Kaelen woke up when he felt the place that was holding him now shake deliberately. Just as the 14-year-old boy managed to open his eyes, a strange sight immediately entered his vision.
All around him were countless strange creatures swarming over him. Kaelen did not even know what was beneath him now. But when he was about to rise from his lying position, Kaelen felt unbearable pain in his chest, forcing one of his hands to clutch at it.
"My Elarith?" muttered Kaelen when he saw his chest seemed hollow, as if someone had just pried out his Elarith.
Elarith itself was a silver crescent-shaped crystal, with a small black orb in the middle of the crescent like a sun, located inside one's chest. The Moon and the Sun were wrapped with two silver rings, positioned vertically and horizontally, each rotating in opposite directions. The rings looked exactly like the Sun's halo or Saturn's rings.
Then on both sides, there were four black wings made of crystal. The Elarith functioned as the magical core, channeling power throughout the body. What distinguished it from a mana core was that when someone's Elarith was taken or destroyed, its owner would die and rot within three days and three nights. Furthermore, one's Elarith also determined what talent they possessed. If it was taken, then the root of their talent would also be severed.
In his confusion, Kaelen felt his body suddenly lifted by those giant, brown locust-like creatures. They raised Kaelen on their thin twin horns, then cheered together and carried him away.
"Hey, what are you doing? Where are you taking me? Let me go! I don't even know any of you!" Kaelen shouted, struggling to break free. But aside from his mind still trying to comprehend what was happening, the strength of these creatures was far too overwhelming for Kaelen to put up any meaningful resistance.
Along the way, the locust-like creatures-known as the Krixath, which meant the vibration of insect wings-continued cheering in a language Kaelen could not understand. Yet from the tone and intonation of their speech, Kaelen could tell that they were currently cheering with joy-as if they had found a precious treasure.
"Oh god, what should I do now? Forget how I ended up here. The only thing I need to think about is how to escape and keep myself alive for the next few moments," he said in his heart. He then touched his chest again with an indescribable expression, "Now I only have three days left to survive. Life or death, everything will be decided by what I do starting now."
From his position lying on his back, Kaelen could clearly see the structure of this place from below. Suddenly his forehead furrowed when he realized this place was exactly like a Colosseum. He quickly turned his head to the right and left, then looked around.
Judging from its structure, this place did not consist of just one layer. It was well-structured. The layer Kaelen was on looked greener, with many trees and plants. Countless giant hanging roots of various shapes occasionally brushed against Kaelen's body.
Meanwhile, the second layer, above the one he was standing on now, looked barren, more like hell. The soil and aura that emanated from there glowed red, with steam billowing out.
"Wait, don't tell me I'm currently inside one of the Forbidden Regions of Xal'zarioth?" Kaelen's blue eyes widened even further as he realized that his suspicion might be true.
As his gaze scanned the entire structure of this place, Kaelen saw its peak. There were more than nine layers, nine regions he could see. And at the very top was the exit he spotted. So his suspicion that this was Xal'zarioth-or what was also called the Layered World-was indeed correct. But how did he end up here?
Kaelen began to struggle again. He thrashed his body violently back and forth, trying to withstand the pain throughout his body, especially in his hollow chest. "Let me go, damn it! I have nothing to do with any of you. Let go!"
Right after his last shout, the creatures stopped walking. For a moment, Kaelen was surprised-did they actually obey his words? But just a split second later, Kaelen's body was dropped carelessly onto the grass nearly a meter tall.
"Ah!" Kaelen gasped as pain shot through his back. He squirmed and writhed as his body, already shattered, now felt even more broken.
Moments later, the crowd of creatures that had been standing around him began stepping back in neat order. At first, Kaelen thought they would leave him alone. But he was wrong. The Krixath had only stepped back a few paces to form a formation-trapping Kaelen in the center, surrounded by them.
Not only that, but they all turned in unison to face Kaelen directly. With empty, strange stares.
Even in pain, Kaelen noticed it. Holding one hand against himself, he tried to sit up, his body aching, sore, and broken all at once. He stared at the creatures around him one by one.
It was then Kaelen realized one thing. Their gazes were truly empty, as if they were under some kind of hypnotic spell.
Still busy observing, Kaelen was startled by a root that suddenly jutted out right in front of him. If he hadn't instinctively spread his legs apart, one of them would surely have been impaled. Kaelen almost cursed out loud before finally seeing the figure that now stood before him.
It was one of the creatures, nearly five meters tall, with a body entirely made of a massive tree, its upper torso wrapped in green roots that waved behind its back. The green figure walked toward Kaelen using dozens of roots-its substitute for legs-of various sizes, until the distance between them was only about twenty centimeters.
Kaelen's body trembled violently, not from pain but from fear. The most terrifying part of the creature was that it had five eyes on its forehead, and its face looked exactly like a flat tree trunk.
"I'm sure I've seen this creature in a book. If I'm not mistaken, this should be one of the Zorgathr-a monster possessing consciousness-that inhabited the lowest layer of Xal'zarioth. If I've reached this place, could it be that I'm currently in Elyndor? The lowest of the nine layers of Xal'zarioth?" Kaelen kept questioning in his heart, for there was nothing he could do if he didn't understand the root of the problem.
Not long after, hot air swept across Kaelen's face when the figure began sniffing at his body, leaving behind hot steam that strangely grew colder the longer it lingered. Kaelen was frozen in place, not even sure if he could escape the grasp of these creatures-beings he had never even imagined could exist.
Kaelen had seen it in books. But at first, he thought it was nothing more than a bedtime story for children. Because even though he had lived in Zyretheil, a cursed land, Kaelen had maintained his innocence by believing that those stories were, once again, just fairy tales.
"He is the perfect offering for Vazyrath Mudrienne," said the figure after pulling away from Kaelen's body and turning toward the Krixath, whom Kaelen guessed were its followers-or something that moved under the command of this Zorgathr.