CHAPTER 617 AN OLD MAN

The gray chain surged toward Darren, its rattling sound like the din of an avalanche.

Darren went into a frenzy as he tried to dodge, but the undulating fetter seemed to know what he was

thinking and adjusted its course.

He was trapped in the void with this thing. As it had been before, no matter how he tried to escape, he

was running on the same spot.

Before he knew it, the chain had wrapped itself around him several times.

The next instant it tightened, and his limbs couldn't move. He was caught. Then he was moving, being

dragged along behind the armored clay figurine as it ponderously approached the space cracks.

Darren was in a cold sweat.

Few things could put such a fear into him. But now, before this thing's terrible might, he was as

vulnerable as any ordinary man.

Thick, dangerous-looking clouds gathered in the sky. A frigid wind rolled across the landscape, stinging

Darren's face and sending shudders through his body.

Before him, the black space crack loomed like the mouth of some giant, ferocious monster, getting

ready to swallow him alive.

As they came closer, Darren peered inside the space crack.

At the far end of the dark expanse, he beheld what seemed to be a field of pinpoints of light. It looked

like nothing so much as a star-filled night sky.

"Is... Is that another world?" he breathed in astonishment.

The terrific clattering of more chains interrupted his thoughts.

The armored clay figurine stopped, staring blankly into the space crack as though waiting for

something.

Meanwhile, the noise was coming closer and closer.

"What a horrible sound!" he cried, though his own voice was swallowed up in it.

It was a titanic din, like the collision of mountains.

A moment passed. Just as Darren began to think the noise would drive him mad, he happened to look

into the space crack again. What he saw made him sweat harder than before.

From the distant starry void came an entire crowd of beings; all of them were clay figurines like the one

that had captured Darren.

They were similarly armored, but the dark auras that surrounded each of them were even stronger and

more intimidating than that of the first one.

Dozens of clay figurines formed a team, and each team pulled a gray chain that was ten feet thick.

There looked to be total of eighteen groups.

Faced with this sight, Darren's alarm over his own capture was overpowered by sheer curiosity.

Someone or something was being held captive by those eighteen enormous fetters.

The questions of who or what that was, and why, now utterly absorbed Darren's mind.

He and his captor waited for two hours, motionless as they watched the bizarre procession moving

under the starry sky.

By the time two hours had passed, two hundred feet of the chains had gone by.

Their holders seemed to be struggling, as a few hundred mortals would if tasked with carrying a stone

weighing tens of thousands of pounds.

Interestingly, the chains gradually thinned out as one went farther down their length.

By the time the end was reached, they were small enough to bind an ordinary man.

To Darren's shock, that turned out to be exactly what they were doing.

The captive was not much to look at: a withered old man whose bowed head was veiled by his long,

disheveled mess of gray hair. His clothing, some kind of gray linen, was in tatters.

All in all, he looked like nothing more than a beggar.

"Who in the world is that?" Darren asked himself. "How could it possibly take all of these armored clay

figurines to capture and hold him?"

Darren himself had the combat power of a seven-star grand warrior on the top level. He could hardly

withstand a single blow from the clay figurine before him. It was so strong, in fact, that he couldn't even

move once it had tied him up.

Yet this one was much weaker than any of those that had appeared under the starry sky.

And eighteen teams of them were needed to imprison a beggar? Impossible.

Despite his lowly appearance, this old man obviously possessed unimaginable power.

Darren could not help but speculate. 'Is he a senior holy warrior? Or the holy emperor?'

Then again, the witcher had said that there was no holy emperor in this world, so how could he be

that?

Hundreds of the clay figurines moved along with the old man. Darren realized then that if he waited too

long, they would all pass him by.

If he let that happen, he might never see that mysterious prisoner again. More pressingly, Darren was

still a prisoner himself, and he didn't want to find out what these creatures intended to do with him.

Unable to think of anything else he could try, Darren mentally commanded his sword and blade cores

to move.

The blade and sword cores vibrated in his body, but they made a piercing buzz which, hopefully, would

attract the old man's attention.

The only one who seemed to notice it, though, was the armored clay figurine beside Darren.

Turning around, it slammed one open hand into his shoulder, smashing the bone there completely.

With a mighty effort, Darren kept himself from screaming. Even with the awful pain, though, he was just

a little joyful.

'Is it afraid?' he thought.

When Darren repeated the move, his captor immediately stopped him, though thankfully not with

another bone-crushing blow.

His hope was strengthened as he sensed a change in the clay creature's aura. It was afraid!

At that moment, however, the figure of the old man was just about to pass out of sight.

Darren saw that this was his last chance. There was no time left for subtlety.

He steeled himself, then roared as fiercely as he could. A dark gold light erupted from his bound form,

slicing through the darkness around him and even reaching the other end of the space crack.

Spooked, the clay figurine in front of Darren whirled on him, but something was different now.

For the first time, its stiff expression changed. Its eyebrows arched, and its face glowed with an

enraged, cruel grin.

The next moment it was joined by the four small clay figurines, and together they fell on Darren with a

torrent of savage blows.

Meanwhile, under the starry sky, the old man stirred.

With a final, terrific snore, he emerged from his slumber.

Shaking off the afterimage of a dream, he raised his head and slowly looked about.

Soon his gaze was drawn by a dark gold light that came to him from a great distance. This material belongs to .

The old man's bleary eyes fell on Darren and lingered there for a moment. The only thing on his mind,

however, was a craving for more sleep. Finally he let his head sag, and his messy hair covered his face

once more.

Darren, meanwhile, was in a sorry state.

The clay brutes had very nearly beaten him to death, and the chain that held him was now slick with his

blood. Even without it, he wouldn't be able to move, as most of his bones were broken. It took all of his

strength now to just hold onto consciousness.

His spirits had risen when he saw the disheveled old man suddenly look up. In spite of the beating he

was taking, it had seemed then that Darren had a chance of survival.

But his hopes had been dashed completely when he deciphered the look of complete indifference on

the old man's face.

Blood gushed from Darren's mouth as he smiled wryly to himself.

'I've fought so many battles in my time, ' he thought.

'I've made it through so many disasters and calamities, too, but it looks like I'm not getting away this

time. Is this how I'm finally going to die, then? Killed by a group of people who are literally made out of

mud?'

He stewed in these miserable thoughts for a long moment, and soon was almost ready to give in to his

injuries and allow unconsciousness to take the pain away.

Yet it was just then, at the other end of the void, that the old man slowly lifted his head again.

In a weary motion, he lifted his arms and stretched them.

As he did so, the chains that surrounded him practically exploded, scattering broken links in all

directions.

The commotion that this made drew everyone's attention. For their part, the armored clay figurines who

had been pulling him quickly gathered together. It was impossible to miss, however, that they were

visibly trembling.

After taking another look at Darren, the old man started to move, meaning to cross to the other end of

the fissure in space.

At this point, his would-be captors threw themselves at him, clearly motivated by panic rather than

reason.

In the end, their colossal strength was all for nothing.

The old man walked straight through their onslaught as though he didn't even realize it was happening.

Their clay bodies broke against him like empty porcelain bottles, spraying the ground with their

shattered remains.

The empty shells of their armors clattered about, ringing like cymbals.

As the old man came closer, the clay figurine guarding Darren continuously stepped backwards in

terror.

Meanwhile, the whole landscape shook with a roar like the world ending.

Even as the old man continued his unconcerned march, the space cracks were beginning to close,

blocking his path.

Darren watched in awe, trying to stay conscious.

Seeing the fissures begin to close, however, his face went deathly pale. His last hope of survival was

being crushed as surely as the clay figurines had been.

Slowly, inevitably, darkness covered Darren's sight, hiding the mysterious old man, the starry sky, and

everything else around him.