"Haaaaah...Haaaaah….."
As I continued to release heavy breaths as if I was just about to drown underwater, I looked around.
"Astron!"
As the familiar voice of the certain girl echoed in my head, I turned to face her.
"Are you okay? Here, drink this."
For so reason, I wasn't able to rember anything. As if I had awakened from a dream, every mory of mine was blurry, it felt like.
'What was I doing?'
I knew inwardly that sothing inside had changed. Sothing that was missing. Slightly narrowing my eyes, I resisted the pain that tried to overlap my head and took the water Sylvie gave .
"Thanks," I mumbled as my brain started recalling the information of what I could rember to last.
'I was looking for so observations and then…..'
Then, everything suddenly beca dark. After that, I don't rember much aside from so blurry monts.
"You won't ever leave , right?"
Once again, a voice echoed in my head as I recalled one of the blurry monts. The voice that is familiar.
'It is her voice, isn't it?'
Most likely, I had awoken from a dream. If it was that, everything seed to make sense. However, there were many other things in the environnt that I couldn't quite put my feelings on.
'The atmosphere….'
–THUMP!
Just as I thought about it, suddenly, I felt a sensation in my chest. The sa sensation I got countless different tis.
'A demon…'
But this ti, it was different. Much more different.
This sense of dread was so much that I was even about to have a hard ti breathing. My heart started beating incredibly fast, as if I was running for a long amount of ti.
'Everywhere around is filled with demonic energy.'
Whether it was because the demonic energy was incredibly potent or, for so reason, I could see everything better; I was able to notice the energy surrounding us. The dark energy was covering almost every other location around and those dark threads connecting in the air.
It was disgusting, as if sothing was feeding from it.
"ASTRON!"
Sylvie's urgent voice brought back to the present. She asked if I was okay, and I nodded, reassuring her that I was fine.
"What happened?" I asked. I had an idea in my head, but right now, I needed to understand the situation first.
"Sigh…." Hearing this, Sylvie released a long sigh as she looked at my right side with a face filled with unease. "I want to explain everything to you, but we need to wake Irina up first."
Before Sylvie could answer, she suggested waking up Irina first. I turned my attention to the side, realizing for the first ti that Irina was lying on the ground, unconscious.
'Irina is unconscious as well?'
But sothing seed different about her, as her body was slightly convulsing.
'She is about to wake up.'
Realizing that it was the symptoms of waking up, I waited.
–PAH!
"Haaaaah..."
Irina's eyes snapped open as she jolted forward, her sudden awakening accompanied by a sharp intake of breath. The surroundings seed to take a mont to register for her as she glanced around, confusion evident in her amber eyes.
"Irina, are you alright?" Sylvie asked, her concern palpable. I moved closer, offering a hand to help Irina, and she accepted it, using the support to steady herself.
Her initial disorientation faded, and she nodded in response to Sylvie's question, reassuring us, "I'm fine, just a bit disoriented."
'Everything seems too weird.'
My mories were blurry, and from the looks of it, Irina was in the sa condition; she looked blankly around.
But at that mont, suddenly, she bolted from her place.
"We don't have much ti!"
And she shouted. Her complexion turned paler as well, and her blood circulation sped up. It was evident that she was now in a state of excitent, but that wasn't what I needed right now.
"What do you an? Elaborate."
I answered. 'We don't have much ti, what does it an?' While asking this question to myself.
"That…..I don't know."
However, the reply she gave made everything weirder.
"You don't know?"
"I an…..I know sothing is going wrong, but I can't quite put up what it is." She replied, trying to understand what she ant as well.
'Is it related to her mories?'
If that was the case, then maybe she had seen sothing inside that dream, and even if she had forgotten the contents, that feeling of dread might have affected her subconsciousness.
Right now, inwardly, I was starting to get angry. I knew one thing for a fact: the emotions I suppressed were getting out once again.
The existence of demons around was getting on my nerves.
Sylvie intervened, reminding Irina of their purpose before entering my dreams. "Rember, we ca here to find answers about Phantom's Land and its mysteries. We were investigating the magical properties and the strange occurrences. Maybe sothing triggered this reaction."
Irina's eyes widened as she brought her hand to her forehead as if trying to grasp elusive mories. "Oh, now I rember... We were trying to find a way to understand the magical energy and the anomalies in this land. Before entering your dreams, we were planning to—"
Suddenly, realization dawned on her face. "Wait, it's all coming back to . I rember everything now, Astron. Sothing dark and nacing. It felt like a malevolent force trying to consu everything."
"What? You need to elaborate more."
"I can't. That is all I know from the dream, Urghk-!." As she pressed her temple, she looked at Sylvie. "I am fine, just a second."
After that, she grabbed the water Sylvie gave her without even using her hands but only using her 「Telekinesis 」. And the way she did it was certainly in a proficient manner.
'Was she this good at Telekinesis?'
I asked myself, but I didn't linger on that topic for now.
"So, you seem to know what is happening here?"
I asked. From how Sylvie acted and how Irina was trying to talk, it seems these two found sothing about this whole issue.
"Yes." Irina nodded. "Let start from scratch. After I had completed the theory, I went to check the facts…..–"
As Sylvie and Irina recounted their experiences, the air inside the bungalow grew thick with tension. Their words painted a picture of Phantom's Land as more than a re enigma, revealing a malevolent force at play.
I listened intently as they shared encounters with phantoms, the intricacies of magical influences, and the calculated nature of the entity shaping the land.
Irina's amber eyes held a focused intensity as she emphasized, "It's shaped by a powerful entity, with intentions unknown and potentially dangerous."
'It must be the source of this demonic energy.' I thought to myself. The entity Irina was talking about was the demon, but most likely, she was unable to identify it because she had never encountered a real demon before.
After all, demon followers or demonic humans are a lot different from demons.
Sylvie added with worry. "The entity's malevolence explains the dark spells and the complexity we encountered while probing Jasmine's heart. This isn't just a random occurrence; it's a calculated influence."
To sum up the findings, Irina had confird that this demon was the reason why Phantom's Land was ford in the first place, and the demon was looking for sothing.
'Such a large-scale thing, and the original never ntioned sothing like this.'
There were many questions that needed to be answered, but one thing ca first.
"Then, what are those phantoms….."
If those phantoms appeared once soone entered into this sleep-co state, then it ant either those phantoms were their souls or sothing related to their consciousness.
'What happens to those phantoms once the body is dead?'
This was another question. After all, if the phantoms were sohow related to souls or consciousness, there was a chance that those phantoms who wandered around like that after the clock hit 06.06 would still have their bodies sowhere around.
At that mont, as I contemplated the information, I heard Irina mumbling sothing under her breath. "Parallel world…"
The words caught my attention, and I imdiately asked, "What do you an, Irina?"
However, she seed unable to answer; her expression clouded with frustration, as if the answer slipped through her fingers. "I don't know, I can't point anything….."
But the ntion of a parallel world triggered sothing within .
I started looking around the room as if expecting to find a clue in the shadows or the mist that perated Phantom's Land.
Then, my eyes fixated on the spell that was connected to the heart of Jasmine. It was a complex array of magical symbols and psions, and as I observed it, a realization struck .
"Spatial psions…" I muttered to myself. The gears in my mind started turning, and a crazy idea began to form. It was both because of what we found and, at the sa ti, I knew an enemy from the ga.
'What if these phantoms are not just illusions or manifestations? What if they are souls from another world?'
'We all felt like it was like a dream. But what if we actually replaced our parallel selves.'
The notion seed far-fetched, even to . However, the spatial positions in the spell hinted at a connection to the manipulation of space.
What if this demon was attempting to create a rift between worlds, a space crack that allowed the souls from another realm to seep into Phantom's Land?
'Then, everything would make sense. Even the identity of this demon.'
After all, there was no way that such a strong boss that could sohow get this amount of humans under its spell would left out in the ga.
It was bound to be ntioned, and it was certainly done.
'So, it ca from here, huh?'
I asked myself. To think that the boss of one of the future side-
quests was actually sothing related to Phantom's Land.
'I guess the ga can never reveal all the details at once after all.'
If the idea in my head was correct, then from then on, things were about to get both troubleso and good.
Facing an enemy that would normally be far more powerful in the future made it easier for to respond in any case.
'Then, there is only one thing left.'
To kill the enemy.
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