"Is Nausicaa okay?"
As soon as Nis hit the ground, he heard Angel’s inquiry. His furrowed brow immediately tightened, and he spoke in a tone of disgruntled resentment: "You ask about that girl the moment I arrive. Are you sure there’s nothing going on between you two? Why don’t you show some concern for me?"
Angel was silent for a moment, then slowly said, "You’re already in front of me."
Nis: "...I’ve taken Nausicaa to Cindy and the others; it’s relatively safe there."
Hearing Cindy’s name, Ferro, on the side, seemed to think of something: "You went to Reef Island, huh? How are Cindy and the others doing?"
Nis gave him an irritated glare: "Now you’re asking about them? You’re supposed to be the leading Wizard, yet you left them there without a word, and you have the nerve to ask."
Ferro gave an awkward smile: "Didn’t I leave the Log-in Device with Cindy? Besides, you guys found them anyway, didn’t you?"
Nis snorted disdainfully, too lazy to entertain Ferro.
Upon learning that Nausicaa was safe, Angel relaxed a bit and asked Nis about external aid: "Didn’t you say you requested external help?"
While speaking, Angel glanced behind Nis... there was no one.
Nis had returned alone.
On the other side, when Angel brought up "external aid," Nis’s old face wrinkled like a budding daisy, with displeasure written all over it.
Nis, with a tone of helplessness and frustration, said: "Usually, there are plenty of people in the Barbarian Cave, but today when I went, I didn’t meet a single person. This time, I suffered a big loss."
Not seeing anyone, yet feeling he lost out? Angel looked at Nis, puzzled, waiting for his explanation.
Nis sighed and recounted his entire process of seeking aid from the Wilderness of Dreams to Angel.
After logging in, the first thing he did was use the Mother Tree Interlinker to contact familiar people, the first being Sanders. To be precise, his initial target was Sanders, since Sanders is his friend, and Angel is also here. If Sanders came as external aid, Nis could certainly persuade him by saying that Angel was also in trouble, perhaps even reducing the cost of external aid.
Unfortunately, Sanders was not online.
Besides Sanders, the True Knowledge Wizards he knew who were online were Greya, Sumishe, and Ironclad Granny.
Greya’s strength hadn’t recovered; she might not even be able to defeat him, so she wasn’t qualified as external aid; Sumishe was seriously injured and hadn’t fully recovered yet.
As for Ironclad Granny... since Lord Reine left, she has become the main force guarding the Star Pond Ruins and cannot leave.
So, in the end, Nis didn’t find a single one of the external aids he wanted.
With no choice, Nis went to see the Tree Spirit, not to ask the Tree Spirit to be external aid, but to find out from the Tree Spirit which True Knowledge Wizards were currently in the Barbarian Cave.
"According to the Tree Spirit, there are still three True Knowledge Wizards left in the Barbarian Cave, but all three are in seclusion, some for several years, so disturbing them isn’t an option," Nis said, shaking his head. "Even if they weren’t in seclusion, at their age and strength, they wouldn’t be much help; they probably couldn’t even beat your Earl Mi."
"The True Knowledge Wizards in the Barbarian Cave who could help are limited to those few. Excluding your Mentor and the others, the ones still in the Southern Domain with sufficient strength are Horus and Ivynasa."
"However, neither of them is in the Barbarian Cave right now, and they probably don’t even know about the existence of the Wilderness of Dreams, so they can’t help."
Angel had met Horus, this True Knowledge Wizard nicknamed "Cold Winter Sovereignty," whose reputation was no less than Sanders’. Due to Angel joining the Research and Development Institute, Reine dispatched him to stay at the Sky Mechanical City to establish connections with the Barbarian Cave in a short period. He likely knows nothing about the Wilderness of Dreams.
As for Ivynasa, Angel had heard of her moniker, "Resonating Sound," a sonic wizard. As for other information, he wasn’t familiar.
Perhaps noticing Angel’s confusion, Nis briefly introduced Ivynasa: "Ivynasa is a veteran wizard, said to be of the same generation as Lord Reine. One specializes in control, the other in offense, and at that time, they were dubbed the Twin Stars. By the time I came to the Barbarian Cave, Ivynasa had become a True Knowledge Wizard. However, she’s rarely in the Barbarian Cave, always stationed in the City of Truth as a representative. The last time she was back was twenty or thirty years ago."
"Since they’re not around, who did you end up getting as external aid?" Angel asked curiously. Since Nis said he "suffered a big loss" this time, he must have gotten some external aid. Angel was curious who Nis had called upon, apart from the known True Knowledge Wizards.
Nis sighed: "It was someone introduced by the Tree Spirit. That person... well, he’s already here, and you’ll soon know. Besides, you probably won’t be unfamiliar with him."
As soon as he finished speaking, everyone heard a tearing sound from above.
With the appearance of the tearing sound, the surrounding mist began swirling madly, and the mist was dissipating at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Though more mist rushed in to fill the gap, the rate of dissipation exceeded replenishment, creating a sudden clarity overhead.
They could even vaguely see the dark clouds looming in the sky.
Such visibility was rare in the Mist Belt.
Due to the dissipating mist, they could also clearly see what was happening above.
A space rift appeared in the sky, a hundred meters high, its interior pitch black, with a large quantity of mist funneling into it due to the sudden tear, which was why the mist overhead was dissipating.
Upon seeing this space rift, everyone immediately understood: it’s a plane pathway.
Angel and Ferro looked at Nis, their eyes asking if this plane pathway was the external aid he mentioned.
Nis nodded: "I gave him the coordinates here, and the Tree Spirit provided him with my blood, so I now serve as his tracking Path Mark. If he comes, the plane pathway opens near me."
Indeed, the space rift formed by the plane pathway was directly above Nis. Undoubtedly, the individual had used Nis as a Spatial Beacon.
It must be the external aid Nis mentioned.
Who could it be? Angel, while speculating about the identity of the newcomer, also kept observing the space rift above.
The space rift looked like a black, jagged hole torn in a steel wall, neither large nor having a fixed "shape", appearing rather ragged.
For those unknowledgeable, the crooked, jagged space rift might seem unstable, but those present were not lacking in experience. Although the space rift’s form wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, it didn’t affect the stability of the surrounding space. The diffuse Power of Space was pathetically thin. Without careful sensing, one wouldn’t even be sure if space had been breached.
This suggested that, without visual observation, detecting the arrival of someone just based on energy was challenging.
At least, Number 03 in the Flame Law area wouldn’t know someone was about to come through space.
Such relatively hidden plane pathways, nearly devoid of impact on surrounding space stability, were beyond Angel’s current abilities. They clearly indicated the newcomer’s extensive experience in spatial techniques.
This also indirectly meant the newcomer’s power was extraordinary.
"The True Knowledge Wizard I know?" Angel silently repeated in his heart, images flashing quickly through his mind, trying to guess the potential reinforcements.