Be it Yuri, or his master, both of them often said that he had a way with his words. Listening to how Yuri and Cecilia were taunting the Wanderers around them though, Alnea felt that he still had a lot to learn. Especially from Cecilia. Her words… for Wanderers, especially for those who had grown up in Orthodoxies, they were a bit too much to bear. Coupled with how much they had suffered in the city…
“What are you snickering at? Isn’t it just a Blood Challenge? So be it. Just…”
Maybe it was because the man lost his patience, or maybe it was just a desperate move on his part. The man’s yellowish robe was indeed a bit more tattered than the robes of the other Wanderers. And though there was a light of determination in the man’s eyes, his face was tinged with exhaustion and disappointment. Maybe the man just wanted to give it a last try…
In any case, Cecilia finally got her wish fulfilled. The yellow robed Wanderer stepped forward and issued a Blood Challenge against her. Understandably, the challenge only brought a grin across her face. Even the cat, resting in her arms, and confused as it was about what was happening, did not forget to look down upon the yellow robed Wanderer. Was Cecilia’s craziness finally rubbing off on the stupid cat?
Afraid that they might provoke even more Wanderers, once the girls had completed their formalities and registered for the Blood Challenge, Alnea took the initiative to pull them into the Arena. He was not afraid of the Wanderers in the crowd. But needlessly attracting too much attention on their first day in the Lost City did not seem like a good idea. In retrospect, his actions were a little too late…
Past the door of the arena, the corridor that they stepped into was illuminated by red crystals, embedded in the ceiling, forming a straight line above their heads. The corridor itself though was anything but straight, taking them through a twisted path that kept climbing upwards without any end. Or maybe it was the monotony of the path that made it seem endless.
Fortunately, the path was not too long. In just a tenth of an hour or so, low grumbles bouncing off the walls of the long, dingy corridor, drifted into their ears. At first, Alnea thought that it was just his ears ringing. Just a few steps later though, the low grumbles turned into loud, senseless cheers, even louder than what the people of the Lotus clan had made during the Spirit Test. The Lotus clan…
Alnea tore himself away from the meaningless memories just as they arrived at the end of the corridor. Unlike its entrance, the end of the corridor had no doors blocking their way. Just a curtain of light, and an anticipation of what might lay beyond. Enough to make them pause in their steps for a moment, but not enough to make them stop their advance. With eager grins on their faces, they crossed the curtain of light, and—
A strange feeling struck Alnea, seeping into his body and Spirit. The curtain… It was like the door in his Domain. The one that led to the Origin Sea. Even the way he felt the resistance… it was a bit lower than what he felt from Oren, and existed for only a short moment, but he was sure that he had stepped into something thick, and substantial. Like Water. Or was it light?
Alnea supressed his thoughts in his Heart, and turned towards Yuri—
“Yuri!” Alnea said, hastily reaching out to his white haired friend through Evitum. Thankfully, his fears were just a figment of his imagination.
“I am fine.”
“What… Where are you?”
“Can you not feel it through the rings?”
“…I can,” Alnea said, groping the thread tying their fate. “But that is why it is even more confusing.”
“What is there to be confused about?” the grumpy ring said, stepping in between their conversation. “It is just a clever use of the Mysteries of Space… You can do it too once you comprehend them.”
“…You want me, with Roots of the lineages of Day and Night, to comprehend the Mysteries of Space?”
“…Who knows what the future holds?”
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“…Stop confusing the kid, brother,” Fae said, joining in the conversation. Unlike her brother, Fae had a soft, soothing voice. And though she also looked down on him, at least she still gave him enough respect. Unfortunately, she rarely said anything. At least to him, she hardly ever said anything. Fortunately, Yuri was not so stingy with her words.
“In a way, we are still standing next to each other,” Yuri said, ignoring the complaints of the rings. “It is kind of like our Spirit World.”
“…Overlapping of Space?”
“It is something similar, but a little more complicated… That is not what we need to worry about right now though. Focus on what we have come here to do.”
“…Right,” Alnea said. Suppressing his curiosity, he took a second glance around himself. Thankfully, other than the curtain of light behind his back, there were also some clusters of balls flying above his head that were raining down rays of white light around him, helping him see the world around himself. Yet, just like what he had seen before, all he saw was darkness. Not the empty kind of darkness like the one in his Domain. And neither the desolate kind of darkness like the one in his Spirit World.
Be it from the curtain behind his back, or the twinkling lights hanging high above his head, there was enough light in the Arena to almost force him into momentary blindness. But for some inexplicable reason, despite being surrounded by all the light in the world, he could not shake off the feeling of being surrounded by a thick layer of darkness. It was only after a few moments had passed that he realised where the feeling of darkness was coming from.
“It is not just us… Everyone has been sent into a different space, even those who came in to watch the battles… Why didn’t the guards inform us about what will happen after entering the Arena?”
“They probably thought that there was no need to do so.”
“But how are we supposed to know what to do next?”
“…Let us just wait a few more moments and see what happens.”
…It was not as if he could anything else, Alnea grumbled to himself. Thankfully, he did not have to wait for too long. Just a few moments later, the world around him began to ripple, and shift. Or maybe it was he who was shifting, and phasing through the world… In any case, the end result was the same. The inexplicable darkness soon retreated away from him—
“BLOOD!”
“BLOOD!”
“FIGHT!”
“FIGHT!”
“BLOOD!”
“BLOOD!”
“FIGHT!”
“FIGHT!”
“BLOOD!”
“BLOOD…”
Waves upon waves of shouts and cheers came crashing down upon him, making him flinch at the noise. He had thought that noise he had been hearing earlier was already loud enough. But what he was experiencing at the moment… Forcing himself to calm down, Alnea glanced around himself once again. And this time, he was not disappointed.
All around him, as far as he could see, there were thousands upon thousands of Wanderers, standing in what he could only assume to be stands of the Arena—inclining upwards ever so slightly, yet stretching to a height of more than thrice of what the height of the Arena seemed to be from the outside— jumping and shouting, demanding for more blood and pain.
However, those were just the Wanderers who had come to the Arena to watch the battles. Other than them, there were a few more Wanderers, those who had come to partake in the feast of blood themselves. Like the ones fighting on the four platforms at centre of the Arena. But with only four fighting venues, there could only be eight Wanderers fighting at any given moment.
The rest of the Wanderers, including Alnea himself, were standing on smaller platforms jutting out of the inner edge of the stands circling the fighters. And rather than mindlessly demanding for blood, these Wanderers were more interested in the Wanderers fighting on the platforms instead.
“Gravis has improved recently…”
“…I think Rhea’s improvement is higher…”
“…will they break into the top thousand…”
“…heard he got something in the Black Desert…”
“…Fortune Springs…”
The Blood Arena… It was quite different from what he had expected it to be. And much more confusing. Disregarding everything else, the constant display of various Mysteries of space by the Arena alone was enough to leave him in awe. Especially since he felt Yuri’s presence disappear from his side and appear at some distance away. Fortunately, let alone Mysteries of Space, even the boundaries of the Origin Sea were not enough to break their ‘Threads of Fate’.
Still, even with Evi’s help, it took him quite some effort to spot Yuri. Finding Cecilia was even more difficult. When he did find her though, he motioned for her to stay put, and wait for a while more. Rashly rushing towards the girls, or taking any action for the matter, without knowing what was happening around them was not a wise choice. Their priority at the moment was not to get back together, but to gather as much information as they could. Surprisingly enough though, the task did not prove to be very difficult.