“Hold on!”

  Julian had always wondered what it would feel like to fall from a great height. Now, he knew.

  Kitty didn’t have the luxury of pondering anything as she dove straight down. The moment she saw the cloud of monsters heading toward them, she acted instinctively. There was a chance the daemons weren’t after them, but that wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.

  Julian had said earlier that there were dozens of monsters beneath the sea of leaves below them. A dozen, she reasoned, would at least be manageable. And if the swarm in the air followed them down, the tight confines of the forest might force the daemons to attack each other.

  The leaves whipped past them as they fell, Kitty’s boosters roaring to slow their descent. She braced for the impact of crashing through branches—but the expected collision never came.

  There were no branches.

  The leaves weren’t even attached to the trees; they floated midair, weightless and unanchored. As they brushed against the gray foliage, the leaves crumbled into fine dust, drifting downward with them.

  Kitty barely had time to process what was happening. The moment they broke through the canopy, she fired her boosters again, slowing their descent.

  She quickly realized her initial assumption was wrong.

  “This forest…” she muttered, her voice tinged with disbelief. “It’s not tight at all.”

  The space between the trees was enormous.

  The trees themselves weren’t trees at all, at least not in any sense she understood. They were as tall as buildings, their surfaces smooth and angular like artificial structures. Their shapes were sharp and boxy, their appearance almost metallic.

  “What the… how tall are these trees?” Kitty asked. “If… they even are trees.”

  Julian stood still, his head tilting slightly as if listening to the air. “I don’t think there are any monsters in the immediate area,” he said after a moment.

  “Are you sure?” Kitty asked, her grip tightening on her bow.

  “Yes,” Julian replied. “The daemons in the air have already flown past us.”

  “They did?” Kitty glanced upward, but the canopy had already reassembled itself. The weightless leaves floated back into place, covering the dark sky above like butterflies dancing in the air.

  This entire place feels alive, she thought.

  Even with Julian’s reassurance, Kitty kept her guard up as she slowly guided them down.

  Julian hung suspended, swinging slightly like a toddler on a harness. His calm, expressionless demeanor made the situation even more surreal. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he swiftly untethered himself, kneeling to place his hands on the earth.

  Kitty opened her mouth to say something, but Julian raised a finger to his lips, silently shushing her before she could speak.

  She frowned, not used to being treated so casually—especially since becoming famous. But as she exhaled a sigh, she found herself smiling.

  “There are daemons in the direction of the tower,” Julian muttered, tilting his head as he focused on the vibrations in the ground. “This place… it’s confusing.”

  “Tell me about it.” Kitty shrugged, glancing around. “It’s creepy too. And—wait, now that we have a little time to relax, maybe you can answer some of my questions?”

  “Hm?”

  “What are you?” Kitty stepped in front of Julian and leaned down, the face of her helmet turning transparent as she stared into his unseeing eyes. “You clearly don’t have a tinge of cyberware on your body. The only thing even remotely close to an enhancement is your MEGAN. Is it your suit? I’ve heard a lot of people go incognito with their armor. Is it molecular tech like mine?”

  Kitty grabbed Julian’s left sleeve, tugging on it to examine its material. Her eyes, however, widened in surprise as the fabric ripped clean off.

  An awkward silence followed.

  Kitty stared at the piece of cloth she had torn, refusing to make eye contact with Julian—even though he was blind. But after a few seconds, she slowly and very carefully, but awkwardly placed the torn fabric on the ground.

  “I… will pay you for that,” she said finally.

  Julian simply raised his hand, his tone calm. “There’s no need. I received these clothes for free. Just apologize to the person who made them.”

  “...Right.” Kitty narrowed her eyes at him, leaning away before turning toward the direction of the tower. “Anyway, let’s talk about that later and just finish this… dungeon.”

  “Dungeon?” Julian tilted his head. “But this is a forest.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “No, I meant—ugh.” Kitty waved her hand dismissively and started moving ahead. After a moment’s thought, she stopped and waited for Julian, who seemed to understand the gesture and took the lead. He was, after all, the one who could sense the monsters.

  The two carefully navigated the vast gray forest. Kitty seemed like she wanted to talk, but every time she caught a glimpse of the back of Julian’s head, she clamped her lips shut. She prided herself on being a good conversationalist, but there was something about Julian that made him utterly baffling.

  She felt that if she started a conversation, it would just lead to her turning crazy with his responses.

  While Kitty was busy watching Julian, he was preoccupied listening to MEGAN.

  [It just makes sense, doesn’t it? Try it later, after we’re done here.]

  “Hm…” Julian let out a soft hum, considering MEGAN’s words.

  He had access to the [Guidance] in his real body on Earth, and MEGAN had theorized that Julian might actually be gaining experience points by killing the daemons here.

  He could check now, but his focus needed to remain on their surroundings. If MEGAN’s theory was correct, however, it would be a significant advantage.

  Initially, Julian had planned to avoid the two daemons ahead. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  “Do you want to kill the two daemons up ahead?” Julian asked suddenly.

  “Huh?” Kitty squinted, scanning the path ahead. Her view was blocked by a large gray pillar. “...Are you saying there are daemons behind that tree?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we might as well kill them.” Kitty tightened her grip on her bow, the weapon whirring softly as an arrow automatically nocked itself. “Let me—what the!?”

  Before she could finish her sentence, Julian suddenly darted away, pressing himself against the pillar and running around it with his arm stretched out, rapier ready.

  “You—wait for me!” Kitty growled as her armor’s boosters activated, propelling her after him. She clung to the pillar and maneuvered carefully around the massive tree. Her bow was already drawn, but as soon as she rounded the pillar, she saw Julian already pulling his rapier out of a mantis daemon’s neck.

  She pointed her bow at the other daemon, only for her to discover that Julian had actually already killed it.

  She was very impress, shocked even. But of course—

  “What is wrong with you?” Kitty snapped, her frustration boiling over. “We should plan these things more carefully and—wait…”

  She trailed off as her eyes locked onto the daemon corpses. “...These daemons look different from the ones we killed outside.”

  “They do?” Julian tilted his head, crouching to place his hands on the face of the daemon he’d killed. Unfortunately, he couldn’t discern the difference. The slimy tentacles on its head were as unsettling as ever, and its sharp, spike-like teeth still felt like sandpaper. The rest of its body was unnervingly smooth, almost like ice—the normal characteristics of daemons.

  “They’re darker,” Kitty said.

  “Oh…” Julian muttered as he realized why he couldn’t tell the difference. “...Could it just be because this place is dark?”

  “Is a blind man really trying to tell me what I’m seeing right now?” Kitty raised an eyebrow before activating her helmet’s light and shining it on the daemon’s body. “Yeah, no. They’re much darker. And… eww, are those veins on its face?”

  [Kitty’s right, Julian. These daemons look much more… organic, if you get what I mean.]

  “I don’t,” Julian replied.

  “What was that?” Kitty blinked.

  “Sorry, I was talking to MEGAN.” Julian removed his hands from the daemon. “Do they really look that much different?”

  “Well, yeah.” Kitty narrowed her eyes as she leaned closer to the corpse, “They look… even scarier than normal.”

  After briefly examining the corpses for a few more moments, the two pressed on toward the tower. Julian was eager to fight more daemons, but the thought of Ellie still being evacuated outside the portal made him opt for paths free of enemies.

  Unfortunately, as they drew closer to the tower, avoiding daemons became impossible. With each gray tree they passed, one or two mantis daemons would appear, waiting for them.

  But all of a sudden, when they finally reached a clearing where the massive tower loomed in full view, the presence of daemons abruptly ceased. The area was unnervingly clean, the ground smooth like the gray, boxy trees surrounding it.

  “...Okay, this is even creepier,” Kitty muttered, her grip on her bow tightening as her eyes darted around. “I’d honestly prefer if there were monsters here.”

  “It’s fine.” Julian raised a hand, turning to face Kitty. “I don’t sense any monsters nearby. The last ones we killed were it.”

  “That’s what worries me,” Kitty said, shaking her head as her gaze scanned the clearing. “This feels like a boss area. The big open space, the tower sitting right there for us to waltz into? I’m not buying it.”

  “Hm.” Julian crouched, placing his palm on the ground and tilting his head slightly.

  Kitty, despite only working with him for less than an hour, had already learned to stay quiet whenever Julian did this. She watched as he concentrated, his senses rippling through their surroundings.

  “It’s empty,” Julian finally said. “It’s just—Kitty!”

  “Huh?” Kitty turned to him, startled by his sharp tone. Before she could react, Julian grabbed her ankle and yanked her down. She dropped to the ground with a thud, her boosters activating reflexively before she quickly turned them off.

  Kitty sat up, confusion etched on her face. “What the hell was that fo—”

  Her words trailed off as her eyes caught movement near the tower. She froze, slowly turning her head toward the figure latched onto one of the gray trees.

  A much larger daemon mantis, its blade-like arms nearly wrapping around the entire tree.

  “Oh… fuck.”

  ***

  Meanwhile, back in the auditorium, the chaos had finally settled. Cindy and her Phantom Brigade had successfully eradicated the daemons terrorizing the event.

  “Shit… this is a disaster,” one of her teammates muttered as he surveyed the carnage. His gaze lingered on the countless corpses strewn across the floor before drifting upward toward the portal. “Why the hell would a portal open here, of all places? Inside? Does that mean a portal could just appear in my house too? When this info gets out into the public, the panic would be… massive.”

  “We don’t know anything yet,” Cindy scoffed, pulling her phasing katana from the torso of a daemon mantis, slicing the daemon cleanly in half. “We’re done here. Let’s stop wasting time and head inside—I heard Julian Winters and someone else went through the portal.”

  “They’re probably dead by now, Boss,” another teammate said.

  Cindy smiled in response, a rare sight that made her team exchange uneasy glances. Cold and militaristic, Cindy rarely expressed emotion—and yet here she was, randomly smiling.

  Was Julian Winters really that interesting?

  “I don’t think he’d die that easily,” Cindy said, her phasing sword retracting as she clipped it to her waist. “But just in case, we need to—”

  “Uh, Boss?”

  “What?” Cindy snapped, narrowing her eyes when she cut him off. But her teammate wasn’t even looking at her.

  “Is it just me, or does that portal look… different?” the teammate asked, pointing at the swirling anomaly. “The last two just looked like cracks in space. But this one… doesn’t it have a blue outline?”

  “Blue?” Cindy turned her attention to the portal. Sure enough, a faint blue light outlined its edges, shimmering like flames.

  Without waiting for further discussion, Cindy leaped toward the portal, her landing shattering the floor beneath her.

  “Shit…” she whispered midair,

  “...Let’s hope you’re alive, Winters.”

  Patreon page.

  Discord server.