Chapter 132: Island (IV)

A stream of expletives erupted from Louis’s mouth. “What the hell?!”

He had a vague idea that the Hero King’s forbidden magic was on another level compared to ordinary spells, but its true nature defied his wildest imagination.

Forbidden magic that artificially creates Dragon Hearts?!

How could such a thing be possible?

Louis’s expression grew grave. “This is insane!”

In the original work, there were no detailed explanations about the specifics of the Hero King’s forbidden magic. All he knew was…

Louis frowned deeply. “That damn author always leaves out crucial details.” He cursed at the writer while pondering how to proceed.

After a long moment, he nodded and muttered to himself:

“Well… This should be about right.”

This was the forbidden magic of Sword Saint, also known as the Hero King, who had lived during the War of Immortals in the past. It would have been impossible for him to make a splash in a war dominated by Transcendents with ordinary forbidden magic. And could his power to sever the head of the Mad Dragon have come from nowhere? While humans were limited by their nature no matter how talented they might be, the original Sword Saint had reached the state of ZERO at a relatively young age.

The secret lies in this artificial dragon heart—or rather, it should be called a mana heart.

Although similar to a dragon heart, the mana heart pursued by the Hero King’s forbidden magic was clearly something else.

Could this be a variation of Dragon Heart?

Tak-tak.

Louis lightly tapped his index finger on the forbidden magic book.

What if I master this?

His eyes sparkled with curiosity, as they did when he discovered something intriguing.

“Perhaps…”

The tier-one distinctiveness might lead to a solution for reaching top tier. He had a strong hunch that the path to achieving that lay within this Hero King’s forbidden magic.

Sflick.

Louis swiftly flipped through the pages. Although he’d memorized most of it long ago, today he sensed there might be something new awaiting him.

Sflick.

In the solitude of the room, the sound of turning pages echoed as Louis meticulously read each line. Trapped on this deserted island, he continued his journey towards growth.

Sflick.

Step by step, he advanced towards his goal.

Even after completing the map of the island, Louis continued his frequent excursions. He would set out early each morning with the twins and Fin on a boat, only to return later—though “return” was generous; he’d been forcibly brought back to shore every time.

Despite this, Louis refused to give up.

What if there’s a day when the barrier weakens?

He referred to whatever blocked their path as a “barrier,” and he kept sailing in hopes of finding an opening.

It was no surprise that the twins started grumbling at this repetition.

“Louis… you’re going again today?”

“Why can’t we stay home for once?”

“Or maybe just Louis should go by himself!”

“You little brats…” Louis snapped. “If I ever manage to sail beyond the island, it’ll be a disaster without you two along. If you want to risk staying alone here, feel free.”

“Ugh.”

“I get it…”

“And who will charge the Dragon Fly if you’re not here?”

“You naughty Louis…”

“Louis is bad!”

The twins pouted, but Louis ignored them.

Their daily routine continued like this: each morning, they set sail with a bellyful of complaints.

Every day, without fail, they headed out onto the sea in one direction or another—north, south, east, or west—and yet despite aimlessly wandering about, their journey always ended back at the deserted island.

After half a year passed, Louis had come to realize something:

I can return to the island after roughly seven hours when sailing at thirty kilometers per hour.

No matter which direction he took, as long as the Dragon Fly maintained its speed, he would always arrive home around the same time.

Without exception, every single time.

In other words…

Louis’s eyes sparkled with realization.

A circular barrier is placed at a fixed distance from the center of this island.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t have taken him the same amount of time to return no matter which direction he went in. Based on that premise, there was one crucial conclusion Louis could draw:

“If the barrier’s origin point is here… then there has to be some kind of device maintaining it somewhere on this island. If I can find that…”

His eyes gleamed.

I could eliminate the barrier!

The only problem was determining where exactly such a device might be located. His mind raced with curiosity as he set out once again to explore the island in hopes of unraveling this mystery.

Thanks to this arrangement, the twins were freed from their half-year of navigating life and dealing with auxiliary batteries. They eagerly returned to playing fortress-building games.

The twins focused on decorating their fort while Louis concentrated on training and exploring the island. After spending about a month in these separate activities…

“Hmm…?”

As usual, Louis was preparing for another day of exploration when he noticed something amiss due to the twins’ absence. He gazed intently at what used to be a dense forest but now resembled an empty plain.

Suddenly, as if drawn by some unseen force, he began walking towards a particular spot.

“This looks…”

Louis arrived at a large rock formation where several boulders were clustered together. From there, he scanned his surroundings carefully.

“Hrmm…?”

Further away from his current position, he spotted another pile of rocks. The trees that once formed the forest had vanished, revealing more hidden stones beneath.

Louis paced around the area, examining it from all angles. He tilted his head left and right, squinted, and even crouched down between his legs for a different perspective. Eventually, he transformed into a dragon and flew up into the sky.

As Louis soared above, his eyes widened in amazement at what he saw below.

“Good Lord!” The exclamation escaped involuntarily.

No wonder—it was an astonishing sight indeed.

The arrangement of rocks from this altitude resembled…

A spell formation!

It looked just like one used in the Sacred Scripture rituals.

Coming back to his senses, Louis quickly sketched the shape of the rocks on his map. Five sets of stones were revealed as the Twins cleared the forest; each formed a pattern resembling a specific spell.

Louis’s excitement grew.

“If my hunch is right…” He quickly flew off.

He landed in an untouched forest and looked around.

“I’m sure it’s somewhere near here…”

As he searched through nearby bushes, something caught his eye.

“There it is!”

Just as he’d expected, there was a rock formation. It had settled into the shape of a drinking vessel.

After marking the location on his map, Louis reached out with his hand. A black spatial crystal soon appeared before him and shot toward the rock.

Boom!

The deafening sound reverberated throughout the entire forest, but despite the ear-splitting noise, the rock remained perfectly intact after being struck by Louis’s sacred scripture.

“Look at this…”

The spell he had used could shatter even a boulder several meters tall in one strike. Yet before him lay a rock with not so much as a scratch on it. This was no ordinary stone.

Louis felt certain now.

“It has to be an incantation.”

From that day on, Louis postponed his training to scour the island for more of these rock formations. A week passed like this.

One day, Louis stared at a map in his hands, dumbfounded. He muttered to himself:

“So this is what it was. The mechanism maintaining the barrier.”

In his hand, the map showed countless incantations tangled together.

Even at a glance, it was clear that this complexity was no ordinary phenomenon.

”…The entire island is one giant magic circle.”

Rocks had been arranged in magical formations all across the island. These stone formations were intricately linked with various geographical features and objects scattered throughout the landscape. It seemed as though the island itself might have been created for the sole purpose of constructing this vast crystal array.

“What on earth… is this place? Who could possibly have made something like this?”

Louis had never encountered a magic circle formed from rock before, let alone one of such staggering sophistication. The level of magic required to create this formation far exceeded his own understanding.

An island and a high-level magic circle like these couldn’t be conjured up overnight.

That meant there must have been some extraordinary being, driven by an unknown objective, who crafted this marvel.

The only issue was that his objective remained unclear.

Regardless of what happens, I’ll need to disrupt the magic circle itself to break through this barrier…

The problem lay in how daunting a task that would be.

Even trying to destroy an already cast spell formation was beyond Louis’s current capabilities; he couldn’t even shatter one rock spell.

There has to be another way.

Louis stared intently at the map, focusing on the magic circle.

“I must find the axis of the spell formation…” he murmured quietly before taking flight.

His destination: the presumed location of the spell formation’s axis.

Upon arrival, Louis found a large lake situated exactly where he had predicted.

Gazing down at its clear, transparent waters, he swiftly dove into the depths without hesitation.

It must be here.

In constructing a magic circle, the central axis was both the safest and most vulnerable point. Consider a spinning top: While it’s difficult to reach in and stop the blade directly, knocking over the axis halts its motion entirely.

If I can just topple the axis…

Doing so would likely break through the barrier surrounding the island and sea as well.

Louis swam swiftly underwater. How long had he been swimming? Just as he reached the center of the lake…

Thud!

His body suddenly slammed into something solid.

Oof!

Rubbing his nose where he’d collided, Louis cautiously extended his hand. He felt something firm and unyielding.

I’ve found it!

Louis’s lips curled up as he sensed a wall blocking his path like glass. He extended his hand and cast a sacred scripture. It was one imbued with enough physical force to instantly blow away a rock or two.

Thud.

However, Louis’s attack failed to achieve anything and simply bounced off.

Hmm…

Floating in place with his arms crossed, Louis pondered this predicament while stroking his chin underwater.

I knew it wouldn’t break.

He had suspected as much earlier.

I know that Motion Crystals’ weak points lie at their core, so there’s no way the designer would leave them unprotected.

With his current abilities, he couldn’t breach the barrier surrounding the crystal’s center.

This made him even more troubled.

How am I supposed to destroy these things?

Even with his tier-1 strength, Louis couldn’t break through this magic circle barrier. It would require at least a top tier level to have any hope of success.

After much deliberation underwater, Louis turned away from the crystal. He emerged onto dry land and lay back on the ground, gazing up at the sky as he pondered:

In the end, no matter what I do, escaping this island will require reaching top tier.

Once he achieved that rank, Louis would face two possible choices:

Escape by teleporting off the island or

Break the crystal and remove the barrier.

It would be ideal if he could simply teleport away, but if not, breaking the crystal would become necessary.

I wish there were some way to destroy just the center axis without affecting the entire barrier…

If the barrier were to break, it could trigger a chain of other events. For instance, the island itself might collapse or the traps designed by the creator of the magic circle might be activated.

A slight unease settled over Louis.

We can’t rule out such possibilities, so I must prepare safety measures as much as possible.

Louis rose to his feet.

First things first: I need to reach the top tier.

After all, that was a prerequisite for everything else. With this resolve, Louis took flight towards the sky.