The silence was heavy in the air, making it very uncomfortable.

Mike coughed, clearing his throat before speaking. “That explains everything. If the Demon King Daemon is still alive, and where do you think he is?”

“I don't know, but Dairen has the Demon King quest. Demon King Daemon is most definitely alive,” said Levian. “I told you the end of the world is around the corner. As we saw what just happened, we need to act upon it before it's too late.” His gaze fell on Dairen.

“Woah!” Mike put his hand up to stop him. “Don’t you get tired of this stupid threat? Dairen said he could handle this.”

“Never.” Levian snorted, trying to push aside.

“Enough, you guys. We got some answers. Put your differences aside; we need to figure out how to get out of this place.” Snow spoke. She had lots of questions in her mind, but she knew that Dairen might not even know the answer.

Snow continued to search through the room, hoping that another one of those movies would play for them. She touched the walls and even the floor—still nothing.

With a defeated sigh, she got up and stretched. There was nothing more to do but to search the other areas.

They quickly spread up into different groups. For a full day, they searched rigorously, but nobody saw anything.

It wasn’t until the last hour when they were about to give up that a group of young priestesses ran squealing frantically over.

“Saintess!” one of the girls yelled in a hurry. Her hand was waving over her head. “Saintess!”

Snow, who was staring at old paintings in front of her, turned around.

“We found something!” The priestess came over breathless. Her cheeks were slightly rosy, and she bent forward, trying to gain some breath.

“You did?”

“Yes, but we can’t enter through it.”

“Show me the way.”

Quickly, the two girls excitedly perked up, walking in front of her in a hurry. They whispered amongst each other gleefully over the thought of helping Snow. The dreary mood they all faced was quite hard on everyone, and to see that they were getting back to their more uplifting mood brought up her own.

They didn’t go too far as the hallways were broken up and sometimes barred by wooden beams.

All three of them came upon a small statue of a young woman with a shield, sword, and wings on her shoulder. One could tell that this was a valkyrie at how proudly the statue stood.

Both girls bounced around the statue, eyes sparkling. They motioned Snow over toward the back. With a grunt, they tried to push the statue aside but failed as their strength was pitiable.

“Step back.” Snow motioned them to the side.

The two girls shook their heads in a hurry, watching with fever.

Snow stood in place. With a giant huff of a breath, she pushed the statue with one massive push. The statue toppled over with a loud bang as the left-wing broke in place. A gust of dust floated up in the air, causing the others to cough in place.

Fanning her hand in front of her, Snow dissipated the dust in front of her. She wasn’t too thrilled at the amount of dust in the air as she coughed a few more times.

It was a small door. A door that was made out of wood that could barely let one person in.

Snow reached out to open it, but a shining white aura pulsated outward, shocking her.

With a snatch of her fingers, she looked at the wall, baffled at what just happened to her. With a shake of her hand, she frowned.

There was a powerful magic surrounding the door. If she knew any better, it had a concealing magic and a powerful deterrent spell encased around it.

“What happened?” One of the girls asked. Her hair was messy, and her face was covered with streaks of dust.

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“There is a powerful barrier around it.” Snow replied. She wasn’t going to let a barrier stop her.

“Is there anything we could do to help?”

“Not at this moment, no.” Snow fished through her storage, pulling out her Black Box that had all the swords in it. She took out Lady Luck as she thought this sword was the best to deal with it. Plus, it had the best resonance with her, and she could feel it already working its magic around her.

Never once had Lady Luck failed her, and she was going to use it again.

This time, the sword was in front of her. She didn’t slash down at the wall but instead tested it out a few times by poking it at it once.

Surprisingly, Lady Luck slipped right through like butter.

“Saintess?” One of the girls said out in awe. “You’re so powerful!”

Snow didn’t entertain their thoughts. She continued to cut through the barrier until she was able to fit through it herself. When she reached over to push through the door, it creaked open, allowing her to come through.

The two girls followed behind in the hopes to not get behind, but before they could pass through, the barrier was instantly put up again.

One of the girls smacked her nose, causing her to bleed.

“Ow!” She groaned, rubbing it a few times.

Snow looked over her shoulders, noticing that the barrier had closed up. “One of you guys stay here and bring Mike, Dairen, and Levian. Tell them, I’m going in ahead.”

The girls shook their heads up and down rapidly.

Snow was half bent over as she went through the passageway. Balls of light glowed up around her. It was a bit claustrophobic for her, but she kept pushing on.

Eventually, she came out the other end and into a bedroom. There was only a desk, table, and a large group portrait. James and his Aunt were standing together, but there were two more very familiar people next to them. Snow was shocked to see them. It was of Falcon and Mr. Jay from the Dragon Express. How they were there completely baffled her.

How was Mr. Jay and Rogers in the photo? She needed answers.

Snow walked over to the desk.

There was an old book lying on the table and a small black box the size of her hand. She was shocked to see a Black Box series here of all places.

Picking up the book first, she blew on it to blow away the dust. On the front was a title that read To My Beloved.

Snow couldn’t help but wonder if this was a journal to his lover or even a wife. Still, she quickly turned the pages of the book just to see what was written in it.

To my beloved Nightingale,

How I miss you dearly. Every night I dream about you, still alive in my arms. Wondering, when I could see your beautiful green eyes that would stare back at me. The time is near, don’t worry about my love. I am close to the end of it all.

Love,

James Black

Day 1:

My teammate and I have been working on different technological advances that we found through the rift we created. We believe it's another dimension to the higher world. There are too many things that we can not explain in science. Still, we believe this would help us open up a bigger tear through the dimension using the newfound energy. Aunt Kamilia said this power is the step towards Immortality. I believe it's a window to God’s world. If we could just contain it, I believe we could make something out of it.

Day 7:

An unexpected power outage happened around the city. The power should have wiped out the whole grid system around the world, but it didn’t. Instead, only this city. Did it have a range? I don’t know; maybe there is a limiter that is placed. I’m so excited about what we could make out of this.

Day 20:

We found a strange substance of black material. We are thinking of just calling it the Black Material. I know the naming is stupid, but Aunt Kamilia had brought it up. It is easy to remember. Not only that, Jay was the one who found it while he was tampering with the magical energy from the other side. It has the best conductivity to use to contain this wild energy. I swear, Jay must have burned a few hairs off a few times trying to keep it under control. It's better than Rogers didn’t cut off his fingers from playing with a few of them trying to figure out what was working or not.

Day 50:

We did it! We were able to make our first ever Black Box series! I never thought that material would have been the key to contain a vast amount of energy. Our first box is a success!

Day 51:

Testing out Black Box no.00 was not possible. We don’t know what it can do. It must have been a dud. We will try it again at a later date.

Day. 70:

We are on our 10th Black Box series. I can’t believe it took this long for us to get a glimpse of what was inside. It’s amazing. It created a powerful force field that even a large amount of missile couldn’t even penetrate

Day 150:

I have never expected that all 100 Black Box series would have their unique features. The duds that we thought were failures are not failures at all. This is a significant finding. Our name will go down in history! This could lead to the step towards Immortality that we all dreamed and talked about!

Day 200:

This is bad. This is bad. Rogers got zapped with Black Box series 66. He lost a lot of blood, and his skin has turned pale. Even his heart supposedly stopped. How is he still alive?! I can’t believe he is still walking around like a dead man walking as if nothing is wrong. Is this Black Box series more powerful than we thought? He even got smarter than he previously was; this is amazing.

Aunt Kamilia has started her project of opening up the Gate to Heaven is what she calls it. She is bent on opening up and finding Immortality.

Day 220:

The day of reckoning has arrived. Aunt Kamilia had said we should test the warp gate now to connect to heaven. I don’t think this is heaven, but that is what she wants to believe. Everything is set. We are good to go for a test drive to open the gate. Wish us luck.

Day 221:

Everything has failed. Aunt Kamilia has died. We opened a gate to hell.

Day 223:

I’m scared. I’m scared. I’m afraid of what it could do. All of the city is decimated. Monsters have completely eradicated half the world's populations. What have we done?!

Day 225:

A terrible humanoid monster came out.

Everyone is dead. What have we done wrong? Why did we get greedy to find the answer? No. I take responsibility. Jay and Rogers have been stuck in the lab. I don’t know what they are planning, but they said it would save the world using the black box series. I hope they are right. We are running out of time. Rogers and Jay might know the answer to this problem that we have. Hopefully, they will find the solution faster than I would.

Not only that, I think that humanoid monsters are appearing out of the gate. I think something more dangerous comes out, and I don't know what it is, but I can feel it.

No. I know it.

I have been dreaming about him every day.

It’s getting so intense that I wonder if I’m just sleep-deprived, which is why I have been having nightmares. Everything seems real.

No. No. No. I can’t stop.

I have planned to fix this wrong.

I’ll be going now. I have Black Box no. 99 with me. We need to stop this monster, or this world is doom. No, the universe is doomed.