Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

Chapter 1926: Saturation Attack and Astral Meteorite

Trying the card in the pipes earlier yielded no results; attempting again at the hotel also brought no effect. Maybe there isn’t an extraordinary space anomaly here for him to perceive, or perhaps it’s a skill unique to Miss Andriana.

"Back then, Joey Barton managed to rely on ’Impermanence: Death’ to directly see a person’s lifespan and death. I’ve had the Death Card for so long yet still can’t... Could it be that I don’t have their kind of talent?"

The two walked together to the first floor.

Starting at five o’clock, Green Lake Hotel officially closed. Now at the end of spring, the daytime is long, and at five, it’s still bright. They waited from five until half past six in the evening.

At this moment, amidst the sound of rain, the gas street lamps along the street had all begun to glow, and Green Lake City seemed devoid of human activity.

Shard and Luviya were on the hotel’s first floor, sitting together with Miss Aphrola. The Witch listened as Shard recounted the story of the Edwards Family and shared his opinions on the various members of the Edwards Family.

Suddenly, they heard the sound of glass tapping. Turning their heads, they saw a folded paper crane restlessly knocking on the window in the rainy night. The girl by the window opened it, letting the paper crane fly inside, which went straight to Miss Aphrola. The Witch opened the letter to read and frowned slightly, then said to Shard:

"This is already the fourth letter. The fog spreading from Green Lake Central Island has officially reached the shore. The church has organized the evacuation of villages along the shore, and Granny Cassandra has also instructed the girls stationed at the shore to temporarily retreat and not come into contact with that fog."

"Judging by the speed at which the fog spreads, it should cover the city before ten o’clock tonight."

Shard said, with several other letters placed beside him.

Luviya tossed a coin for divination:

"It should be faster than you think."

Miss Aphrola nodded:

"That’s also my concern. You know that white fog severely disrupts spatial stability. Although we’ve made ample preparations, should the white fog cover here, we’re almost powerless to prevent Laplace Klein Howard from taking members of the Edwards Family. By the time ten hits, if we do nothing, it practically means failure."

"If the family members don’t want to land on the island, then expand the island’s range?"

Shard sighed, handing the pen to Miss Aphrola to write a reply. The cruise where Granny Cassandra and her group were located had entered the Duin River’s upper reaches, the northern part of Green Lake City. Even if the white fog could engulf Green Lake Hotel, it couldn’t consume a ship that could be relocated at any time.

Thus, the Diviner definitely has other plans.

The letter was quickly dispatched, and Shard continued to wait on the first floor, as this destined eventful night could not remain calm forever. Within three minutes after the letter’s dispatch, hurried footsteps came from the stairs, bringing news from Miss Sylvia on the third floor:

"Something is approaching the hotel from the southeast."

Miss Aphrola beckoned her niece to look out the window. She took up the long staff once lit by Shard’s Silvermoon Glimmer and gently struck the ground, causing a glow to envelop everyone’s bodies.

Shard also picked up the Night Watchman, gestured to Luviya to remain inside, and followed Miss Aphrola and the two Eight-Ring ladies, opening the door to stand under the rain-sheltered roof protruding out at the entrance.

Something two floors high, difficult to describe in precise terms, was sluggishly walking from the southeast street. With its movement, the rain curtain displayed severe optical distortion under the interplay between the night rain and gas street lamps.

Upon closer contemplation, it was clear the space around the monster was being directly torn by its own power.

As it drew closer, Shard finally saw it was a monster composed of horse, sheep, ostrich, and kangaroo-like creatures spliced together.

"A spatial amalgam."

Unable to confirm whether it had appeared here by chance or as a probe from the Diviner. Miss Aphrola shook her head to signal everyone not to engage, and subsequently, thunder, light, fireballs, and water arrows erupted from five or six windows on the hotel’s eastern side, including arcane and sorcery attacks Shard couldn’t describe.

Not a single attack was intercepted, and the night rain and the hotel’s surrounding silent barrier concealed the sounds of spellcasting and explosions. The slow-approaching creature was reduced to spatial dust following a wave of saturated attacks. The ground sank into a large pit, from which smoke rose despite the rain, indicating the effectiveness of the earlier round of attacks.

However, the people at the entrance remained vigilant until Miss Sylvia signaled safety from the third floor, then retreated back into the building.

What at first seemed like a false alarm only underscored the hotel’s formidable combat readiness. A still uneasy Shard requested Luviya to divine the origin of the creature, and the purple-eyed girl fetched the Crystal Ball, rarely showcasing her Crystal Diving Arts to Shard:

"It was born from the shattering of space. With the fog’s expansion, more such creatures will appear in the city."

This is not good news; it only signifies that this turbulent night has truly begun.

Luviya’s judgment was correct. After the crowd eliminated that monster, the sky in the rainy night began to crack sharply. Subsequently, in an unforeseen development, dozens of blazing orange-red fireballs, bright enough to illuminate the night sky, descended like meteors towards the Green Lake Region.

This "spectacular" scene could be seen from the window, but Miss Aphrola’s face changed:

"This is bad! Astral Meteorites!"

"What?"

Shard had not yet been able to search for this slightly familiar term amid the complicated "Witch Echoes" when Miss Aphrola already rushed out and transformed into a ray of light to confront the "fireball" that was almost directly heading towards the street of Green Lake Hotel.

"The Astral Realm is a massive subspace attached to the Material World. It is said that before the Third Era, it was also a real world. The Material World’s sturdy barrier can resist most external erosion, referring to those evil objects from subspaces and exiled monsters. Similarly, the Material World’s spatial barrier can resist non-living entities."

Miss Haley Aflora answered Shard’s question. Seeing Shard look at her, her initially smooth words stumbled, but she insisted on finishing:

"Astral Meteorites are special metals from the Astral Realm. Due to their unique origin, their value is tantamount to transcendent metals like Mithril and Mithril. However, the destructive impact after these meteorites fall from the Astral Realm due to occasional cracks in the spatial barrier is..."

Boom~

The tremendous explosion even made tables and chairs tremble. The explosion did not originate from overhead but from the southeastern part of the city.

Shard, Luviya, and Miss Haley Aflora hurried to the window and saw a dazzling giant fireball rising from the southeast, followed by a night-time mushroom cloud manifesting a terrifying appearance in the rain.

This was the first fallen Astral Meteorite, and more fireballs continued to fall in the sky.

"This is really bad."

Shard heard Luviya’s murmur, and having clearly seen the power of such peculiar meteorites, he understood what those fireballs meant for the city.

Despite poor visibility in the rainy night, Shard still saw figures rising from the city center to confront the falling meteorites. At the same time, a grand ringing bell consistently echoed in the rain, the sound from Peace Chapel trembling all the raindrops in the air. Then, countless transparent raindrops converged rapidly towards the city’s sky, shooting densely towards the still-falling fireballs.

This was effective, causing at least a third of the fireballs to explode in the air. But the remaining still possessed the destructive capability to ravage the entire region.

Another figure flew out from the hotel; Miss Galina also followed Miss Aphrola to confront the meteorites in the sky. And the Circle Sorcerers, who reached the sky first, had already begun clearing the meteorites, with constant booms reverberating in the air, enormous sparks exploding among storm clouds, more unsettling than thunder.

"The books have never recorded the occurrence of so many Astral Meteorites at once. These things usually appear singly."

Luviya was still talking, her purple eyes in the dark saw more situations, and she puzzledly asked Miss Haley Aflora beside her:

"Would the explosion of Astral Meteorites produce pink smoke or come out with a black shadow?"

The latter shook her head bewilderedly:

"Shouldn’t it? They are just ores."

In the midst of speaking, the two meteorites closest to Green Lake Hotel had exploded overhead. Shard heard cheering upstairs; the two Grand Witches successfully eliminated threats to the hotel.

Shard thought Galina and Miss Aphrola would clear a few more meteorites before returning, to prevent the Church from locating them here. But soon, he and the ladies on the first floor saw Miss Aphrola descending in the rain to the hotel’s entrance, carrying the unconscious Miss Galina.

"Oh, what happened?"

Shard immediately rushed out to meet them, holding the red-haired witch who seemed trapped in a nightmare, and noticed Miss Aphrola also looking quite disheveled:

"I’m okay, but those Astral Meteorites are unusual. There’s something inside them! I was attacked by some unknown monster, and Galina inhaled some kind of hallucinogenic gas."

Though claiming to be okay, Miss Aphrola’s face didn’t look good.

They returned to the hotel’s first floor, where Miss Haley Aflora instructed the ladies to retrieve prepared Magic Potions, while Luviya went to assist in supporting Miss Galina.