Magical Girl's Knight Brother

Chapter 652 Return to Silence

As the ripples of time and space dissipated, Tang Zijun and Chang Lei's figures re-emerged in the core area of ​​the Forgotten Valley.

Dead silence.

This was the first impression the two had upon entering the place: a chilling stillness, completely different from what they had experienced before.

The turbulent spatial currents that once filled our vision and tore at our senses, the echoes like the screams of millions of wronged souls, the twisted and writhing fleshy rock walls radiating an ominous purplish-black light... all have vanished.

Instead, there was an almost absurd calm.

A very thin layer of grayish-white mist permeated the air, no longer carrying any corrosive or spiritual pollution; it was simply water vapor and dust drifting slowly in the weak airflow of the canyon.

The light was no longer distorted and fragmented, but rather carried a pale clarity reminiscent of dawn, illuminating the jagged, exposed rock layers deep within the canyon.

"Tsk." Chang Lei stretched his stiff neck, his tattered white tuxedo swaying gently in the breeze. He glanced around, a strange glint in his bloodshot eyes. "Looks like our stitches worked well?"

His tone carried a hint of self-deprecation, and his gaze casually swept over a huge rock beside him.

The rock once writhed like a living thing, secreting mucus, and its surface was covered with nauseating vascular patterns.

Now, it is just a huge, cold, angular ordinary granite. The fleshy texture of the past has disappeared without a trace, leaving only traces of weathering and natural cracks. Chang Lei can even clearly see the mineral crystals deposited on the rock surface reflecting a faint light under the light.

The entire canyon's topography has undergone a fundamental change.

The canyon structure, which was once as intricate and pulsating as the internal organs of a living organism, now clearly shows the geological scars left by the immense force that tore, twisted, and reshaped it. The steep rock walls are as if they have been cleaved by a giant axe, exposing fresh or weathered fractures. The ground is no longer smooth glass eroded by energy, but is covered with a thick sedimentary layer composed of gravel, dust, and some kind of grayish-white, brittle, powdery substance.

Upon closer inspection, the powder consisted of countless fragments of completely weathered bones mixed with metal residue that had long since lost its activity.

Having lost the ties of extraordinary energy and external invasion laws, they have, like those weathered by nature over millions of years, completely returned to the essence of matter, scattered in every corner of the canyon.

Even more shocking is the sight of numerous half-buried limbs and relatively intact skeletons scattered in the crevices of the rocks, on the shallow surface of the sedimentary layers, and even at the bottom of those huge rock blocks. Some of the skeletons are strangely shaped, clearly products of radiation or mutation, while others are dressed in old-fashioned protective suits or exploration equipment that are already decayed and tattered, yet still vaguely discernible. On some of the skeletons, one can even see the gruesome tearing marks left after they were forcibly fused with the rock and then peeled away.

They no longer emit any energy fluctuations or resentment; they simply lie there quietly, like ordinary specimens in a museum whose stories have been worn away by time.

The air was filled with dust, rock powder, and a faint, musty smell of decaying inorganic matter.

That was the taste of the pure physical world, no longer mixed with the eerie feeling of pain, madness, or spacetime distortion.

"Transcendence stripped away, laws receding." Tang Zijun's voice was deep. He crouched down, picking up a pinch of grayish-white bone powder from the ground, feeling it turn into finer dust at his fingertips. "The anomalies forcibly injected into this land have been forcibly removed. The phantoms and echoes that were attached to these anomalies have also dissipated, returning to their original state as matter."

He stood up, his gaze sweeping over the canyon, littered with the marks of battle: massive energy craters, torn rock walls, molten and then solidified ground, and remnants of death.

Without the interference of spacetime turbulence and the obscuring of eerie energy, the devastation left by this fierce battle that had lasted for an unknown period of time in the canyon was presented to them in an incredibly clear and brutal way.

"What is the price?" Chang Lei kicked aside a half-buried, twisted skull belonging to some giant mutated beast, watching it roll a few times before shattering into smaller pieces.

Tang Zijun did not answer directly. His gaze turned to the depths of the canyon, to the location where the purplish-black vortex singularity had once surged.

Now, all that remains is a relatively flat, slightly dark-colored rocky area, like a huge, newly healed scar. His senses penetrate deep underground, and he can feel the indestructible barrier of order left behind after he and Chang Lei forcibly sealed and mended it.

"At least, the door is closed." Tang Zijun's voice carried a hint of relief, but was mostly grave. "The rift in the wasteland world has been welded shut, and the source of pollution here has been temporarily cleaned up."

He raised his head and looked up at the gray sky above the canyon.

Without the obscuring effect of the spacetime turbulence, the sky appeared unusually vast and oppressive. The first step of the seal had been completed, but the future of the wasteland world, and the even larger shadow looming over it, remained as heavy and unknown as the thin mist that permeated the canyon.

"...So how did your talks go? Is that thing really willing to abandon the darkness and stand on our side?" Chang Lei glanced at Tang Zijun.

"The God of the Era has entrusted me with the use of the AI. It now needs to allocate all its power to studying the energy on the Star God's corpse and has no time to care for these out-of-control AIs. Of course, even if it wanted to, it couldn't. Remember, its data source can't access this timeline..." Tang Zijun said, then turned to look at Chang Lei. "Why do you look so surprised?"

"Heh, I just can't believe that a cold-blooded artificial intelligence that has gone mad and treats humans like dirt could actually be persuaded by you to get on your pirate ship."

"Thank goodness it's artificial intelligence. If it were a living being, it's uncertain how much rationality it would retain after enduring countless light-years. Fortunately, the God of the Era hasn't forgotten its underlying logic." Tang Zijun smiled. "At least it still retains a part of its human creator."

Hearing Tang Zijun's words, Chang Lei simply shrugged. "I don't understand all this nonsense, but is it really a good idea to just hand over that special energy and the corpse of the Star God? It might make the wasteland world a 'target'."

"I understand what you're saying, but I can't exactly send the God of the Epoch to the dream world. For now, let it stay in its 'cage.' In a sense, this is a form of protection."

"That's true..."

"Let's go, Lao Chang." Tang Zijun turned around, her tattered clothes fluttering in the breeze. "There's nothing left to see here. We should head back to Black City. The trouble ahead... probably won't be any easier than this."

Chang Lei took one last look at this silent canyon that buried countless secrets and deaths. A complex emotion flashed in his bloodshot eyes, which ultimately turned into an almost inaudible sigh.

He tugged at the collar of his tattered tuxedo and followed in Tang Zijun's footsteps.

The two figures quickly disappeared into the misty fog and jagged rocks, leaving behind only the massive canyon, which had been forcibly "purified" and now bore only physical scars and the remnants of death, plunging back into deathly silence under the pale sunlight.

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