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Hector got eaten by a dinosaur. It sounded stupid, but really, that’s what happened. In his battle with Banda Toro, Hector entered the Abolish servant’s monstrous form, ending up in a lower realm rather than an osmium stomach. Although trapped in this Foundational World, as some called it, he eventually found the event to be fortuitous; he spoke the Magician of Light, Xander, for the first time.

After a pleasant chat, Hector attempted to make Banda puke him back out. Making the world of iron tremble once more, he suddenly sensed souls. How he knew they were souls, he wasn’t sure. If only Garovel could somehow be here with him, it would help immensely. Deep down, Hector understood though. These souls were his ticket out of here.

He tried flying towards them. The current, if you could call it that, was directed away from the near-endless sea of iron. Then he saw them: two gathering points for the souls. It was like watching water drain from a bathtub with two drains. No doubt, Hector needed to pass through one of those openings, but which one?

Pausing for only a moment, he just picked one randomly. It was risky, he knew, but there was nothing obviously different about either one. He was pretty sure these “drains” appeared because of his action, so he would just place his trust in them. He suspected his blessing, Domain, was involved somehow, but he’d have to worry about it later. Perhaps he could ask Xander about it if he really did get back to Eleg and defeat Banda. He was feeling more and more inclined to trust the old Vanguardian, at least about some things.

As Hector approached the hole in space, he realized the Scarf of Amordiin wasn’t telling him anything useful. Perhaps Xander’s bubble of air didn’t follow Hector, or perhaps he just couldn’t sense anything beyond the strange soul orifice thingy. Just as he thought that, his vision went white and he lost consciousness for a moment.

Stirring awake, he felt blood rushing to his head. He struggled a bit and flailed his arms until his gauntlets finally grabbed hold of something firm. Wait, it was actually pretty soft, like sand. Hm? Oh, it WAS sand.

Getting his bearings, Hector was in a small crater of his own making, lying on his back at an awkward angle. He lifted his upper body by his arms, which was surprisingly difficult given the weight of all his armor. Was this new armor even heavier than normal iron armor? He hadn’t noticed in that lower realm, but here it was quite obvious.

Emerging from the hole, he took in his surroundings. Beautiful beach. Turquoise blue water, nearly transparent. Islands dotting the horizon in every direction. Hector’s knowledge of geography was a bit lacking, but even he knew he wasn’t in Atreya anymore.

He was pretty sure this area was considered tropical. Could this be Vaeland? No, the weather didn’t add up. Hector was already sweating. Same thing for the Bright Sea and all those islands off the coast of Jesbol. There were probably other chains of islands around Eloa, but Hector couldn’t think of them offhand. Hector figured he must be on an entirely different continent, which was actually really bad. He didn’t have a way to get back to that lower realm, and traveling over land to Warrenhold would take way too long.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He looked up at the hot sun and froze. There was nothing wrong with the sun, rather, the moon in the sky told him he wasn’t even on Eleg. There wasn’t anything weird about the moon being visible during the day. What was strange was how the crescent moon’s shape was unlike anything he’d seen before, outside of children’s books. The tips of the crescent actually touched each other. Hector doubted the moon could look like that, even if you viewed it from a different hemisphere. He had not returned home at all.

So where was this? Either it was a different lower realm, it was a different world similar to Eleg, or it was one of those higher realms Xander warned him about. He really hoped it wasn’t the latter; the time dilation would cause Hector to miss hundreds, or even thousands of years of history by the time he got back. If he got back. And then he’d have to put up with millennia of buildup of Garovel’s sass, too. Unless Garovel died somehow. But how would that affect him here? Hector decided not to worry about it for now.

The first thing he did was float up into the air. His materialization ability was working normally, at least. After only a few seconds of ascending, he realized he was on a small, likely uninhabited island. A bright beach surrounded a tiny rainforest. He could probably walk the entire perimeter in an afternoon if he wanted.

Looking further beyond the calm water, he saw islands of various shapes and sizes. Turning to his left as he gazed, he noticed one of the nearby islands was larger than the others. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed like the island might actually be home to an active volcano. As he rose a bit more, he was able to see the caldera within the central mountain. Yup, a volcano. And those clouds probably were volcanic ash or something like that, too.

As he enjoyed the somewhat cool air at the higher altitude, he noticed something else hovering over the volcano. He brought a gauntleted hand over his eyes to shield himself from the sun’s glare as he squinted. Ah. He knew what that was. He wished he didn’t. Well, at least by knowing, he wouldn’t be caught off guard.

Although it appeared tiny from this distance, Hector could make out its gargantuan skeletal body. It was wrapped in black flames, similar to a reaper’s shroud, and carried four scythes in four skeletal hands. Hector was a bit confused, though. Last time he encountered a feldeath, down in the undercrust, it started out as mist and only took on a more physical-looking form when disturbed. This feldeath was just floating there, fully visible for all to see.

For a moment, Hector thought it may have taken form due to his own arrival, but the feldeath wasn’t moving, so that was unlikely. He was pretty far, after all. Still, he didn’t want to stay here and risk alerting the feldeath to his presence. As he saw it, Hector had two choices.

>To fly away in the opposite direction, go to Page 2.

>To fly toward the feldeath, go to Page 8.

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