“…Diana? I-Is…Is that you?”

Previously,

With Diana getting sacrificed to break Oldruin’s curse on the kingdom of [Albion], not that it matters now since Oldruin’s clone came and wrecked the place, Crystal and her friends were desperate to defeat the cloaked bald man.

Before a comet proceeded to crash into Oldruin’s clone and blow him up, and the bald man fell off the breaking cliff’s edge due to Leo applying intense gravitational pressure onto him. All in all, both attackers died pretty damn quickly.

After Leo’s arrival, he was quick to help with the party’s desire to try and bring Diana back.

The problem was…Diana had somehow managed to get herself into the world of ‘spirits and gods’, a place no ordinary human, or any normal living being could travel in and out of. Which meant, Rei, Leo, Gaz, and Ilgua were out of the picture.

But Crystal, being a spirit created as a last boss of a dungeon, was, well, a spirit. With Leo’s magical silver coin to guide her back, Crystal ventured through the portal Leo created and found herself inside this maze-like world of stone brick walls. A very boring looking place if I must say.

As soon as she entered however, a strong surge of power emanated from across this ‘maze’. Taking a gamble that Diana would be there, she hurried over to the location, and after getting lost several times and bumping her head on several dead ends…here she was, staring at the debris with Diana(bare naked) just standing there, frozen in shock and relief.

“…Huh? Crystal?”

It wasn’t much of a surprise to say that both sides were surprised.

Crystal was surprised because: One, she did just find Diana in, like…5 minutes. Two, the incredibly strong monster she felt earlier was nowhere near. And third, Diana was naked…What?

While Diana on the other hand, with the knowledge that dying brings someone here, immediately had her thoughts drift on to the possibility of Crystal dying in the battle as well.

Now that was scary.

But with the aftershock gone, all Crystal could feel was relief, happiness, joy, and other happy feelings I can’t seem to remember. With no further ado, she rushed forward and pulled Diana in for a hug, much to Diana’s silent surprise.

No words were exchanged, for there was no need. From the soft trembles of her lips, to the building tears in her eyes, Diana could easily guess all the thoughts and emotions running through her head.

Smiling, Diana returned the hug, snuggling close to feel the soft warmth of her body. She gently brought her hand up to Crystal’s head and calmed her.

Even if the Crystal here was simply an illusion, she didn’t care anymore.

So much of her memories had floated away, it’s getting hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t. And frankly, by the end of this journey, she’d probably completely forget who she was and how she came to be.

But none of that mattered.

Because here, in this moment, she was with her best friend, and that’s all that mattered.

They shared this silent hug for a couple more minutes, before Crystal reluctantly broke off and wiped her eyes, just in case any tears decided to fall out. A-After all, she couldn’t cry now! The danger of this unfamiliar plane still lingers above them!

Literally!

*Giiiiiiiiiisssshhhhhhhh*

“Oh……God.”

Crystal could only let despair-filled voice as she looked up, where she saw one hell of a demonic looking spider hanging above them, its 8 red eyes staring intensely at its new meal. Its body was covered in blue lava, bubbling and coating the most spider’s body. A tough purple carapace was covering the spider’s eight legs, which also served to probably increase its stabby power.

Oh, and it’s also huge. Like, huge.

Both of them immediately stepped back, avoiding the incoming lava spider, its lava getting thrown everywhere, melting anything it touched. Dangerous.

“…Welp. Time to the Joestar’s family specialty!”

“Huh?”

The giant lava spider hissed at the two, its lava bubbling out in ferocity as it marched its way towards them! Time for another chase scene!

“Book iiiiittttt!!!”

“H-Hey! Wait for me!!”

Turning the other way, the two girls immediately ran away, followed by the giant lava spider! Just in case, Crystal conjured a [Phantom Blade] and fired it at the lava spider, seeing it melt into the lava like it was nothing. With this, she proved that attacks were useless. Sh*t.

The fact that this was a maze wasn’t helping either! With the many twists and turns, the path to escape this crawling monstrosity following them seemed like a dream. Oddly though, Diana seems rather calm about this, as if she had a plan. But she might just be a ditz, so who knows.

The giant lava spider began firing lava pellets at them as they got farther from it, making their escape even tougher than it already was! Not only that, those things were fired at the speed of a goddamn bullet, so even if it wasn’t lava, they’d still get pretty injured!

Things were not looking up, until Diana suddenly stopped and grabbed her hand tightly. Squealing a little on the inside, she failed to notice that the monster from earlier, the gross crawly black monster with eight eyes standing before them.

With the giant lava spider behind them, and the crawly monster before them, they were now trapped!

Using this chance, the giant lava spider fired off several more lava bullets at them. As Crystal was still somewhat in a daze, Diana used her slime to push her onto one side of the wall, while she jumped back to the opposite side, both evading the incoming lava.

And instead, the bullets went flying and hit the abyssal crawly monster. Which, added on with the rage from losing Diana earlier, only served to enrage it even more. Blinded by its rage, it turned around and roared towards the giant lava spider, charging in to battle it!

The spider, realising that this gross crawly monstrosity was going up to challenge it, hissed in anger and annoyance as it too moved in to attack it, firing a volley of lava bullets.

“W-What’s-, mmphh!?”

While all this was happening, Diana controlled her slime to move over Crystal’s mouth and silence her, while she turned into her slime form and slithered on the floor and over to Crystal, dragging her away as silently as she could from the fighting monsters.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

After they got far enough, she released the slime from Crystal’s mouth and returned back to her human form, before the two continued to run away.

Now that those two monsters were out and fighting each other, Crystal finally had enough focus to remember that silver coin Leo gave him to help her find her way back. In a haste, she quickly pulled out the silver coin from her pockets and stared at it.

…and…uh…nothing was happening.

She tried everything. Throwing it at the wall, flipping it over and over, calling it out, dropping it on the floor, trying to bend it, but nothing worked. None of this ‘help’ she was promised appeared to guide her out.

“Hey, what’s that?”

“This? It’s a silver coin. That Ilgua guy’s master gave it to me to help bring us back. Not sure if it even works though. Here, try it.”

Seeing as her efforts were useless, she gave up the silver coin and gave it to Diana, who upon touching the coin, suddenly caused the coin to shine brilliantly, showing them a white line that guided them towards…whatever it is that will bring them back.

“Woah…That’s cool…”

“Huh? What’s cool? I don’t see anything.”

“…Huh? Really?”

Crystal nodded again, confirming that indeed, she could not see anything besides Diana in her naked form. That’s enough though, seeing Diana naked was already pleasant enough for her!

Oh god, she’s becoming a pervert now too!?

Well, no matter. If Crystal couldn’t see it, then she just needed to guide her towards it! Holding the coin tightly in her hand, she led the way and the two left, this time with Diana following the white line that recently showed up.

And that white lined trail led them to…an empty room. In fact, it was so empty, that not even the stone brick walls that barricaded them in from earlier was in sight. All they could see was…white. A whiteness stretching farther than the eye can see.

Diana was back in the white world. Just, with a guest this time.

“What is this…?” As a mage herself, a world like this was of heavy interest to Crystal. Well, the lonely whiteness was boring, even an hour of excitement wouldn’t fix that, but this place…there was absolutely no mana…none.

It was as if, mana didn’t even exist in this world. A whole other dimension from the one she knew.

Now that was an exciting thought!

But, more of her fangirling later, Sig was back!

“Sig!”

*Seems like you made it back safely. Nice one!^_^*

“…Sig?”

It was a first for her, hearing the name ‘Sig’. In fact, she couldn’t even see Sig, who was just sitting before Diana, with a face of ‘relief?’ as it saw her faze back into this world. Sig wasn’t exactly sure what just happened, but the chances of Diana dying from that was extremely high.

If Sig could, Sig would have broken down and cried tears of joy, but hell, Sig couldn’t even give a single sign of that.

Sorry not sorry

But, that all aside, the world of complete whiteness hasn’t changed all that much. It was still white, Diana and Sig was still there, with the addition of Crystal now, and that damn huge tree was still in the centre, just idling around.

Although its situation was…much more severe now.

Previously, it was only wilting with only a part of its bark turning black. Now? The bark was near dead, with the leaves striving to keep attached to the falling branches. The air generated around it was dark, as if the oxygen it created was polluted, no longer pure.

And soon, even if she didn’t want it, she was shown the truth.

All those 99 women sacrificed to that ritual(that didn’t even f*cking matter), all of their pure souls surged into that tree, along with the thousands of lives from the destroyed kingdom of [Albion].

Their hearts filled with regret, anger, and despair, they stormed the tree, and poisoned it from the inside. And the sinful citizens of [Albion] weren’t helping much either, with their lingering regrets poisoning the tree even more.

And with the countless other kingdoms the Oldruin clones have devoured, it’s no wonder that the tree was reaching its final breath.

Like the gates of hell being opened, like the souls of the Sanzu River overflowing, the malevolence of man that had seeped into the tree grew outwards, straining the tree that had tried to keep them alive.

…And I mean that literally.

“W-What the…?”

As Diana died before she knew any of what I just explained, she knew not of why the tree was acting as such. All she could see was the darkness, taken form as elongated hands, reaching out of the tree and towards the whiteness, tainting the pure cloth white with its darkness.

That alone was already scary enough, but to make it even worse, those arms were-

“Hyaha!?”

Reaching towards her and her friends now!

The black arms shot out towards them, trying to drag them inside as well. Just barely, Diana managed to dodge the first strike, but with more incoming arms, staying here was…probably not the best of ideas.

And-, oh right, Sig’s fine. Sig’s a part of this world, so it can just faze in and out whenever it wanted. F*ckin’ Reimu No.2

“C-Crystal! How the f*ck do we get out of here!?!?”

“S-Shut up! I-I don’t know either!!”

This was bad. Really bad! Leo said that the silver coin will help them get out of here, but damn is this thing bugged as hell! It wasn’t working a single bit! No matter how hard Diana punched it, hit it, bit onto it, it just wouldn’t do anything!

Another arm rushed out, and managed to catch Diana in its clutches! In panic, Crystal turned back and shot a set of [Phantom Blades] at the arm, severing it from Diana and freeing her. A shiny object fell and hit the white floor. Crystal noticed it, but as more arms were reaching towards them, she had no chances to see what it was and continued running.

And now, it’s time for the deus ex machina!

“D-Diana! Over there!”

As they ran away from the expanding darkness, there they saw it. A rift in time and space, one that looked alike to the one Crystal used to get in here. In other words, it’s a goddamn portal!

With their eyes set on the goal, the two rushed towards the portal, evading any incoming arms as they strove towards the portal. The whiteness rolled across as they ran by, their legs tired but strengthened by the will to survive.

Crystal was the first to get there, her body easily fazing through the portal and out of this world. The coin’s effect had finally activated. Seeing her friend leave before her, Diana finally found salvation, as her hand was first to touch the portal-

Before she was sent flying back.

“…eh?”

The moment her physical hand touched the portal, it rejected her. Diana tried again and again, but no matter how many times she charged in, she would only get knocked away.

Leo failed to elaborate.

While it was true that only ethereal beings like spirits or gods could enter into this surreal world, the same goes the other way around. Only ethereal beings are able to move out of this world, as they are the true inhabitants of this world.

A physical being like Diana, a [Slime Queen], can never pass through.

“W-Wait, come on…this isn’t funny. L-let me through, p-please-“

Her cries, went unanswered, as in her fit on despair, an arm shot out and caught her, dragging her back, closer towards the withering tree.

“NOO!! P-PLEASE!! CRYSTAL!!”

Like a Magikarp caught at the end of a fishing rod, the arm dragged her back, reeling her pass the darkness and towards the centre of the withering tree, where all of the malevolence had gathered, fit into a single space.

“Let go, let go, let go!!! You piece of sh*t, LET, ME, GO!!!!”

Those, were the last words she spoke, before she was swallowed into the withering tree.

…………………

“Hah…hah…hah…”

Meanwhile, on the outside,

“Crystal…Diana, where?”

Rei asked, her head tilted as she looked on, seeing as Crystal had returned, but Diana had not. Crystal was completely exhausted, her breathing ragged as she struggled every breath into her lungs.

“H-Huh? What do you mean?”

She turned around, eyeing the portal that was still there, floating slightly above the ground as the space around it warped in confusion. Seconds passed, then a minute, then 5 minutes, when the portal finally collapsed on itself and closed.

Only then, did she realise.

Diana did not come back.

“Oi Oi, w-where’s Diana? You saved her, right?”

Gaz voiced his concerns, smiling as best as he could despite seeing with his own two eyes that Diana was nowhere to be seen. Ilgua was similar, just staying silent and not moving, his eyes tracking for any signs of Diana. There were none.

Leo was not here to explain. The portal was not here for her to check. Oldruin was not here to elaborate. The darkness from before was not here to show any prove. And Diana was not here to smile brilliantly to her comrades.

She recalled what Leo said, as it was a world of spirits and gods, only those who belonged there, could enter and leave, were the spirits and gods themselves.

The coin he handed to her, was an artefact enchanted with the blood of a god he had long befriended. With that, surely Diana would have been able to exploit the world’s characteristics and escaped.

But Crystal made a mistake of giving it to Diana early.

As Crystal freed Diana from the arm that managed to catch her, she noticed a shiny object fall and hit the white floor. She noticed it, she really did, but…she didn’t have any time to realise what it truly was-

No, she did have time. Her [Phantom Blades] were able to cleave through the arms of darkness, yet she didn’t think about it and ran. If only she had taken more effort, if only she was more brave, this wouldn’t have happened.

She could not go and ask for another one, for Leo was no longer here, now in pursuit to destroy the other Oldruin clones.

And now, the portal was closed, Diana was surely swallowed up by now, and no powers she had could rewind time. The spilt milk could never return to its glass.