"You should be able to see them now, right? The lines of hostility that are everywhere. They intersect and connect, like a great net blanketing the entire world."
Balloon floated slowly out from the pile of rocks and said to Mo Ling.
"How did you find out?" Mo Ling asked in shock. The world in his eyes now looked exactly as Balloon had described: countless lines of hostility crisscrossing chaotically like a spider's web.
"I'm just a little further along the path than you..." Balloon raised its sponge-like thread and plucked at the omnipresent net of hostility.
"At first, I was trapped in it too..."
...
Like many of its kind, Balloon was born in a hidden corner of the Volcano Plains.
It was very lucky. There were no Hunters around, nor any other dangers.
It was at the edge of an already cooled plain where the temperature had dropped quite low. Balloon lay on the shore, eating the impurities brought in by the ebb and flow of the tide.
