Miracle Card Shop: All My Cards Can Be Actualize

690  The End of Hightower - Second Half

Envy examined the magic ritual etched on the ground and sensed the residual mana lingering in the air; she knew they were too late. The ritual had been completed less than a minute ago. She guessed Golden Scale must have initiated it the moment he realized they had arrived.

Judging by the intricate design of the ritual, she deduced it was a one-way transportation spell. But it wasn't a simple teleportation spell—it was far more complex. She detected numerous protective runes and glyphs designed to activate alongside the transportation.

These protections were of the kind necessary for surviving in an extremely volatile environment.

"Where do you think you're going?" Envy asked, her voice sharp as she sought more information.

"To a place where you cannot follow me, Envy," Golden Scale replied, his voice calm.

As he spoke, his body began to distort, and cracks formed in the fabric of reality. Moments later, he disappeared into the small tunnel that had materialized to shield him.

Tian Xingyun gritted her teeth in frustration. The rat had escaped, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. The only solace she found was the knowledge that Daniel was still alive and that she had unleashed her pent-up anger on the Hightower enforcers.

Standing nearby, Envy sighed. This was all they could manage under the circumstances. They had already dealt with the Hightower loyalists and those bound by contracts to serve it.

Now, the Hightower was nothing more than an empty relic—an old building stripped of its purpose. Once Albert finished his sweep and the Order of Ember's staff arrived to relocate the remaining knowledge and resources, the Hightower would truly be finished.

At that moment, Albert descended the stairs toward Envy, carrying a stack of papers in his arms. He handed them to her.

"Looks like our friend Golden Scale had been planning this for a long time," Albert said, his tone somber. "Both the war and all those sacrifices in the Qing Empire were just stepping stones. This was his endgame."

Envy focused on the papers and read them carefully.

From that event, Golden Scale seemed to have gained some insights, allowing his personal research to advance significantly.

The research indicated that traveling to a parallel universe required an immense amount of mana, and at least millions of human sacrifices were needed to activate the protective measures needed for such a dangerous journey.

The paper also noted that, in order to avoid Envy's scrutiny, the plan had to be carried out under the guise of a war... A costly war with significant casualties. Several million deaths would provide enough energy for Golden Scale's scheme.

From the beginning, Golden Scale didn't believe this war would pose much of a threat to New Atlantis. His true plan involved two key steps.

First, he needs to neutralize Daniel by sending him to the future. This would buy Golden Scale and his allies enough time to develop countermeasures for Daniel's eventual return and also open the way for them to maneuver since they would no longer be afraid of Daniel.

Second, he intended to harness the excess energy from the souls lost during the world war, transforming them into mana to fuel his grand project. This energy would then be used to transport Golden Scale to a parallel universe.

Golden Scale believed that the parallel universe would allow him to anchor his existence there. In contrast, this universe constantly rejected him, creating the persistent threat of his existence.

After finishing the papers, Envy frowned. What kind of reason or condition could cause the universe to reject someone so completely? She had initially assumed that Golden Scale was a mage who had suffered from a dimensional gap experiment gone wrong.

But even such experiments, while dangerous, didn't typically result in total rejection by the universe. Victims of dimensional accidents usually suffer from the destabilization of their physical form, permanent injuries, or the disappearance of certain body parts from reality. However, none of these scenarios would lead to outright existential erasure or the kind of universal rejection Golden Scale was experiencing.

It was like comparing a person falling while running… at most, they might suffer scrapes, fresh wounds, or even a broken bone in severe cases. But such accidents would never result in the complete obliteration of their entire body, as if caught in a massive explosion.

From what Envy knew, there were only two main reasons someone might be rejected by the universe itself.

The first scenario had documented case studies, but the second remained theoretical. Some research had been conducted on it, but that research was abandoned because it lacked immediate practical value. Cyrus Ashborn, who was still the Hightower Grand Councilor at that time, ultimately axed the project.

Afterward, Envy led the Order of Ember employees to various parts of the Hightower that housed secret research documents and the library, which contained a wealth of magical knowledge.

The employees began relocating all the magical and valuable books from the library onto the VTOL, preparing to transport them to the Ivory Tower for safekeeping or to serve as research materials for the mages who would later work under the Order of Ember's management.

The transition went smoothly, and the relocation of knowledge and resources was completed within the time frame allotted by the queen to Envy.

The Hightower, once an imposing organization that commanded respect and awe from all mages, was now officially dismantled. All that remained were rubble and the foundations of its towers and buildings, demolished entirely by Tian Xingyu in a fit of pent-up anger.

Envy could only look on with melancholy as this was the last remnant Merlin had left for her. Yet, this time, she no longer felt the sharp pain of loss or the hollow emptiness she had experienced when Merlin's legacy was destroyed or consumed. Instead, the only loss she felt now was from Daniel, who had vanished from this time period.

After that, Envy returned to her personal room in Elpis at Emberweave's residence.

Alone, she collapsed onto her bed as tears streamed from her eyes. The sense of loss and the emotions she had been holding back finally burst forth like a dam breaking under pressure.

She restrained herself from crying aloud, allowing only silent sobs to escape. This was the second time she had experienced such a loss—the kind of loss filled with uncertainty, as she didn't know when she would meet her beloved again. It was the same ache all over again.

Then, as if something deep within her had been unlocked, a memory long buried in her sea of thoughts surfaced. It was just a fragment, a small and seemingly insignificant piece of her past.

"Merlin!?" Envy whispered before a sharp pain struck her head, causing her to lose consciousness.

Within the dimensional gap, where streams of time and the chaotic environment between dimensions converge, Daniel was swept through what appeared to be a massive tunnel.

Daniel's indestructible enchantments were put to the ultimate test inside the tunnel. Myriad explosions and torrential flows of unknown forces relentlessly battered him. Despite the numerous defensive enchantments protecting him, he still felt pain.

He knew that he would have already perished without the various enchantments on his body.

Carried by the intense waves of the chaotic stream, Daniel was eventually deposited in a calmer region where the chaotic forces subsided. He felt as though he were floating in mid-air within a zero-gravity environment. He didn't know how to move through this strange space, and now he was at a loss.

The equipment that allowed him to breathe in this environment was malfunctioning and would soon fail entirely, requiring immediate replacement.

After being sent to the Abyssal Realm, Daniel had prepared himself for environments without oxygen or toxic conditions, but he had never expected that the equipment he had painstakingly prepared would be used this fast.

Daniel quickly began brainstorming ways to survive. The first idea that came to him was the door to the card shop.

He focused his thoughts on the shop, and suddenly, the familiar door appeared before him. Reaching out, he touched the doorknob, and it felt as though he had grabbed onto a lifeline.

Without hesitation, he opened the door and immediately pulled himself inside.

"Hello, Mr. Emberweave. How may I assist you today?" came the warm and gentlemanly greeting of the Keeper the moment Daniel's body entered the shop.

Strangely, the turbulent environment outside the shop didn't affect its interior in the slightest.

Daniel stared at the shop's entrance in wonder. Then again, this shop wasn't supposed to exist on the material plane… or perhaps the shop itself was something so extraordinary that even the chaotic forces within the dimensional gap couldn't influence it.