Alone and Infinite

Li Xia looked down at the book in his hand, trying to match the description of the capital city in the large, exquisitely colored illustrations with the ruins before him.

I found this by chance on the way here. The quality is quite good, similar to the gold paper I found in the basin before.

The book uses large sections of text to describe the scenery of the capital.

The City of Miracles, the Royal Capital That Never Falls, the Abode of the Gods

Unlike Fallen Leaf City in Wailing Basin.

The buildings in the capital city were largely intact, and some of the floating islands in the sky had not even fallen.

It no longer radiates a rainbow of colors; it just hangs there lifelessly.

Towers stand amidst the ruins, some already collapsed and destroyed, while others sway slightly in the wind, appearing on the verge of collapse.

But many more remain steadfast, standing silently amidst the ruins.

"Supreme Ascension Platform"

Li Xia compared the location of the ascension platform marked in the hall with the map of the capital city in his hand.

"It's located at the very back, it should be the palace."

The palaces are only marked with their locations, without providing detailed layout information, and the tour map naturally does not contain specific information about the palace, only a blank space as a sign of respect.

According to the book, the emperor of the Arcane Dynasty resided on the floating island of Eternal Sun Palace, but that was only part of the vast royal palace.

In addition to the floating island above, a vast royal palace is also preserved below.

The Ascension Platform is located right in the center of the palace on the ground.

After silently converting the scale, Li Xia said:

"The straight-line distance is approximately 100 kilometers."

Even by modern standards, the city is quite large, even terrifying in size.

The power of magic is indeed incredible; in some ways, the Arcane Dynasty is even more advanced than Earth.

They simply chose different routes, and both went very far down the same path.

Black Charcoal's eyes widened instantly; this capital was many times larger than the largest city it had ever seen.

"Wouldn't that be a population of tens of millions?"

Aowu thought a little further ahead: a larger population means more monsters will be generated.

And this is the capital city, so it's normal for it to be full of experts, right?

Therefore, it's quite normal for them to transform into strange and powerful monsters.

It seems this road is not easy to travel.

“Hmm—” Li Xia flipped through the ‘collector’s edition travel guide’ in his hand: “It says that the population of the capital city is around 20 million.”

This place is not only the absolute core of the Arcane Dynasty, but also the core of the entire Demon Prison Star.

After all, the Arcane Dynasty had already conquered the entire world.

Including the surrounding cities and satellite towns, there are probably over 25 million people here.

Generally speaking, land area is closely related to power projection capabilities and the timeliness of information exchange.

With the massive teleportation array and the arcane train, this limitation obviously no longer exists.

Having fully unleashed its power, the Arcane Dynasty conquered every accessible land on the planet in one fell swoop.

The 25 million is because not everyone can stay in Wangdu.

Hiss—A whoosh, a city of twenty-five million people.

How many monsters would that require to be transformed?

"Your Highness, shall we fly in?"

Flying allows you to avoid most monsters; that's for sure.

Li Xia pondered for a moment, but ultimately rejected this extremely tempting idea.

He pointed to the lifeless floating islands in the sky:

"The floating islands are also part of the capital's air defense system, and there are definitely quite a few flying monsters there."

He paused, then added:

"However, we can try flying at low altitudes, such as moving on the top of buildings, which should avoid a lot of unnecessary fighting."

As my finger traced the map, my enhanced brain imprinted it firmly onto my mind.

After packing his things, Li Xia let out a sigh of relief:

"set off!"

As expected, there weren't many mutants in the suburbs; they could only be seen sporadically.

However, as you go further in, the buildings gradually become denser, and the number of deformed structures on the streets below also increases.

They huddled together, swaying precariously, their large heads covered with countless blood-red eyes that were closed, as if they were fast asleep.

But all of this is an illusion. If anyone breaks in, these monsters will suddenly go berserk and swarm forward instantly.

As they delved deeper, other types of monsters were discovered that were originally only large-headed mutants.

These monsters looked very strong, with arms like two long swords, clearly melee-type.

"laugh--"

A soft whooshing sound rang out, and Ye Ji transformed into a streak of light, pinning the deformed creature, whose arms had turned into wings, firmly to the floor.

The extremely sharp spear pierced the solid wall of the rooftop without any hesitation.

The mutant opened its mouth, about to let out a sharp cry to call for its companions, but Li Xia's hand was faster.

His right hand silently gripped the mutant's neck, and a burst of blazing white flames suddenly erupted.

The mutant's body stiffened for a moment, and it struggled violently, but the hand gripping it was like an iron clamp, and no matter how much the mutant struggled, it could not break free.

Gradually, wisps of black smoke were baked away by the white flames and dissipated into the air.

The mutant struggled less and less, eventually turning into ashes and drifting away with the wind.

Only then did Aowu whisper:

"The variety of monsters seems to be increasing."

Li Xia nodded, his expression also somewhat heavy. Originally, there was only one type of aberration: the Big-Headed Monster.

Later, the Bodybuilding Abnormality, the Skinny Bamboo Abnormality, and the Soldier Abnormality appeared.

Now even birdman variants have emerged.

Looking around at his location, it seemed to be a residential building, not very tall, about sixty meters high, with a large round barrel on the roof that looked like a water tower.

Furthermore, there are some mysterious magical runes engraved on the barrel.

'Water element gathering' 'Self-cleaning' 'Flow'

Barely able to make out the blurry writing on it, although it was an old-fashioned bucket, the three magical runes were surprisingly useful.

It seems that the department in charge of water affairs in the capital only needs to check the integrity of the magic runes on time.

Li Xia turned his gaze back. The reason he looked at the water tower was because he had passed a rooftop earlier.

Suddenly, a mutant jumped out of the water tower. This thing was hairless, covered only in scale-like things, and looked lean, but it was very strong.

It can even manipulate the water flow slightly.

"It's basically confirmed—"

Li Xia said softly, "The aberration will evolve into different forms depending on the environment."

Just like the mutant we just saw, which evolved wings because it was high in the sky, and the monster in the water tower.

As for those large-headed deformities, they should be the basic model.

"Meow?"

Black Charcoal pointed at the water tower and asked curiously.

This is a difficult question to answer, since Li Xia doesn't know what that person was thinking before the ascension ceremony, or why they wanted to crawl into the water bucket.

"Cough cough."

Aowu immediately coughed twice, interrupting the answer and changing the subject:

"In short, I don't think we can continue walking on the roof."

It pointed to the dark, heavy clouds in the distance and the grotesque figure standing on the rooftop like a statue:

"A rough calculation shows that the number is definitely not one that we can force our way through."

Li Xia closed his eyes, carefully recalled the events in his mind, and then stood on the edge of the rooftop and looked out again.

Pointing into the distance, he said, "Let's not continue inwards yet. Take a detour, and we'll reach the location of the Water Elemental Temple."

According to the book, the Water Elemental Temple area mainly consists of artificial lakes and fountains, and there are no very tall buildings.

Based on the transformation of previous variants, it is closely related to the environment.

They must all be monsters lurking in the water.

The direction of travel took a 90-degree turn, and after carefully traversing the cold jungle formed by the tower, the view suddenly opened up before us.

The entire area had turned into a swamp, with only the rooftops of some buildings still exposed above the water.

Stretching alone towards the sky, it looks like a tombstone emerging from the water.

"Holy crap, where did all this water come from?"

Aowu stared wide-eyed, craning its neck to look at the water below.

The calm water surface had an unsettling green hue, with occasional dark shadows swimming below, yet the surface remained undisturbed.

The once exquisite statue lies at the bottom of the water, the dim light shining through the greenish water onto the statue, making it look like a corpse that has been soaked and turned white.

"A tower composed of liquid water elements, which changes with the phases of the moon."

At high tide, giant waves, carrying phantom images of the deep sea, submerged half the city; after the tide receded, the ground remained completely dry.

Li Xia softly read the words from the book:

"Without the protection of magic, those giant waves really did submerge half the city."

Holding the black charcoal in her arms, Li Xia's body floated up as lightly as a feather.

After rising to more than 20 meters, it slowly drifted away into the distance, and Aowu followed suit, swaying its body as well.

All was silent, and the surface of the water was as calm as a mirror, looking like a piece of inferior jade.

It emitted an unsettling, dark green light.

To minimize the disturbance, Li Xia carefully controlled the output of his Flying Technique, flying several hundred meters away in a nearly natural, drifting motion.

There is a statue there holding a harpoon aloft.

His lower body was already submerged in the water, but the harpoon still stubbornly protruded above the surface.

Further back is the top of a clock tower, where a huge bronze bell is half-submerged in the water.

These scattered buildings constitute places that can be tentatively called places to stay.

Li Xia remained silent, maintaining her own pace as she slowly ventured deeper inside.

I don't know when it started, but a thin mist gradually spread around us.

The fog wasn't particularly thick, yet it felt like a veil was draped over my eyes.

The world before my eyes became blurry and I could no longer see it clearly.

The faint murmurs and whispers, like annoying mosquitoes, quietly rang in one's ears, making one's head spin.

Some things that resembled illusions also began to appear.

At first, small, unmanned boats began to glide on the water, creating ripples in circles.

Immediately afterwards, in the center of the fountain, a phantom figure knelt on the water, covering its face and sobbing softly.

The octopus-like monster hovered up and down erratically in the sky.