Wizard: Stronger through Marriage

Chapter 1214: Chapter 562: Hidden Tides Surge (Part 2)

Among the shattered ruins and broken walls, the wind drifted slowly, carrying the stench of rot and dust, while scattered rubble and dead leaves rolled soundlessly through the dim alleys.

On the altar in the city’s heart, mottled and ancient, a clump of uncanny black flame flickered on and off, casting twisted, ferocious silhouettes.

This was the forbidden ground secretly guarded by the Shadow Council for many years; here they were conducting a ritual that defied all reason and terror.

The council members wore dark long robes, each face hidden beneath a hood, revealing only cold, vicious eyes.

They stood silent around the altar, those gazes like the Ice at the lowest depths of the Abyss, piercing the most insidious and evil secrets lurking in the night.

The air was thick with a potent, indescribable sense of ill-omen, an unnatural presence wrought from the interweaving of corrosive toxins and time-distorting Energy.

At the center of the altar, a colossal sheep-headed white-bone effigy towered into the clouds, its skeletal structure labyrinthine and complex, every piece of bone shimmering with a ghostly, icy glow.

Its hollow yet murderously cruel eye sockets seemed to condense all malice in the dark Cosmos, while its gaping maw was like another vast gate opening onto a rift of Hell itself.

As the ritual chants rose higher and higher, the city streets that had long appeared dead and silent suddenly shuddered.

Dust and rubble were swept up by a violent surge of Energy, whirling through the ruins like a storm, coalescing into spiraling vortices in midair.

A suffocating, inescapable low roar burst from the effigy’s mouth, like spectral howls striking straight at the deepest core of the heart—

”Devour... devour all this Light and Life!”

In an instant, thick, ink-like black smoke spewed from the gaping jaws of the sheep-headed white-bone effigy. The smoke spread with terrifying speed, swallowing every glimmer of light within a radius of a hundred miles, turning the sky into a deathly, absolute darkness—no stars, no moon, only a suffocating void that crushed all hope.

Within the corroded zone, countless trees withered, collapsing into brittle charcoal; the Earth seemed to lose its Bloodline support, silently splitting into spiderweb cracks. Innumerable living beings—from tiny insects to mighty beasts—crumpled under this uncanny force, losing consciousness or directly crumbling into ash that dispersed into the air.

In the distance, the surviving crowds raised their heads to the heavens in terror, only to see the advancing shroud of pitch black creeping toward their land, clawing and grasping like a living thing, ripping away everything they cherished.

They wailed and struggled, but all in vain, forced to watch as their Life Force and hope were stripped away piece by piece.

The council members’ faces remained sternly cold, yet their hearts brimmed with ecstasy—this was precisely the incarnate avatar of the Famine Pillar God they had summoned through Sacrifice. It brought not only annihilation, but a new epoch that challenged the entire order of the world.

They understood that this avatar was nothing more than a seed, that the true Pillar God itself had yet to descend. But the shadow sown today would plunge the myriad Domains into an even deeper Abyssal valley from which there would be no escape...

From the valley echoed faint, distant wails and screams, and at the same time, the sheep-headed white-bone effigy began to move slowly. With each step it took, the Earth trembled, accompanied by the cracking fall of tiny stones.

With its immense body, it continually expanded its sphere of influence, endlessly draining the surging power of living creatures, driving the surrounding environment into utter stillness and desolation. The pitch-black Void within its mouth resembled an eternal Soul-devouring Abyss, annihilating all value of existence, transmuting vitality into phantom shadows.

The night hung over the town at the border of the Ice World like a heavy curtain, as a bitter, cutting wind howled through the narrow streets, whipping flurries of snow into dance.

On the Ice Seal Earth, faint light gleamed against rooftops and stone walls coated in a thin layer of Frost; every detail spoke of severe cold and solitude.

People wrapped themselves tight in heavy garments, expressions grave and anxious as they felt that indescribable unease lingering in the air.

Just then, the Earth let out a low, bone-chilling rumble.

The sound seemed to well up from the depths below, more like the very core of space being ruthlessly torn and shaken, heralding an irreversible disaster.

Pedestrians in the streets halted in their tracks and raised their heads to the sky, where they saw a twisted fissure open in the distant firmament, dark violet light surging forth like a river from the underworld.

The fissure spread rapidly, its edges radiating a violent, intertwined heat and cold—unstable Energy Waves—the destructive power released by the Pillar God’s avatar, inciting severe turbulence in the fabric of space.

This force exceeded the Perception limits of ordinary beings, warping and contorting the surrounding air as though torn open by invisible titanic hands.

In the central plaza of the town, a group of figures in pale blue uniforms, focused and meticulous, were nervously arranging Arrays.

They were the members of the spatial observation squad led by Reina; each wore a heavy, concentrated expression, brows furrowed as they sought solutions amid the chaos.

Reina stood before an ancient altar, its surface inlaid with Runes unique to the Star Pupil Race, pulsing with a faint glow like the beating of Life’s veins.

She lightly touched the altar’s surface with her fingertips, and through the transmission instruments she read a stream of complex data flowing from the spatial rift.

The screen swarmed with rapidly shifting information. Her eyes shimmered with blue-violet light as she devoted her full attention to analyzing every detail.

Traces of fatigue were clearly visible on her face, yet her gaze remained sharp and resolute—this was the truest portrait of one who stands unflinching under the drive of duty and mission.

”The collapse point is expanding rapidly,” Reina said, her voice low yet forceful as she slowly turned to her companions. ”If we don’t suppress it soon, its spread will point straight toward the Holy Land of the Star Pupil Race... That would mean a catastrophe unprecedented across the entire Star Domain!”

The air seemed to freeze for an instant. Everyone’s chest heaved harder; some bit their lips, others clenched their fists and glared toward the unknown terror in the distance.

But above all, there was a resolve and courage that admitted no retreat, a will to fight to the very end.

Meanwhile, the dimension rift unleashed by the effigy—the avatar of the Abyss Lord—continued to widen along its fractured borders, colliding violently with the material world’s shockwaves. At the town’s outskirts, aberrant changes began to appear—stones from buildings suddenly lost their weight, floating into the air before rapidly disintegrating and crashing down;

Road surfaces split into spiderweb cracks, along which seeped colors deep and eerie;

Some creatures felt a fierce pull, and without conscious thought staggered toward the maw of the Void, like beings trapped in a nightmare, unable to resist the mockery of fate.

”Look!” a young observer cried, pointing at a patch of black-hole-like spatial vortex that had appeared between the southern mountains. ”That’s the core of the collapse point! It’s devouring all our Energy at a terrifying speed.”

Reina’s brows knitted tighter and tighter as she rapidly adjusted the instrument parameters to capture the Energy Wave trajectories with greater precision.

”According to my calculations, this dimensional destruction wave will expand dozens of miles in a short time. Once it breaches nature’s boundaries, it will trigger multilayered space-time overlap and confusion, leading to a chain of collapses.”

She paused for a moment, then added, ”If the Holy Land is affected, it won’t just be physical destruction. It will also implicate our internal Soul links and Bloodline inheritance system—the consequences are beyond imagining!”

Upon hearing this, everyone in the plaza held their breath and stared.

They knew this was not a simple disaster, but a calamity that exceeded the range of comprehension, challenging the very limits of existence itself.

For a time, human voices fell silent, leaving only the wind and snow howling past the silhouettes of ruins, battling against the ever-spreading tide-surge of Void.

David stood at a distant observation platform, squinting toward the black-hole vortex gradually vanishing into Shadow behind the steep peaks.

His expression was grave to the extreme, the muscles of his whole body taut like drawn strings. He could feel clearly that the Frost Wolf Bloodline within him was warning of a far greater danger approaching.

”We must return to aid them as soon as possible...” he murmured. ”Otherwise, everything we’ve done will be for nothing.”

His hand tightened around his sword hilt. His breathing quickened yet remained steady, each expansion of his lungs seeming to draw in the Chaos and Elemental Essence between heaven and Earth, storing power for the battle to come.

Behind him, a faint red Flame glimmered subtly—an imprint in a dormant state, secret yet brimming with killing intent, a newborn mark that reminded him: the true trial has not yet begun, and a deadlier conspiracy is quietly taking shape in the depths of the dark...