The four-winged bat-like creature, doomed by its poor choice of a meal, plummeted from a dreadful height amidst its flight. Its unstable body—thanks to a certain someone's sword ripping one of its wings, thus breaking balance—smashed into the jagged, black stones below with a sickening crunch, the impact reverberating through the desolate silence of the mountain side. For all its monstrous toughness, the fall didn't prove too much, leaving it dizzy but alive. However, the unlucky young man within it seems to be despised by the god of fortune, that even the innocent bat was not spared. The oversize insect rolled down the steep mountain side in his turn, and after who knows how long. Their rough descent finally ended with a repulsive thud.
The poor creature’s twisted remains sprawled across the ground. Ironically, its gruesome fate spared Kaiser from an even worse one, as it cushioned his landing just enough to keep him from being reduced to pulp. To think a day would come when he thanked a bat for swallowing him whole.
However, the prolonged rolling down a rocky path within a monster's belly did not spare his life, either.
With a weary groan, Kaiser’s broken, mangled body began the slow, agonizing process of regenerating itself.
'Who knew this freaky insect flew so high.' Too high, in fact, Kaiser speculated that their descent took almost an hour despite traveling down the mountain side devoid of safety at bone crushing speed.
Of course, he just had to fail life again.
How many times has it been since he had crossed the Southern Boundary? Kai had long since lost count and didn’t care to keep track. Every new death was just another tally in the never-ending farce that was his existence. Then again, what could he do against overwhelming gravity? Nothing but fall and die.
"I'm really getting sick of this," He grumbled as he sat up from the bat gruesome remains, shaking off the last remnants of disorientation.
He grimaced, cracking his neck as his bones stitched themselves back together with a series of sickening pops. After enduring another set of torturous sessions, he sighed.
“Did I use up the already pitiful amount of luck I had babysitting a goddess and gaining immortality I never wanted in the first place?"
...Or maybe, this is the gods doing for all the crap he said about them?
He glared at the torn remains of the insect that had dared to eat him. “Even the bugs here have it out for me. Great.”
Now that his not falling, and instead, standing on solid ground with his raging emotions calmed down, the first thing he sensed in his sober state was cold.
Shivering slightly, Kaiser became aware of the cold. The air here was frigid, an uncomfortable chill that seeped into his skin, made worse by his wet body, soaked in stinky bodily fluids of the four-winged bat.
It wasn’t cold enough to kill him, though. At least in a matter of days, which comically
is the understatement of the century for someone who survived through death.
However, it was a far cry from the comfortable, temperate air of Greenland. His breath misted in the air as he exhaled, and he rubbed his arms for warmth. Not that it did much good.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, he stood on unsteady legs and took a proper look around for the first time. Blinked, then look some more then blinked again.
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Eventually, he just froze, deeply frowned, mouth slightly agape, eyes filled with disbelief.
“What... the... f*ck?”
The landscape stretched out before him like a scene ripped from a fever dream.
The ground beneath his feet was made of black, glass-like stone, jagged and sharp as though it had been shattered and scattered by some unimaginable force. It wasn’t a flat plain but a chaotic expanse of peaks and troughs, undulating like frozen waves of molten rock. The obsidian-like surface gleamed faintly, catching the dim light from above and reflecting it in a way that gave the illusion of movement. In the distance, towering mountains of the same black material loomed, their jagged spires reaching hungrily toward the sky, like many countless others of varying height.
And then there was the sky itself.
Kaiser tilted his head back, his jaw falling slack.
Above him was an ocean—a vast, boundless expanse of water suspended high in the air. It swayed and rippled as if moved by a gentle current, its deep, liquid blue a stark contrast to the black desolation below. Light filtered through the water, casting shimmering, distorted patterns onto the dark mountains, like sunlight dancing on the bottom of a pool. The effect was mesmerizing, almost hypnotic, as though the entire realm were bathed in the light of an ethereal, underwater sun.
But the ocean wasn’t merely water. Within its depths, streaks of color—vivid greens, purples, and blues—shifted and swirled akin to flashing thunders sparking within thunder clouds but far slower and smother instead of instant, creating patterns that mirrored the aurora borealis for a fleeting moment. The colors pulsed and danced like living things, their movements both beautiful and otherworldly, before fading into the oceanic vastness.
Kaiser’s brain struggled to process what he was seeing. The beauty of the scene was undeniable, but it was the kind of beauty that felt wrong, alien, as if it didn’t belong to the natural world.
‘Why the heck is there a freaking *ocean* in the sky?!’
The absurdity of the thought echoed in his mind as he turned in a slow circle, trying to take it all in. The vastness of the blackened landscape, the looming obsidian peaks, the surreal, luminous ocean above that casts dim light—it all felt like something out of a madman’s dream. That said, as someone who got summoned from another world and can't die. His close to being a madman himself, so why bother being shocked.
"Well, at least it looks prettier than Greenland."
Though, that only applied on what's above, not what's below where his located.
Kaiser’s chest tightened as he considered the implications. What's beyond the Southern Boundary had been unknown, because those who dared venture never came back. So, he expected it to be an inescapable hell, which is safe to assume because the nightmarish invaders can only come from a hellish place.
And indeed, the surrounding glossy rocks do look apprehensive, silence suffocating and creatures... Kai glanced at the four-winged bat again, and shuddered slightly.
'Creepy.'
Who knew what other monstrosity awaited him here? Hopefully, Kai won't encounter the dinosaur again, that creature is really hard to deal with without a sucky Boundary. Now that he mentioned it, where are the Boundaries in this dim Realm? He looked above, not to the oceanic sky but to where he came from and saw...
An extremely high mountain clinging to the Boundary, its terrain dangerously inclined, steep enough to make any climber consider for a long time before trying it. However, Kai doubt anyone would make it, because its sheer height made the idea of reaching its summit impossible. No wonder his recent descent took almost an hour despite rolling down and dying multiple times. And beyond the steep mountain's summit was.
He frowned.
Nothing but blackness stretching above, with color far deeper than the obsidian mountain, ending at a straight line where the waters of the sky collided with complete darkness.
One of the things he learned from Garba is that, there are varying kinds of Boundaries, as there are varying kinds of strange Realms. Greenland, having four only possesses one type of Boundary—a pulling mirror type, just like the Southern Boundary— however, the ancient Players knowledge was too crucial to ignore, forcing everyone who's interested to know that there are different forms of Boundaries, not just one. As for what the variants are, his dead mentor had no access to such explicit knowledge, however, it was said that there might be endless kinds of Boundaries. In fact, even the oceanic sky above could be one, including the utter blackness where the steep mountain clings to. And considering it's a wall that served as this world's edge, it's most likely one. The Boundary where he emerges from and would surely return him to Greenland.
Kaiser kept staring upwards until his neck ached from being craned for too long. He let out a heavy sigh.
This was the realm beyond the Southern Boundary, the place where no one returned from. Kai can see the reason now, because all that enters the Southern Boundary was sent stumbling down a colossal mountainside.
The only way back is climbing up, which is obviously easier said than done. Kai just stood there, thinking somberly, quietly resisting the coldness. The silence around him was deafening, broken only by the faint, rhythmic sound of the ocean above. The air was thick with an oppressive stillness that made him feel small, insignificant, as though the very world itself was watching him.
Kaiser took a deep breath, the cold air burning his lungs. His gaze drifted back to the shimmering ocean above, the colors reflected in his eyes.
This was the place he had been thrown into, the place he had to get out if he ever wanted to see them again. Cia, Ariella, his… step, family. They were out there, beyond this hellish realm, waiting for him.
And he would claw his way back to them, no matter what.
'But first, let me rest.'
Yawning, Kaiser heads off to find a comfortable place to sleep, for the first time in what feels like forever. He walks around the rocky environment with weary eyes, searching for a cave, perhaps? But honestly, his so mentally fatigued that even a simple hole between rocks would do, heck, Kai would have dug a hole to slumber under layers of dirt if there were actually any soils in this godforsaken place. Sadly, except for the sharp fragmented black rocks, there's nothing.
His about to give up and just sleep in the damned hard ground despite the cold. When he found it.
Something man-made.