Chapter 881: Chapter 881

"The First and Second District Translation Dictionary, Super Deluxe Edition—Reading, Greatly Enhance Your Study Efficiency"

He Ao looked at the dictionary in his hand, made with a hard paper cover, its flamboyant title written in the script of the First and Second Districts, and he slowly flipped open the cover.

The first thing that caught his eye was a piece of paper filled with First District script, seemingly the foreword of the dictionary. He Ao directly turned to the second page.

The second page contained the foreword in the Second District language, authored by someone called ’Veisen’, who, judging by the introduction at the bottom of the page, appeared to be a master linguist, and the main editor of the book.

The core content suggested that "then"—likely referring to the era when the book was published—technological development was highly advanced, and simultaneous translation by artificial intelligence and big data had solved nearly all problems of cross-regional language communication. However, this also resulted in increasingly fewer people seriously studying and researching another language, with even fewer being able to deeply feel the charm of languages.

Therefore, they planned to compile and publish a set of ’Translation Dictionaries’, intending to provide simple and quick entry-level assistance for those interested in understanding another language.

The book in He Ao’s hands was a translation dictionary between the First and Second Districts, a reference book for learners from the First District who wanted to study the script of the Second District.

Behind the foreword was an advertisement-like additional explanation, mentioning that the book had gone digital and could be purchased as an eBook for reading on electronic devices.

Since this dictionary was intended for learners from the First District, the language of the and the arrangement of the script also followed the First District’s conventions.

He Ao’s gaze quickly swept over the , and then, his soul performed the Transcendent Advent, and he opened the main text of the book.

The words on the first page were a tangle of lines.

He immediately turned to the second page.

The second page was also a tangle of lines.

His eyes rested on the third page, where this time, normal text appeared. It was a translation from First District language to Second District language.

He Ao sighed in relief, activated Super Memory, and swiftly flipped through the dictionary, ’remembering’ all of its contents.

Then he rinsed and reviewed the contents of the dictionary.

About 20% of the text in the book was corrupt, and it was all concentrated on the commonly used characters of the First District.

However, among these corrupted common characters, there were many that He Ao already knew, so overall, his grasp of the basic characters of the First District should exceed 80%.

Having reached this level, he was now able to read most of the content from the First District.

In a sense, he was finally not ’illiterate’.

This ’dictionary’ also supplemented quite a lot of ’Second District’ grammar knowledge at the end, and used examples from the First District’s ’grammar’ to give He Ao a decent understanding of the First District language’s grammatical concepts.

Overall, just as he had guessed before, evolving from the same pictographic origins, the grammar of the First District language shared certain similarities with that of Central Earth’s language. Some grammatical knowledge that wasn’t in the dictionary, he might be able to directly comprehend using Central Earth’s grammar.

However, why would parts of the dictionary text be corrupted?

He Ao closed the dictionary and looked up at the bookshelf in front of him.

Among the dense array of books on the bookshelf, there was no second translation dictionary between the languages of the First and Second Districts.

He Ao slowly placed the dictionary back in its original spot.

If there were issues with the whole dictionary, and all the content was corrupt, he could understand that this Relic of the Bygone Days had some restrictions on the content of these dictionaries, just like all the intelligent devices were unusable.

But what could be the reason for only part of it being corrupted?

Was it an issue with the dictionary? Or was it an issue with those corrupted characters?

Among those corrupt characters, He Ao thought he had seen some on the signs outside.

So was it an issue with this dictionary? Why, among so many books, was there only one translation dictionary between the languages of the First and Second Districts?

Was it because technological development had progressed too rapidly, making dictionaries obsolete, with only this one company producing dictionaries, or was there some other reason leading to this kind of ’monopoly’?

Was there some underlying commonality to the ’corrupted text’ within the Relic of the Bygone Days?

Waves of thoughts flashed through He Ao’s mind.

And just as he was looking at the books on the bookshelf, a figure wearing a duckbill cap passed behind him.

The corridor formed between two adjacent bookshelves wasn’t very wide and couldn’t accommodate two people side by side, so the man with the duckbill cap turned his body sideways and walked past He Ao.

In that instant, He Ao suddenly raised his hand, and the Shadowless Sword appeared in his grasp.

Metal claws bearing three sharp blades streaked across the sky, trailing three beams of light as they slashed towards He Ao’s neck.

Some paranoid thoughts also emerged in He Ao’s mind, but these did not affect his movements.

He Ao’s figure rose like a willow catkin in the wind, twirling to the side. In the moment he evaded the claws, he brought his sword down in a sweeping strike.

The invisible blade cut through the attacker’s body as easily as slicing through gossamer.

The sharp claws met what had just been He Ao’s standing point at the bookshelf, cutting the entire bookshelf to pieces.

At the same time, the upper half of the man in the duckbill cap slid forward and crashed to the ground.

He Ao watched the man in the duckbill cap, now halved by his sword.

The man’s displayed abilities seemed a bit like Talent Sequence 103: Paranoiac, which he had seen before.

It was at this moment that distorted flesh swelled from the remaining halves of the duckbill cap man’s body, exploding outward with the surrounding desks and bookshelves, extending countless tendrils as if wanting to become a hideous monster, embedding itself into the ceiling and floor.

Even with such a dramatic "transformation," the surrounding illusions still passed by the monster as if nothing had happened, then were "torn apart" by the monster’s stretching flesh.

He Ao briefly activated Super Memory to take a look at the monster, and within its vision, he could faintly see a layer of incomplete "shadow" attached to the monster.

This monster also possessed energy convergence points within its body, like ’Kavina’ whom He Ao had encountered in the Main World, with three interlinked triangular energy convergence points.

As the monster’s body swelled, He Ao slightly raised his hand, sending out fluttering sword lights.

The scattered sword lights instantly pierced into the writhing monster’s body, severing the three energy convergence points within.

Then, with ease, he sliced and shredded it, leaving nothing but a puddle of fragmented flesh on the ground in an instant.

He Ao retracted the Shadowless Sword, gazing at the remains of the flesh.

The attacker was not very strong on his own, merely C-level. Even in a monstrous form, it was only close to a B-level.

Dressed like one of the "people" originally present in the ruin, he could also harm the surrounding illusions, seemingly able to interact with "illusions." On this basis, he could also see He Ao and launch an attack on him.

At that instant, a loud collision came from under his feet.

The second floor, was it Goya?

He glanced at the shattered flesh on the ground, then lifted his sword edge, directly guiding the Shadowless Sword to cut through the whole floor, circling beneath his feet.

With a light stomp, the cut floor suddenly dropped, bringing his figure plummeting down to the floor below.

His silhouette quickly passed through the floors of levels two and three, entering the second floor. He lifted his head and looked forward,

At the far end of his field of view, countless verdant vines were growing from the ground, entwining a colossal bulging flesh monster.

Goya, clad in white, stood before the flesh monster, holding a magic wand in one hand and a long map in the other.

All the bookshelves and structures around had shattered, and the majority of the second floor had become ruins.

Only the vine-entwined monster, still struggling, and the vines continuing to stretch upward, stood erect amidst the ruins.

The monster facing Goya was stronger than the one He Ao faced, having crossed the threshold of a B-level.

He Ao opened Super Memory again and glanced at the monster, vaguely discerning some sort of incomplete "shadow" on it as well.

The Shadowless Sword flew from his hand, streaking like a beam of light toward the end of the room.

Almost simultaneously, his foot tapped lightly, landing on a slanted bookshelf beside him, and he leaped out, soaring towards Goya.

At this moment, Goya furrowed her brows, focusing on the monster in front of her.

The tips of her vines turned to a withered yellow, and the body of the monster also began to decay rapidly, but the speed of this decay seemed far slower than she had anticipated.

As decayed flesh fell off, new limbs born from the monster would fill in its place, as if the monster possessed some sort of special regenerative ability.

At that instant, an invisible shadow burst forth from behind her, plunging into the body of the vine-wrapped monster.

Goya also realized something at that moment, raising her hand to suddenly hasten the yellowing speed of the vines.

The once violently swelling monster began to rapidly contract, shortly followed by what appeared to be an invisible luminescence flickering swiftly within the monster’s body. The entire monster’s body twitched once, then visibly withered away.

The swift withering of the monster reduced the resistance against the sword’s edge, allowing the invisible luminescence to surge within the monster’s body, quickly chopping up the entire monster’s internal flesh in an incredibly short time.

"Did you encounter one too?"

He Ao walked up to Goya, lifting his hand, and the Shadowless Sword returned to his grasp.

This monster also had an energy convergence point, likewise in the shape of a triangle.

Without thinking, Goya nodded, "I was just looking at the map here, and then this guy suddenly came out of nowhere and attacked me..."

At that moment, she suddenly looked up, and as if finally realizing something blinked and looked at He Ao, "You encountered it, too?"

He Ao nodded, "Upstairs, I took care of it, it seemed to be a power type monster."

"This one seems to be a ’regeneration type,’ able to be somewhat immune to my ’Life Withering,’"

Goya looked at the ground covered with shredded flesh, then glanced at the surrounding remnants of "Illusions" that were still moving normally, "These monsters seem to be able to see us, right?"

He Ao nodded and crouched down to look at the flesh on the ground.

Under the influence of Eye of Truth, the structure of this flesh appeared not much different from the surrounding Illusions.

The main difference was still those seemingly incomplete Shadows, which appeared to be some kind of incomplete Souls, attached to these monsters, and as these monsters died, those Shadows also vanished rapidly.

"These monsters seem to have ’Souls.’"

He Ao stared at the flesh and slowly said.

Goya was taken aback, looking at the flesh on the ground, "Are they the missing people from the real world?"

He Ao shook his head, stood up,

"Their Souls are not complete; compared to normal Souls, they only consist of a small part. The missing would at least have complete Souls, and moreover, their clothes and appearance seem more like people from the Relic of the Bygone Days."

"Between human and Illusion?"

Goya speculated, "Are they created by the entity behind the scenes to deal with us?"

"They probably weren’t created; for now, the entity behind the scenes can only use the inherent powers of the rules to expel us. These monsters likely existed in this Illusion all along."

He Ao shook his head gently.

Goya raised her Magic Wand, lightly scratching her head with the wand.

She felt a bit unable to keep up with He Ao’s pace.

Just then, the violent roaring of thunder exploded beneath the feet of the two.

The two looked at each other and quickly made the connection.

Li Cheng was on the first floor.

But at that instant, a massive Vine leaf burst out from under their feet, ripping the floor apart.

However, before the two could react, the sweeping thunder followed closely, scorching the entire Vine leaf.

And the two took the opportunity to drop through the broken floor to arrive on the first floor, landing next to Li Cheng, who was surrounded by a Thunderstorm.

The whole first floor’s ’partitions’ and ’buildings’ seemed to have already been destroyed, and all kinds of plants were growing from the floor.

There were trees, flowers, and twisted, giant Vine leaves.

At this moment, these trees, flowers, and Vine leaves were all twisting their bodies; their green stems moved like flesh, seemingly keeping an eye on the three people at the center.

The monsters on the first floor were clearly much stronger than those on the second and third floors.

The three exchanged glances, quickly forming a triangular formation back to back, watching the surrounding plants.

The undulating plants were not preparing to give the three any time to prepare; in an instant, they twisted out and swept toward the three.

Vine leaves danced like long snakes; petals opened into gaping maws; trees stretched out their branches.

He Ao raised his hand, with an Invisible Blade lurking in the Shadow, instantly severing the plants rushing toward him.

Brilliant lightning flashed behind him, and the electricity spread over Li Cheng’s body, charring the surrounding plants.

Verdant vines burst forth from Goya’s feet, entwining those charging plants. From the vines, a wither-yellow color spread, withering the plants along with it.

"There’s a strong life force below us!"

It was then that Goya shouted, looking down.

Almost the instant she cried out, the ground beneath their feet started trembling rapidly.

The smooth floor underfoot was instantly filled with cracks, and sections of black, decaying roots, writhing like flesh, emerged from these fissures, as if breaking free from the earth’s clasp, ready to reveal themselves.

In that moment, countless green vines stretched downward, binding the roots on the ground.

The wither-yellow color spread from the vines to the roots, bringing a change of color to the entire root system, and within that brief instant, the movement of the roots stalled.

"The center is right beneath our feet."

He Ao, who had been looking down, saw the roots emerging from beneath the floor and immediately spoke.

Almost as soon as his words ended, Li Cheng raised his hand, and dazzling electricity converged in his palm, lighting up the entire space like the scorching sun, piercing through the dark roots beneath their feet like a sharp spear.

But this strike did not kill the roots, which finally broke free from the influence of the ’wither-yellow’ and struggled to rise. In the next instant, an invisible blade followed the piercing path created by the lightning, swiftly plunging down, stabbing deep into the flesh of the roots.

At last, the massive root came to a halt, but cracks spread from the ground up the walls.

The three exchanged glances and immediately rushed out of the library’s building.

The exquisite tower collapsed abruptly behind them, kicking up a cloud of dust that spread for meters.

The three of them stood on the street, looking back at the ruins.

In fact, they had been very cautious in their fight, hardly causing any deliberate destruction to the buildings, but the monsters were not so particular. Even the aftermath of their battle was enough to bring down ordinary constructions.

And that was without Li Cheng using his Angelic Tier weapon.

Under the influence of an Angelic Tier weapon, it’s likely that all surrounding districts would turn into ruins.

"What exactly are these attackers..." Li Cheng gazed at the ruins, puzzled.

"They might be Transcendents who once resided within the Relics of the Bygone Days," He Ao mused, and then relayed the content of his earlier discussion with Goya to Li Cheng, continuing, "The monster that attacked me, its Talent Sequences seemed close to mine, and the one that attacked Goya, its Talent Sequences and abilities also seemed similar to hers."

The monster that attacked He Ao was the weakest, probably because that clone was only C-level, so a C-level had come.

For Goya and Li Cheng, the monsters that came corresponded to their own strength.

"So that means," Li Cheng murmured, falling into some pondering, "that plant monster might also be close to my Talent Sequences."

He then looked up at ’Hao Yi,’ "So are these all monsters created by Transcendents of the Relics with Talent Sequences adjacent to ours? Or like in the Bubble Space, are they ’replicas’?"

"We’re not sure yet," He Ao shook his head, looking at the ruins and the buildings surrounding it with a touch of emotion, "It could also be because of Mysticism’s Attraction that attracted back some incomplete Undead spirits, after all, this place is indeed a replica of the past ’Relics.’"

Li Cheng gazed at the ruins before him, falling into brief silence.

Then, he suddenly realized something, "We haven’t found the map yet."

"Perhaps we have already found it," He Ao smiled, turning his head to look at Goya standing behind the two men.

Li Cheng also turned around.

Goya looked at the pair, slightly tentative as she raised her hand; the relaxation she had when alone with ’Hao Yi’ was absent when the three were together.

In her hand at that moment was a scroll of map.