Chapter 187: Rank A

Chapter 187: Chapter 187: Rank A

An A-rank rift did not open into a ruined area like an F-rank, nor a dead forest and gray sea like a C-rank.

It opened into the sky.

The moment the magic array spit the five of them out, the first thing Jeremy felt was the disappearance of gravity.

It wasn’t the sensation of flying. It was the feeling of a bottomless fall.

He unfurled his wings on reflex. The dragon wings caught the wind, halting his descent - but only slowing him for half a beat before an invisible force dragged him downward again.

"You can’t use wings!" Evelyn’s voice rang out from the left. "The gravity here periodically reverses!"

Jeremy instantly retracted his wings, switching to his chain whip. The chain shot out, wrapping around a boulder drifting in mid-air, pulling him to a halt.

The other four did the same. Within ten seconds, the entire group had anchored themselves onto the same drifting slab of rock.

Looking out from there, Jeremy finally got a clear view of this place.

There was no ground. There was no horizon.

There were only thousands, tens of thousands of massive boulders drifting in an endless dark purple void. Some boulders were as large as a castle. Others were as small as a table. They collided with one another, shattered, and coalesced again following irregular trajectories.

And among those boulders were magical beasts.

Not dozens. Thousands.

They clung to the surfaces of the rocks, hung upside down from the undersides, and soared through the gaps. Some bore the shapes of marine creatures. Some had six limbs. Some were merely floating masses of flesh covered entirely in eyes.

Jeremy looked at them and realized something that sent a chill down his spine.

He had seen these shapes before.

Inside the glass cages beneath the Mermaid race’s underground palace.

"The lowest rank here is four-star," Leon said, his voice dry. "Equivalent to our tier four."

"The highest?" Phoenix asked.

Leon didn’t answer immediately. He was looking toward a colossal boulder drifting in the center - something so massive it obscured an entire swath of the purple sky.

Atop that boulder lay a black silhouette, curled up.

It wasn’t moving. But just the aura leaking from it was enough to make the magic power within the five of them tremble.

"...Unmeasurable," Leon replied.

Jeremy opened the notebook Griffin had given him, cross-referencing the coordinates.

The thing they needed was located on the central boulder.

Right where that beast was lying.

"Tsk." Leon was at a loss for words. "That jellyfish-head truly has no heart."

"A forty percent chance of survival," Evelyn repeated the number Griffin had given, her voice serene. "Which means there is a way."

Jeremy closed the notebook and stored it in his bracelet.

He swept his gaze around, calculating.

Fighting that beast head-on was suicide. But if it was sleeping...

"How long does it sleep for?" Jeremy asked.

Leon narrowed his eyes to observe. "Its breathing rhythm is very slow. About forty seconds each time. The stronger the magical beast, the longer the sleep cycle, but it also becomes more sensitive to magical fluctuations."

"Meaning we cannot use magic power within its range."

"Yeah."

Jeremy remained silent for three seconds.

Then he said, "Then we won’t use it."

The other four turned to look at him.

Jeremy summoned his Holy Covenant - but it wasn’t the scythe, nor was it the scepter.

It was the card form.

The Order card rested between his two fingers, its golden surface reflecting the purple light of the void.

"The Domain of Order does not emit offensive fluctuations," Jeremy said. "It merely imposes rules. To a sleeping creature, it is practically traceless."

Evelyn understood immediately. "You plan to seal its skills?"

"No." Jeremy shook his head. "At Advanced Stage Seven-Star, I can seal a maximum of four skills. I can’t be sure how many that thing has."

He flipped the card to its other side.

"I plan to forbid it from making a sound."

"..."

Leon paused, then let out a laugh. "You’re going to gag a tier-eight magical beast?"

"Magical beasts at this level hunt and summon their packs using sound waves," Jeremy explained. "If it cannot vocalize, then even if it wakes up, the other thousands won’t know."

"And then?"

"And then we only have to fight one."

Leon fell silent.

One tier-eight beast was still a death sentence. But one was, at the very least, a manageable number.

"A forty percent chance of survival," Leon muttered. "So this is where it comes from."

The plan was finalized in fifteen minutes.

Phoenix set up a backup teleportation array at their starting position - the ultimate retreat point.

Evelyn was in charge of long-range support and clearing out the peripheral magical beasts along the approach route, but she was only allowed to use physical attacks, no wide-area magic.

Leon and Lucius paved the way, ensuring Jeremy could reach the effective range of the Domain of Order without being intercepted.

As for Jeremy, he would be the one to close in the nearest.

"What if the Silence fails?" Lucius asked.

"Then we run," Jeremy answered succinctly.

"We don’t save you?"

"No." Jeremy looked at him. "I’m giving the order this time. If the Silence breaks, the whole group retreats. Do not turn back."

Lucius looked at Jeremy for a few seconds.

Then Lucius smiled, that familiar smile that revealed absolutely nothing. "Alright."

Jeremy knew full well Lucius was lying.

But Jeremy didn’t call him out on it.

The approach took four hours.

Four hours of leaping from boulder to boulder, calculating the gravity reversal cycles, evading the prowling four-star magical beasts, and absolutely ensuring not a single spark of magic leaked beyond their control.

Three times, they were almost discovered.

The first time, a jellyfish-shaped magical beast drifted past where Evelyn was hiding. She killed it with a short sword thrust straight through its core, without using half a drop of magic.

The second time, the rock Leon was clinging to fractured midway. He was in free fall for over ten seconds before Lucius teleported over and grabbed him.

The third time, Phoenix suffered a nosebleed due to the spatial pressure, and a drop of blood fell - landing on the back of a sleeping magical beast below.

It woke up.

But before it could even raise its head, Lucius’s chain blade diced it into six pieces, so fast it didn’t even have time to make a sound.

By the fourth hour, the five managed to latch onto the edge of the central boulder.

From this distance, Jeremy finally got a clear look at the creature.

It was roughly forty meters long. Its body was covered in a layer of dark purple-tinted black scales. Six pairs of limbs were tucked under its belly. It possessed no head in the traditional sense - what resided in that position was a fleshy mass riddled with crevices, and every crevice was a mouth.

On its back, right between its shoulder blades, rested a black crystal that pulsed faintly in time with its breathing.

A Magic Soul Crystal.

And beside it, plunged into the rock layer, was something Jeremy recognized instantly.

A scepter.

The staff was made of yellowing white bone. The head of the scepter was inlaid with a sapphire-blue stone.

Carved onto the staff was a totem - a six-pointed star, water caltrop wave patterns, and a flower resting in the center.

The Ashbloom Flower.

Jeremy held his breath.

"That is..." Evelyn whispered beside him.

"It belongs to the Mermaid race," Jeremy replied.

It wasn’t what Griffin had said. Griffin told them there was "something here that will help you break through the tier four threshold."

But he had never specified what that thing was.

And now, upon seeing the scepter embedded in the middle of a tier-eight magical beast’s back, Jeremy suddenly realized something.

Griffin knew.

He knew this was a Mialans relic. He knew it was connected to the inheritance. He had read all the documents Jeremy had given him three years ago.

And Griffin had waited for three whole years, until the group was strong enough, before tossing them the coordinates.

"...That guy," Jeremy muttered.

"What is it?" Leon asked.

"Nothing."