After moving inside, everyone turned around. The gate began closing and they watched it seal itself shut once more. Asterios tensed up in preparation for any possible trap or ambush, but nothing happened even after the round door fully obstructed their escape path. As soon as it stopped moving, silence filled the corridor once more.
“Huh. I thought we lost the key for the moment,” Tina commented softly as they all spotted what she had.
Same as outside, the circular entrance had a niche in the middle. But, in this case, that hole was covered by an undamaged plaque like the one they had inserted into the slot to get in. Althea carefully approached the token, examined it from up close, and easily detached it from its resting place. Glancing at it, she brought it up to Asterios and he received it from her.
“An interesting system. You exchange these when passing through and no one without these access slates can technically do so while you are in their possession,” he said with clear intrigue. “I guess this means we might need it for more than just unlocking the door. Come on, let’s see what we can find.”
The ladies agreed and they entered a simple formation that suited the enclosed space. It felt similar to exploring a dungeon, which was something they were more than familiar with. Having a little bit of experience under their belt, they fell into a careful and sharp state of mind out of habit, without anyone needing to remind them about staying focused.
Especially when they were moving through an unknown structure full of potentially advanced magical technology and other almost god-tier elements.
The white hallways continued for a while. Save for their form, they didn’t differ much from the rectangular ones in the ground facilities. Multiple golden trenches ran over the visible surface, faintly shining with spiritual power. They weren’t glowing as strongly as back in the other places, perhaps not functioning at the top of their capabilities. There might be no cluster in here like in the other spots. Abyss hadn’t said anything about powerful energy sources either.
“It’s so weird walking through a smooth tube.” Miria huffed in mild annoyance as they trekked through the uncharted territory.
“We’ve made our way through similar ones back in Althea’s elf homeland, haven’t we?” Selene let out a soft chuckle. “Inside the central tree-like castle?”
“Those were more natural. Or at least not as monotonous.” The panthergirl sighed. “I’m starting to get dizzy as this just keeps going and going and going. Did we even take any turns yet? It feels like we’ve been moving in a straight line forever and I know for a fact that this place can’t be this wide.”
“It’s a trick of your mind,” Abyss shared calmly. “The corridors are almost seamless so it’s easy to miss the signs of them turning and twisting. I wouldn’t put it past him to design these like this just because he wanted to feel like he didn’t have to do anything but walk right ahead.”
“Weird quirk but okay.” Tina smirked gently. “It makes it only more creepy to me. Imagine needing to run from someone or something in here. No matter how far and fast you ran, you would always see your pursuer over your shoulder. Or an incoming attack or trap.”
Shortly after the exchange, they paused to investigate an opening in the wall. Peeking through, they saw a medium-sized chamber in the form of a dome. Most of its side surfaces were covered in golden runes and symbols they quickly identified as scribbles. How? Well, one of the completely sane ladies amongst them used to throw her thoughts out onto the walls or floor rather often when inspiration struck.
This was definitely a research room or something of a creative kind.
Unfortunately, the language wasn’t close to anything either of them knew and they turned to their mysterious, ancient friend.
Abyss shook her head without any emotion. “I’m afraid I can’t decipher these. This seems to be the language of his kin or one he had created himself. I remember catching a few glimpses of it during our cooperation, but he had been using something I’m more familiar with since the very beginning.”
“Guess he isn’t stupid.” Silvia shrugged gracefully. “Even with the key, we won’t be able to snoop around too much.”
“He made this place and the entire formation encasing the realm. Of course he is a genius of some kind.” Tina scoffed, more at the man than at her royal friend.
Nevertheless, Asterios approached the circular slab in the middle. It wasn’t vandalized by crude writing or anything else. The golden paths coalesced over it and he found a small slot that would possibly hold the token. Keeping his guard up, he placed the new key into the hole and waited. The patterns flashed and the altar’s surface shimmered.
The girls gathered as a bunch of yellow crystals came out of hiding beneath whatever illusion had been cast on the research table. Glowing too, the spherical gems embedded in the white mineral produced an image that floated in the air at face level. A see-through replica of what seemed to be the Nethernight Realm hung before their eyes. The complex structure surrounding it was present too, albeit deactivated, therefore without the seal in place yet.
“Master’s realm is a ball too, isn’t it? Are they all like that? Abyss made this one so is it something that’s necessary?” Miria pondered out loud.
“There are dimensions of all sizes and shapes and I did mention it a bit during our early days.” Asterios smiled as he ruffled through her soft hair.
“As for why I chose this particular shape, the answer is out of convenience,” the dark world’s creator replied. “It’s much easier to tweak the core of the upcoming realm so it forms a planet-like shape than it is to create something as stable with a flat configuration. But, it isn’t unheard of and plenty of dimensions take different builds. The more unique ones are born naturally under various reality-twisting laws and occurrences.”
Her explanation was acknowledged as they all roamed their gazes over the displayed schematics.
“We are quite lucky,” Tina noted. “To stumble on his workshop on our very first entry.”
“I don’t think that’s the case,” Abyss countered, capturing their attention. “I don’t think he would have been bothered to return to the main research facility every single time after he made some changes to his plan or needed to refresh his memory about its correct steps.”
“That means this is just a room we would have found everywhere,” Asterios commented.
“Precisely.” She nodded. “Each of these floating things was crucial for the initial activation and they are most likely quite important to shut everything down. Therefore, he must have come up with a uniform design for these stations so he could move through them with ease and without having to memorize multiple floor plans.”
“Still lucky that’s a thing,” Selene added. “But can we grasp anything out of this? I feel like without Grea and her inquisitive mind it might take weeks to decrypt his notes.”
The mocha-skinned lady floated up to the raised platform and began tracing seemingly random patterns over the glowing crystals. She worked in silence, everyone else watching attentively and hoping to learn something from their companion’s actions. From time to time, the picture flickered and some additional symbols showed up or replaced the previous ones.
A few minutes later, she backed off and turned to the group. “Some of the commands have similar form to what he used around me but there’s not much I was able to learn since the language is still alien even to me. He hid his true origins rather well, which should perhaps have been a red flag during our initial interactions.”
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“But, you did get something out of it, yes?” Miria tilted her head cutely.
“Studying the different iterations of these pictures, I was able to confirm that all the pieces are somehow connected and necessary for the main function of the entire system,” Abyss answered. “We have definitely weakened it by stealing the power sources on the ground, even if there are still dozens of them around as you can see from this illusory display.”
“Every bit counts. It might not be enough to disable the thing, but it should have at least introduced an unstable variable into the equation that is the proper functioning of this seal,” Asterios said thoughtfully.
“Exactly,” she agreed with him. “This is just a research room, but I’m sure there should be a command room somewhere too. All the floating fortresses are carbon copies of each other that he could have used in case I kept too close an eye on his movements. Limiting himself to only one administration center wasn’t beneficial. It was better to have multiple at hand.”
“Then we need to find it,” Silvia stated. “Will you be able to use it?”
“To some extent, perhaps.” Abyss spread her arms. “I can’t guarantee anything, but I can at least try. Besides, we do have the key with us so that makes things much easier. Having access to the internal system of this spiritual network opens up many paths to disabling it through intended and unintended means.”
“That’s our only lead.” Asterios rubbed his chin. “It’s still more than blindly going around and consuming spiritual clusters in hopes of weakening the barrier.”
“I mean, if we knew that would work out in the end, it wouldn’t be a problem to take a long way and keep visiting the realm to fetch a cluster a day or something. Especially now that we have a map of them and could tick off the completed ones,” Tina offered.
“Fair enough.” He smiled at his smart girlfriend and her cheeks colored a tad as she felt his honest appreciation in his kind gaze. “We’ll save it for later. First, let’s continue. We have no reason to waste more time in this chamber.”
They did one more round of investigating the contents of the room before moving back into the white tunnel. Miria groaned as it extended both ways without an end in sight, causing the others to chuckle and snicker at the annoyed panthergirl. She hadn’t been that distressed even inside the Descending Spire so this place had to be something for it to get on her nerves like that.
A quarter of an hour later, they located another opening in the wall that led into another chamber. This time though, it wasn’t circular but rectangular. Each side save for one was equipped with similar slabs of white mineral with golden crystals jutting out of the mesmerizing counters. There was no altar in the middle, which stood empty for easy crossing. Instead, there was a slightly different block in the only open direction.
But, the lack of long counters wasn’t the only peculiar thing about it.
“Is that… the ground?” Miria blinked emptily. “How the heck is that possible?”
Her fingers slid into her hair and tugged at it in frustration as they all stared at what seemed to be a clear window pane showing the outside of the fortress. The interesting detail was that they could see the ground Miria had mentioned instead of the dark sky and bright seal. No one missed the implications and they all suddenly felt a tiny bit unsteady, looking around each other and over the floor. Or at least what they assumed was the floor. In their current position, a wall was closer to the truth.
“We’ve been walking in a STRAIGHT line!” the panthergirl repeated. “This is crazy! Shouldn’t we be falling towards the window if we really are horizontal to the ground? Or is that just another illusion?”
“I’m afraid it’s not,” Abyss chimed in. “I noticed the point of gravity shifting during our journey through this place and we are truly looking at the destruction your companions have brought upon these lands.”
The girls responsible for obliterating the necropolis beneath them exchanged glances while blushing slightly.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Miria frowned with a betrayed expression.
“It changed nothing, did it?” The mystical woman raised a brow at her. “The artificial gravity ensures we stay where we are meant to.”
“In any way, this is it, isn’t it?” Asterios asked as he peered through the window too. “The command room. Why else would you need a view outside?”
“It’s highly likely, yes.” Abyss floated closer to the single short pillar in front of the opening. “Do you have the token?”
He produced the sigil he had retrieved from the previous device before they continued their trek. Handing it over, he gathered with the ladies around and watched as she slid it into a thin slit, where it disappeared like a coin into one of those cute piggy banks children liked to purchase for their savings. The slanted surface lit up with even more complex lines and multiple gems.
No one said anything as she worked in silence to figure out anything useful. They had hope in their weird friend. For all the creepy and uncanny things surrounding her character, she was definitely the strongest and perhaps the most knowledgeable out of them. In the end, who could rival a being that had crafted an entire dimension on its own?
It took a while, but Abyss finally paused, her fingers hovering over one of the crystals as she looked up. Something began to happen and the group shared smiles, hearing stones shifting around.
But, their friend’s next words quickly cooled down their enthusiasm.
“Oh no…” Abyss whispered, a hint of actual emotion in her usually uncaring tone.
And it wasn’t a positive one.
The room started shaking even more, throwing them a little bit off balance.
“Uhhh… Guys?” Miria chuckled nervously. “Is it supposed to be making that eerie sound?”
They noticed a buzzing noise somewhere deep within the fortress. It was quickly growing louder, joined by something akin to whirring. Soon, it was not just noticeable but even irritable, permeating through their bodies while tickling their blood organs and vessels.
“Abyss? What’s going on?” Asterios looked at the distressed woman in black.
“I should have expected him to be this petty.” She sighed deeply. “The token was a false sign of security. It works for doors and other devices, but not this one. I thought I found a way to power down the seal, but it turns out there is no such option. He didn’t need it. All he required was the feature of turning it back on in case the clusters depleted before he returned.”
“And what does that mean exactly?” Althea inquired.
“It’s a trap,” Abyss managed to say before a massive tremor threw them to their knees.
A loud hum filled their ears as a bright flash assaulted their eyes. It came through the window, right from the outside world. After getting accustomed to the intense light, they peered past the see-through pane and froze.
The ground was struck with a massive column of golden energy that sizzled and sparked with incredible power. It was the size of the opening going through the center of the fortress that they had seen from below. As it continuously assailed the land, the dark rock melted like butter, and the unimaginably intense beam dug deep, dissolving the edges of the tunnel.
Additional flashes caught their attention, taking place far away from their location. They could still catch the bright gleams on the dark sky and ground over the horizon, massive clouds of bits and pieces blown into the air alongside golden fumes and energy. Similar rays were stabbing into the realm’s surface in all directions, not just the one they had just initiated.
“Should we run?” Silvia’s eyes widened briefly as she witnessed the briefest hints of unimaginable destruction.
“No. We are… safe.” Abyss floated away from the control pillar. “There won’t be any big explosions beneath us.”
“Why?” The princess frowned.
“Because there’s nothing to explode,” was what she received in reply.
“The cluster.” Althea’s head cocked back in understanding. “These beams are launched from the fortresses to detonate the spiritual clusters buried deep in the ground.”
“Close, but not entirely correct,” the realm’s goddess said. “The middle of this floating structure is like a pipe. The energy only comes through it. And while its goal is to reach the cluster just as you have figured out, it comes from higher up, originating at the seal itself.”
“Wait, so that’s good or bad? This means the energy is being spent, which is what we want, no?” Miria’s face scrunched as she tried to decide.
“It’s definitely bad,” Tina answered immediately. “Just imagine what would have happened to all those creatures living under or near the fortresses if we didn’t steal the clusters, like the village of Kaguya’s worshippers for example. Assuming each single flying castle does this, the casualties have to be insane.”
“It’s more than that.” Abyss met their concerned gazes. “The clusters aren’t just some well-placed mana bombs. These are explosives meant to shatter this world. I should have noticed it earlier. Their location isn’t coincidental. They are set in a pattern that will crack the world’s crust and mantle, resulting in it crumbling into pieces. It’s a total annihilation and a result of him setting it up for the moment anyone tried messing with the barrier.”
That was not something they expected to hear and certainly heavy news. As they peered through the window, more and more explosions burst into the sky in the distance. The number of lives lost rose alongside each of them, and the chances of survival for everyone else fell accordingly.
Suddenly, the quest to free the realm of its restraints turned into a quest to save it from its imminent destruction.
Things had done a full one-eighty real quick.