In a separate room, Leona sat on a stone platform covered with some cloths as a temporary bed.
In her hand was an essence stone that had already lost its luster, but Leona didn’t bother replacing it.
Instead, she sat there, sensing the new power flowing through her body after advancing to the Advanced sub-rank.
Now she felt that she could form layers of essence over her hand and weapons, even if they were fragile and not entirely stable.
She opened her eyes again, hiding the stone that had already lost its glow, before looking at her hand that was bound in a splint.
She extended her other hand and removed the temporary splint, then stretched and bent it repeatedly. She even threw a few quick punches into the air, a smile forming on her lips.
"This is much better."
It was true that she wasn’t healed one hundred percent, but she could now fight comfortably.
Even so, she lay back on the temporary bed, covering herself with a blanket she had gotten from Caius.
Leona closed her eyes in exhaustion, sinking into the peaceful darkness around her.
It only took a few minutes before she fell into a deep sleep.
...
That night, she had a dream.
A dream where many thin threads wrapped around her.
Leona tried to move to free herself... but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t.
She wanted to scream... but she couldn’t scream either.
Slowly, the threads burrowed deeper.
And slowly, Leona began to lose herself... her will.
Until she was no longer Leona, Leona.
But something else.
All she felt in that moment was fear.
A deep, primal fear.
...
"Ahhh..."
With clear panic, Leona woke up in her dark room. She pulled herself into a sitting position, breathing heavily.
"What... what was that dream?" she muttered under her rapid breaths as she supported herself upright on the bed.
She raised her hand to her face and rubbed it, trying to dispel the lingering effect of the dream. "Maybe I’m just tired from this place."
She thought perhaps the uncomfortable conditions and the recent events were what had caused her to see such a dream.
She lay down again and tried to sleep, but to no avail.
Every time she closed her eyes, those scenes returned again and again without stopping. So, with a tired sigh, she got up from the bed and left the room.
She walked through the narrow corridor connecting the rooms before stepping out into the same cave they had used in the past days as their base.
Everyone was now asleep or resting, except for the one assigned to guard duty at this time.
When she stepped into the cave, she noticed there was no sunlight illuminating the place like in previous days. Instead, strands of warm orange light filled it.
She walked quietly toward the entrance, and there she saw the sky beginning to turn dark as the shattered moon showed its first signs in the sky along with a few bright stars.
When she stepped outside, she took a deep breath of the warm air, her eyes catching the sun that had vanished, leaving only a streak of orange radiance on the horizon.
But she wasn’t alone at that moment.
Because there, beside the entrance, Caius sat on a rock in a meditative posture with an essence stone in his hand.
When Leona approached, he opened his eyes and turned his head toward her.
"Couldn’t sleep?"
She shook her head. "No... I think I have a bit of insomnia, so I couldn’t go back to sleep after waking up."
She looked at him with her usual smile. "If you want, I can take your place while you go rest."
Caius shook his head. "No need. There are only a few hours left before we set out, and I don’t need it anyway."
When he said that, Leona didn’t insist. Instead, she looked at the stone in his hand.
"But I have to say, you’re really persistent... every spare moment you spend just training."
Since she had known Caius a few months ago, she had realized he was extremely diligent in his training.
After all, more often than not, she would find him in the training halls, and every time she passed by his assigned training room, it would be empty.
And now, ever since they arrived here, he hadn’t stopped, except for brief moments.
Leona stared at him. "I wonder what reason makes you push yourself like this?"
Caius sighed, speaking in his usual tone. "I don’t understand why you’re so curious about this poor farmer."
Leona smiled widely. "I don’t know about poor, but you don’t look like a farmer to me... you have a better appearance than most nobles. Maybe even the best, from what I’ve seen."
A mischievous smile formed on his face. "What a generous compliment, milady. But you can’t tempt me that easily." It was obvious he was joking, so Leona wasn’t bothered.
She raised a brow. "Tempt?... Don’t worry, you’re not my type anyway."
With that, Leona walked over and sat on the same large rock.
"But seriously, who are your parents?" She asked this with low hope of receiving an answer.
But contrary to her expectations, Caius replied without much thought.
"I don’t know."
"Really? Didn’t you try searching for them through your name?"
Caius sighed. "I did, but it was useless."
She turned her head and looked at him for a few moments. "Maybe you’re the illegitimate son of some noble from another empire, or their lost child they’re searching for."
She placed her hand on her chin as if genuinely thinking.
"Then when you become famous enough and your face reaches them, they’ll recognize you and want to take you back. Then your life will start changing like in those movies."
Caius looked at her. "Leona, maybe you should cut back on drama movies or whatever."
Her response was a smile.
"But I wasn’t joking."
...
Caius’ POV
With every step I took, the sand shifted beneath my feet as the others and I walked along the stone wall.
The sun had completely disappeared, leaving only a trace of its light on the horizon, while the fragments of the shattered moon became clearer.
Now we were searching for an entrance to this stone maze that seemed to have formed naturally somehow, because I certainly don’t remember a place like this existing before I died.
"So how far do you think it stretches north?" I asked Kyle.
Before we moved, Kyle had climbed up and looked at the maze from above to get an idea of it.
"I didn’t see its end even after using my ability, so it’s at least a few hundred kilometers," he said calmly, as usual.
Unfortunately, climbing and moving from above in a straight line wasn’t an option. That would make us free meals for those large monsters.
A natural maze hundreds of kilometers wide. How wonderful... just how much has the earth changed?
And how true were those old stories, like that rift that split the sky and the darkness that seeped from it?
So are we really in Africa as I suspect?
But if the earth has changed this much, we might even be at the bottom of what was once an ocean.
Who knows.
Right now, all I wanted was to head north... in truth, I didn’t have any real plan to return.
All I was relying on was a faint instinct.
In the deadly silence of the desert, we walked without speaking. The tension was clearly drawn on everyone’s faces.
It was true they were doing well—maintaining their composure and thinking rationally, even after finding themselves in this unknown world.
But how long would that last?
Unlike me, everyone had something tying them to Aetheron... their families and friends.
All of that was motivation for them to continue, but it would also gnaw at them over time... especially if we stayed here long.
From the corner of my eye, I glanced at Kyle . This quiet, soft-spoken hunter on the surface, yet beneath his eyes I could see the tension and panic slowly accumulating.
I understood where that came from. After all, he had left his little sister behind.
A weak and sick sister, receiving constant care, and any delay in paying the bills could lead to her being abandoned by the hospital she was in.
Knowing Kyle’s personality, he probably paid several months in advance to ensure he had enough time if something bad happened.
And even if those payments ran out, I suppose the Axis would take care of it.
But what would happen to a brother who couldn’t check on his sick sister for months?
Of course doubt would gnaw at his mind and disrupt his thinking.
As for me, it didn’t really matter when I returned.
For me, there wasn’t a single thing worth caring about back there.
Well, except for the trash of the Void system waiting to be slaughtered, but that would still take a few more years before I could do it.
Time passed, and we finally reached our destination.
Before us rose a massive rift dozens of meters wide, splitting the entire wall like a gate to another world.