Fortunately, the seagrass found the treasury complex in the deepest part of the ruins.
Those were over a dozen warehouses built from solid blocks of deep-sea basalt, scattered across different locations in the settlement.
The warehouse walls were breached by the seagrass, and the items inside were brought out one by one.
There were chests of ore, bundles of medicinal herbs, rows of coral bone weapon racks, a small hill of shell-shaped knowledge carriers, and over a dozen large chests forged from deep-sea cold iron.
Ethan opened one of the chests.
Inside, magic stones were neatly stacked; a rough scan revealed no less than twenty thousand.
His lips twitched slightly as he swept all the chests into his ring.
There were too many things in the treasuries.
He picked out all the wood-attribute materials and piled them to the side, taking all the remaining ores, medicinal herbs, weapons, and knowledge carriers.
The space inside his ring was large enough—one hundred thousand cubic meters—more than enough to hold all of this.
But there were still things that wouldn't fit.
The seagrass hauled out chest after chest of deep-sea profound iron ore from another treasury, each chest the size of a carriage.
There were also piles of coral bone building materials, leftover from constructing the Sea Snake buildings, in quantities large enough to fill several warehouses.
These items weren't highly valuable, but their sheer volume made them too large to fit in his ring.
Ethan landed in the center of the treasury complex.
With a thought, he initiated the command.
“Clear Anchor Point 1.”
【Anchor Point 1 coordinates cleared.】
“Set Anchor Point.”
【Anchor Point 1 set. Location: Wizard World - District 77 - Red-Scaled Sea Snake Tribe Ruins.】
After setting the anchor point, he walked over to the pile of wood-attribute materials he had set aside.
Dozens of tons of deep-sea sunken wood, sea willow heartwood, and coral wood fossils were piled together like a small hill.
Every piece of material rippled with dense wood-element energy fluctuations, and a few pieces of sea willow heartwood even glowed with an emerald-green fluorescence.
Ethan took World Eater out of his ring and placed it on top of the pile of wood-attribute materials.
The staff's body trembled slightly.
In the next second, a very faint emerald-green glow rose from its surface. The light spread along the staff to its tip, looped back, and converged in the center to form a slowly spinning vortex of light.
The moment the vortex formed, the surrounding wood-attribute materials began to disintegrate.
The coral wood fossils at the very top were the first to shatter. Fine cracks appeared on the hard mineral surfaces, spreading along the crystal boundaries as the ore disintegrated piece by piece into fingernail-sized fragments. Instead of sinking to the seabed, the fragments were drawn by an invisible force, drifting toward World Eater.
The sea willow heartwood followed closely behind. These heartwoods, which had grown in the deep sea for tens of thousands of years, had their wood fibers peeled away, decomposed, and vaporized layer by layer. Emerald-green mist surged from within, drawing hundreds of thin bands of light through the water. These bands stretched toward World Eater and were swallowed in a single gulp by the vortex on the staff's surface.
The deep-sea sunken wood was last. Tempered by the immense pressure of ten thousand meters of water to be harder than steel, the wood disintegrated inch by inch under World Eater's pull. The dark green water-like patterns on its surface dimmed one by one, and the wood fibers peeled away from the outside in, each layer sucked away by the vortex as soon as it detached.
In less than fifteen minutes, dozens of tons of materials had completely transformed into light mist, swallowed clean by World Eater.
And then?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened.
World Eater remained a three-meter-long, emerald-green staff. No runes lit up, no energy rippled, it didn't grow or shrink, and there were no impressive-looking special effects.
Only its color had changed.
From emerald green, it became a slightly deeper green.
And from deep green, it shifted to a shade with just a fraction more saturation.
That was it.
Just! A! Tiny! Bit!
Ethan stared at World Eater for several seconds.
“Tsk. Naming you 'World Eater' was really spot on. You greedy bastard, you really expect me to feed you an entire world? Whatever. You are the main material I chose myself, after all.”
Ethan shook his head, returned World Eater to his ring, and scanned the ruins below, which had been thoroughly overturned by the seagrass.
It was time to head back.
With a thought, his figure vanished into the deep sea.
Seawater rushed in from all directions to fill the void left by his departure, kicking up sand and shattered coral bone fragments from the seabed. After swirling above the ruins for a moment, they slowly settled back down.
The Thorn Empire, Leo Ducal Estate.
On the paved path in front of the main castle, two guards stood watch, leaning on their spears. The afternoon sun filtered through the gaps in the clouds, casting a grayish-white light on the stone pavement.
One guard yawned and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
A violent gust of wind suddenly blew past.
The wind came without warning, charging straight from the end of the paved path and bending the spherical-trimmed shrubs on both sides out of shape. The two guards were forced back several steps, almost losing their grip on their spears. One of them caught his heel on the edge of a step and fell flat on his backside on the stone tiles.
“What was that?” The fallen guard pushed himself up with his spear and looked around.
The paved path was completely empty; there was nothing to be seen.
The other guard straightened his helmet, glanced toward the end of the path, and then looked up at the sky. It was clear, with only sparse clouds—not looking at all like it was about to storm.
“Strange,” he muttered, tightening his grip on his spear.
The two exchanged a look and fell silent again.
The gates of the ducal estate remained tightly shut, with the barricades still standing on both sides of the steps. Everything was exactly as it had been a moment ago, as if the wind had never happened.
Ethan had already swept past the city gates, past the city walls, and onto the official highway leading from the Imperial City to his territory.
Every time his feet touched the ground, they left only a shallow footprint in the dirt before his body launched forward again.
The trees along the way rustled violently from the wind he kicked up, and the wheat fields on both sides of the highway bowed in waves under the pressure.
He was running even faster than when he had come.
The mana inside his body surged furiously, his muscle fibers humming with faint vibrations as they contracted and relaxed at ultra-high speeds.
Wind-element energy particles in the air constantly gathered around him, forming a very faint light membrane that minimized air resistance.
He cleared a low hill in a single bound.
He crossed a stream in a single stride.
He tore straight through a forest, leaving a trail of shattered green leaves in his wake.
In less than twenty minutes, the sprawling outline of ruins appeared on the horizon.
Ethan accelerated even further.
The ruins rapidly expanded in his vision.
The plaza destroyed in the battle remained in its ruined state, with rubble piled like small hills and craters overlapping on the ground.
However, a dense cluster of tents had been pitched around the perimeter of the ruins.
Coarse cloth tents, makeshift shelters of branches, and even simple hovels of a few wooden sticks holding up a piece of tattered cloth stretched from the edge of the ruins all the way to the distant fields.
Between the tents, the subjects of the territory were hard at work.
Some carried timber through the narrow lanes between tents, some cleared rubble, and others squatted before temporary stoves to cook meals.
Several half-grown children ran back from the fields clutching dry firewood, their bare feet splashing loudly against the muddy ground.
An old carpenter was planing a thick piece of wood, the shavings curling into spirals and falling at his feet.
There was no crying.
There was no wailing.
Everyone was silently going about their business.
Ethan went even faster.
He kicked off a half-buried piece of rubble at the edge of the highway, launching himself into the air.
The stone exploded into dust beneath his foot, the shockwave flattening the roadside bushes.
Outside the largest tent, Duke Leo was bent over, studying a map of the territory spread across a wooden crate.
His finger rested on a spot marked as a well, his lips moving as if he were about to speak.
Suddenly, his head snapped up, his right hand already gripping the hilt of his sword.
Before he could even complete half a turn, a hand caught his elbow.
“Father, I'm back.”
Duke Leo's movements froze.
He looked down at the hand, then raised his head to look at the person in front of him.
His gaze lingered on Ethan's face for a moment, then swept over his shoulders, chest, and arms.
He opened his mouth, but only a few muffled syllables squeezed past his throat. In the end, he said nothing, simply raising his hand to clap Ethan heavily on the shoulder.
The pat was heavy, as if to confirm that the person standing before him was real.
Rate on N.U.
