1 second.
2 seconds.
…
4 seconds.
"Haa. haa. Haa. haa. Haa"
It was 4 seconds later that her breathing grew more rapid and anxious, and the reason?
Was that Tharvonis's latest location was revealed, and no matter how much she HATED him—an hatred that had multiplied numerous times since she saw Mikael disappearing into this void-like energy—she understood that Mikael's fate would probably be the same as Tharvonis's, so when she saw what she saw…
Her rising fear and anxiety was perfectly understandable!
But… what did she see exactly?
The answer was simple, and it was… nothing!
Where Tharvonis had previously been—where he had used his Titanbone Aegis to defend himself—was now entirely empty, and with the dark purple energy retracting, it was almost as if nothing had ever happened…
Tremble.
This scene had Lian'er shaking as her breathing grew more rushed and anxious as she observed Mikael's latest location with a small amount of hope and a rising amount of terror.
In this way seconds passed, and then—
Thud.
Booom.
Lian'er's legs ceded under her, and, no longer having the mental strength to sustain her own flight, she entered a free fall toward the ground before colliding with it in a loud boom that kicked up a cloud of dust, obscuring her location.
"Noooo…" her lament came from behind the curtain of dust as she finally processed what she was seeing—a scene where… Mikael wasn't there anymore, having entirely disappeared!
"This isn't possible…" a despairing, half-disbelieving whisper escaped Lian'er as she—already kneeling on the dirty ground—could no longer hold herself upright, her upper body trembling before she collapsed forward.
Thud.
Her head struck the ground with violent force, yet she didn't care, her hands clawing at the earth, gripping the dirt with so much desperation that soil smeared across her palms and fingers, but the beauty didn't even notice, lost in her shock as tears streamed endlessly down her cheeks, overflowing like a broken faucet while she muttered to herself like a shattered recorder, "This isn't possible, this isn't possible, this isn't possible…"
"Mikael… sob… no, no, no… sob… don't disappear… sob, sob, sob… this… no… this isn't possible… Mikael… sob… don't leave me…"
Broken words escaped her between choked sobs, each one cutting into her as the unbearable sorrow and pain she felt echoed across the desolate landscape.
Tremors shook her frame, which at this moment looked so… small, the usually so lively fairy now completely collapsed, and this situation seemed as if it would last for a long, long while, but then a single word appeared in Lian'er's mind,
'Trial.'
The instant this small word surfaced, the last embers of hope were rekindled in her broken heart.
"Trial… yes, trial… this is a trial!" murmured Lian'er to herself before—with a sudden surge of energy—she pushed herself off the ground and rose to her feet, her gaze fixing itself on the direction in which the hollow ring structure was.
Step.
Lian'er took a hesitant step forward while looking toward her feet, causing her silky bangs to fall over her eyes, giving her a rather… dark vibe.
"There's nothing to fear, Mikael is just having a trial… he isn't in danger… I'm sure!"
And the fact that Lian'er was murmuring to herself in a somewhat crazy way certainly didn't help… and this was doubly so considering that, unconsciously, she was clenching her fists so tightly that her nails were digging into her skin, deep enough to draw out blood!
Fwwooomm.
On that note, and with droplets of blood dripping from her hands, the beauty took off from the ground, and then, without caring about her chaotic mind, the blood flowing from her hands—something she didn't even notice—or even the atrocious pain currently coming from her dantian thanks to her now damaged foundation, she flew straight toward the hollow ring structure.
A couple of seconds later she reached it—the only reason she was able to do so and wasn't torn to pieces by the unstable space was that earlier, when she had been lost in her shock and pain, some time had passed, time that the Realm of Broken Skies had 'used' to 'heal' itself in a way that no tears in reality were present anymore…
Something that potentially saved her life, because in her current state of mind it was… doubtful whether she would have even noticed the danger.
The next moment the flying Lian'er caught sight of the hollow ring structure, and the least that could be said was that since the 'explosion' of the void-like energy, the structure had radically changed!
Previously this 'Warp Gate'-looking monument had clearly been extremely old—to the point it looked like it had been abandoned for millions of years—but at least it had still appeared relatively functional, but now—
Now it looked as if an extremely powerful bomb had detonated right inside it, and the explosion carried the consequences one would expect, with nearly no trace of this 'Warp Gate' being left beyond a small portion of the lower structure…
Instantly a really, really bad feeling hit her as a knot tightened in her stomach, the lucid part of her mind immediately grasping what she had already guessed—that the previous explosion wasn't normal and clearly wasn't a trial, but—
"NO! This is a trial!" the beauty violently shook her head, refusing to accept this possibility and instantly crushing it beneath her 'reality.'
"Yes… yes, Mikael is just undergoing a trial—one of those left behind by some dead powerhouse, that's all, I'm sure of it, completely sure, and soon… soon he'll finish it and he'll teleport right next to me… he will… he will…" Lian'er repeated these words to herself, her eyes growing deader by the moment.
Hum.
The next moment a somewhat crazed-looking Lian'er took out her Core Disciples Token from her Storage Ring before infusing a large amount of Qi into it, trying to use the communication function to reach and communicate with Mikael…
Seconds passed without the Core Disciples Token offering any response,
"Normal… this is normal, he is participating in a… trial in another dimension from me so it's… haaaa… perfectly normall… haaa… yes, perfectly normal that he doesn't respond…"
After her idea to use her Core Disciples Token to reach Mikael, another thought surfaced—using the Akashic Records to communicate with him and reassure herself of his safety.
It wasn't that she believed he was in danger or worse… after all he was only participating in a kind of trial, that she was SURE of, she only wanted to reassure herself of it, that was all, unfortunately—
Being a native of the Akashic Records Universe, her Status Window and other functions she could potentially have were the most 'basic'; she didn't, for example, possess the Party System Upgrade like Mikael and his Dao Companions, and even if she had possessed it, it still wouldn't have changed anything!
After all, because the Akashic Records Universe was a high-level world, the Party System Upgrade wouldn't work here, being too 'low-level,' in a way that the only chance it could have worked to confirm Mikael's safety would be if she used it from outside the Akashic Records Universe.
"Haaa… haaa… haaa…" Lian'er's breathing grew more rapid and laboured as she felt like every possible path to reassure herself of Mikael's safety was being CLOSED ONE BY ONE!!!
And she couldn't endure it!
The only reason she was still somewhat… rational was because making sure he was safe was more important than anything else—she didn't have the time to entirely break down, not right now.
Bit.
Lian'er violently bit her upper lip to the point of tasting blood, yet she didn't even notice, "It's okay… it's okay, when I leave this Secret Realm I'll go with one of the girls to the Hub and we'll confirm that Mikael is safe… he will be safe!"
Shake.
The next moment Lian'er violently shook her head, sending her beautiful hazel hair flying around her, "NO! This won't be needed! Mikael WILL finish his trial before that and reappear next to me…"
"Hehehe, yes, that's what will happen, I only need to wait and he will reappear!" creepily laughed Lian'er as a 'joyful' smile appeared on her lips while she took a sitting position dozens of meters away from the hollow ring structure, readying herself to wait, convinced he would reappear if she was just a little patient.
At least that was the reasoning in her currently extremely unstable mind, but what she didn't notice were the tears still streaming down her cheeks at this moment, showing that a part of her already knew the futility of what she was doing…
…
In this way time slowly, oh so slowly passed with Lian'er 'patiently' waiting for Mikael to reappear, yet as the minutes that soon transformed into hours passed without the slightest sign of the handsome cultivator, Lian'er's already unstable mind grew more and more crazed while her patience thinned to the breaking point.
It was ultimately 4 hours later that everything exploded at once!
"ARGGHHH!" a groan escaped Lian'er as she suddenly jumped to her feet, "I can't, I CAN'T WAIT ANYMORE!"
With those words a disheveled and crazed-looking Lian'er instantly crossed the distance separating her from the center of what was left of the hollow ring structure.
"Where is it? Where is the activation button!?" she cried out frantically as she threw herself into the ruined remains, 'If you don't come to me, I'll find a way to come to you!'
This thought murmured through her mind as she searched the shattered structure, her only goal being to somehow reactivate it and enter the same 'trial' Mikael was currently in.
Earlier she had still been… somewhat rational and understood the immense danger it represented with the entire structure practically in pieces, but now—
Now she simply couldn't bring herself to care about her own safety anymore, all of her thoughts fixated on Mikael as she desperately searched for a way to force this ruined construct to function once more.
In this way, the strange spectacle of an usually extremely beautiful fairy—who now looked like a grief-stricken, disheveled and half-crazed woman—played out as she rummaged through the ruins of a clearly technologically advanced 'Warp Gate'-like structure, all the while surrounded by a desolate landscape in the middle of a Secret Realm…
But whether Lian'er would succeed in reactivating this structure and follow in Mikael's footsteps was still to be seen…
Author Note:
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Sorry for the shorter than usual chapter, writing the 'hysteria' and unstable state Lian'er is currently in is pretty hard and takes me a lot of time, so I couldn't find the time to write as much as usual.
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— End of Chapter —