The Wrath Demon Saimon tore through space, only for the spatial turbulence to tear him apart in turn—like a madman punching through an airplane window, only to be sucked skyward. The gap that had swallowed its creator visibly shrank by half. The great demon favored by the Abyss performed its final act, its mighty form partially filling the collapsing void.
Yet the torn cavity remained ravenous.
With her Synchronizer reduced to ash, the fury in Tashan's mind cooled swiftly. Simultaneously, she sensed the Abyssal Will withdrawing with disdainful indifference, leaving no trace of mercy. The favored one departed as swiftly as it had arrived, leaving only residual effects that slightly benefited her—such as the reinforced dragon wings. Powerful and potent, they propelled Tashan forward like rocket-powered jetpacks.
Snatching the drifting Dungeon Book in her jaws, she charged toward the core and the pool of magic droplets. The blue magical droplets rapidly fused into her body, forming a pair of new arms—this time prioritizing speed over quality, creating a makeshift, temporary solution that wasn't very durable, but it would suffice for now. Tasha clutched Victor in one hand while pushing the dungeon core with the other. Her wings flapped furiously like an astronaut performing spacewalk duties as she desperately raced toward the entrance.
The torn gap trembled violently. The space quaked dangerously, and no one knew if the next second would bring stability or total collapse.
The entrance grew closer. Through it, the dimly lit dungeon was visible just ahead. Compared to the treacherous passageway, the dimly lit dungeon felt like a warm haven. Yet, mere steps from the entrance, Tashar sensed something was terribly wrong.
"No, don't go!" Victor finally managed to shout. "You absolutely cannot cross the passageway when the space is unstable! Every portal is a vortex right now!"
Tasha spun around just in time, her body surging upward as she clutched the object in her hand.
When the Wrathlord had ripped open the fissure, countless things from the dungeon had been swept into the void. Tasha, Victor, the dungeon core, magic pool droplets, goblins, debris... and much more. Apart from the crucial items Tashu clutched, the rest of the jumbled debris floated within this space like suspended space junk. Though she halted, many of the carried objects did not. A goblin drifted unsteadily toward the entrance, failing to pass through.
Its earthen body shattered the instant it touched the portal, as if run through a meat grinder.
As the space destabilized, every passage filled with turbulent currents, barring passage to anything. Erian was within arm's reach yet worlds away, like a desert traveler glimpsing an oasis that proved only a mirage.
Tasha turned back; the collapse behind her hadn't spread. The gap that had crushed the Wrath Demon resembled a star past its zenith, slowly collapsing.
"Is waiting our only option now?" she asked.
"Essentially, we just need to wait for this wave of turbulence to pass..." Victor replied vaguely.
Tasha turned back, staring at the Book of the Dungeon's blinking eye, repeating, "Essentially?"
"Do you really want to hear it?" Victor sighed.
"What good would it do?" Tashar asked.
"None," Victor answered honestly. "Prepare yourself mentally, maybe?"
"Then don't tell me," Tashar replied.
If covering your ears to avoid bad news could prevent bad things from happening, the world would be a much better place.
A massive hole blasted through the tunnel, upper layers of earth continuously falling to fill the cavern and restore the passage's stability—if this space were a tunnel, that's precisely what was happening. The fissure trembled, surrounding space warping and contracting as the colossal breach created by the Wrath Demon gradually shrank. Yet simultaneously, another breach was closing.
The entrance to Eryan.
Space was repairing itself, treating all passages indiscriminately as sources of instability during this process. Spatial turbulence warped every passageway, the entire rift resembling a compressed honeycomb structure where each pore was being squeezed and contracted.
Essentially, once this wave of tremors passed, the remaining passages would stabilize.
Provided, of course, that the passage you desired still existed by then.
Space's self-repair was swift; the collapse rapidly stabilized, and much of the turbulence temporarily vanished. Tasha and Victor stood silent, staring at the spot where the entrance had been.
Unfortunately, it was now empty.
The mirage had vanished, and the deadly hope was gone. Scanning the vast expanse, not a single exit or entrance remained visible. Even the flickering lights had grown scarce.
"What rotten luck, ha ha," Victor said, his laughter sounding more like a bitter sob.
Tasha surveyed the desolate surroundings. Beyond the "space debris," nothing else existed. In this bizarre spatial fissure, only she and Victor remained.
"Are we trapped here?" " Tasha asked.
Things were complicated, but not hopeless. She'd brought an entire magic pool's worth of power with her. As long as her dragon-winged body had magic, survival wasn't an immediate threat. With the dungeon core and magic pool in hand, her situation was far better than when she'd first arrived in Erian.
"Ah, for now, yes," Victor replied dryly. "But not for long."
That tone didn't bode well.
"I mentioned it before," Victor explained. "Simon forced open the fissure to reappear, so our current location is within that 'fissure.' The Abyss and the Material Plane connected, creating the first fissure through resonance. This fissure only allows a single soul to pass and exists for an extremely brief period."
Tasha understood.
"The 'fissure' is temporary," Victor said bitterly. "And once the great demon who pried it open vanishes..."
Once the wedge that forcibly widened the fissure disappeared, the gap would close, and everything within it would be obliterated.
The collapsed opening had been filled, yet the tremors from all directions persisted. On the contrary, the vibrations grew ever stronger. The earlier shaking had stabilized the space, but now the fissure had reached its natural end. There was no question of probability—collapse was inevitable, unavoidable.
Tower Sand, suspended in midair, began to sway violently. Chaotic currents hurled her upward only to slam her back down. She finally understood what it felt like for a bird to encounter a storm at high altitude. The entire space seemed to conspire against her; no matter how fiercely she flapped her wings, she could not withstand the forces of heaven and earth.
Light flickered chaotically, a chaotic jumble of flashes bright enough to trigger photosensitive epilepsy instantly. Even the most skilled pilots might be tossed violently, as if stuffed into a tumbling washing machine, with magic droplets nearly flung out. Tashan ceased flapping altogether. She spread her immense dragon wings, cradling the dungeon core, magic droplets, and the Dungeon Book within them. Just before her wings closed, she glimpsed the distant boundary.
Not long ago, this expanse had been boundless. Now, its edge was visible. To be precise, the chaotic light made discerning distance impossible, but Tasha could see the vanishing point where the "space debris" disappeared. These fragments floated uniformly scattered in every corner. Beyond a certain distance, space grew still as water, leaving only darkness. Tasha felt as if she were swimming through waters teeming with aquatic plants and fish, gazing toward the crystal-clear stagnant pool not far away, a chill running down her spine.
That edge was still slowly shrinking.
Turbulence tore at Tashan's wings as if a giant were clawing at the bone spurs, trying to rip them off. A persistent stinging pain radiated from the outer layer of the wing membrane. The parts exposed to the external hurricane felt as if they were being flayed alive—likely already scarred. The dragon wings that had just clashed with the Wrath Demon now emitted a bone-chilling sound, eerily amplified within the confines of the storm. It echoed like the prolonged creaking of wooden houses during a typhoon.
Tasha seized her left wing, clenching her teeth to hold it steady. Just moments ago, that wing had been torn off.
"...I don't want to die," Victor muttered.
Of course not. No one wants to die. Tasha had so much left to accomplish—the castle she'd just begun building on the plains, so many tasks that required her presence. To die helplessly and pointlessly, crushed by a collapsing fissure, after defeating the invaders? It was utterly ridiculous.
Tasha clicked her tongue impatiently, rapidly assessing her remaining options. Victor spoke again.
"I have a way to tear open the fissure, but it's dangerous. No guarantee it'll lead back to Erian." Victor sounded unexpectedly calm. "The space is incredibly complex. Seventy percent chance we return, thirty percent chance we get flung to God knows where."
"Better than waiting to die," Tasha urged. "Seventy percent is already incredibly high."
"True," Victor agreed, muttering to himself, "I really don't want to die."
Within the tiny space enveloped by dragon wings, the Book of Dungeons glowed.
Each blank page revealed intricate patterns. What had seemed like ordinary paper now showed its true form: the cover wrapped in jet-black scales, the inner pages soft and cool as skin. Victor's dwelling was no ordinary tome. Its shell was fashioned from the shed skin of a great demon, while the King of Nagas' hide, once tanned, gleamed more translucently than parchment. Legendary mages had inscribed every incantation in dragon's blood ink. Even after centuries in Erian, where magic rapidly dissipated, traces of power still lingered within its pages.
Now, they ignited. The parched text instantly glowed as vividly as new, yet seemed to carry the weight of endless ages.
Tasha suddenly understood.
As she grasped the implication of Victor's words, the agitation born of impending death transformed into a cold, crushing heaviness. An iceberg piled upon her chest, sinking slowly and icy, momentarily robbing her breath.
Tasha opened her mouth.
Say something. Time is limited. Thank you? Goodbye? Certain familiar things held more weight than she'd imagined; parting came unexpectedly. What did you want to hear? What could she say? Tasha wasted a few seconds before making her decision.
"I will survive." For the first time in her life, she made a vow she couldn't absolutely guarantee. "I will be invincible. "
"Of course," Victor's voice carried a hint of amusement. "You certainly will, my master."
The forbidden spell recorded in the Dungeon Book—Victor's final preparation left within its pages—activated at that moment.
The incantations on the first page rose from the book, leaping out, each subsequent line linking seamlessly to the next. The Dungeon Book flipped its pages at breakneck speed. With each turn, vast runes transformed from flat text into leaping bands of light. Crimson and pitch black intertwined, an aura both ominous and dazzlingly beautiful, reminiscent of the intricate patterns on a venomous sea serpent. Chains of light erupted, encircling the space enveloped by the dragon wings layer by layer.
The unfurled magic array hummed, shielding them from the intensifying spatial turbulence. The shrill, jarring sounds of collapsing space faded, along with the unease of standing on thin ice. The incandescent hum now felt gentle, like white noise. A force was uprooting everything within the light bands from this space—powerful as a rocket launch, yet strangely reassuring. Tasha's wings tightly enveloped Victor and the dungeon core, while the runic light chains secured them all. The scene inexplicably reminded her of childhood, when she'd tuck toys under her blankets only for her father to walk in and lift her—blanket and all—in one swift motion.
Snap! The invisible barrier shattered.
The light bands were soft as a cradle inward, yet steel thorns outward. The forbidden spell's power tore apart the closing fissure. The apocalypse arrived prematurely for this rift; space shattered, everything within obliterated. Stepping on the skeletal remains of a destroyed sub-space, they leapt out.
And so Tasha saw what lay beyond the rift.
Victor had been right—space was incredibly complex. Beyond the rift might not lie Eryan. This was neither Eryan nor the Abyss.
Where was this?
Tasha's mind went blank. Protected by the luminous barrier, she stared wide-eyed at this vast, unheard-of, unseen expanse of sky.
Grand, colossal, boundless, endless... Every adjective describing vastness could be used here, yet none sufficed. Not a single corner could be grasped by the eye; all living beings here were as insignificant as dust. What could be vaster than "space"? What could be grander than 'plane'? "World"? Yet worlds hung like fruits upon the branches of a colossal tree.
There stood a tree—a towering, leafy giant reaching to the heavens.
Countless worlds hang from its branches—some green and chaotic, others ripe and complex. Their number is both infinite and infinitesimal, utterly unpredictable to the minuscule observer.
Comparing this to a tree and its fruits seems laughable, yet how could a mayfly describe the clouds above? Eryan, utterly unlike Earth, was merely a fantasy realm. The chaotic abyss of disordered laws could be grasped, yet here, Tasha could not conjure a fitting metaphor. She could not describe it, could not comprehend it—even taking in the sight before her was an impossible task. It was as if a speck of dust had gained the chance to survey the entire world. The overwhelming flood of information assaulted her soul. Merely standing here unleashed a storm within her understanding of reality.
Doubts arose about the world's existence, doubts about her own existence. The mind that excelled at and was accustomed to sorting all information and understanding it through its own logic became chaotic. The vastness before her eyes was despairingly immense—a lifetime wouldn't suffice to glimpse even a corner of it. The more she prided herself on her rationality, the greater the blow she now suffered. Tasha did not fear the unknown, but at least for now, this place was not "unknown" to her—it was "unknowable."
Tasha couldn't stop looking, listening, sensing. This uncontrollable urge to explore exposed her to more "infinity." The larger the sphere, the more it touched, and thus the more she understood, the more she despaired at her own ignorance. Her sanity teetered on the brink. Tasha's limbs grew numb and cold. Even when confronting foes dozens of times her strength, even when facing near-certain death, she had never trembled so violently, her teeth chattering, her whole body shaking. It was too much, too...
A pair of hands covered her eyes.
"The Astral Plane," Victor's sigh came from before Tasha.
The voice came from before her, or perhaps from within her own skull. When had he appeared? The Archfiend murmured in astonishment, "It's real... Why didn't I ever consider this?"
The covering over Tasha's eyes was soft and cool, yet unstable. It might be a hand, or a claw, or merely a dense, gauze-like black mist—existing somewhere between substance and nothingness. Tasha's heart pounded wildly in her chest, like an acrophobic standing on an empty glass platform. Another hand, real or illusory, rested on her shoulder, turning her to face a direction. "Good thing you didn't fall too far," it said. "Look, this is Erian."
The hand covering her eyes withdrew.
Though the hand was gone, the black mist still confined Tashan's vision, limiting her sight to that single, confined scene. The boundless heavens were temporarily shut out, leaving only the single World Fruit before her.
Tasha saw Erian.
It was as if she saw everything yet nothing at all. Perhaps her soul, seeking self-preservation, allowed the information to rush swiftly through her mind's sea, refusing to bear the weight of that vast ocean of knowledge, leaving only a hazy awareness. Tasha couldn't articulate what she had seen, but she knew it was Erian. The Material Plane and the Abyss grew from the same stem, intertwined and inseparable.
"The Celestial Realm truly is gone," Victor remarked behind her.
Only then did Tasha notice the subtle dissonance in the world before her, like seeing a one-armed person. At the symmetrical point of the Abyss, on the opposite side of the Material Plane, a discordant gap existed—as if something should have been there.
Then, the tour ended.
The luminous chains encircling them whirled ceaselessly, their outer edges spattering ever-larger sparks as if iron rods were being held close to a grinding wheel. Tasha felt a tugging force, yet she could not discern where she was being pulled. The tiny sphere enveloped by the forbidden spell hurtled toward Eryan like a meteor.
In that fleeting instant, Tasha felt a sudden sense of familiarity.
Something felt eerily familiar. What was it? Where had she seen it? This was impossible. Tasha had never performed a spatial leap of this magnitude before, never touched a forbidden spell, never glimpsed the Astral Plane. Such a profound experience could never be forgotten. Was it merely déjà vu? Perhaps just a phantom memory, like when people sometimes seem to recall events before their birth...
Wait.
Tasha did remember. She remembered what happened before her "birth" in Erian.
Tasha clearly remembered being dead. A car accident. No grudges, no vendettas—just plain bad luck. In her final moment, she had the misfortune of seeing the upper half of her own torso lying half a meter away...
She saw her own face.
It wasn't a case of "the upper half flying off and seeing the lower half." Tasha saw her face. So what exactly had she seen it with? It was a stormy night, thunder roaring, lightning flashing, the sky dark as if it had collapsed. Tasha was driving home along a deserted road when the car seemed to malfunction, skidding and colliding with something. Before she could comprehend what happened, she died—and then came back to life. The question of what she had hit was pushed to the back of her mind.
The sensation now felt eerily familiar.
The pinprick-like tension on her skin as space fractured mirrored the feeling she'd experienced in that final moment before the crash. The weightless detachment during the spatial leap mirrored the state between death and unconsciousness. Now, with the resilience to bear memories, Tasha realized she had traversed the Astral Plane at the very moment she died and crossed over to Erian.
Was the world containing Earth also on another branch of this "tree"?
On the dungeon card, the Reorganization progress bar soared rapidly. Over a decade of effort had added twenty-five percent; the Abyss's favor had pushed it another six percent. Now the numbers surged, nearing half in an instant. Information beyond worlds flooded Tashan's mind. As she experienced and accepted her own ignorance, she embraced knowledge from beyond.
The rune chain from the book was nearing its end.
It had been operating continuously, its front half burning and wearing away on the outer layer, replaced by the rear section above. As they drew nearer to Erian, the spell chain grew shorter and shorter. The Book of the Dungeon finally turned to its last page. By the time Tasha regained her composure and turned to look back, only a shadowy figure remained behind her.
The dark smoke was blurred and indistinct, clearly struggling to maintain its humanoid form. The arms that had encircled Tashan transformed into a cool, dark mist, still enveloping her body, much like how Tashan had once held the Book of Dungeons with her wings. Victor watched her—her yellow eyes hidden, yet Tashan knew he was watching—then the mist drew near.
A cool kiss landed upon Tashan's lips.
The last remnant of the spell left the Dungeon Book.
The once-dimming bands of light flared brilliantly, like the final glow of a dying candle wick. Erian drew closer, and the entire Dungeon Book began to burn silently. Azure flames consumed every page, even the finest ash becoming its final nourishment. The final forbidden spell summoned its last reserves of strength. The light band sliced through Erian's barrier, emitting the cry of a thornbird.
Clatter!
Barrier and light band shattered simultaneously. Tasha beheld the familiar dungeon.