The entrance was nowhere to be found.
I tried looking around from left to right, up and down, but not even a shadow of the entrance was seen.
“Fang, any ideas?”
I gave up thinking of the reason but instead threw it to Fang who had more experience than Ember and I. However, Fang had her eyes opened wide in shock. When she heard my voice, she snapped back to reality and cleared her throat.
“Ah, ahem… Sorry, Leader. I have no recollection of a dungeon where the entrance vanishes upon entry…”
Well, I bet there’s no such dungeon anywhere else too. Other than this place at least. While I was wondering what to do, I noticed something odd.
“The energy flow in this place…”
The wisps of energy, composed mostly of brown and purple colors representing earth and dark elements, were flowing only in one direction. When I told Ember and Fang about this, they quickly decided what to do.
“For now, let’s follow where the energy is heading. Ember should leave one clone in this place just in case the entrance reappears here again.”
Ember and I nodded to Fang’s arrangements. Ember left a clone and let it use [Shrink] before hiding on a nearby rock. After that, I took the lead and followed where the wisps of energy were going.
While walking, we noticed that the place really was a barren land. Not only the cracked earth and the dark and cloudy skies, but there’s also no grass, no trees, no forests, no lakes, no rivers, no anything. What’s more, there are no animals or insects around too.
It felt like the three of us were the only living beings inside this space.
After a few hours of walking, we felt drained and took a short break. We had food and water inside my storage ring, however, it was limited in quantity. Now that we don’t even know if there was an exit, this was our lifeline. 𝒷𝒹ℴ𝓿𝓁.𝓬𝓸𝓂
Still, even if we skimp on consumption, it would at most last us two weeks. If we couldn’t find the exit or a source of food and water by then, we’ll probably die of hunger and thirst.
“Stop!”
While we were resuming our long walk, Fang shouted and kept her posture low. Similarly, Ember and I followed her lead and kept our bodies low to the ground.
“Ahead of us, around half a kilometer away, I saw I giant shadow move. It should be a demon of some kind!”
Fang whispered. I tried to look to where she pointed, however, the dust cloud around were obscuring the view. It was hard to see even a few dozen meters ahead, let alone hundreds of meters away.
“Let’s proceed.”
I said after contemplating for a moment. Given the current state of affairs, it would probably be hard for the other party to notice us too.
“Even if it’s really a demon, we should at least gain a clue regarding to this place if we approach it.”
Fang and Ember looked at each other, their expressions conflicted, before finally nodding their head.
With our team reaching a consensus, we took out a few pieces of equipment from the storage ring. It was a magical piece of cloth that would match the general color of its surroundings made from the skin of a chameleon-like beast.
Each of us took one and covered most of our bodies with it. The cloth soon turned the same color as the cracked Earth, making us less noticeable from afar.
We marched slowly toward the location that Fang saw. And, as we approach the area, I noticed how there are fewer and fewer energy strands around. As I was about to tell my observation to the other two, I suddenly felt like death was looming over us. It was almost the same sensation I had when the attempted assassination happened last time in the capital city.
Trusting my instincts, I quickly shouted “Dodge!” before I used [Shadow Movement] to hide inside Ember’s shadow.
Inside the shadow world, I thought I was safe. However, the ground suddenly shook and the shadow space broke apart like glass. I, who was inside the shadow space, received the brunt of the rebound after the skill got canceled.
It felt like my head was crushed, I felt like my intestines were gouged out, minced, then stuffed back inside me. I quickly vomited a large amount of blood, making my eyes go blurry. However, despite that, I tried to ignore the pain from all over my body and quickly searched for Fang and Ember.
Fang was quickly found not far from my location. She was kneeling on the ground and holding her left arm, bleeding profusely. Her left arm was dangling limply, so she probably couldn’t use it for a while.
Ember, on the other hand, was further away. Tens of meters away, Ember was lying on the ground motionless.
“E-Ember!!!”
I shouted as I tried to crawl to her location. Fang quickly noticed me and grabbed me by the waist. She lifted me so easily like she was picking up a pillow from the ground.
“Leader, hold on!”
As she shouted, she quickly flipped me over and carried me over her left shoulder. An instant later, Ember was already lying limp on her other shoulder.
Fang squeezed all the energy in her body and ran. The direction she ran towards was where we originally were headed to, the place where the energy around seems to want to go.
While Fang was running, I was able to see the scene from behind her.
“…!”
A giant was standing tall over us, following closely behind us. The giant looked haggard with chains dragging from both wrists and ankles. The clinking of the chain was so loud that we should’ve heard it from miles away.
A giant over 50 meters tall shouldn’t just appear out of thin air as it did. It probably had some sort of hiding skill available, hiding its large body from our consciousness. Furthermore, it surely had some detection skills too, which enabled it to quickly find us who are using camouflage.
I struggled to straighten my blurry vision and quickly tried appraising the giant.
“… Void Beast!”
Despair tightly gripped my heart.
