The sound of battle was bound to attract more horrors from the darkness, so they cut their rest short and returned to the river, which served as their road. Alphons caught up to Elion.
"You're Golden Thread's son, right?" he asked.
The question made the young cook grimace.
"Yeah…" he answered, annoyed.
"That's what I thought… I just wanted to thank him. He saved my life when I was younger."
"And why exactly should I care?"
Alphons frowned at the dry response.
"Well, I doubt I'll ever meet him again, so I was hoping you could thank him for me."
Elion's eye twitched.
"I'd be happy to never see him again," he replied scornfully. "But I guess I could arrange a meeting, if you're that desperate to meet him."
Alphons didn't respond. The weight of Elion's glare shut him up.
"Someone's got daddy issues," the Gremlin chimed in behind them.
"Shut the fuck up, Eshrod!" His forceful reply said enough, and she had the decency to avoid any further distasteful remarks about his family.
An awkward silence followed.
God, I hate when this happens. I get way too emotional when my father's involved…
Farha placed a hand on his shoulder in what he assumed was a gesture of support. He wasn't sure—her expression was strange, unreadable—but at least she wasn't mocking him. The mute girl held his gaze for a moment, then walked ahead.
Well, that's new…
Maybe she was sympathizing? Her family situation probably wasn't glorious either if she was rejected and forced to live in its shadow.
No matter. That wasn't important right now. What mattered was what horrors lay ahead.
The terrain changed subtly—more sloped now, with cliffs and valleys. A beautiful, calming blue hue spread in the void above, illuminating the forest below.
They walked for two days, eventually setting up camp in a clearing.
Joart looked off. Sometimes he stared blankly into the distance, his body trembling slightly. Occasionally, he cast strange glances at the other Unlocked. Elion couldn't quite read them—in those moments, Joart's expression felt… alien.
Is his soul unraveling?
They hadn't fought anything recently, and Elion didn't know whether the pretend noble had managed to secure any Soul Integrity while traveling with his group.
Wait…
He looked again, scrutinizing the details of his expression.
No, such suspicions are dangerous. I doubt he'd do something like that.
"Is… something on my face?" Joart asked, noticing the young cook's stare.
"No," Elion replied flatly, making no effort to come up with an excuse.
Joart raised an eyebrow, then returned to his food. They'd cut meat from the feline Class III. It was tougher, but the taste wasn't too bad, even without spices.
Elion still lamented their loss. The Class IV had stolen his sanity, but worse still—it had stolen the taste of food. And that was unforgivable.
He shook his head to banish the overwhelming sadness of bland meat weighing on his heart, then took another bite. His gaze drifted upward, toward the boundless abyss above. Blue lights danced across the sky like plasma. It was a breathtaking sight.
And all too familiar. His dream—and the feeling of losing himself. Still, it didn't feel like that, but he stayed on guard, careful not to stare too long into the void.
The terrain here looked odd, as if a battle had taken place long ago. Some grooves and shattered rocks were too precise to be natural. People might have forgotten the ancient conflict, but the land had not.
Still, that didn't give him much to go on. The details were too blurred, too deeply buried by time.
Elion sprawled on the soft ground, ready to sleep. Hopefully, he'd get a full night's rest—without some horrid monster crawling up from the depths to devour his soul.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Lumos, still altering the design of the runes on his amulet.
I should ask what it's for, but not now.
He closed his eyes, letting exhaustion take him. He dreamed again. A pure blue sky stretched above, with a burning sphere of light. A green meadow surrounded him. Pained cries and the clangor of steel filled the air.
It looked eerily like how the surface was described in historical records.
The feeling of not belonging gripped his chest. It was as if his mind was trying to warn him of something—but he couldn't place it.
Elion took a tentative step forward before a phantom pain bloomed in his chest. Dull and faint, but his body stopped moving all the same.
A black blade jutted from his torso, blood sliding down the onyx metal.
He had been stabbed in the back.
His vision blurred.
He woke up, sweating.
Frantically, he looked around. Everything seemed normal. Alphons, who was on watch, noticed him stir but didn't ask anything. Elion touched his chest. It was intact.
What the hell was that?!
No blood, no wound. But it didn't make him feel safer.
If anything, it was worse—because he knew something was coming. Every dream he remembered had meant something. The talking well, the rushing water, even the blue lights.
If the pattern held, he was about to die.
Okay, calm down.
Elion took a deep breath, trying to still his racing thoughts.
That was clearly the surface… how would I even get there?
Nothing made sense. The battle, the surface, even the dulled pain, though that last one might just be because it was a dream.
Maybe it's how I die later?
No, even that didn't add up. The green, thriving surface matched descriptions before the sun went mad and scorched everything.
So it must have been the past.
"How does this make sense?" Elion muttered, staring at his hands.
There were no answers—not with the information he had. Still, he couldn't shake the unease. It haunted him so much he couldn't fall back asleep.
He walked over to Alphons. The black-haired young man was struggling to stay awake.
"You can rest. I'll take over," Elion said.
"Why? You kept watch yesterday, it's not your turn yet."
"Can't sleep. You look like you're about to fall over. Go rest."
Alphons looked up at him.
"All right… thanks," he muttered, then zipped himself into his sleeping bag.
Truth be told, the young cook felt a bit bad for how he'd talked to him a few days ago when his father came up. Hopefully, this would make up for it.
Nothing attacked that night. Everyone got a good rest—except Elion, who was still unraveling after watching his own death.
He didn't tell anyone about the dream. Not yet. It wasn't even certain it would come true.
They moved a little farther from the river, having noticed movement near the water. The terrain degraded further. Craters marked the ash-mixed mud that formed the ground. Rocks were shattered, and crystalline spikes pierced the earth.
Black arcs of lightning danced along the crystals. Trees grew sparser, perhaps due to the more hostile terrain.
The lack of trees and fruit should have plunged the world into darkness, but it didn't. The blue light overhead filled the void left behind by the glowing flora, casting a serene yet eerie navy hue.
At one point, they all stopped. A surreal sight unfolded before the Unlocked.
In the endless void, massive shapes of translucent flesh flew above, tinted blue by the radiant plasma. They looked like ghosts dancing in the abyss.
They were colossal. True leviathans of the sky. Small fins—too delicate to be wings—kept them afloat as though gravity barely affected them.
Elion activated his ability only for a massive headache to slam his mind.
These things, they weren't meant to be studied by mortals.
The Voice of God didn't even list their class. Maybe because of the distance. But Elion suspected something more was at play.
The flying leviathans didn't acknowledge their presence. They swam through the sky, feasting on the blue light above.
None of the Unlocked spoke. They were too absorbed by the otherworldly sight above them.
Down on the ground, Elion finally managed to tear his eyes away from the heavenly spectacle. He surveyed the surroundings. Everything sloped downward. A massive crater had formed, and no creatures could be seen darting across the vast open space—which was odd, considering its immense size.
The only things populating the barren wasteland were the crystals crackling with black lightning and strange rock formations.
"Are we really heading down there?" Leonard asked, her voice low.
"There isn't much choice. Following the river any closer is too dangerous," Elion replied.
She nodded slowly, though her expression showed doubt. Understandably so—the crater didn't exactly scream 'vacation at the beach.' If anything, it looked like a boss battle arena straight out of the fantasy games his school friends used to play.
Even more so with the ghostly leviathans flying overhead.
But the alternatives seemed worse, so they pressed onward despite the risk.