“You really weren’t kidding around. This place is incredibly weird. It’s quite a bit different from the spaces I had entered,” Zypher said, looking around at the multicoloured sky.

After several more hours of discussion, and then dinner, we finally made our way to sleep and into the 4th World. We all seemed to appear next to each other in, more or less, the same proximity as we had slept. Our current theory is that each location in the world had corresponding relative coordinates in the 4th World.

“Yes, now stop poking at everything, we have a spider to kill. Or is it a witch that uses spiders…” I said contemplatively.

“We’re going to kill it so there’s no real need to try and figure out what it is,” Alden answered.

Nicole and Zypher were still staring in awe at the world before them, just as Alden and I had.

“It feels so real…I can’t believe I’m sleeping,” Nicole said, continuing to observe her surroundings.

“Nicole…It is real, and you are actually here, just not your body,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“I know that,” she huffed.

Alden, tired of our dawdling, waved us forward as he marched off in what seemed like a random direction. We silently followed as we made our way towards a mangrove forest, stopping just before stepping into the toxic green looking water.

“That’s definitely poison,” Alden said, kneeling to examine the water. “Doesn’t smell toxic though.”

“I bet it’s not. It looks like green Kool Aid,” I said, as I knelt down to examine it with my finger.

“Cian, don’t you dare,” Nicole said, as she pulled me back from the water.

Zypher kneeled down and inserted some sort of device into the water.

“Definitely poison,” he affirmed.

“Can we even get poisoned like this?” I wondered.

“Yes, if you were to be inflicted with poison while here in soul form, your soul would be poisoned which would then spread to your body. It would have a far worse outcome,” Cadeyrn supplied.

“Well…That’s awkward, moving on…” I said, quickly utilizing quanum to float above the water and maneuvering carefully through the forest.

Nicole sighed loudly as she began to follow with Alden and Zypher following suit. The canopy was lush and thick, just enough light shone through to see where we were going. Large oozing spider webs were draped over every tree, and hung down from the canopy. We were able to navigate carefully through them, only getting stuck a couple times. After about an hour of travel I noticed we had passed the same spot three or four times.

“Uhh…I think we’re in some sort of looping field?” I said, looking around carefully and observing each tree.

“Great…You drank your ‘Kool Aid’ water and got us lost didn’t you,” Alden scolded.

“I did no such thing. A sip is not a drink,” I refuted.

“CIAN!!!” Nicole screamed in my ear.

“OW. I was joking!” I cried as Nicole smacked me in the back of the head.

“Wow, already at the domestic violence part of the relationship? Things must be moving smoothly,” Alden joked and then promptly received a swift kick to the back of the knee.

“OW,” Alden cried.

“Dude, are you stealing my girl?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, the impending court cases are all yours,” Alden replied, quickly flying upwards to avoid further repercussions.

“I can fly too, you know!” Nicole shouted up at him and then suddenly Alden fell out of the air yelping in shock.

“So uhh…Don’t go up. Up is not the way to go,” Alden stated, confidently.

“What’s up there?” Zypher inquired.

“Spider frogs?” Alden replied questioningly.

“Spider…Frogs?” We all asked.

“You’re more than welcome to fly up and find out yourselves, but I’m good right here,” he replied adamantly.

“Suit yourself,” I said as Nicole, Zypher and I all flew…and then promptly floated back down.

“Yeah, definitely not the way to go,” I agreed.

“Most certainly,” Zypher seconded.

“I thought they were almost adorable,” Nicole said, with an air of excitement.

“They’re two meter tall frogs with spider webs…How?” Alden asked, affronted.

“You wouldn’t understand, too uncultured,” Nicole remarked snidely.

“I’ll have you know-” Alden started but I cut him off.

“Ok, ok, let’s just get a move on. It’s a kill quest, let's just get it done,” I said and continued moving from the forest as they followed.

“This isn’t a video game you know,” Zypher said, shaking his head in disappointment.

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“Yeah, well from the way I see it, we have magic powers, a fairy queen gave us a quest to go into a scary forest and kill a creepy spider witch lady or whatever, and then, when we get back, we get a reward,” I stated matter-of-factly.

“I can’t even…I’m sorry I said anything,” Zypher admonished.

“You should be,” Alden joked.

“OW!” Alden yelled and we turned to look at him as he rubbed the back of his head.

“What?” I asked.

“He had a fly on his head, so I gave it a good smack, wouldn’t want one of those frogs coming after him,” Nicole said with a mischievous grin on her face.

After another fifteen minutes we were back at the same spot.

“Must be some sort of magic…Magic Spider Frogs?” I asked.

“Gulgans. They are magic arachnid amphibians who spread illusions using webs,” Denkou stated.

“You couldn’t have said something earlier?” Zypher asked in annoyance.

“He’s just as bad as Nero…” Alden whispered into my ear loudly.

“That is not a fair statement, Master Alden,” Nero said defensively.

“Oh yeah? Is it? Remember when we were getting rocks thrown at us?” Alden chastised as Nero remained silent. “Typical,” Alden said, rolling his eyes.

“Well, if there are webs I guess we can just burn them all and move on,” I said, conjuring a fireball in my hand.

“That would not be a recommended course of action. Fire will cause the trees to defend themselves,” Denkou stated, as some roots started to shift in the water below causing me to immediately snuff the flames.

“Fair enough…Point to Denkou, none for Nero,” I teased as Nero made a static-like sound that almost seemed like an annoyed huff.

“Anyone have any suggestions?” Alden asked, scratching the side of his head in thought.

“Accurate lightning attacks to their master webs should cause the entire illusionary grid to fail,” Denkou offered.

“Two points to Denkou,” Nicole said, chuckling.

“I guess I’ll give it a shot. Denkou, mark the webs for me,” Zypher said, as Denkou transformed into a rifle with goggles appearing around Zypher’s eyes.

The forest turned slightly transparent for Zypher, with the master webs turning a vibrant red. Lining up his shot, Zypher fired. An almost impossibly accurate shot of lightning pulsed out of the rifle, ripping through the webs and arcing until it took out all seven of the vibrant red illusionary webs. Broken webs slowly flitted down through the air, their shredded ends lightly charred, and smoking.

“Nice shot!” Alden praised.

“That’s some insane control man,” I said with amazement.

“Ahah, thanks,” Zypher replied awkwardly.

We continued to observe as the illusion clearly lifted, opening a pathway in front of us. At the same time, the webs hit the toxic green water setting it ablaze. Our eyes went wide as we stared at the mangrove trees as they began to shift slowly.

“Uhm… Denkou?” Zypher inquired.

“The green liquid is quite flammable—sparks or heated objects should be avoided in its vicinity,” Denkou responded proudly.

“Minus five points for Denkou,” Alden and I said simultaneously.

The trees began to writhe aggressively, their roots slowly walking them towards us and flailing outwards in an attempt to latch onto us.

“Sooo, now we have to fight a forest?” Nicole questioned as the Gulgans started to fall from the trees in an attack formation. “Cool,” she said, with another wide mischievous grin.

In a flash Alden and I burst into action. Alden summoned his swords and began cutting apart the trees. After every cut however, the tree glowed green and restored itself almost immediately. I jumped upwards to intercept the frogs. Summoning Cadeyrn in spear form, I slashed at them just for my attack to bounce right off their hard carapace leaving a thick slime like substance on my spear—stupid spider frogs…

“We might be in trouble…” I said, floating back down in a defensive position.

“Well…All my attacks are water based, and most of my skills are for support so…Good luck boys,” Nicole said as she created a gel-like barrier around herself.

“Fair point,” Zypher said, flying into the air, transforming Denkou into a pistol form and firing an incredibly fast barrage of lightning pulse shots towards the Gulgans.

The shots were surprisingly effective, piercing their heads, and they all fell into the flaming water, dead.

“Well Zypher is certainly carrying today,” Alden said, his eyes wide at Zypher laser accurate sharpshooting.

“Since the trees are already mad at us, why don’t we just burn them all?” Alden added.

“Nah, I have a better idea, buy me some time,” I said, jumping backwards, landing inside of Nicole’s barrier.

“Wow, dick,” Alden said, as he flew towards the trees unleashing another barrage of sword strikes.

As Zypher and Alden held off the forest that was slowly enclosing in on us, I stuck my hand in the water and began breaking it down. I focused, manipulating my aura and quanum properties just like I had to create that flower in Alden’s house. As I focused, I could feel my soul touching something inside itself, I could feel my energy shifting into something different. The water began to turn to ash before quickly crumbling to dust. Everyone fell still for a moment, as if instinctively hiding from an even larger predator, everyone except Alden. Taking advantage of the sudden change in pace he placed both of his blades together, as if they were one, and swept the swords in an arc in front of him. Water quickly coalesced around the vacuum blade of air he sent flying through the forest, bisecting a large portion of trees. The Gulgans tried to run from the attack, sensing the immense danger it posed, but were sucked towards the blade before being pelted with ice and shredded by the vacuum.

“That’s kind of broken,” Zypher said in amazement of the combination attack.

“Oh, I’m sure there’ll be some sort of repercussion—nice follow up Alden” I said, in an attempt to change the course of the conversation.

“Of course,” he nodded in acknowledgement.

Suddenly the trees let out a horrid high pitched screech and the ground began to shake violently.

“What now?!” Nicole shrieked in terror.

“Probably that…” Alden said, as he landed on the ground next to them and pointed towards the mangroves fusing into one giant tree.

“Excellent. Anything to add for this one Denkou?” I asked, dryly.

“Yes. Mangrove forests are essentially one single being spread across a vast area. With the loss of its food source, it is returning to its original form so it may search out a new one,” Denkou stated.

“Thanks buddy…” I said, my words dripping with sarcasm.

“Any time,” Denkou replied, unhelpfully.

“Well…I’m tired. Anyone else have some tricks?” I asked, panting.

“Already done. We can continue on now,” Nicole said.

“What do y-” before I could finish my sentence the tree started to fall apart, collapsing into a heaping pile of dry wood.

“I uhh…snuck Meigetsu inside of it and had it absorb all the water…” Nicole said as we stared at her in shock. “Thanks for the support boys, but we’ve dallied long enough, let’s go.”

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Zypher said, his eyes still wide.

“I know right? I wanted to fight it,” I said, sulking.

“I’m not sure why I didn’t just do that from the beginning…” Alden moped.

“Probably because swords are more fun,” I added.

“Fair point,” Alden agreed.

“Come on boys, I’m leaving without you!” Nicole yelled back towards us, already several meters ahead.