Chapter 643: The Ancestor's Gift (32)

It was too late when Luo Qi saw the wall disappear; he didn't even have time to confirm what had caused the gate to open. Ice-blue eyes stared at him from a foot away, and Luo Qi froze in place. In an instant, he heard the weeping and shouting of countless people. The tunnel of space-time briefly connected and took form; distant cries, curses, and prayers turned into ripples on the lake of Mage Wusu's memory, slowly drifting to his feet. He couldn't help but look down at the lake surface beneath him. He saw his own reflection, and as the mirror image rotated, he fell into the Otherworld. He saw countless fleeting glimpses: a world unsealed and thriving, the consciousnesses of countless people interacting with one another, the rotation of the stars no longer a mystery. For a moment, he felt as if he had attained enlightenment, but when he tried to pursue it, everything had already vanished.

But this stream of consciousness memory fragment came to an abrupt end. Luo Qi's own eyes saw the ice-blue eyes grow dim. Wrinkles carved themselves into the corners of his eyes like scars, his skin turned gray and lusterless, and aging descended like a sudden illness or catastrophe.

"How..." Luo Qi didn't even finish his sentence; everything had happened in an instant. He was stiffly adjusting his posture, wanting to step forward, but aging was already crawling across the other's skin. A chilling sympathy swept through Luo Qi's heart, and he subconsciously asked, "You... what's wrong?"

The ice-blue eyes looked back into his at the sound. Luo Qi looked uneasily into the depths of him, into his empty Consciousness Space. Those sorrows did not come from him; his brain was as empty as a newborn's, and the first circuit of thought had yet to be born there. Only a tiny cluster of flame marked the existence of consciousness, distinguishing him from a stone or a river. That tiny flame responded to Luo Qi's powerful intent, tamely responding to the summons of Mind Magic, yet it was only a faint response.

He had no past, no sorrow, and there was not even a reflection of Luo Qi's world in those blue eyes. The stranger who broke his long slumber could not truly stir ripples in his lake of consciousness. Because he could not complete his understanding of the world, nor could he identify the existence of his own self.

Luo Qi took a step back, but the blue eyes took a difficult second step. The instinct of life was still struggling tirelessly, as if he still had enough time to grow into a real person. In the dark, he seemed to sense something; he reached out toward Luo Qi, and Luo Qi watched in horror as the muscles on that hand withered away. Beside him, Wusu released several spells in succession. When the edges of the magic brushed softly against Luo Qi, he barely managed to distinguish that it was Healing Magic. Wusu wanted to use a Mage's Healing Magic to delay the explosive aging. These spells might have had a minute effect, but they could not reverse this terrifying trend. The magic of these Mages had never broken through the boundary between life and death; for them, aging was an inevitable process that could not be resisted, and now, they were even less able to understand or change this suddenly accelerating, horrific aging.

Luo Qi looked at Wusu in confusion. The latter's brows were tightly knit as he raced against time, making futile efforts. But in the time it took him to turn his head back, the blue eyes had already become skin and bone. The robust muscles from a few dozen seconds ago were being rapidly consumed by the directionally fleeting time.

"He's dying!" Luo Qi shouted out loud.

Wusu's magic stopped. His usually gentle face was also full of astonishment. He looked at the Mage from the ancient past with awe, and said in his usual tone, still relatively calm, "There is no way. He is meant to die."

"Mage Wusu, you must know many spells. Think again, maybe it's not Medical Magic, maybe it's not a disease," Luo Qi said urgently.

"I have never seen this situation," Wusu said.

"Then is there anything related in your memory? Maybe you just haven't thought of it yet, think again!" Luo Qi shouted. Just then, the ice-blue eyes grew turbid and lost the color of life. The flesh sank in from his cheekbones and eye sockets; in one minute, the young, handsome man became like a shriveled skeleton.

Such aging and death were heartbreaking. The shriveled body still had a last trace of life, and he wanted to grab Luo Qi to maintain his balance. Luo Qi stood there blankly, as if his hands were bound. The blue eyes fell down in front of him, and he breathed his last before he even hit the ground.

The last glimmer of consciousness extinguished like a candle in the wind.

Luo Qi stared fixedly at the dried corpse fallen at his feet, then suddenly whipped his head around to look at the pile of bones he had knocked over when he entered the door. The blue-eyed man who had died of old age would not take long to rot into a pile of dry bones, waiting to trip the next unlucky soul.

"It seems you've thought of it too," Wusu said softly from the side, looking at the remains on the ground, lost in thought.

Luo Qi stood quietly in place. The magic of the Seal Land, which had begun to operate slowly, did not distract him; the gradually more comfortable Seal Land was as considerate as a Mage's vacation spot. "Do they stay here just to die?"

"In a sense, I thought there might at least be a chance to have a face-to-face conversation with a Mage from the ancient era," Wusu said.

"A conversation with an ancient Mage is not a very comfortable feeling; I say this with full responsibility," Luo Qi said lightly.

Wusu looked at him with some surprise, hesitated for a moment, but ultimately did not press further. "But I saw that you were very hopeful about saving him just now."

Luo Qi pressed his lips together tightly and did not answer Wusu. He should have killed him the moment the blue eyes appeared; killing a monster from the ancient past was the most rational choice. But he had still treated him as a person. If he kept hesitating, would he always be on the defensive, always waiting to be the one to strike back? Perhaps it was because the blue eyes' mind was blank that he felt he was innocent?

He had no answer, but at this moment, there were things more important than answers. He looked at that entire blank wall. A vertical, transparent "coffin" was open, and the blue eyes had come from there. "Mage Wusu, I think I might be able to answer the question you asked me earlier."

"Which question?" Wusu asked.

"Have you realized that the height of the blue-eyed man and that skeleton should be different?" Luo Qi said.

"Different heights?" Wusu asked, puzzled.

"Didn't you ask me why the Mage sleeping in the Seal Land grew a pair of blue eyes?" Luo Qi's hand reached toward the wall. "It would be more reasonable for the Mage here to have a pair of black eyes, unless..."

Luo Qi paused. His consciousness reached out toward a broader realm, searching for the faint firelight. He poured his heart out to those lights, summoning them.

The mist dissipated before them. 33 upright coffins were arranged in three layers before them. 31 pairs of eyes opened from their slumber—different skin tones, different eyes, but equally beautiful men and women, looking at them softly from behind the wall.

They stared blankly at the ancient Mages. Thirty-one Mages formed a delegation from the ancient past, while they seemed like bandits who had broken into someone else's home. Even though Luo Qi had sensed their existence, he actually took a step back when he saw them with his own eyes.

For a while, they were all silent, until Wusu asked him, "If the wall is also opened, then they..."

"They are like seafood; they will spoil once they leave the 'cooler'," Luo Qi said bluntly.

Wusu was choked by this metaphor, his gaze falling back onto those Mages. "They have no intention of communicating at all."

Hearing this, Luo Qi realized that Wusu's intent could communicate, but he could not actively explore the other's consciousness as freely as he could. "Mage Wusu, when we entered the door and saw the skeleton, you said that time is not constant here. What did you mean? Did you know this situation would happen?"

Wusu shook his head. "If I knew the exact meaning, I would have said it clearly."

"I don't understand," Luo Qi said.

"It's like how some mountain folk know many ballads passed down through generations to avoid danger, but no longer understand the true reason behind them. I know that time becomes unpredictable in the Seal Land, but I don't know what it specifically refers to. Perhaps it means life can be sealed here, perhaps it is something else. I said, I came here also wanting to figure out many things in my mind," Wusu said calmly.

"Then have you figured out what they meant by 'ship'? My ancient spell-script isn't very good. Did they say ship? Are the ships broken? Are they unable to escape?" Luo Qi paused. "Just now, I heard them weeping and shouting."

"You didn't misunderstand," Wusu said. "I am wondering if they were trying to avoid some kind of danger, so they preserved themselves like Seal Beasts."

"They are mummies," Luo Qi said frankly.

"Mummies?" Wusu did not follow his train of thought.

"Mummies are empty, and they are empty too. Their brains are as empty as wine bottles, waiting to be filled with new wine," Luo Qi said. Suddenly, he froze, staring blankly at the ancient Mage closest to him. It was a pair of deep brown eyes, very similar to his own. Sensing his gaze, that ancient Mage also looked at him.