"Separated? What do you mean?" I ask Eumi. Separated from what? Them?

That's not true, isn't it? Right?

I push away the saddened Eumi as she was shivering due to the fact that she hugged my cold body. Gently, I pat her head to calm her down. I'm a good sister, don't you think?

Looking at the saddened Eumi, I thought to myself, "Xiare-nee is here, ya know?"

Oh right! I forgot to tell you that I'm actually older than Eumi. That's why she always calls me "Sister Xiare" sometimes or whenever she's asking me to buy something.

The more you know, right? Haha...

I stare at her cute face. She's so cute when she's sad. Waaa~

Wait…

I forgot that this is the effect of being an OP character.

Slowly, I pull my hand out from her head. I am mature enough to not get attracted to such cute things! Arghhh!

"S-s-s-sister Xiare…" Eumi looks at me. Errr… what is it?

"Hmm?" I responded.

"T-t-this is not the hall we entered earlier…" Eumi looks around as she tries to explain why we got separated from the others.

"Huh?" I ask with a dumbfounded expression. What do you mean by this is not the hall you entered earlier?

Shouldn't be the floors of this edifice stay where they are? How come they changed positions?

"The hall we entered earlier is different from this hall we are currently right now, having statues of a woman dressed in a gown instead of a painting." She continued explaining. "There were also panels of windows across the hall I saw last time I entered."

I search around to look for statues. Nope, there's none. There were windows but there were no statues.

Instead, there were paintings of a woman hanging on each wall of the hall.

The woman in the painting was similar to the woman with the veil I saw on the top of the edifice, having the same smile but with different postures, such as sitting on a chair or leaning on the wall, looking over us.

She was also wearing different traditional robes and dresses. It was as if she's some sort of a shrine priestess.

However, if one could find similarities between each painting, that would be the fact that the woman had her face covered by a veil. Yep, a veil.

The veil covering the woman was either a white or black veil. Although the white veil can be seen-through, it was thick enough to cover the woman's facial features except her mouth smiling over us.

If one is really persistent like me who wants to see the woman's face, one could see that behind the thick white veil lies a woman with her eyes closed. Yep, closed.

She was smiling with her eyes closed.

Scary, right?

"Then where are we?" I ask Eumi.

"I…" Eumi looks down before continuing, "I don't know…"

Well, it makes sense right? Since when did someone know the layout of this edifice just by looking at it, right?

I walk around and look outside the windows. I see the giant statues from earlier below me. Also, I could see the two mountains sandwiching the small portal from far away.

Also, I notice that over the path we walked earlier, there were no mountains surrounding us, as if we were in some sort of never-ending eternal winter.

"It looks like we are above the skies." I said to Eumi. Judging from the fact that the giant statues from earlier are below us, it looks like we are way above than the first floor of the edifice.

Eumi walks over beside me and looks outside. "Un." She said, agreeing with my statement earlier.

After looking outside, I search the hall. There were multiple rooms, each leading to a bedroom with one bed and a wardrobe near it. There were also a couple of books lying on a table beside the bed.

"This doesn't look like a temple.." I softly said to Eumi. It looks like a castle if you ask me.

"Yeah…" Eumi, who was checking the wardrobe, agrees that this edifice is not a temple.

"Did you find anything on the wardrobe?" I ask her while searching the bed for something unusual.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"This is…. a robe?" Eumi looks at robe she's touching before saying those words.

I glance at the robe Eumi's touching it. It was a jade white robe with some gold cuffs on it.

"Looks like a senior's robe if you ask me." Well yeah, that is a senior Moonlight Sword Sect robe, having gold cuffs and a jade white color on it.

Eumi, who was looking at the robe, puts it back to the wardrobe as she slowly loses interest after looking at it.

Meanwhile, the book caught my attention. Quickly, I pick it up on the table and opens it as I read the contents inside.

"Eh? What's this?" I ask as I see the contents of the book strange. The words inside the book are something that I could not comprehend.

"Let me take a look." Eumi looks at the contents of the book closely.

As she reads the contents written on the book, she furrows her brows. She was definitely having problems reading the book.

"Power… moon… mist?" Albeit broken, Eumi somehow manages to translate the contents of the book as she slowly reads the content inside.

As she reads the book slowly, she gestures me to turn the page of the book. I nod in return and turns the page of the book, revealing a sphere with the woman with the veil below the sphere. She was perfectly drawn, like a painting on a book.

However, one could notice that beside the woman with the veil lies three swords beside her, waiting to be pulled by her hands.

They were the three symbolic swords of the sect.

"I… can't read these words." Eumi said to me as she moves away from the book. She was having troubles reading the book and thus, she left it unread

"Let's go back and search around?" I said to Eumi as I close the book.

"Un." She nodded as she leaves the room.

Slowly, I put the book back to where I picked it up. After that, I leave the room and look at Eumi who was looking out the window.

"Eumi." I call out her name. She was not responding.

"Eumi?" I once again call out her name. She was not moving nor responding.

Slowly, I walk over her to touch her shoulder. Er.. are you playing tricks on this lady perhaps? This lady does not buy your jumpscare okay? Stop it.

"Xiare?" I hear a voice on my left side. It was Eumi's voice. Err….

How come I hear Eumi on left side despite the fact that she's in front of me?

I stop walking and look at my left side. It was Eumi. What? How come there are two Eumi in this hall. Are you kidding this lady?

"How co—" In the middle of my speech, I was suddenly attacked by something. Quickly, I look to the direction where I was attacked. As I look at the direction where I was attacked, I saw the woman with her eyes closed dressed liked Eumi attacking me.

Quickly, I pull out the dagger from its sheath and pushes the dagger into the body of the woman, deeply cutting her abdomen. I stabbed and slashed her abdomen.

As I stab the woman, Eumi quickly rushes in to help me out. As she goes near us, she kicks the woman and sent her to the floor lying as she tends her stabbed abdomen.

"Are you all right?" Eumi asks me as she saw what happened. It was a threatening experience.

"Yeah." I nod at her as I put the dagger back to its scabbard. After nodding, we both look at the woman lying on the ground.

Her eyes were closed and yet, she was clearly looking at us as if she wore a grudge resentment toward us.

While looking at us, the woman speaks some gibberish before instantly vanishing. I and Eumi look at each other before leaving the hall where the lady vanished. Nope, I'm not going back there ever again.

"How come someone imitated you?" I ask Eumi. Clearly, that woman was perfectly imitating Eumi's posture and dress. However, her face was different from Eumi.

"I don't know…." Eumi said while looking at me with worries. It's clear that she too was shocked by the fact that someone imitated her.

"They're the Moonlight shadows." Someone said to us. It was a female voice.

I turn around and look to the direction where we heard the voice. There, I saw Fira slowly walking around over us.

Her coat was filled with bloodstains, clearly implying that she fought something.

"Moonlight shadows?" Eumi asks her. Well, that's the first time I heard that term.

"Reflections of realities, such as living beings." Fira answers her question.

Reflection of realities? Err… sorry but I don't get it?

"To simplify, it's a living clone, having the same consciousness and powers like us." Fira explains the Moonlight shadows to us.

I see now! This lady gets it.

"Where are the others, senior?" I ask her. The others were not with her, meaning that she too got separated with them.

"We got separated one by one." She answers my question.

As she walks over us, I hear multiple walking sounds far away from us. Instantly, Fira leaps over us and takes us with her by hugging us tightly.

Although her hug was tight, I could still breathe. So too Eumi on the other side of Fira's arm.

"I'm really sorry but we need to hurry." She said as she leaps across the halls while tightly hugging us. She was scared of what's going to happen.

What's going to happen? Is there something that I missed earlier?

"Someone really pissed the Moonlight Goddess off…" Fira murmurs while leaping floor to floor.

Er… is it me perhaps? Nah, that's not happening, right? It's my first time coming here so yeah, I'm pretty sure that it's not me.

Haha... That's not me, right?

As Fira leaps floor by floor, we finally see a stair leading to the upper floor. However, there were multiple Fira guarding the floor, waiting for us as we head to the upper floor.

"Darn it." Fira curses under her breath. Hey! No swearing! This is a swearing-free hall!

She suddenly stops leaping and put us back on the floor, saying, "Head to the next floor. I will stop those Moonlight shadows from going up."

"What about you, Eyewatcher master?" Eumi looks at Fira.

"I will go up later. I'm just going to prevent them from going up." She answers Eumi's question as she summons two swords out of nowhere and takes it with both of her hands. She was getting prepared for some bloodbath battle.

"Follow me." She said as she lunges herself to the nearby Firas guarding the stairs.

Together, both I and Eumi run towards where the staircase is. As we go towards the stairs, we see Fira fighting another several Firas with her two swords. She was like a wave, constantly slashing up everything without pause.

"Go now." She said to us telepathically. We both nod at Fira's words.

We then rush to get to the upper floor to escape the other Firas and the oncoming disaster.

As we go to the upper floor, I take a quick glance at Fira before going up. She was constantly beheading other Firas fighting her using her two shining swords.

I look at the dagger Yue Shin gave me. It had the same shining blade like the two swords Fira uses while fighting other Firas.

"We need to go up now." Said by Eumi as she looks at me.

"Yeah." I said. After saying yeah, both me and Eumi head to another floor.

As the upper floor reveals itself, I feel my heart throbbing like a drum beating loudly.

Why is my heart trembling you ask? That's because...

This floor is the floor Hanbai talked about earlier. This floor is completely filled with floating blocks of shelves with a myriad of books in them.