One of the reasons the First One teleported so far is to put distance between me and the anchor I left on him. Probably in hopes of cutting off my connection and getting rid of the black mana dagger. Or the reason could be completely different.

Staying over the ancient array, I hear a soft ding of the notification and open the system. Going through the options, I notice that a side quest was added.

Side quest: Save Virelia from annihilation

Reward: 1000 shards

I turn to Myrra, "What is up there? Did the matriarch leave any info on it?"

Debris, or something, we were curious about it, and tried to dig up information on it, yet we couldn’t find anything concrete. Just a bunch of disjointed rumors.

The tall, white-haired lynthari releases more heat, pushing against the chilly air up here on this impossibly high mountain. I notice that the longer we are here, the worse the cold gets. Still, this place is strangely beautiful. Devoid of life, leaving us with the clear white snow, and the sound of roaring wind, with snowflakes darting wildly around. The only sign of life is the partially charged array the First One left behind, and it’s slowly losing the mana that charged it.

"Remains of the war between lynthari and humans. The lynthari Absolute’s base was there before getting destroyed, orbiting around the planet, allowing him to move anywhere he wanted. But Feral one, even the matriarch, didn’t think there was any way left to get there. This," she points at the array, "shouldn't exist anymore."

I probe the array with my senses and examine it more closely.

The side quest and its timing most likely mean that the First One is trying to destroy Virelia. Either because of his programming or he just wants to finish what he started and hurt Myrra and me for hunting him down.

Myrra says something behind me, but I filter it out and examine my body. My mana has rebounded for the most part, I even have some in reserve, and I have over three thousand shards in case I need something.

The floor quest isn't finished, so that means the First One is still alive, meaning he survived the transport and wherever he is, it is livable or he wouldn't survive in his weakened state.

I step into the array and look at Myrra.

She laughs shortly and without hesitation steps into the circle as well. There is no more need for words, and she only smiles, her posture confident.

An armor made of aurora glass forms around her epic armor. It’s beautiful, almost like a work of art with thousands of multi-colored surfaces slightly reflecting the light.

I activate [Regalia] as well, blue armor surrounding my body including my head, the helmet doesn’t have a visor. I make it as airtight as I can. I strengthen my armor as I prepare [Infusion]. Then, I fill the array with my mana, immediately appreciating the different circuits expertly inscribed into the circle. They are simple and elegant, not very efficient, but they are easy to work with.

I reactivate what mana remains from the previous charge and add more of mine, much more, feeling a massive drain. One after another, parts of the array light up, as my mana flows through them, reactivating it.

Lost in my work, I want to use more mana, but then I realize that we’ve already arrived. The transportation was extremely smooth and I barely noticed it.

A quiet hum welcomes me and a myriad of inscriptions surround us. Most of them have been deactivated for hundreds of years and some of them were reactivated mere hours ago. The room is relatively small and circular. There are no windows, just walls made out of the gray stone that I’ve seen so often lately. The same indestructible stone that made up some of the tunnels we passed through and a few of the buildings in Virelia.

I observe Myrra's movements as she gestures to me to wait and her helmet disappears.

With fascination, I watch as she inhales a few times and flicks her tongue, tasting the air for a moment.

“It seems fine,” she says.

My helmet disappears, but I keep armor around my body, just in case.

The air I’m breathing feels weird, somewhat chemical or artificial. Fake, maybe? As if it’s been through dozens of filters or left to stagnate in a poorly ventilated room.

“This way,” I tell her and start walking towards my anchor.

The First One is not far.

Side by side, we walk through the dimly lit hallway, the architecture is radically different from anything we've seen so far. Simple, functional. Even the lights are just lines on the walls without any twists or decorations, just a straight line releasing a dim orange light.

We continue carefully, watching every step, examining every hallway, ready for anything. As we’ve been hunting the First One, we’ve learned about all sorts of traps and gotten used to constant danger and watching our steps.

But there is nothing. No traps, there’s barely any mana to be felt, and it's eerily quiet except for a constant hum somewhere in the distance. It starts to feel like we are underground once more until we reach the window.

At first, we hesitate, seeing a panel of glass, our senses probing, looking for weaknesses, for traps. I detect the First One too and he is still a few minutes off. So I take a few last steps towards the window, Myrra carefully following behind me.

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Then, we stand there for a long minute, staring out the window.

I don't think I’ve ever been so lost for words. So lost for thought. The view in front of me makes it hard to do anything else but stare. My worries, my problems, my need for revenge, all of them become so distant. So unimportant.

So small.

Behind a window the size of a small car, a planet is surrounded by pitch-black darkness with a few stars glowing dimly so far off.

The planet is so far below us and no matter how giant it is, it looks so small right now.

Myrra's planet, the Waning Realm as the system called it, is half covered in snow and wild mountains that stretch across large swaths of the surface, a wild beautiful shade of white. The bottom half of the planet is made of rocky ground and green continents with a few seas with clear blue color. Clouds lazily float across it.

It's beautiful. A view I didn’t think I would ever see in my life.

I want to see things like this. I want to see them more often. I want to reach that level where even things like this will become normal. And I will get there.

But there is something I need to do first.

I step away from the window, back to the hallway, and continue to walk towards my anchor.

Barely able to take her eyes off the view, Myrra follows me.

----------------------------------------

We pass through a room with a glass floor that makes it terrifying to walk through. Nothing changes and this place seems as solid as before, yet there is this irrational worry that our steps alone could break it like normal glass.

Then we enter a room with another window, this one turned to the opposite side. A view of infinite darkness behind with lonely stars shining by.

We also detect one of the First One’s traps, trying to tear a hole in the wall and throw us into space.

I don’t think it would be able to damage it, yet I still disrupt it and notice a few thin threads of mana that I take care of.

At some point, this place we are in starts shaking and the hum intensifies as if we started moving.

So that’s how it is.

The First One plans to use this place, a reminder of an era passed long by, and crash it into Virelia, hoping to kill us in the process.

I create a domain around myself and try to place an anchor behind the walls, out in space. And I fail; my senses can’t pierce the walls any more than the void outside can get in. We are trapped here and the shaking intensifies and as we pass by the window I can see that we are moving, passing through other debris, and remains of what used to be a much grander build. Some other debris crashes against us, making us shake even more, yet the damage is none or minimal.

I check the anchor I left on the snowy mountain with the array and it's too far. I can send my mana there, yet teleporting seems to be impossible, the amount of mana I have is simply not enough.

So we continue. We destroy the traps and pass through the rooms, ignoring the wonders that surround us, until we reach the center of all of it.

There the First One waits. A black carapace that seems to absorb light itself and a dagger impaling him through the back close to his head, constantly absorbing the majority of his mana.

The ant steps away from the pillar, barely any mana is left inside his body and he is forced to rely on the strength of his physical stats. He takes a few more steps, moving even further back, and just stands there, our figures reflecting hundreds of times in his compound black eyes.

Myrra hisses, about to charge him, but I put my hand on her, “Check the pillar first.”

She tries to get away from me, but I strengthen my body and pull her back, “He did something. Check. The. Pillar. First. There aren’t any traps and I probably won’t be able to activate it as it's only meant for lynthari,” I repeat.

Myrra curses but does so as I take a few steps, keeping myself between the black ant and the white-haired lynthari.

Just looking at the creature makes my blood boil, but I push all those thoughts to the back of my mind, though some of them surface, even through [Focus].

As if in answer the First One clacks his mandibles a few times, a soft snapping sound echoing through the room.

“We are falling,” Myrra says.

“Can you tell where?” I ask.

After a minute Myrra confirms what I was thinking, “The trajectory has already been calculated… it’s going to strike Virelia…” her voice breaks in the end.

Mana radiates from her but she quickly takes it under control and channels it into the pillar, the vibrations weakening and through kinetic energy, I feel our movement slowing. Myrra is using her mana to power the base and keep us in orbit.

The First One clacks his mandibles.

“Not enough, I don’t have enough mana!” she pushes more and more of it, weakening herself near our enemy. Hoping to redirect the base.

The feeling of the ant looking right into my eyes flows through me and there is even a question I can read or feel from him.

What will you do now?

The ant brought us here in hopes of cutting the connection to the tether. When it didn't work, he launched the base at Virelia, and now here he is, waiting for us to waste mana stopping the base, to weaken ourselves. To stay trapped here with him.

He wants us to waste mana, not even for a moment giving up on his attempts to kill us. And seeing the way he looks at us, we will need to use most of our mana to stop the base from falling on Virela, I'm sure he calculated that. Using some of it to fight him would make stoping the base impossible.

"Cheeky little fucker, aren't you?" Not taking my eyes off him, I take a few steps back and put my hand on the pillar.

Without any hesitation, I release my mana and push it inside. I start infusing all of it, the mana from my body and reservoir as well.

“Myrra, I bet this base has some kind of radar, so find the place with the largest number of ants.”

This ant is smart. I do not believe we’ve gotten all of the Colony. No, he most likely saved some and hid them to rebuild the Colony after killing us.

I continue, “And then when you find a place with enough ants, crash us into it.”

The First One freezes, his mandibles stop moving, a sheer surprise to be felt even from his monstrous body.

I place an anchor near the pillar and start sending my mana to it, and even with my gradually decreasing reserves, I step into his way.

What will you do now?

The ant's body moves, and he rushes to stop us.