The agonized, high-pitched cries of the unicorns, Gaia's heartbreaking, raw sobs, and Gesilis's enraged, guttural roars—these horrific sounds and images were instantly and deeply seared into Allen's memory. He felt a wave of crushing helplessness, compounded by stark panic.
At this devastating juncture, Queen Vina leaped forward, positioning herself directly in front of the assembled herd. She gazed back at Gesilis and Gaia with a profound, final look of affection. As if sensing her intent, Gesilis cried out, his voice cracking with unbearable anguish, "Vina, absolutely not!"
Vina bent her left foreleg and bowed her magnificent head. A round, blindingly white light immediately began to emanate from the horn on her forehead. This aura continuously expanded, rapidly coalescing into an incredibly dense, silver-white shield stretched taut before all the surviving unicorns.
The deadly heat rays from the flying snakes slammed into the silver-white barrier and instantly rebounded, violently striking the serpent pillar, which immediately burst into renewed, furious flames!
The fire raged out of control. Some of the smaller snakes within the pillar, now exposed and panicked, launched themselves into the inferno, only to be struck by Allen's repeated petrification spells; others writhed in agonizing pain as the flames consumed them; and still others frantically fled the column, desperately trying to burrow back into the scorching sand.
Fewer and fewer snakes emerged. The immense flames gradually subsided, leaving the sandpit where the serpent pillar had stood shrouded in complete, oppressive darkness.
Queen Vina collapsed soundlessly. Gesilis instantly leaped to her side, touching her head with a look of profound, helpless grief. Gaia knelt beside her mother, weeping uncontrollably and trembling violently.
The fourteen unicorns who had miraculously survived the battle bent their forelegs in a low, solemn tribute to Queen Vina, who had sacrificed her own life force to create that shield of light and ensure their survival.
The dead were gone; the living had to persist. The fallen Vina could never be brought back, but Allen and his companions were compelled to continue their perilous journey.
Gesilis commanded Gaia to place her crown gently on Vina's horn and use her inherent magic to place Queen Vina's body into a temporary storage dimension. Then, in a voice heavy with sorrow but thick with unbreakable resolve, Gesilis commanded, "We move!"
Passing through the undulating curtain of light at the edge of the desert, Allen and his remaining companions found themselves on a bleak coastal slope. An immense, disturbing blood-red sea stretched out to the southwest, merging seamlessly with the pale, washed-out sky at a clear, bright horizon.
There was neither the crashing sound of a surging wave nor even the faintest whisper of surf, for not the slightest hint of a breeze stirred the air. Only the oily, viscous waves rose and fell with a gentle, unnerving regularity, like shallow breathing.
The blood-red seawater lapped softly against the shore, forming a thick, crystalline layer of salt along the shoreline, which appeared a disturbing pink against the crimson-stained sky.
Suddenly, a piercing, unnerving scream echoed from a distant, desolate hillside. When Allen looked in the direction of the sound, he saw what appeared to be a giant white butterfly take flight, fluttering erratically in the air before circling once and disappearing behind a distant hill.
The creature's scream was so terrifyingly high-pitched and unnatural that Allen was instantly on high alert.
Allen scanned the surrounding area again and noticed what he initially mistook for large red rocks slowly beginning to close in on them. Allen quickly issued a sharp warning, and only then did the others realize they were inadvertently being encircled by these strange formations.
Was that butterfly a deliberate distraction? The fact that Allen could still harbour such wildly analytic thoughts in this critical moment was a testament to his rapidly maturing ability to handle extreme stress.
While Gaia was still raw with the grief of her mother's death, she couldn't help but whisper through her tears, "They are so unbelievably hideous! Disgusting!"
Soon, the others recognized these creatures as massive, grotesque crabs. Imagine a giant crab the size of a dinner table, its countless legs moving slowly but awkwardly. Its massive, crushing claws waved threateningly, its long antennae flickered and probed the air, and its huge, bulging eyes glowed with that same eerie, sickly light they had seen before.
Its wrinkled body was covered in green warts and folds. As it scuttled forward, numerous, repulsive tentacles extended from its mouth area, quivering and searching.
The entire area was permeated by a profound, disturbing sense of desolation and profound loneliness. The eastern sky was blood-red, the north was pitch black, the Dead Sea produced only crystalline salt, and the shoreline was infested with these slowly crawling, nauseating monsters… all of it combined to create a truly chilling atmosphere.
The crabs' repulsive, slimy tentacles suddenly lashed out, aiming for the unicorns. The unicorns dodged nimbly, carefully stepping over the crabs while simultaneously avoiding their massive claws and probing mouth tentacles. They seemed almost powerless to effectively damage these heavily armoured creatures.
Allen wielded his staff with impressive speed and precision, unleashing nearly every offensive spell he could recall. To his immense relief and growing confidence, almost every single spell worked perfectly.
As anticipated, the Eris Illusion seemed inherently structured to challenge unicorns, and it appeared that the inclusion of an outside wizard was not a factor initially considered in the illusion's creation.
Indeed, wizards typically coveted the valuable materials harvested from unicorns, and unicorns were naturally wary of wizards; an opportunity like Allen's, involving mutual trust and protection, was extraordinarily rare.
In these relentless battles within the Illusion, Allen found his magical dexterity and combat intuition improving dramatically with every strike.
Before long, Allen had systematically destroyed every single crab. Their repulsive carcasses littered the beach: some were torn to pieces by the unicorns' hooves, some lay scattered and smashed on the sand, and others were perfectly frozen or petrified by Allen's powerful magic.
"Allen, I was too rash. I never expected you to be so gifted. If I had only waited a few more years for you to mature, Vina might not have sacrificed herself…" The death of his wife had plunged Gesilis into a deep, agonizing state of self-recrimination.
Once Gesilis regained his composure moments later, they were confronted by the immense, vast red ocean stretching before them.
"How are we ever going to cross this endless sea?" asked a small unicorn, whose size suggested he was barely past his foaling stage.
"Why don't we move toward that hillside? Perhaps we can find a way through there?" Gaia suggested, pointing in the direction where the giant white butterfly had disappeared.
Everyone agreed to the suggestion and they set off northward. They remained deeply wary of the insidious, unseen attacks of the white butterflies. All the monsters they had encountered so far, like the gigantic crabs, were incredibly troublesome; if not for the wizard Allen, the fate of the remaining unicorns would have been sealed.
To their collective astonishment, they did not see any more of the white butterflies until they reached the northernmost point of the shoreline. There, they found themselves standing thousands of feet above the sea, at the top of a sheer, terrifying cliff with absolutely no way forward. Below them, the blood-red sea seemed to gape like a massive, mocking mouth, highlighting their utter helplessness.
Worse still, a sudden flock of white butterflies began to flutter through the air along the path they had just taken, weaving a boundless, inescapable white net between them and the shore. The ethereal white fluttering, the blood-red sky, the desolate hills, the towering cliff… the scenery was bizarre, yet strangely, disturbingly beautiful.
"Running now is likely futile; we must confront this Red Sea directly," Gesilis stated with unnerving calm. He offered a gentle, sad smile to Gaia, then turned to Allen and said, "Allen, I am deeply sorry for leading you into such danger. If we survive this, you will forever be the most honoured guest and truest friend of the entire unicorn clan!"
"My people, follow my lead!" With that firm command, Gesilis abruptly turned and ran toward the precipice. Behind him, Gaia cried out, "Father!" and instantly followed her king. Allen would never forget the breathtaking, terrifying sight of the white unicorns leaping into the void above the blood-red waters.
Allen roared a battle cry and ran toward the edge of the cliff as well. He then paused, pulling a familiar, slightly clumsy-looking object—Neptune (his magical trident)—out of his spatial storage, his actions betraying a flash of slightly unheroic desperation.