Lynch rode on Parker, flying all the way to the west. Beneath him, the wings of the Fire Dragon spread wide, harnessing the air currents, sweeping over the rapidly retreating war-torn wasteland below.

Before long, a massive ruin, familiar yet even more dilapidated, clearly appeared at the horizon's edge.

That was the entrance to the Blood Moon War back then, and a turning point in his life's trajectory.

Parker let out a low, resonant cry, adjusted the angle of his wings, and began his descent. Accompanied by a powerful air current kicking up years of accumulated dust from the ground, the massive Fire Dragon landed steadily in the relatively intact center of the plaza.

Lynch gracefully leapt down from Parker's warm neck. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Parker's body flickered with a slight red glow, shrinking rapidly until he returned to the size of a small dog, fluttering his wings and skillfully landing on Lynch's shoulder, affectionately rubbing his face with his head.

Standing in the vacant plaza of ruins, Lynch looked around.

The broken columns leaned precariously, walls covered in dead vines, the stone slabs on the ground cracked and weathered, with stubborn drought-resistant weeds growing in the gaps. The erosion of time and the scars of war left an indelible mark here.

A wave of emotion surged through him. The gates of memory swung open, scenes of the past seemed to unfold right before his eyes—

It was from here that he embarked on that brutal Blood Moon War, filled with nervousness and expectation.

And right here on this plaza, for the first time, he truly witnessed the cold ruthlessness and oppressive rule of the Wizard Family in the Ancient Ruins, displaying their pursuit of profit and power—a shock to his youthful spirit.

With the passage of time, the apprentice who once had to tread carefully, surviving among cracks, now returns with a distinct identity and strength.

Feelings rapidly receded, Lynch's eyes swiftly regained their usual calm and deepness.

He stepped forward, moved to the very center of the plaza, and stood still.

The next moment, he closed his eyes, his powerful and pure spiritual energy spread like an invisible tide, gently yet firmly extending around him, creating his Spiritual Perception Domain.

This domain meticulously scanned every inch of the plaza, every piece of debris, sensing the finest energy fluctuations and structural anomalies in the space.

The enhanced perception from the upgrade of the Soul Law played an excellent role at this moment. It wasn't long before he detected an extremely subtle, yet incongruous with the surrounding space, distortion and residual energy in a seemingly empty void.

Here it is!

Lynch immediately focused his spirit on the area. A cleverly hidden dimension space crack leading to the true forbidden zone of the Ancient Ruins, its entrance coordinates, clearly appeared in his perception.

However, when Lynch's spiritual power attempted to delve deeper into the dimensional crack to understand its specific entrance structure and opening method, he frowned.

A potent, complex, and extremely ancient repulsive force, like an invisible yet indestructible barrier, tightly sealed the entrance of the crack. The tendrils of his spiritual power, upon nearing, were mercilessly bounced away, able only to hover on the periphery, unable to penetrate the core.

"Sealed..."

He wasn't entirely surprised. This so-called "Blood Moon Land" was essentially a special resource secret realm jointly developed by various Wizard Families in the Ancient Ruins.

The brutal "Blood Moon War" back then was meant for a multitude of apprentices to kill each other within it, using their soul energy and fleshly essence as nourishment, cultivating certain extremely precious, transcendent materials hard to find in the outside world.

This place can be considered the shared treasure house of the Ancient Ruins' Wizard Families, a crucial foundation for their dominion and development. Such vital land—how could outsiders easily enter and exit?

To protect this lifeline, all Wizard Families poured their efforts into jointly laying down numerous powerful magical restrictions here. These restrictions formed a vast and intricate system, melding the strengths of each family: pulling one thread will set all quivering. Control privileges are strictly divided, with no family or individual able to independently command them.

Even Erodion, when he was the chief Judge of the Shadow Tower, among the highest ranks of the Ancient Ruins, had only partial permissions, unable to independently open or close the entire secret realm.

After he betrayed the Wizard Family faction, established the Freemasonry Church, and dominated the entire Ancient Ruins, he naturally wouldn't overlook this secret realm laden with immense wealth and power.

He personally came, attempting to use strength or skill to break this joint restriction. Yet, despite his profound strength and understanding of the Ancient Ruins' Magic System, after trying various methods, he could only helplessly concede defeat in the end.

This defensive system, aggregated from countless predecessors' wisdom and strength, is far from easily toppled by any single power.

In the end, he could only temporarily set it aside, planning to deal with it later.

Lynch gazed at the invisible yet indestructible barrier of restrictions, lightly rubbed his chin with his fingertips, lost in thought.

"How should I enter?"

Faced with such circumstances, an ordinary wizard might find themselves at a loss.

This is a joint restriction borne from the collective effort and wisdom of numerous Wizard Families in the Ancient Ruins; its structure complex, and its energy circuits exquisite, akin to a vast piece of collective magical artwork, incorporating no less than one level of Domain Power as core nodes.

Attempting a systematic analysis or cracking it would demand astronomical figures in terms of time and energy, nearly impossible to accomplish in the short term.

Attempting a brute-force breakthrough would require overpowering the domain, at least at the Rule level, and with considerably profound Rule Level strength, to crush and forcibly tear open the barrier with absolute power.

Yet, for Lynch, there lies a rather unconventional solution...

Reflecting momentarily, Lynch soon had a plan.

Unable to break from "structure" nor overpower it from "strength," why not approach it from another dimension—allowing it to disintegrate from the "time" aspect?

With this in mind, he slowly raised his hands, ten fingers as if plucking at unseen strings, danced lightly in front of him. A wave of mysterious and obscure law fluctuations began to emanate from him, not a distortion of space nor a shock of spirit, but something more fundamental, more exalted—the power of the Time Law.

Instead of attempting to understand or destroy the enormously complex structure of the restriction itself, he gently but firmly "projected" his time domain power onto the entire restriction system, as if casting ink.

In the next moment, an extraordinary phenomenon unfolded.

Under the influence of the invisible Time Law, the time flow rate of the ancient restriction over the dimensional crack began to violently, unnaturally change. The energy circuits comprising the restriction seemed to be washed by time accelerated a millionfold.

The originally stable flowing magical light flickered noticeably, the structure nodes' runes began rapidly flashing, growing blurred, as if undergoing the erosion and decay which ages bring naturally.

Lynch's action wasn't destruction, but "acceleration."

He forcefully condensed the "natural aging" effect, which would take an eternity, into this fleeting moment. Just as placing an indestructible iron object in the river of time allows it to erode, no iron, however tough, can withstand the rust and fragility before the years.

This is the terrifying aspect of the Time Law; it doesn't compete with an explosive burst in a moment, but from the fundamental dimension of existence, ages the opponent, makes the defense "outdated."

"Zzzzz—"

A sound like silk ripping echoed clear amidst the quiet ruins' plaza.

With the sustained erosion of Lynch's time domain, the ancient restriction, the collective wisdom of countless past wizards, which even Erodion couldn't do anything about, finally began to disintegrate and fail from within, like rock weathered over millennia.

Accompanied by the final dimming of the core rune's light, a dark, deep space crack, its edges no longer flickering in unstable patterns but turning into slowly twisting black smoke—as if an eye of a demon—slowly opened before Lynch...

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