“Argh…”
A fuzzy world of red enfolded Gaya’s vision. But despite that, the young lady gaped and revealed a sinister, twisted smile.
“You want to kill me?”
She stared at the pumping heart in the enemy’s hand and spoke in a calm tone as though it weren’t her chest that was punctured and heart that was seized. Then, Gaya raised her harp high up and bellowed.
“Other than Lydia, no one is allowed to kill me!”
Along with this snarl, Gaya strummed the harp strings strongly. This time, along with her action, all the strings snapped! At the same time, with Gaya as the center, the world within a range of several hundred miles rumbled.
What’s happening?!
Rhode gazed at his surroundings in bewilderment. He also witnessed the strange looks on everyone’s faces. Mini Bubble Gum widened her mouth, but he couldn’t hear a single sound from her. A few moments ago, he felt an unknown vibration and then, he couldn’t hear a single sound, be it wind, voices, or screams. Even after he tried communicating with others using spiritual communications, he didn’t receive any response. Not only that, but he also felt like something went wrong. At that moment, he saw his younger sister knitting her brows and raising her right arm. Then, a dark enchanted field flickering in starlight unleashed abruptly, shrouding everyone within. At that moment, the lost voices returned to this world.
“What’s going on? What happened just now? Is there a bug in the server?”
Mini Bubble Gum shook her head, turned around, and said. Meanwhile, Canary also widened her eyes and looked around her in shock. Both of them had never faced such a situation before. But Rhode seemed to figure out something and his heart sank. He turned to his younger sister and upon detecting his gaze, her younger sister let out a sigh and spoke.
“… Just now, the rule of ‘sound’ was shattered.”
“…”
Everyone went silent. All of them were formidable beings in the Legendary Stage, so they knew what this meant. The shattering of rules meant the destruction of the rule holder. The situation was just like in the game, where due to Lydia’s death, the ‘sun’ rule of the entire Light Mainland was nullified, so the sun was nowhere in sight. The Light Mainland became so dark that not even a shadow was seen. It took a long time for the dragon soul protection to repair itself. Then, it was worse after the Dark Dragon devoured the Light Dragon. The entire continent lost the ‘light’ rule and became pitch black. Not only that, but if one didn’t use any skill, equipment, or flame torch, one also couldn’t see anything within two meters. It was a world without light, which was why many players escaped to the Country of Law after the Light Dragon’s soul protection collapsed because they were able to at least see something normally there!
Of course, when Rhode annihilated the Dark Dragon, the ‘dark’ rule also crumbled. But these were only benefits reaped by the players—they didn’t need to light up places at night. On the other hand, Erin’s death didn’t affect them too much because the ‘dark’ rule hadn’t repaired itself, so the ‘moon’ rule naturally had to wait in the queue…
Of course, not all deaths of legendary beings would cause rules to collapse because only those who fused deep enough with the rules would cause such influence. Besides, this had nothing to do with their level of strength and was based more on individuals. Some beings were formidable, but the rate of fusion wasn’t as high. But even though some beings weren’t as powerful, the rate of fusion with rules was extremely high. Of course, there was no such ‘honor’ for players. Taking Mini Bubble Gum and Canary, for instance; even if they had obtained the Supreme Privilege, their deaths wouldn’t cause the holiness, wind, and flame attributes to turn ineffective. After all, players were a group of people who died most often in the game. If a player with a high rate of fusion with a rule were to die over a hundred times, wouldn’t the entire continent be in a hectic mess?
But now, someone who grasped a rule power had fallen. Who was it?
“Rhode, I have a bad feeling…”
“Me too.”
Upon hearing Canary’s words, Rhode nodded in agreement. It wasn’t just a bad feeling, but a really terrible one. Because in his memories, there was only one person who owned the ‘sound’ rule in the Dragon Soul Continent. Rhode hesitated no more and gave a command.
“Retreat immediately!”
Even though Rhode hoped that his guess was wrong, when he led the rest back to the front line at all costs and witnessed the silent Celia and pale Lydia, his heart sank to the bottom. And after witnessing Gaya, who lay on the bed lifelessly, he fell into silence and was at a complete loss. Everything exceeded his expectation. He was well aware of Gaya’s strength. Even though she wasn’t as powerful as Lydia in terms of rules, she could still fight to a standstill with Lydia in terms of strength. If the setting of ‘being invincible under the sun’ for Lydia were removed, it would be hard to determine whether Gaya or Lydia would win in a battle. But now, Gaya was actually dead?
“What exactly is going on?”
Rhode gazed at Celia and Lydia, who watched over Gaya. Lize, Marlene, and Lapis were also present, but they were mostly responsible for the preparations of ground attacks. The floating magic warships specialized in air attacks, so Rhode appointed Gaya, Lydia, and Celia to lead. He initially thought that with so many of them around, there shouldn’t be any grave accidents. But in the end, something still happened and it was also disastrous…
Fortunately, it wasn’t Marlene who died, or magic of the entire continent would crumble altogether and the situation would be worse (though considering that, Marlene was his summoning spirit and wouldn’t die that easily). At that moment, everyone’s morale was at rock-bottom. Although the relationship between Gaya and them wasn’t considered really close, they were still companions who met one another everyday. Not that she was suddenly gone, no one was prepared to face this truth. Facing Rhode’s question, Lydia let out a soft sigh and narrated the scenario to him.
As a matter of fact, after Gaya sent out a SOS, Lydia realized immediately that something was wrong. She hurried toward the magic warships where Gaya was located, but the former was too late. When Lydia arrived, she witnessed Gaya raising her hand and snapping the harp strings abruptly. It was at that moment when the entire world went devoid of sound. The ground several hundred miles away, with Gaya in the middle, rumbled. Shapeless sound waves shattered everything in their path, leaving behind a massive, bottomless pit on the surface. Gaya also disintegrated. The pitiful enemy she was up against was blasted away to several hundred meters away by the sound waves, suffering grave injuries, but still managing to sneak away. Even though Lydia wanted to give chase, Gaya’s body was reconstructed at that moment and diving to ground. Lydia had no choice but to give up the chase and rescue Gaya instead.
“Why can’t we resurrect her?”
Rhode puckered his brows and gazed at Gaya. It was apparent that she was already dead. But she should be able to be resurrected. Even if an ordinary resurrection spell didn’t work on Gaya, couldn’t Lydia resurrect her? This wasn’t logical at all! There should be no restriction on resurrection in the Dragon Soul Continent. Or were there some other issues?
“I used the great resurrection spell, but there is no response from her.”
Lydia was in a dreadful mood. Gaya was her closest friend, but Lydia could only watch helplessly as she died. If it were in the past, Lydia would be able to accept the truth. But now, there was clearly the existence of resurrection spells and yet, she couldn’t make her closest friend open her eyes again. This was totally unacceptable for Lydia.
“Bubble, give it a shot.”
Rhode held his forehead and let out a sigh. It was total chaos out there. Due to Gaya’s death, the ‘sound’ rule of the entire continent had shattered and no one could hear a thing now. The reason why Rhode and the rest could still communicate was due to the enchanted field that he and his younger sister activated. The Void Dragon’s unique trait was space creation and that allowed them to temporarily replace ‘sound’ with their rule. But this wasn’t a solution for the long term. For each day that Gaya was dead, Rhode’s group would be seeing raised banners in protest. This was worse than in the game because game masters could still make announcements to all players of the happenings.
“Alright, leave it to me, Leader.”
Upon hearing Rhode’s words, Mini Bubble Gum nodded, approached Gaya, and swung her right arm. Shortly after, along with Mini Bubble Gum’s action, a light column descended from heaven and enveloped Gaya. Then, it disappeared shortly after and Gaya remained motionless.
Looking at this helpless scene, Lydia let out another sigh. She tried a few times earlier, but failed to succeed too. And now, after witnessing the ineffectiveness of Mini Bubble Gum’s great resurrection spell, Lydia fell into deeper despair and sorrow. However, Rhode’s expression didn’t change at all. Instead, he scanned Gaya’s corpse and turned to Mini Bubble Gum.
“What’s the system prompt?”
“Soul missing. Unable to be resurrected.”
Mini Bubble Gum didn’t seem too mindful as she shrugged. Upon hearing the system prompt, Rhode and Canary didn’t reveal any sorrow on their faces, but showed a relieved expression instead.
“I see… That’s not too bad…”
“Not too bad?”
Lydia’s eyes glinted with hope. She lifted her head and gazed at Rhode.
“Your Majesty Rhode, have you figured out something?”
“Yes.”
Facing Lydia’s question, Rhode nodded firmly.
“I figured out the reason why we can’t resurrect Gaya.”
