章節 97: Exploring Incursio's Dimension
"That's it for testing that," Liam muttered, putting away his notebook.
He moved on to the next part he needed to test.
'I'm quite curious about the temperatures Incursio can stand now,' Liam thought. 'After finding that out, I can finally go explore Incursio's dimension.'
He summoned his armor around him and leapt into the lava pit. Once inside, he began swimming downward. Flipper-like gear extended from the bottoms of his feet, allowing him to move much faster through the lava.
After swimming for a long time at a constant 2000 degrees Celsius (3632°F), Liam finally swam back up again.
'This isn't working anymore,' he thought. 'I need to go way too far down for any real temperature increase. If I kept swimming, I'd have to go tens of miles deeper towards the center of the Earth—and with that would come so much pressure that it would crush both me and my armor.'
He realized that wasn't an option. Surfacing again, he decided to take the easier route. Summoning Neontote, he aimed it at his arm and began pouring energy into it.
As the weapon absorbed more energy, the temperature climbed steadily: 1000 degrees Celsius (1832°F), 1500°C (2732°F), 2000°C (3632°F)—until it reached 3300°C (6332°F). At that point, Liam felt the heat beginning to melt Incursio.
He didn't stop. Pouring in more energy, he watched as the temperature continued to rise until it reached 3500°C.
"That's the limit," he determined. "This is the temperature on which I need to train if I want to keep improving my fire resistance."
"The growth is incredible—I could only handle 2000°C before," Liam thought as he cut off the energy flow to Neontote.
"It makes perfect sense. I almost died fighting the lava whale, and during those weeks of recovery, Incursio must have adapted a lot to protect me better. Coupled with its evolution, this improvement is the result."
"I'm done training in volcanoes. If I want to keep increasing my resistance, I'll need specialized equipment to create these temperatures." He took out his notebook, quickly writing down his observations.
"I'll test how long I can maintain Incursio later," he murmured, shutting the notebook. "I already know the limit's gotten much longer."
At that moment, a white rift appeared in front of him.
"Now it's time to explore Incursio's dimension," Liam said as he stepped through the portal.
On the other side, he stepped out on a massive rocky landscape filled with withered trees and other dead plants. Far behind him, inbetween a mountain and the ground, was the half ruined old headquarters from Night Raid.
In front of him stood the frozen Alexander, long dead. Liam had lost all interest in keeping him alive after getting the necessary information and writing it down. So, he encased him in ice and left him to freeze to death.
As for revenge for nearly killing his grandfather? Liam felt he had already exacted more than enough. The torture Alexander endured had inflicted pain far beyond what most people would suffer in multiple lifetimes.
With a flick of his hand, Liam shattered the ice—and Alexander's remains—into tiny fragments before continuing toward the main city.
After about an hour of walking, the massive kingdom walls appeared on the horizon.
He had high expectations for this exploration. There were still many unanswered questions surrounding Incursio. Now that his armor had evolved, he felt as though he was finally moving closer to the answers.
"I can finally use Incursio inside this dimension," Liam noted. While it didn't give him access to Incursio's full power, the improvement was significant.
"With Incursio, those figures from one of the previous times won't be able to take me out like that again," he thought as he approached the bottom of the walls.
Liam jumped up. He drove Neontote high into the kingdom walls, using his momentum to swing himself even higher. Resummoning Neontote, he embedded it into the wall once more, using the final push to launch himself onto the top of the massive structure.
'That was a lot faster than before,' Liam thought. 'Strange. I figured I'd be able to use my domain ability here, but it still doesn't work.'
On the way down, he let Neontote scrape along the wall to slow his fall, landing smoothly. He continued towards the center of the kingdom.
As he neared the inner walls, he noticed the sky had changed above the city compared to before his evolution. Yellow cloud-like smoke circled around the inner walls in the sky, swirling around like some sort of vortex.
He slowed down as he approached the inner walls, scanning his surroundings cautiously to avoid another sneak attack. Reducing his speed even more, he continued to walk for another ten minutes until he finally reached the inner walls.
On the walls, he noticed more strange scriptures—some were familiar, while others were completely foreign to him. After glancing around one last time, he pulled out his notebook and began sketching copies of the inscriptions.
When he finished, a sudden sense of a presence behind him made him spin around, but there was nothing there.
Frowning, he put the notebook away and prepared to climb the wall as he had done before. Without his earlier momentum, the climb took longer, but he eventually reached the top.
He looked up at the sky and noticed that the dark clouds had almost completely vanished, leaving only yellow clouds swirling above the inner walls, spiraling upwards into the sky. However, at the center of the formation, there were no clouds—just a vast, empty black space.
'It looks like Vormir when they got the Infinity Stone,' Liam thought. 'What's exactly is happening here?'
He took a few steps closer to the inside of the walls to look over the edge.
Inside the inner walls, ruined buildings were in every direction. These crumbled structures all used the same type of structure and materials. Inbetween all these ruins were some enormous footprints.
'Remnants of the castle that used to be here in the anime,' Liam assumed.
What Liam found truly strange and out of place was a large open space with a massive dome above it in the middle of the inner walls. The dome was supported by extremely detailed, ancient pillars, but there were no walls between them.
This design allowed Liam to see inside, where he noticed enormous stone statues. The statues on his side weren't facing him, and the others were also too far away to see their exact features.
'I need to get closer,' Liam thought as he jumped down from the walls.
He landed on the old debris and carefully made his way toward the central dome-like structure, his eyes scanning his surroundings warily as he moved forward incase those figures appeared again.
'I really don't like this feeling,' Liam thought.
There was an eerie sensation growing within him the closer he got to the dome. It wasn't a feeling Incursio was triggering— instead, this came from deep within himself.
On his way, he noticed several scriptures etched into broken walls. Yet, he chose to ignore them for now. The dome had his full attention; its intact state with the other ruined buildings around wasn't normal.
Finally, he reached the bottom of the structure, he stood before a set of stone stairs leading up to the massive dome.
Up close, the dome seemed to be roughly 30 stories high. The entire structure had different colors compared to the debris around him, from pure white to faded yellow, while the pillars had incredibly detailed sculptures of different beasts going all the way to the top of the dome.
章節 98: Stone Statues
Liam walked up the stairs. As he went up the stairs, an incredibly uncomfortable feeling crept over him, like he was being watched from all directions. He paused, glancing around, but saw no one. Keeping the feeling in the back of his mind, he continued going up.
'What the hell is this?' Liam thought as he reached the top of the stairs.
He walked closer to the entrance of the massive dome. Inside, he could see the enormous stone statues. All the statues surrounded a circular shape in the ground, with some sort of altar at the center of the room.
'Who are all these people?' Liam wondered. He had never seen these figures before.
The statues were around fifteen stories tall, and none of them looked even remotely similar to the others. All of the statues held different poses—some looked serious, while others seemed tired.
One of the statues, for example, held a sword that was stuck into the ground while leaning on it with a tired expression, while another had its sword raised into the air and looked like it was screaming something.
As he went deeper into the room, Liam's curiosity and confusion increased. 'And what exactly is this room?'
The ceiling caught his eye next, it was covered with paintings of the Tyrant and strange colors that surrounded it in every painting. Liam couldn't quite figure out exactly what the colors meant. The five colors surrounding Tyrant, shaped like teardrops, were green, yellow, red, purple, and a pure white.
'Five colors... What are they? And why are they around the Tyrant?' he pondered, staring up at the ceiling.
After walking deeper into the room, he took a closer look at each of the stone statues. All seemed normal until he inspected the last two statues. When he did, chills ran down his spine, and his hairs stood on end.
One of the statues had a pompadour hairstyle, while the other had a messier look. The statue with the pompadour had a sword resting on his shoulder while grinning wildly, whereas the statue with the messy hair had no weapon at all. Instead, he had his fist raised with a wide smile on his face.
Liam immediately recognized them.
'Bulat and Tatsumi.'
He approached their statues, a wave of realization hitting him.
'These statues... Are all of them past users of Incursio?'
On the ground in front of the statues was a stone plate, inscribed with more unfamiliar symbols. To the left of each inscription was a circle containing teardrop-shaped gaps. Bulat's plate displayed only two teardrops—green and yellow, leaving three empty gaps. Tatsumi's had four out of five: green, yellow, purple, and another green.
'Strange,' Liam thought, examining Tatsumi's plate. 'What do these colors represent?'
He moved to the next plate, noting it had no statue above it. Only green and yellow teardrops filled its circle, leaving three empty teardrop shapes.
'If Bulat came before Tatsumi, and Tatsumi before me, following the direction they were going into, this must be my plate.'
He frowned. 'But why do I only have two teardrops while Tatsumi had four?'
After inspecting his plate some more, he counted and numbered the total amount of statues, writing their colors down according to the number he assigned to them.
'There are 33 statues,' Liam counted. '26 male statues and seven female statues.'
'Most statues don't have more than two colors. A rare few display three, while only Tatsumi and one other—likely the twenty-fourth user—show four.'
After inspecting all the statues, Liam walked toward the center of the room. There, in the middle, stood a single altar-like structure with inscriptions on all sides.
As Liam crouched down to inspect the inscriptions, he noticed that the floor beneath him had the same colors as the ceiling, each one leading toward the central altar. While on top of the altar laid a simple white crystal ball.
He reached for the ball—but a pure white hand clamped down on his arm, stopping him. Liam immediately spun around. When he did, he saw only a wisp of white energy retreating towards a statue near Bulat's.
'The blurry figures... Are the statues themselves?'
Confused, Liam's mind raced. 'What exactly are these statues?'
'But how could any of that make sense?' He furrowed his brow.
'These people should be dead. And I remember from the anime—there's no Teigu that can revive the dead.'
The more Liam thought about it, the more perplexed he became. Although he had some guesses, his theories all felt incomplete.
'I could try again,' he reasoned. 'It's risky, but it might reveal something more.'
He reached out for the crystal ball again, but the same white hand stopped him once more. Feeling the hand, Liam kept reaching for the ball while turning his head around. This time, he could see a slightly blurry figure, although it was a lot clearer than when he encountered these figures before.
An elderly man smiled kindly at him. His expression radiated warmth, almost as if he were looking at his own grandson. Liam opened his mouth to speak, but the old man remained silent, even keeping his smile the same.
After Liam stopped reaching for the crystal ball, the man's figure began disappearing, starting from the bottom of his feet, moving upwards to his head, turning into a white mist that drifted back to the statue belonging to him.
'That confirms it,' Liam thought. 'The blurry figures from before were old Incursio users.'
'But why stop me? And what are they, really?'
He didn't know the answers.
The only thing he thought had a high chance of giving him answers was the scriptures, but deciphering them had proven difficult. Even when he believed he'd cracked a word, it always felt incomplete—like something important was missing.
After spending more time looking around the room and writing everything he saw down, he realized he couldn't learn anything new and decided to return to his own dimension.
'Naturally, I could have experimented more with the statues,' Liam thought as he stepped through a rift back into his room.
'But could and should are two different things.'
'For now, the figures seem peaceful. I'd like to keep it that way until I learn exactly what that room is and how it is relevant to me.' Liam thought.
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I put a lot of time into this lore, can't wait for the great reveal.
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