The terrain of the paradise continent was unimaginably strange.
Just past the boundary of the thin wall, behind Flauros, were still soft grass, the blue sky, and the clear river winding through the foothills like a winding silver thread.
Yet in front of him now, just behind a cliff, a ruined wall, was a sea of sand stretching to the horizon. The desert wind whipped at his skin, carrying yellow dust like a layer of fog, tearing his vision.
Yet a river still stubbornly flowed through the heart of that desert, silently, thin as a thread, but real.
Flauros stood at the intersection of those two worlds, his black armor reflecting the hot sunlight. The red cloak he still wore, now faded to almost betel nut brown, the edges ragged, still tried to flutter behind him as if it had never been worn out.
His hair was so loose that the wind almost made him raise his hand to brush it away. He didn't adjust his cloak, didn't care about the sun or the sand that stung his cheeks, and just kept walking silently.
Flauros walked on the hot sand, each step leaving a slight rut that was quickly erased by the wind as if his existence wasn't worth the desert's memory.
He didn't slow down because he knew that in this place, stopping at night was an extremely foolish choice.
Demons could appear during the day, yes, but in arid terrain like this, the rate of that increased to an unbelievable level.
The harsh sunlight weakened the natural barrier between the real space and the chaotic magical space. Those gaps were enough for creatures from another world to sneak in, looking for energy or fresh meat.
And that was only during the day.
Night fell, when the temperature plummeted to the bottom and the wind carried a whistling sound like a whisper from the bottom of the abyss, the monsters almost crawled out from under the sand, one by one.
It was no longer a matter of "maybe" appearing, but "certainly". The inexperienced called it "the night of singing" because the creatures' screams echoed from dusk to dawn.
A little mana leaked from the palm, just enough to reassure the things lurking under the sand: if you want to try, then come at me.
And they, stupid as they were, understood the difference between prey and predator.
At least during the day.
So it was better to leave this place as soon as possible.
Without making a map, without looking up coordinates, Flauros knew what he had to do. His goal was not in the heart of this desert, but on the other side.
The place where the sand was pushed back by the vegetation, where the ecological layers began to intersect, and the space was no longer dominated by the chaotic magic of the dead land.
It was a place where other creatures from the separation era established special barriers to allow peaceful creatures like humans and beastmen to live instead of monsters.
At least, if there were monsters, they would be the kind governed by natural laws, not those born from the cracks in reality.
He pulled back the hood of his cloak, covering more than half of his face, and his eyes glanced back one last time. The wind blew through, carrying a whistling sound like someone laughing softly behind his neck. He didn't look back anymore.
With each step deeper into the transition zone, the sand under his feet began to mix with crushed rocks, then cracked soil, then a few patches of dead moss. There was no need for a map, because he clearly remembered all the terrain classes from when he was a student who had to learn magical geography and strategic ecology. At that time, he studied enough to pass the subject. Now, to survive.
And to kill.
The eyes under the hood narrowed slightly as a bronze path appeared before them, leading toward the horizon, where the light began to change.
It is called the Chaos Passage – a natural phenomenon, but not entirely random.
It is beautiful, enchanting like the Milky Way turned upside down underground, but always appears in places no one should go: dead lands, reality cracks, or places where the boundaries between worlds are so thin that just a touch of the hand can penetrate the space layer.
The Chaos Passage can teleport the person entering to any place on the Paradise continent. The color of the main gate is the only guide if you do not want to be thrown into the middle of nowhere in the heart of a volcano or a poisonous desert.
The copper color is the South, where Flauros needs to go, the land of all creatures. The orange-red is the West, the scorching steppe, a place of prosperity, and always immersed in prosperity.
The transparent blue is the East, also known as the blessing of creation, where countless mythical creatures reside.
Green is the North, the deep forest, the ruins, the ruins of the multi-world experiments, and the ruins left by the immortals in the second multiverse.
And there are two more forbidden colors. Black leads to the Demon Realm, now the forbidden land, which used to belong to the Third multiverse - Hell, sealed after the Seven-Epoch War.
The war that reset the history of the three universes. The war where the demons held both worlds, turning the tide. The war that overthrew the heavenly king.
The war that Flauros, formerly the fire elemental witch, participated in marked the entire three worlds with his feat of being one of the four people who destroyed the oppressive world of the celestial world, set by the immortals.
Killing the heavenly emperor.
Recreating the second universe, where both immortals and angels now live alongside the demons and demon kings.
Rewriting the rights of all living beings in the first universe, the paradise continent.
This place is now inhabited only by demons, beings that no longer obey the laws of life and death.
The white color, on the other hand, leads up to the place where the ancient immortals live – the Second Multiverse, commonly known as Heaven. But now it is also the place where demons live.
A door that not everyone can see, and not everyone is worthy to enter.
Flauros stopped before the chaotic passage that appeared in the melted sand. Bronze. He chuckled softly.
"That's right. Thank fate, you know how to cooperate once in a while, huh?"
He stepped in without turning back. The sand swirled behind him like a trail of stardust, and then the passage closed silently, as if no one had ever set foot here.
Three Heavens – The Legend of the Adjacent Worlds.
People often call them the three universes. But if you turn each layer of the sky upside down, and look through each flow of force, you will know: they are just three planets standing next to each other in the chaotic void, like three arms that once crossed but could never hold each other again.
Because anywhere, every night, when looking up at the dark sky, travelers can see the two remaining moons. As a reminder that this universe has never been alone.
However, each world has built a strange force barrier, a magical structure that covers the planet, helping each planet create its sun, its own moon, and even a separate ecosystem like three parallel dream dimensions.
The Continent of Heaven, known as the great world, is the most populous and chaotic land, where creatures from all species converge. Magic, machinery, biology, morality... all jostle for survival. It is the largest land, but also the most chaotic and unruly.
And the Heavenly Realm, the smallest of the three, is the purest world. There is no war, no corruption. The climate is always beautiful, and the air is as clear as the light of the sun.
It is the dwelling place of the immortals - a divine species that is admired and praised by the inhabitants of the Heavenly Continent as the supreme beings. But that perfection is also a cage, separating the Heavenly Realm from the rest of existence.
This place looks pure, but it is a filthy rot. The immortals consider other creatures from the other two universes as insects until the end of the Seven-Epoch War.
Only justice exists here.
And finally, the Demon Realm, also known by its more ancient name, the Demon Realm.
In ancient times, this place was once a land submerged in the ashes of war, invaded and devastated by the immortals. But time is like a calm stream, bringing everything back to its true form.
Today's Demon World has been reborn, with a gloomy landscape, a broken terrain like pieces of memory suspended in an unstable space.
Broken palaces, floating stone corridors, every architecture here seems to echo the call from the ancient abyss.
It is the second largest world, but the most difficult place to set foot on.