"It's the floating city! My floating city is finally going to appear!!!"
Skeleton Lich Illyrio's eyes blazed as he stared toward the heart of the spatial storm, the spectral fire within them flaring violently.
Rumble!!!
The void shuddered, the earth roared, and the entire Frostfall Canyon let out a groan of suffering under the strain.
Whether heroes of the good factions or villains of the evil ones, after retreating as if fleeing for their lives, they all simultaneously lifted their gazes to the heavens, witnessing the wondrous spectacle of the floating city's emergence.
The countless stars in the sky seemed to lose their luster. In the firmament above, a scene resembling the birth of a supernova unfolded—a brilliantly luminous star slowly took form and descended, drowning all other colors in the world.
Buzzzzz...
Terror-inducing spatial ripples radiated outward, carving an immense and profound depression into the ground almost in the blink of an eye.
Dimly, a phantom of another dimensional plane surfaced, its point of convergence overlapping with the Prime Material World!
Even if it was but a minuscule point, when comparing the volumes of the two worlds, that connecting point was magnified endlessly, until it finally coalesced into the ghostly silhouette of a floating city!!!
—It was a colossal hemispherical base, its upper surface adorned with the nascent outlines of numerous buildings, forming the schematic of a great human metropolis.
In the Nether Arcane Age, floating cities were not merely exclusive conveyances for arcanists; they were grand urban centers and transportation hubs, capable of accommodating hundreds of thousands without the slightest hint of crowding.
Now, the elemental planes of the four elements seemed to have opened dedicated energy conduits, and vast tides of power surged and howled forth.
The depths of the Western Wastes resembled the arrival of the apocalypse. Were it not for the fact this region was already virtually uninhabited, the resulting catastrophe would have caused unimaginable devastation and loss of life.
...
No one knew how much time passed before the terrifying storm finally dissipated, and tranquility returned between heaven and earth.
A massive, dark shadow fell upon the ground, blotting out the light of the stars and the moon.
Lei Lin looked up and saw an enormous swathe of darkness—it was the base of the floating city. This vast, boundless structure had now fully descended into the Prime Material World!
Gazing upon the floating city's monumental form, and the brilliant arcane runes adorning its surface, the entire world seemed to hold its breath for a moment.
Dead silence! In that instant, even the legendary powerhouses on the ground fell into a brief, stunned hush.
"Heh heh… My floating city!"
It was Illyrio who recovered first. He urged the bone dragon beneath him into a direct charge toward the floating city.
"Not a chance!" The legendary paladin certainly wasn't about to stand by and watch the other claim the floating city. He launched himself skyward, his body seeming to tread upon thin air as he shot upward at blinding speed.
"Let's go too! That's a floating city! The only one in the entire world of gods! The pinnacle of Nether Arcane civilization…"
The other legendary powerhouses began to stir with greedy anticipation as well.
…
Meanwhile, inside the seemingly deserted floating city. In a core control chamber, a spark of electricity flickered. Numerous motes of light converged, forming a spectral phantom of a flower sprite barely a dozen centimeters tall.
The sprite's delicate little face was a mask of cold calculation as a mechanical voice issued from its mouth: "Extradimensional jump complete! Floating city structural damage: 1.77%! Energy consumption: 75.99%! Maintenance protocol initiated!"
A piercing red alarm then blared to life. A screen projected directly into the air, displaying the image of Illyrio outside.
At that moment, the lich had already sent his bone dragon familiar to entangle the legendary paladin, while he himself was hurtling straight toward the floating city, about to breach its airspace.
'Invader detected! Energy level: A-3! Classified as high-tier legendary! Energy barrier activating… Ding! Energy barrier damage at 52.33%! Activation failed. Switching to automatic defense mode. Arcane cannons activating. Auto-targeting engaged!' Under the intelligent core's command, armored panels along the floating city's edges slid open, revealing honeycomb-like clusters of steel cannon barrels. In an instant, the entire floating city had transformed into a massive, bristling hedgehog!
'Target locked! Arcane cannons firing!' BOOM! A searing beam of white energy erupted from the roaring cannon muzzles, reaching the skeletal lich in the blink of an eye.
"No! No—!"
An expression of sheer terror actually surfaced on the skeletal lich's crystal skull, accompanied by a massive surge of fear.
Ssss! After the scorching white light faded, nothing remained where the lich had been—no bones, no fragments, nothing at all.
"No… that can't be! That was a high-tier legendary powerhouse!"
The terrifying destructive power of the barrage finally extinguished the greed of the legendary powerhouses below. Only then did they remember the infamous horrors of a floating city spoken of in legend.
"This is still just automatic bombardment, without any [Legendary
"However... that Bone Dragon hasn't dissipated yet. It seems Illyrio truly is a high-tier legendary powerhouse..."
Lin Lei noticed a detail, then without a trace of obviousness, slowly began to retreat.
Whoosh... At that moment, white light flickered, and a whirlwind composed of bone dust rose into the air right beside the spot where Illyrio had vanished moments before.
The multitude of bone ash re-condensed, taking on the form of a crystal skull.
"Tsk, tsk... It's a good thing I kept a backup body. Truly worthy of a floating city, this kind of power..."
Illyrio hovered in mid-air but dared not rashly enter again. It propped its chin with a hand now reduced to just bony joints, the ghostly fire within its eye sockets flickering uncertainly.
"This is troublesome... Even after the dimensional jump and expending most of its energy, as long as the Core Intelligence remains intact, relying solely on those minimal automatic defense systems is not something an ordinary [Legendary] can break through... If I don't gain control of the floating city soon, those divine avatars will definitely make a move... That will be even more troublesome..."
Illyrio gritted its teeth: "What a pity I only obtained a portion of the Arcanist's legacy information and haven't actually advanced to become an [Arcanist]. Otherwise, I could..."
Just then, the entire floating city emitted a tremendous roar.
Inside the core control room, numerous screens materialized before the Flower Spirit incarnation of the Core Intelligence, collecting images of the figures below.
*Ding! [Arcanist] detected! Activating Inheritance Mode! Initiating Arcane Inheritance Array!* The screens cycled and finally locked onto two figures. One wore a silver mask, his presence bizarre and unfathomable—it was none other than Lin Lei, who had been preparing to make a move!!!
And the other was actually Rogolo!
Rumble! Amidst a deafening roar, a beam of light shot out from the peak of the floating city's tallest structure, striking Lin Lei and Rogolo squarely before they could react.
With a flash of light, the two of them vanished from the spot.
"Hm? What's happening?"
Aivita was stunned.
"Not good! Those two who disappeared must both be [Arcanists]! I'm afraid the original master of the floating city set up some sort of inheritance protocol—it automatically beckons [Arcanists] when they appear and might even directly hand over control privileges!!!"
Illyrio's face was filled with panic.
"What do we do? What do we do?"
Just as Illyrio was gritting his teeth, something new happened on the ground.
"There's no other way... My God!"
Aivita slowly closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, a pair of dark golden irises had replaced her own. An immense aura of divine authority descended upon her body.
"It's a divine incarnation descending! She chose to possess her directly!"
"A deity has already taken notice of this place? What a rapid response!"
"My God!" All of Aivita's surviving guards knelt down in reverence.
"No other faction can be allowed to seize the floating city! The other side has opened a spatial corridor, and the original airtight defenses now have breaches! I will send you in directly — find it for me! At any cost..."
"Aivita" spoke slowly, and behind her, the ethereal silhouette of a goddess instantly materialized.
The overwhelming divine power transformed into a terrifying wave, sweeping the black-clad figures into the floating city.
The consumption of energy looked horrifying as well. Once it was all completed, Aivita collapsed unconscious, slumping to the ground.
"Now! This is our chance!"
A ruthless look crossed Illyrio's face. A diamond-shaped red-and-blue iron token shattered instantly, generating a surge of spatial energy that carried him through the rift the deity had torn open and into the floating city.
Blinding bursts of divine radiance flickered successively over the Legendary Ascetic and the Holy Knight, allowing them to breach the floating city's interior as well.
"This... is the inside of the floating city?"
Rayne's eyes slowly opened as he surveyed his surroundings.
"Indeed! Welcome to the City of Shadows! The flower of Nether Arcana shall never wither!"
A projection of a flower spirit appeared directly before him, fluttering the four translucent wings on its back as it circled around Rayne.
"Congratulations, Arcanist! You have been granted the opportunity to inherit this floating city and the entirety of Great Silver Hand's knowledge!"
"Opportunity?!"
"Yes! Because two 'qualified candidates' have been detected, the successor to the floating city will be chosen from among the two of you!"
The flower spirit spoke with meticulous precision, clearly and faithfully executing the last wishes of its original master.
"Go on! What do we need to do?"
It was impossible to make an intelligence core like this violate its programmed principles, and this floating city was clearly not some ordinary ruin from before. Under circumstances where the information streams and firewalls were fully intact, attempting to invade it through spiritual energy and Chips would be extremely foolish. So Rayne simply asked outright.
"This is the floating city's core kinetic chamber, and the location of the Mese Energy Core..."
The flower spirit immediately projected an image before them — the interior of a spacious, empty room. At its center hovered a sphere radiating an intense, scorching light.