Above The Sky
Chapter 479 - 479 449 Those Who Look Up to the Sky 13

479: Chapter 449: Those Who Look Up to the Sky (1/3) 479: Chapter 449: Those Who Look Up to the Sky (1/3) The dark night was alive with the sound of muffled thunder, deep and heavy, resounding as it roared.

The youth was a light sleeper, and the slight trembling of the Entangling Void Armor leaned against the flank of the Camel Beast proved its owner was awakening from a brief, confusing dream.

The sky near the Bart Great Rift Valley was half-obscured by clouds, with thunder booming, while the other half was a silent expanse of pitch-black night.

They were distinctly separate, not affecting each other, and not far away, a massive column of clouds stretching into the top of the firmament was continuously swirling, like Giants from the myths reaching out from the Earth Core Abyss, stirring the domain of the Gods set upon the Seven-layered Heavenly Ladder.

A pair of green eyes opened, slightly frantic, as the youth breathed rapidly, removing his helmet to look up at the sky, at that distant and obscure black veil.

The Illusory Moon and the New Moon, whole and broken, hung on either side of the sky, like a pair of dead, dusk-filled eyes, watching over everything on this land.

In the star-scarce darkness, a few stars still twinkled, lonely but persisting, not like a dream becoming a bright and determined comet streaking through the dark veil, dissipating as it lit up half the night sky with its burning glow.

Ian woke up from his dream, drenched in cold sweat; it wasn’t until he was sure that none of the stars in the sky had dimmed that his breathing began to slow.

“Another dream like that…?”

Bowing his head, his long lashes drooping, Ian sighed softly, the faint green glow in his eyes fluctuating with his breath.

He reached for his neck, looking at the cold droplets on his hand with a wry smile, “Sweating through my clothes again.”

“Really, every part of me has grown but my body, which remains a child’s.”

Ian slowly got to his feet, controlling his Origin Quality to remove his Armored Clothing, ready to get some fresh air.

He never liked looking up at the night sky in the wilderness.

Because in the Terra Continent, the night sky doesn’t have a vast, bright river of stars, nor does it have a sky filled with countless stars sprinkled across the darkness.

Here, there’s only a pitch-black emptiness, like a gaping maw, or an abyss so deep it could swallow the whole world, making everything fall into it.

Ian disliked this feeling.

Those remaining stars could not comfort him, they were like alarm bells, always arousing urgency and anxiety in his heart.

He didn’t like it.

Didn’t like this world.

The Terra Continent was sealed in unnamed darkness, stars in the sky fading one after another, every time he fell into sleep he would dream of the sky suddenly blazing, and after a brilliant light, all things sinking into an eternal darkness from which they would never return.

He always disliked this feeling, just as he disliked reading the end of a book, unwilling to make new friends.

Yes.

After finishing a book one would feel melancholy, the long tale ending there.

After a person dies, conclusions are made about them, with no other possibilities.

Of course, he would dislike that.

Who would like that indescribable melancholy after turning the last page, the helpless silence once everything is over?

But still…

Ian would go on to read another book.

To meet another person.

To explore yet another world.

“Teacher…”

Using his Origin Quality to dry his clothes and cleanse the dust and dirt left from combat with the Magnetic Light Knight from both inside and outside his armor, Ian sighed lightly as he lifted the Heavy Abyss Iron Sword: “Those children, Baron Leyan, and the others.

So many that I’ve killed.”

“In the world of my previous life, in that era I once lived, you could have survived.

You didn’t have to die, didn’t have to commit evil acts, didn’t have to be harmed by evil.”

“It is this world, this era, that cannot bear your dreams and pain.”

The Frost Butterfly flew out from a small box at the side of the Entangling Void Armor, circling Ian with a trace of confusion, and as he raised his slender finger to let the tiny fae land, the youth also cracked a faint smile: “Frost Butterfly, I have too many secrets to confide in you now.”

“Once you gain wisdom, I’ll only be able to ponder them alone.”

The little fae cocked its head, clearly not understanding what the Great Fairy was talking about, but Ian didn’t mind; he touched the sharpened edge of the fine gold blade of the longsword, feeling the cold and dangerous sensation.

A beautiful world should have infinite possibilities.

In a beautiful era, no one should be consigned to oblivion.

And the starry sky is the symbol of that world and era.

Because in a land where happiness is scarce, a society that lacks wealth; in a world that is neither beautiful nor fills one with desire for the future no one yearns for distant stars.

But what if, the stars themselves have dimmed?

Perhaps that would be the ultimate terror, and the greatest of apocalypses.

But it doesn’t matter.

Even in such a world…

he would still move forward.

“Let’s go, Frost Butterfly, back to the little icebox, you’re about to evolve, and I need to prepare for you.”

Lowering his gaze, Ian shook his head slightly to the little creature.

The Water Element Origin Quality shone around him in cyan and blue, even his hair tips rippled with a bright luster, activating the Entangling Void Armor, which then covered his body.

His white hair fell along his shoulders, hanging behind him as Ian wiped the blade, making it shine even more as if he had completed a ritual.

He sheathed the Heavy Abyss Iron Sword, and his gaze became firm once again.

The Frost Butterfly returned to the icebox, and the young man, who felt anxious and alone, now reverted back to his original self: calm, rational, fearless, never hesitating, and a Prophet who communicated without a hint of flaw.

Because there was nothing there to stop him.

He was Ian.

One who looked up to the sky.

He intended to venture into the starry heavens.

It was as simple as that.

After several days of trekking, Ian had reached the vicinity of Bart Great Rift Valley.

Starting now, he would probably reach the Town Before the Bridge by dawn.

After battling the Magnetic Light Knight and taking care of the scene, Anfa and Pansha took the Purple Maple Knight and left.

They needed to hurry back to the Bison Mountain Range to avoid encountering any knights dispatched by the Marquis — although there might be some understanding between them, if they actually met, it wouldn’t do without a fight, which would certainly cost them time and effort, wouldn’t it?

It could also mean dealing with some unnecessary blame, which was truly meaningless.

While cleaning up the battlefield, Pansha secretly approached Ian to ask if the young man had any other relatives.

Upon learning he had only one brother, the grandson of Elder Mantle, the new leader of the Abode Tribe, seemed quite disappointed.

“I used to occasionally encounter a mysterious and beautiful girl from the cliff valley tribe, but she’s suddenly disappeared recently, what a pity.

I had even thought of going there to propose someday…”

He muttered to himself while he smoothed out the ground, obliterating the traces that the young man had instructed him to take care of.

Anfa then quietly informed Ian using a voice-concealing secret technique that the mountain maiden Pansha had seen was actually Sio…

At that time, the King of the Mountain enjoyed the feeling of raising a daughter, so for those dozen or so years, Sio always walked in the guise of a young girl.

Dragons, being perfect creatures, do not have genders at all, and the King of the Mountain often moved around the mountains in the forms of a beautiful woman and a robust man.

“Who was he…

she using the face of, back then?”

Ian asked curiously, but then noticed that the normally good-tempered Anfa was also showing anger, which gave him a pretty clear idea without needing an answer.

But what was odd was, it’s just borrowing a face, what’s there to be angry about?

Sio now was using his face, so why wasn’t he angry now?

As for the Purple Maple Knight, he had been bound all along but was surprisingly well-behaved.

Truly, someone who managed to stay undercover for more than a decade without being exposed and nearly made it to the top ranks had a certain ruthlessness.

Anfa and the Purple Maple Knight obviously had a somewhat complicated relationship.

Although Ian hadn’t seen many romance dramas, elements like ‘familial’ ‘familiarity’ ‘undercover in the same organization’ ‘foe and friend’ allowed for plenty of room for imagination.

As for the corpse of the Magnetic Light Knight, Ian had long since thrown it into the Nine Spirals Abyss.

It was a series of caverns formed by cooled lava at the lowest point of the basin.

The cooling period and geological changes resulted in a chain of vast abysses — those nine entrances were just gateways to an ecosystem operating within the Earth.

Some scholars hypothesized that a small to medium-sized labyrinth lay deep within, but that wasn’t the case.

It was purely an extraordinary geological structure.

As he walked around the abyss, Ian didn’t encounter even half of the notorious Veteran Magical Beasts or marauding wild beasts rumored to be in the area.

Except when he came to the edge of the abyss to dispose of the corpse, Ian faintly sensed a grand voice echoing from deep within the rock layers, but from beginning to end, he never encountered those supposedly very hospitable local beasts.

It could only be said that Veteran Magical Beasts are truly extraordinary, not only in battle but also especially adept at cowardice.

Therefore, Ian had no choice but to activate his Foresight View and forcibly locate a Water-series Magical Beast hiding in a nearby small lake to extract the ‘Energy Gathering Shell’ from the ‘Water Glider Butterfly’.

And of course, it was to pave the way for Frost Butterfly’s upcoming evolution.