“Salvos grab my hand!”
I glanced up and saw my companion leaning over the edge of the portal. I tried to swim out of the darkness— out of the black ocean that was closing in on me. My companion reached out for me and I reached for him—
And the circle closed.
Everything went black. There was no more light. I felt like I was being born once again, stuck in an infinite void. I tried to break out of it. I swung my arms, scratching at the surface, but nothing broke. Nothing except for the silence in my head.
Now Leaving [Lair: Lucerna’s Lamp].
undefinedNow Leaving [Demon King’s Domain].
Now Leaving [Nexeus: Netherworld].
After those words came, there was nothing for a moment. Just a moment. Then I heard a crack.
Now Entering [Nexeus: Mortal Realm]—
“Salvos!”
And I snapped back to reality; felt the loss of gravity. The memory flashed in my head, coming and going in an instant. I remembered that moment— the moment where I’d lost my first companion, Haec. It haunted me to this day. It was my greatest regret.
I hadn’t been prepared for it. I was only trying to save him, but I abandoned him. I broke my promise to him. I said I’d be his leader. That I’d always protect him. I failed. I left him alone in the Netherworld to fend for himself.
Was he still alive? My Dad told me he was alright. But that had been a month ago. The Netherworld was a dangerous place, and plenty of things could change in mere moments there. After all, I remembered a time when it hadn’t just been Haec and I. When there had been others there. We banded together. Not necessarily for safety, but simply because we didn’t know any better. There were so many of us, and in a flash, I was alone.
And it was happening again.
I was going to be alone again. Not just that— I was breaking my promises again. Just like last time. All in an instant.
I looked up. Daniel, Edithe, Willy, and even Orgaf yelled as they ran for me. I reached out to them, opening my mouth—
And the circle closed.
Everything went black. The portal vanished as I was dragged out of the Mortal Realm.
Now leaving [Nexeus: Mortal Realm]!
I remembered this feeling like it was just yesterday. The odd sensation of crossing through the planes. From the outside, entering and exiting a portal seemed simple enough. It was as though I entered and exited one limb at a time. Nothing complex about that.
But when I entered the portal, I was engulfed in darkness. No— it wasn’t just shadows. It was nothing like Orgaf’s magic. It was different. A deep, looming emptiness consumed me. I couldn’t even feel the [Hellabomination] clinging onto my leg. In here, there was truly nothing.
The only thing I sensed were words in my head, somehow echoing in this bottomless pit.
It was odd. I had been here before, but I felt nothing like this the last time I crossed planes. It was, as I remembered, a moment of nothingness. Then suddenly I was in the Mortal Realm.
However, here? At this moment? A split second extended to an eternity. A place where time itself didn’t matter. It was like I was trapped in a [Warped Time] bubble, except far more potent. It was the home of the Devil: the place where reality mattered not.
I could sense everything happening, unlike back then. But why? Why was I acutely aware of my surroundings? How did I know how quickly I was traversing through the thin fold between planes? No— it wasn’t a distance I was covering, per se, but it was the only thing that let me contextualize what I knew was happening.
It was like seeing something you couldn’t quite comprehend. It reminded me of when I first saw the corruption— or when I first took in the sight of a rock before proper examination. I knew what it was, yet I couldn’t quite parse this. But the fact that I was even aware of something I hadn’t known before was a testament to how far I’d grown. To the strength of my Class. [Planar Navigation] and my other Class Skills helped me make sense of my surroundings, and it let me act during this immortal moment.
I closed my eyes— not that it made a difference— and I concentrated. I was being pulled into the Netherworld. Not just by the wild Primeval Demon, but by something else. By the magic of the summoning ritual.
The fold between planes was nothing like how I’d imagined— there were layers to it. I was tearing through these layers, damaging reality itself. The holes closed behind me, reality reasserted itself, but weaker now. And I didn’t have much of reality to pass through until I was fully out the other side.
I had to cut it off if I wanted to escape. To get back to the Mortal Realm. I began to focus on distorting reality around me: to create a field that snipped the threads of magic reeling me into the Netherworld.
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