CHAPTER 864: 861: VENTURING DEEPER

Corey moved.

And each step he took covered dozens of meters, sometimes even hundreds, as he alternated between teleporting through the void and using Lightning Movement Art.

From the moment he vanished from beside the unconscious members of the Thirteenth Dawn, he had been moving at a speed that would have boggled the minds of Kieran and the rest.

And he was doing this with a calm and indifferent expression.

The Dying City was massive. Much more massive than he initially assumed. The deeper he went, the more he realized just how unfathomably large this city was.

The streets seemed endless. The buildings towered above the earth with an architecture that would baffle and stun the minds of mortals. The roads twisted upon themselves like serpents eating their own tails. And some alleys seemed to stretch beyond time.

’How long would it have taken me to get this far if I was still with the Thirteenth Dawn?’

He didn’t need to answer because he already knew the answer.

It would have taken him far too long to cross the distance he had crossed with the Thirteenth Dawn.

He had crossed over ten kilometers in approximately an hour and twenty minutes, but he had still not reached the center of the city.

With the condition of Rhys and Yara, their speed was going to be severely delayed, and it might take them two days to reach where he was currently at.

’I don’t know how long I have left till the Third Night arrives, so I have to hurry.’

’My instincts are telling me that I don’t have much time left... Maybe a few more minutes... which is terrible.’

’And I also have a feeling that killing Eidolon which is a minor source of the corruption of the Dying City might affect something... Although I don’t know what.’

Corey suddenly narrowed his eyes, and then a pondering light flashed in his eyes.

’Should I go for the main source of the corruption? Or should I look for minor sources of the corruption?’

He turned to the right, and his gaze landed on a particular location that was about a kilometer from him.

’I can sense something that’s as powerful as Eidolon in that direction... If I’m correct, it’s a Minor Source of Corruption.’

’Should I target the minor sources of corruption? Or should I go directly for the main source of direction?’

The gears in Corey’s mind spun as he pondered on this thought.

’Normally, what anybody would suggest is that killing or destroying the minor sources of corruption should be done first because this might lead to the main source of corruption being weakened.’

’This is a very normal thought, but what if this makes the Main Source of Corruption stronger as a result?’

’What if it alerts whatever the main source of corruption is?’

Corey exhaled softly, and then he shifted his gaze back to the front.

’I’m worried about this, but there’s a much bigger problem.’

’The Rule of Taking from the Universal System.’

’Targeting the minor sources of corruption is going to take time, and time is something I don’t have in this place.’

’The longer I spend battling a powerful monster or being trapped in a dangerous situation, the more likely it is for another Night to happen before I’m able to reach the main source of corruption.’

’I need to think this through properly.’

Corey’s eyes flashed.

’But first, I need to get to the furthest safe house before the Third Night arrives.’

His figure blurred forward once again.

The arcs of lightning that traveled from his feet painted flashes of white and silver behind him. Then, with a step, he vanished, reappearing hundreds of meters away with Void Teleportation.

Teleporting in the Dying City was an extremely dangerous thing to do.

What could be seen was not the only that was corrupted, the fabric of space itself was corrupted and riddled with invisible fissures.

Some of these fissures and corruption could not affect the physical world, but if one tried to teleport through normal means, death is almost a certainty.

Teleportation here was like gambling in a cursed casino. One wrong coordinate, and one could end up embedded inside a wall made of cursed spirits. Or worse, they could find themselves trapped in a shadow that devoured memories and one’s spirit.

But Corey was a Demi-Paragon with a Void Phoenix Heart.

He controlled the void.

His Void Phoenix Heart trembled softly with each teleportation, and he let his void Phoenix senses to guide his teleportation, avoiding twisted folds in space that would have shredded him otherwise.

But even with this, there were places that were just too dangerous for him to cross while teleporting.

For those places, he used Lightning Step to cross them.

This was why he was always alternating between teleporting and using Lightning Movement Art.

However, despite all of these, there were two moments where he nearly made a mistake.

The first time, his teleportation brought him within an inch of a floating spear. The weapon hovered silently in the air while suspended in time, and release a subtle hum along with a power that sent a chill across Corey’s spine.

Corey knew that the spear was most likely a weapon of a fallen powerful martial artist of the past Virendell, and it was extremely powerful.

The power it radiated was more potent and terrifying than any of his weapons.

He knew that if he grabbed the weapon, he would surely have a trump card he could use in the fight against the main source of corruption.

But his Paragon instincts screamed at him the moment his Tri-Pupil Eyes landed on the weapon.

His instincts rarely warned him this much, and he would be a fool to ignore it.

Without hesitation, he quickly used his Tri-Pupil Eyes to switch places with a rock that was behind the spear, before he was impaled by the spear.

Another thing he had been doing was that he usually switched between his Tri-Pupil Eyes and his Eyes of Omniscience.

What he came to realize was that in terms of space, time, and the void, his Tri-Pupil Eyes were vastly superior to his Eyes of Omniscience.