“I think I can understand what you are saying my Empress. Are you going to send your magic into the path and then use it as a means to understand what’s around it?”

  That simplifies what I said but it’s correct. I will be gathering my magic into a single point, forming a small magic ball in the process. Afterwards, I will “move” it through the path and hopefully I will be able to gather some data with it. However, as I said, I have to have a physical connection to the magic ball as otherwise, it will be almost the same as using Magic Sense. No, I need to find a way that I can always be in contact with said magic ball and only then can I use Magic Sense to scout the environment around the ball. Now, there is a massive problem with this, well, two. The first one is, the further it’s for me, the more magic control I will have to have to be able to use Magic Sense on the ball. Not only that, the further it is, the range of the skill will also decrease. What’s the limit then? Simple, the same as always. If my skill has a limit of 10km then, the magic ball will always sense up to that range. If it’s 5km for me then, it can only sense the other 5km and so on.

  “Close to it, you’re not that far. Yes, I will be using a magic orb as a way to try to understand what’s in the path, however, I can only do so if I have a physical connection to it, not only that, it will be limited to the range of my Magic Sense. Because of this, what I will be doing is simply send that orb and then wait until it hits something, hopefully the other door.”

  This sounds like a bad plan after all, I will be doing this basically blind. Though, she can understand the reason for such an awful plan. The moment that we cannot scout the path up ahead, we are basically setting ourselves to either be taken by surprise or to fall into a trap. And in our situation, even though these ants can’t touch me, it’s a death sentence even to me. I cannot survive in the middle of the Sea of The Universe and I’m not the exception either, I don’t believe any human can survive neither my Void Constructs in fact. Maybe if I teleported myself to one of my dimensions then maybe I can survive. If I’m that quick I can come out unharmed but, I really doubt that. But, why is this a worry? If they close the door on their side, the path will disappear and if we are inside of it, well, I think anyone can understand what will happen to us.

  “Sigh, while those Shadows are weak, they sure like to give us troubles, to you, my Empress.”

  “Don’t even say anything... If I could, all of them would already be dead.”

  While her Empress complains, at the same time she prepares that magic orb she briefly mentioned. Nothing special in this regard just as it was mentioned before on her thoughts. This orb is coloured in a bright orange colour, but one that is extremely dense, especially compared to its small size. It has to be as otherwise, it would be instantly dispersed the moment it traverses through the spaces as in that moment, if there isn’t a physical body or a dense enough magical body, it will get dispersed into the environment the exact moment it tries to traverse through the universes. Though, that’s not the only modification she does to the orb as around it, there is something akin to a thin thread, one that seems to resemble the silk that a spider produces from how thin it’s however, don’t be fooled by it as the magic present on that thread is enough to “destroy” whole mountains. Indeed, it’s in the S+ rank, stronger than all of those Defects and even the Defect Lord.

  Magic noises!

  Slowly, the magic orb traverses through the path. Right at the beginning, the Empress tried to scout ahead with magic sense, using the orb as the centre point. Unfortunately for her, she’s unable to sense anything useful in fact, even the path itself is invisible to her senses. Though from what it seems so far, it’s a simple straight line. One could guess how said path looks to the naked eye but, that would be a waste of time as it’s quite improbable that it would look something different than the abyss itself. Indeed, a black miasma should surround the path itself, covering anything that might or not be in the horizon. But this is normal as otherwise, whoever is traversing the path would be affected by the Sea of The Universe and if that happens, the consequences are unimaginable to the point that even someone like I has no clue what they are or might be. Indeed, the Sea of The Universe is out of my jurisdiction and therefore, one simply has no way to know what it’s inside of it nor what will happen if a mortal dares to swim in the emptiness of it. While a Bubble Universe is a different case. Yes, a mortal from the real world can traverse to a Bubble Universe without much consequences, ones that are and will always be associated with the universe in question such as an example, lack of gravity or one that is several times stronger than on earth. The magic orb slowly traverses the path and the next five minutes nothing seems to happen.

  “Anything my Empress?”

  This is odd, I should be able to pick up something already and yet, nothing of that sort. It has been 5 minutes already, while yes, I’m moving the orb slowly, it should have already crossed a distance of at least 500 meters and yet, nothing-oh, I hit something.

  The Empress’s sharp golden eyes widen for brief moments as she realizes that the orb hit a physical object. Well, that’s incorrect to say, at least if one uses the conventional meaning of said word. Indeed, what the orb hit is something that it’s trying to portrait itself as a physical object rather than being one. A mimic trying to mask itself as such could represent the situation accurately, or should one say describe it accurately? However, the moment her Empress reacted in such a way, one that was for brief moments as she simply didn’t expect for such to happen, the girl quickly noticed her reaction as her magic energy increased just a tiny bit because of it. Ah, such a small difference and yet, the girl could perfectly sense such difference. Yes, when one displays emotions, depending of them of course, the human body tends to follow it. For example, getting scared. One might shout, scream, ask for help, beg for mercy and so on, while the brain expresses said emotions in the form of sound, body movements and or facial expressions, the internal part of the body follows suit. The heartbeat increases drastically, the instincts start to take control of the body while in some cases, the body loses function. In this example, all of these actions the brain has no control whatsoever, no means to combat or circumvent. Ah no, there are ways but ones that require said individual to get used to this extreme.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Ah, I went into a tangent...

  “This is odd, the orb just hit something. You could ask me what did it hit, however, that’s when the problem knocks at the door. I have no clue.”

  “Maybe the orb hit the other fissure?”

  That’s not a wrong way to think, however, what makes me unsure of that is the fact that the path is still open. How can I hit something if the path is open as otherwise, if one of the ends shut down, so does the other making said path between them crumble into the Sea of The Universe. Wait a second, are these ants doing something to the opening? I cannot sense any form of magic that is inside of the path. In that realm nothing has changed but the moment the orb had physical contact with whatever is blocking the opening, I can actually sense something. These ignorant imbecile vermes...

  “Fufufu! Do you really think such a puny barrier could keep your imminent death from enforcing its rules on you?”

  There is a smile on the Empress glossy lips, one that easily indicates amusement on it. However, her eyes tell a difference story. Indeed, they are sharp, more so than normal but, they seem to have an annoyed look to them. Though, said annoyance seems to be spelling the death sentence of those that have committed such crime. Ah yes, they shine with their golden colour, one that is darker, much darker than the soft golden colour on the eyes of his lovely protagonist. Around her, a gentle aura starts to form, one that embraces its owner with care and love but shows the world just how terrifying its owner is. After all, for such aura to be formed or created, the owner needs to be that strong. But with this small annoyance, the Empress now knows what needs to be done and how she will do it.

  Though, the same cannot be said about the girl.

  “What do you mean by that, my empress? What’s happening over there?’”

  “Ah, I just found the reason for why neither of us could sense anything useful, especially the end of the path. They have blocked the opening on their end. It’s a simple barrier but with the spell Conceal on top of it, explaining then why neither of us could sense it.”

  “My Empress, that seems to be far too high in terms of intelligence compared to what the Shadows have. Maybe-“

  “Have you forgotten the Shadow Lord dummy? Those bigger ants are capable of this and much more.”

  “Ah, you’re right...”

  Indeed, her Empress is right. Unfortunately, those Defect Lords their intelligence is much higher than the Shadows and while it cannot be comparable to a human, it still is more than a mere dog for example. Their behaviours might and will be different than expected. In some scenarios, their intelligence will surprise anyone that is far too unfortunate to face them while in other cases, they will head straight on into a trap without even thinking about it, let alone knowing it. Yes, those traps can be quite simple and they will fall for it. Then, we have the opposite as briefly mentioned. One of the complex traps out there, somehow these Defects find a way to “know” about them and in some rare occasions, they will even use said traps against the ones that prepared them. Their intelligence is a coin flip, in a moment they are behaving extremely intelligent and then the next very moment, that changes and they start behaving like a normal Defect would. Although, her Empress is more than aware of this and while she’s annoyed, that annoyance does not translate to surprise nor is a consequence of it.

  “Most probably, once you forcefully closed the fissure it made them think that the small army they sent was eliminated. In an act of desperation as for such to happen their foe must be that strong, they created a barrier right at the “entrance” either to fool you that it’s closed or, to protect themselves from you. I believe they might be regrouping so that they can try again but this time, with a much bigger army.”

  Ah, how I wish that’s true. If I could eliminate hundreds, thousands and hopefully even tens of thousands, that would set them back by several weeks if not even months, allowing that dummy to take a break because of it. Tsk, now I have to do this, don’t I? Thanks to the orb, I was actually able to find out where that entrance leads to. Nothing special… and the reason for that it’s because it’s not a Bubble Universe but instead, an alternate dimension. There are differences between them but the biggest one is that it does not directly belong to the Sea of The Universe but to the universe in question. In the great scheme of things, everything belongs to the Sea of The Universe, even if it’s inside of a Bubble Universe, it still is inside of the Sea. But there is no point in going with it. First of all, a dimension can be nilly willy created as long as you have the required set of skills and of course, enough magic energy and control. Although, having those skills and then enough magic is basically something that only a few selected can and will ever be able to do. I, for example, can create what I call as Void Dimensions, just as I mentioned before. A separated space from reality and in my case, it’s secluded from it even, something that does not happen at all. The only one that can access it is me and that dummy unless any of us give permission that is. The normal “dimensions” they still are part of the universe in question so much so that anyone can force their way in as while in a separated physical space, they still are in the same realm per say. It’s a little complicated to explain as for example, we have parallel dimensions. These ones are basically a small (or big) part of the real world but in a different dimension. In this case said dimensions have the same exact look as the part in which has “transformed” into said dimension. Mind you, while I say transformed it’s better to say that, it has been copied and then pasted into a new dimension, giving it the name as parallel dimension. Ups, I shouldn’t go too far into this. I was getting a little excited just thinking about all of this.

  Ahem, in a short resume, the space where the Shadows came from is from a dimension rather than a Bubble Universe or even the real world.