City of Sin Book 5, Chapter 80

Mysteries Of The Godnest(2)
It felt like the Godnest was never in reach, but so long as Richard stayed in the lead his followers felt like they had infinite energy. He had become their pillar of support during this long trek despite being one of the weakest physically.
It took ten hours and eleven minutes for them to finally emerge from the clouds, only ten metres below a platform. Richard’s brows lifted the moment he jumped up, a gasp of surprise escaping his mouth. His followers had a similar reaction to the endless stretch of flat land in front of them.
A dark sky loomed above, looking almost like the void between spacetime in all of its blackness. Even the hundreds of kilometres of land one could see felt like a mere speck of dust compared to the endless night, space twisted in strange ways that nobody present could fully understand.
A flash of light drew everyone’s attention back to the plateau, and Richard’s party immediately set off to see what it was. However, what looked to be only a few hundred metres away, but after ten minutes and dozens of kilometres it felt no closer than before. Richard almost flew out of habit, but remembering the warning not to fly deciphered by the locals, he grew wary and kicked a stray rock into the sky.
There wasn’t much strength behind the kick, but the rock just floated away without touching the ground. Gravity seemed to lose effect as it disappeared into the horizon. Without any idea how far this void stretched, one could very well be left floating forever if they were flung out.
“Don’t leave the surface at all costs,” Richard said with a deep sigh, “Also, keep distance between yourselves. Let’s continue.”
The party thus hugged the earth as they bounded in the direction of the portal. After two hours of a steady jog, they finally reached the centre of the land. At some point, the mountain stone had given way to fine silver sand, and a bright barrier of light seemed to block the path ahead.
Richard threw a pebble at the barrier, but it passed through with seemingly no issue. After a few careful tests, he tried to touch the barrier with his own hand but found there was no resistance to him either. Not feeling anything amiss, he decided to walk through.
In the eyes of his followers, Richard’s body just disappeared into the curtain of light.
“Master!” Tiramisu shouted, following Richard into the barrier. The ogre saw Richard the moment he dove through, but already in the middle of his pounce he continued to barrel straight ahead. Richard barely managed to sidestep in time, avoiding the collision entirely while the rest of his followers started streaming in one by one.
It was an awkward scene as everyone tried to avoid falling; nobody had thought the barrier was actually a portal between two different worlds. There was still silver sand below their feet, but now the world had expanded into an overarching precipice with a boundless sky ahead.
Richard walked to the edge and looked down, but his body immediately froze at the sight. His eyes went completely wide and he almost stumbled, barely managing to catch himself. There was actually a pale blue planet floating in the endless sky!
The planet was so big that one felt like they would land on it if they jumped off the cliff. The surface was laced with man-made patterns of unknown uses, and the sky around it had many corpses of varying sizes floating in the void. There were giant bodies of metal and the skeletons of various creatures of all sizes, seemingly the aftermath of an intense war of ages past.
An extremely large metal structure resembling a honeycomb suddenly streaked close to the cliff. It was unfamiliar to all present, but the hundred kilometres of length and glossy sheen was extremely eye-catching. Some silver objects occasionally flew out of the damaged holes in the structure, revolving around it.
Richard felt as though something was lodged in his chest, finding it difficult to breathe. Only after looking left and right at his followers did he anchor himself, finally calming down and looking at the large blue planet ahead, “That is the Godnest, I believe.”
Flowsand’s breathing had quickened as well, and hourglasses were intermittently flashing in her pupils. Sweat started to bead on her forehead as she starting huffing, “The time flow here is the same as outside, but I can’t even control my timeforce here, forget sensing the Dragon. Also, all those corpses could be used as offerings.”
Nyra looked around, her eyes constantly flickering between black and white, but after a minute she just shook her head, “I sense nothing.”
“Let me try,” Io suddenly raised an arm, brows furrowed as he channeled his divine power into his hand. An orb of golden light lit up on his fingertips, growing in size as it started to revolve. When the orb started to emit tangible heat, he sent it flying towards the planet a distance away.
The divine fireball shone brightly, but it soon winked out of existence as it impacted a hitherto transparent barrier a few metres away. Richard immediately threw another rock down the cliff, but it only made it a few centimetres before ricocheting violently and shooting into the sky. “Looks like we have to break this barrier to go in,” he commented.
“I’ll try,” Senma pulled her sword. After the experience with the door back in the church building, none of Richard’s followers dared to underestimate the mysteries of the Godnest. The party retreated several steps to give her some space, and a pale red glow appeared on her blade as she slashed towards the ground below. The crimson energy shot out towards its target, but the moment it hit the barrier it simply dispersed along the surface.
Senma said nothing, just walking forward and burning her internal energy as she tried once more in person. This time, the sword froze in place the moment it hit the barrier, not moving another inch. The crimson glow spread across the barrier once more, and moments later the blade cracked apart and the Blood Paladin fell back on her rear. She spat out a mouthful of blood before standing up and silently walking back.
The rest of those present were absolutely shocked. Senma was a true saint, but the barrier didn’t so much as budge despite her full strength. They were immediately dismayed, knowing that their own powers weren’t much different.
A lot of people tried, some even in tandem with Richard sending out several lightning bolts, but it was all to no avail. The only change from attack to attack was how far the colour on the barrier spread, but with even the strongest attacks making it less than a hundred metres and just how wide the barrier seemed to be, it was a lost cause. Nobody dared to try and fly around either; considering what happened to the stone earlier, that could be a straight path to death.
Richard stared at the changes of the barrier, constantly trying to find any weaknesses he could. However, he could only sigh once all the attempts were done, “The barrier is protected by the power of laws. A brute force attack would need to be capable of destroying all of it in one go to actually break through. If we don’t decipher the laws that created this thing, we won’t make it through.”
“Just what kind of beings could create such a barrier?!” Asiris asked in shock. Even he couldn’t suppress his curiosity any longer.
Richard looked at the blue planet below, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of those two races. Anyway, let me at least see how long it would take to decipher the laws enough to at least pass through…”
Richard mobilised his blessings to the fullest, remaining still on his feet while his right hand constantly shot out all manner of spells. It took an entire hour for him to finally step back, just sighing deeply with a complicated expression.
“Any ideas?” Flowsand asked.
“Not really. I could decipher these laws, but the expected timeline is far too long. At least right now, I can’t make it through.”
Asiris and Senma silently exchanged glances once more. Richard was tacitly admitting that he could already work on deciphering the power of laws. He wasn’t even a grand mage yet!
Richard was currently experiencing a myriad of emotions. He had never imagined that he would even be able to understand the outline of these laws and how long it would take to analyse them, but the time frame was quite shocking as well.
148,000 days.