CHAPTER 160: | INTO A NEW WORLD

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  I looked at the spatial crack hanging in the air as it sucked in the mana all around me to maintain the passage between the second segment and the third. Though, if I’m being honest, its method of pulling mana from the atmosphere wasn't exactly elegant, but who am I to judge?

  I couldn't help but sigh at this predicament. If you took a closer look at this spatial crack, a tear in reality, a portal, or whatever you want to call it, you could see it was pretty much unstable. The loud, screeching sound it made gave it away, along with the spiderweb fractures slowly spreading across the air.

  Someone perceptive enough, like Lumicor, had already deduced this just by relying on the odd sound and the little authority he still held over magic. But he ignored it. Things like instability didn't interest him anymore, all thanks to him losing his mana and focusing entirely on honing his spear. So, at Samantha's command to enter, he didn't hesitate. He stepped toward the portal without a care for the world, smiling softly before muttering under his breath just before he disappeared.

  "I may have lost every single thing that I had, but it doesn't mean that it is the end..." His words were pretty much directed at me, though I didn't particularly care about the sentiments of a loser. Samantha, however, said otherwise as she stared at the portal where Lumicor had vanished.

  She chuckled. "I guess he's still salty about the destruction of the mana circuits in his core. But oh well... Ishtar, follow him. Then Tellus, you too, since we don't know if he's just pretending to be an ally so he can escape when we least expect it."

  Tellus nodded in acknowledgement. The likelihood that Lumicor was thinking of escaping was pretty high. Without saying anything, he merely nodded and followed Lumicor's trail, his earthy body vanishing from sight.

  Ishtar, on the other hand, remained silent. She stared at the portal with her Fallen Eyes, attempting to see the workings of the portal’s instability. She smiled as she saw the flawed runic markings within them, but as she reached out to touch them, I grabbed her by the shoulder, waking her from her daze for the fifth time today.

  She turned her back to the seemingly handsome man who looked nothing like her, then smiled at him. I smiled back and ruffled her hair, which I knew she didn't like, and spoke in a deep voice. "If you're truly my daughter, then the influence of the apogee shouldn't be a problem, right, Ishtar?"

  Ishtar shoved my hand away and walked toward the portal, whispering deafly. "Yea... yeah, I am your daughter, but so what of it? You've merely used me as a tool to safekeep those eyes, so what use do I have other than that?"

  I smiled at her response and watched her vanish. I turned my head to Samantha, who merely nodded at me before entering the portal a second later. Solia, who was behind her, nodded at me with a resolute expression that told me she had received the holiest mission of all, to do her best to keep her mistress safe. Though it was ridiculous, I nodded back at her, only to find myself nodding at empty air. She had already vanished.

  I was left alone in this empty place. Just me and a portal at the center of this altar where seven statues of Skaira surrounded the space. It was such a sight to behold, holiness could be seen in every corner of the room, a decadence so thick that it shouldn't belong to a temple or sanctuary.

  I merely stared at the portal, then into the face of the goddess. She was neither ugly nor too beautiful. Skaira herself didn't look particularly cute, nor was she ugly like a hunchback witch with a face filled with freckles and a nose so long she looked like that certain wooden doll whose nose grew every time he lied. No, Skaira wasn't anything like that.

  In fact, she was pretty much on the normal side. An average-looking face and figure. She was nothing special, she didn't possess an ample blessing nor a supple rear. All I could say was she wasn't someone I would want to have a fling with. Even if a woman had a heart definitive of the word 'ugly' itself, I would still sleep with her so long as she was a great beauty. If not, I wouldn't even bother to spare her a glance.

  I guess I really value the face of people since I don't like conversing with an ugly fellow. "Haaa... is this the pain of being too successfully handsome? Though none would notice me for my appearance since I am automatically distorting their visions to see me into a nothing but an average fellow to avoid unwanted attention... still, isn't this pain? The pain of a handsome individual?"

  Though I sarcastically joked about this, I still felt lonely. It was only now that I wished for Samantha’s company more than ever, to quell this loneliness in me. But sadly, I couldn't do that right now. Samantha was undergoing her training to become a capable leader, so interrupting her for such a trivial matter wouldn't be noteworthy.

  I could just hide this loneliness with a smile. So I smiled, then reminisced about when I was nothing but an insignificant character in this vast multiverse with my siblings.

  We were born at the same time, in the same place where the records clustered together in a single space for far too long. It accidentally birthed us, beings that were alive yet weren't creatures, possessing souls but lacking existence, capable of understanding emotions but unable to experience them. We were cursed with this destiny to rise to the top or die trying.

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  Epochs passed in an instant. In that time, my siblings and I read through the records of countless creatures, discovering endless amounts of information. She was the first to declare her desire to control everything, to control the evolution of all. But I didn't care. I was too occupied with filling the emptiness I felt, first with knowledge, then with power, then with desire, then with love.

  I tried everything, but nothing worked. So I was left with one option, to achieve Ascendance. To achieve what I desired. But as time passed with no clues to Ascendance, I went crazy. My goal turned into obsession, then into insanity. That I would gladly abandon everything just to catch a glimpse of it. In doing so, I fell into a quagmire that sent me into a loop, a spiral of insanity where I couldn't stop, where I wouldn't give up until I reached this point where I am slowly feeling the emotions I longed for.

  I sighed, then took a step forward into the portal. My senses twisted at the pull. I was left disoriented, falling into the sky hundreds of miles away from the ground. It was cold. The air whipping at my skin was far too biting. I opened my eyes and looked at the world around me. Endless sands took up all the land, thousands of villages dotting the desert, with a massive city that looked like the empire of Babylon located at the center.

  I smiled, then cackled. My back split apart as millions of tendrils burst forth. In the next moment, those very same tendrils wrapped against each other as feathers took shape. They formed into the skeletal frame of eighteen pairs of wings. Flesh infested with veins covered them, along with white feathers that camouflaged the outrageous appearance of the appendages.

  All eighteen wings took the shape of seraphic wings sent from the heavens. Like a comet, I was plummeting toward the ground, but in the next second, all eighteen seraphic wings flapped together then with a loud sonic boom.

  They unleashed a small tornado, completely stopping my fall. I took a step, then used Void Step with all my might. And I turned into a streak of whiteness that phased through the sky, landing on the ground with a soft flap as the eighteen seraphic wings split back into millions of tendrils and retracted into my back like nothing happened.

  I heard Samantha's voice the moment I descended. "I see, so we're quite far from our targeted goal. But it doesn't matter, since with our current forces we're not powerful enough to face the local empire of these endless sands where the Sahara Desert lies."

  Ishtar stared at Samantha in a daze, then spoke softly. "Then, Master... what are our chances of successfully invading this world without Fat... I mean, without Mister?"

  Samantha paid attention to Ishtar's question and answered without hesitation. "The chances of us conquering this world are, without a doubt, less than a percent. But worry not, for I have inherited the inheritance of the greatest woman in the entire world, so I know a thing or two about this realm."

  Lumicor nodded at her honest words but couldn't help asking to see the scope of Samantha's knowledge. "Then do tell us the regions where we are, the kingdoms we're in, the empires of this world, the gods of this world, and where the Dragon Emperor is at."

  Being asked such a difficult question made Samantha more excited. She smiled softly and introduced the miniature world.

  "I see. A difficult question indeed, only if I were lying. But I have no reason to lie, so I will give you a brief explanation of this world, or a miniature one of the endless Sahara Desert. This place is where the Empire of Lahaina is the undisputed power. All of the kingdoms around this place are governed by a governor that the Lahaina Empire hand-picked. For the rest I don't need to explain further since it may take hours to continue such a boring lecture."

  Samantha stopped for a moment so her retainers could absorb the information before she continued. "As for the lands we're in, I could accurately guess that we are in the Loika Kingdom, where the Governor of Sands governs this expansive place that stretches for a thousand miles with more than a thousand villages surrounding it."

  Tellus nodded at the information, then curiously asked, "Then based on your information, Mistress, the Governor of this place shouldn't pose much of a problem if he or she controls the affinity of sands. Since I, someone who controls the Sacred Earth, could easily suppress his abilities in his own domain."

  Lumicor, hearing Tellus's words, didn't let Samantha ponder much before he muttered coldly. "How foolish... did you think that brute-forcing this matter like an orc would allow a group with such paltry strength to emerge victorious when your gracious master is merely watching us?"

  Hearing this arrogance, Tellus snorted and stared him in the eyes, mocking him. "Then enlighten me, Great God of an Unknown Pond?"

  Lumicor closed his eyes at this blatant provocation and chuckled. "Hahaha... I didn't think that an imitation of a lesser dragon would have the audacity to laugh at me? Hahaha! How I've fallen from grace! But I will entertain your foolish head as to how your foolishness will bring us nothing but trouble."

  Lumicor stopped, staring at Tellus using his spiritual vision, gouging for a reaction. He smirked as he saw Tellus's face twitch. "I wouldn't be foolish enough to think that just because I could suppress the leader of a colony means that the droves of ants pouring out of their nest wouldn't bite back. So, instead of foolishly thinking that power solves everything, I would rather not believe it, as I am one such example. But foolish enough I am not, I am not so dumb as to let some mere ants that rely heavily on their sheer numbers be given the chance to bite me in the hand."

  He paused, his smile twisting. "So, should you ask what to do with a swarm of ants that has a paltry amount of strength? Then let her convert them into our own comrades." Lumicor glanced at Samantha. "Since our dear Mistress has the capabilities to do that."

  Lumicor smirked and stared at Tellus, who merely snorted. Samantha, watching their squabble, sighed at how petty these two grown men were.

  She calmly said, "Foolish or not, let us infiltrate their kingdom like parasites. Solia should focus on gathering information on the empire. Ishtar, with you possessing some of Alister's abilities as his Apostle, try to integrate yourself into one of the major noble families... or maybe take the place of the Governor's daughter if you could. As for you, Lumicor, join the recruitment of the Empire's military that should be arriving in a month. And you, Tellus, follow Solia so she doesn't get lost."

  Samantha glanced at Solia with a worried expression, knowing her little sister was pretty bad at navigating. But soon, she turned her head and shouted. "Now, let us adjourn and communicate through letters every month."