I could barely rember what happened afterward. The whole Afterlife Dream realm was thrown into chaos when everyone found out that the thirty highest-level players in the ga had disappeared from the ga.
I went into my ho right after HellWitch and I finished handing SakuraChan over to her worried guildmates. As soon as I arrived, I threw myself onto the bed and stared at the wall in disbelief.
BlackPuma disappeared when he attempted to face the Dinsional Master alone.
Suzuran, MaiseyChi, and Rankichi were swallowed by Lava County.
TerryWalker, 7eetMage, and GoldenBow vanished at Sumr Rainforest.
DragonTalon burst into pieces in the hands of an unknown entity that could only be the Dinsional Master.
And then, just now, 30 players disappeared all at once.
It simply did not make sense to . Why? Why would they disappear? How could they just disappear? Where did they go off to?
There was so sense of relief knowing that they were still registered inside the ga, but then there was also so anxiety because we did not know what happened to them.
What should we do now?
Should we all just deliver ourselves, one squad after another, to the Dinsional Master's lair?
Should we just cower in fear while living in Afterlife Dream? Waiting for the day when we too would be swallowed by the ga?
Ding.
"Antares."
Ding.
"Antares. Yo, man, are you alright?"
Ding.
"Antares, are you sleeping...? Get out of your ho, we need to talk."
Ding...
Ding...
Ding...
I did not know when, but eventually, the sounds stopped and my eyelids fell shut. I slept for who knew how long. When I woke up again, the ti was showing 5 PM.
...
I had slept around 7 hours straight.
When I looked at my user interface screen again, I saw a load of ssages.
I closed all the ssages and rely wrote a sentence in the guild chat, "I am up, what is it?"
HellWitch wrote back, "Co to the Global Market. We are having a eting."
eting so soon? I wasn't ready. I wished I could just escape, but it was too late now. I exited my ho and dragged my pathetic ass to the Global Market.
Just like the last ti when we had the bridge event, the Global Market was full of players from all over Afterlife Dream. The only difference was that this ti they all looked as if they had long abandoned hope and just gathered there to have a good cry.
The remaining Twelve mbers winked over as soon as they saw .
Cecilia, HellWitch, Livina, Lazarus, and ZhaoYun were among them.
"Antares, how are you?"
"You look pale."
"Yeah, I... I am fine," I lied. How could anyone be fine after such a shocking turn of events?
Livina spoke to earnestly, "Antares, we have been talking about it... It is now apparent that the Dinsional Master raid is a trap. The ga is not going to get better. It is best if we start evicting players out of the ga by taking them through the raids."
"Evicting players?" I repeated.
"Yes. Look. Thanks to the last carnival event, everyone is ready to be reborn on earth. Most players already got the life benefits that they wanted and even traded the remaining Life Points with Lucky Stars. We are good. We should just pass the level 120 raid and then leave the ga."
"But..." I was having difficulties digesting Livina's words. "What about them?"
"Who?"
"Our friends! Our friends who disappeared!" I almost shouted at Livina. I could not believe that she forgot about DragonTalon and the rest.
Livina opened her mouth. She seed to want to say sothing, but she quickly clamped her mouth shut when she saw the look on my face. I did not know what I looked like. Must be quite horrible if it scared Livina shitless.
ZhaoYun put a hand on my shoulder. A gesture he hoped to placate with.
"Antares, calm down. Livina does not an anything bad. If we know how to save them, we will definitely go for it."
I glared at ZhaoYun. "And when are you planning to do that? Before or after you escape from Afterlife Dream?"
ZhaoYun shut up imdiately.
Being consud by rage, I glared at HellWitch. "What about you? Are you also going to let them rot wherever they are and escape on your own?"
I saw HellWitch's eyes flash with anger. The next mont she already strode in my direction and slapped so hard that my head spun and I saw stars.
"You jerk," she said, tears ca down streaming her face. I had never seen HellWitch cry before. "I was also there with you, tracking every single one of them up to the mont they disappeared! Stop acting like you are the only one who suffers from the loss!"
I pressed a hand against my stinging cheek while gaping at HellWitch.
"Sorry," I mumbled, feeling a lot like a jerk she accused to be. "I got carried away, I..."
"The emotions are running high. Why don't we... just take the ti off today to think about the next step?" Cecilia offered.
We took her suggestion with thanks and dispersed to do whatever we wanted to do. I wanted to do nothing. I just wanted to sit there and be miserable.
Not sure how I was supposed to take it, but the rest of Afterlife Dream quickly decided what to do.
There were players who insisted on dying with the ga because they did not think that being reborn on earth would be a better alternative, such as Kitty and Wolfhound.
There were players who adopted Livina's idea and were now struggling to get to 120 as soon as possible and beat the raid to escape Afterlife Dream with whatever life benefits and Lucky Stars that they already got in their inventories.
And then there were players like who still wanted to save Afterlife Dream. Or at least I hoped so.
Because I felt so alone.
One by one, players left Twelve.
I later found out that players also left Dominion.
Another guild was on the rise, bearing the na Survivors.
Those who joined Survivors only had one goal in mind : to escape Afterlife Dream as quickly as possible.
To my greatest consternation, Livina and ZhaoYun also ended up leaving for Survivors. They both sent private ssages before they left. Basically, they apologized for leaving and that they hoped we could still stay friends.
I didn't reply.
I didn't know what to say.
For , friends should be loyal to each other.
We should be racking our brains to help our friends who were now floating in an unknown void. A big black hole that we were unable to see.
Days of solitude allowed to think about what I wanted to do next to solve the mystery that surrounded the Afterlife Dream. I rember that Aurendiria wanted to check the infinite darkness at the bottom of the Afterlife Dream universe.
It would be a good start, I thought.
With Aurendiria out of the picture, I decided to ask Cecilia whether she would like to accompany .
As usual, I found Cecilia at Oakstone Tavern. She happened to not be alone that day. She was sitting together with HellWitch, drinking glasses and glasses of grape juice.
"Hey, Antares," Cecilia waved at when I appeared at Oakstone Tavern.
I waved back, and t HellWitch's eyes by chance. She looked away from right away. It had been several days since then, and she still had not forgiven . I could not really bla her. I was really a jerk that day.
"Where have you been going, Antares?" Cecilia asked with a grin. "I haven't seen you much around."
I had been diligently farming in my ho to pass the ti, but I did not want to tell Cecilia that. I rely cleared my throat and said, "Oh, just... traveling around. You know."
"Soo, what brought you here?"
"I uh..."
I stole a surreptitious glance at HellWitch. She turned to look at right away, her gaze as cold as the thickest layer of ice that covered a lake during winterti.
"Do you need to leave?" she asked pointedly.
"No, not at all," I quickly answered.
I truly regretted offending HellWitch. She was one of my closest friends. Having lost a lot recently, I ca to cherish those who I had left.
I turned to Cecilia and told her what I had in mind. "Cecil, do you rember about our plan to go and investigate the dark pit at the bottom of the universe?"
Cecilia raised both eyebrows upon hearing my words. I knew that she rembered.
"Yeeees?" she drawled, prompting to continue.
"Are you interested to investigate now? It might give us so clues," I said.
Cecilia humd, tapping her cheek with one finger as she pondered about my idea.
"That is a bad, bad idea," HellWitch said from the side.
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