Demigod had been digested by the Spiritual Tree after its demise. The time-related abilities inherent within the Demigod were set up by the Spiritual Tree as the second challenge.

"There’s someone there," said the Banshee Queen suddenly.

"There is someone," Aske, not having Miel’s Visual Sequential Ability, couldn’t make out the distant figure clearly, but his Intuitive Ability had already started sending out warnings.

"It must have been Fate that pulled them here," the Banshee Queen mused softly. "The Spiritual Essence Tree has no intelligence; it only exerts its most fundamental ability, which is to pull people from parallel worlds."

"Of course, if it has to pull someone, it needs an anchor point. It could be a location, such as this place in a parallel world—though this place is the Church Court, where I suspect there aren’t many Transcendents to pull; or it could be a person, like one’s self in a parallel world."

"Since there’s no one else here, for the Spiritual Essence Tree to activate the power of Fate, it can only use one of us as the anchor point." She tapped her chin with her pale, slender finger, pondering. "I am not from this plane, so it couldn’t be me as the anchor point. Then, who among you could it be?"

"It should be one of Aske, Eleanor, and Peggy," Thira also tried to analyze. The reason was simple: they knew Extraordinary Swordsmanship.

The higher the level of a person, the stronger they are, but the more spirituality it would consume to pull them over; yet, Extraordinary Swordsmanship is not part of the level system, and it enhances battle prowess to a significantly large extent.

Therefore, pulling over a user of Extraordinary Swordsmanship would be the most cost-effective in terms of value. Although such people are extremely rare in the world, it was unfortunate that their team happened to have three...

Medea was momentarily stunned but quickly understood her meaning. If it were Peggy or Eleanor, that would be one thing, but if it were Aske from a parallel world, that could be somewhat dangerous.

As she was contemplating this with some unease, she suddenly heard Aske warn:

"Here they come!"

Who’s coming? Medea concentrated her gaze toward the figure emerging from the fog in front of them, and at the moment when the other’s figure came into view, she immediately activated her Mind Control ability.

However, before her mental tendrils could pass through the Subconscious Ocean and coil around the individual, the figure suddenly vanished.

Vanished?

"Get down!" Aske’s voice rang out again, and the girls instinctively dispersed towards the outskirts, only to see Aske, holding his sword in a Block position, warding off the attacker’s Short Knife slash.

The attacker, who had suddenly covered the vast distance and appeared as if by Teleportation, was a young girl just over twenty years old. Her light brown hair was tied into a ponytail at the back of her head; her eyes were large and lively, her nose petite and delicate, and her lips thin and soft like flower petals—she was the spitting image of Mia’s older sister.

To be exact, she was a twenty-year-old adult version of Mia.

"Not... who are you?" Seeing everyone’s gaze fall on her, little Mia immediately became flustered and embarrassed. "Why attack the Squad Leader?"

"Squad Leader? He’s not worthy!" the adult Mia spat and once again disappeared from the spot.

Aske spun around like lightning, intercepting a cunning Backstabbing attack.

"You seem to still retain your own Sanity," he said, his expression puzzled, while wielding his Longsword in an impenetrable manner, blocking any attack from the adult Mia, no matter from which angle she Teleported in. "Why are you attacking me?"

"Because, in any world, you’re a scumbag!" Adult Mia suddenly Teleported above his head and shouted, "Black Particle!"

Countless overlapping Black Holes materialized in her hands and shot downwards like a machine gun. Aske’s figure abruptly disappeared from its spot as the series of Black Holes hit the ground, creating an immensely deep crater in an instant.

"Who taught you to call out your moves before making them?" Making use of the Ripple Sword he had plundered, Aske Teleported behind her, his empty left hand reaching out like an eagle’s claw, trying to snatch the Short Knife from her hand.

"None of your damn business!" Adult Mia shouted angrily, Teleporting behind him again.

The two constantly shifted positions with Teleportation, each time they reappeared they would complete an exchange of offense and defense, before immediately moving again, leaving afterimages of their fierce battle all over the place.

Since the Ripple Sword was a form of Extraordinary Swordsmanship that the adult Mia mastered, Aske’s plundered version was effectively a degraded one, neither the instantaneous speed of release nor the stability after Teleportation could match up to the real owner, adult Mia.

As a result, most of the time, it was adult Mia on the offensive and Aske on the defensive. However, using his Intuitive Ability and Star Nine Forms, Aske still managed to employ a "strike first by striking later" tactical prediction to block her every sudden slash or Thrust.

"How... impressive..." The girls watched, dazzled, wanting to help but unable to make a move. Not to mention abilities, they couldn’t even lock their gaze onto their figures.

Mia was completely stunned, thinking was that really herself as an adult? She was actually fighting the Squad Leader to a stalemate!

"She has no Killing Intent," Eleanor, who was observing the entire scene through the Will Fog, suddenly said. "Even though her attacks are fierce, that Mia doesn’t intend to kill Aske."

"That’s right!" Swinging a blade at Aske, adult Mia suddenly shouted, "I just want to beat this scumbag half to death! Don’t you guys interfere!"

Not interfere? How could we not! Thira quietly moved forward a step, her Mithril Circuits lit up on her wrist, casting a large-area Gravity Manipulation AOE that enveloped over the area.