Return of the Fallen Volume 11 Chapter 11
Sand as far as the eye could see and multiple suns in the sky.
(Arc…where are we?)
…
There was no response. Kazuki tried asking again but again Arc did not speak. Kazuki sent a thread of aura into Arc but his aura was blocked and he was pushed out. Kazuki couldn’t even feel Arc’s consciousness nor any part of Arc at all. It was as if Arc had vanished. This didn’t make any sense because Arc’s body, the ring that housed it were still attached to Kazuki’s thumb.
(Arc, why are you not answering!?)
Kazuki suddenly had a dark thought. The amount of energy and focus needed to reach this place was something he could not comprehend. To reach a Higher Realm, one would need at least the power of a Demigod yet Arc who wasn’t a Demigod managed somehow.
(Arc must have exhausted itself. That is the best-case scenario. Otherwise…)
Kazuki didn’t dare to finish that thought. The idea that something bad happened to Arc would be too much right now. Kazuki shook his head and tried to stand up. Immediately he felt an immense weight on his entire body. It was like hundreds of planets were weighing down on his back. With a low grunt, Kazuki exerted himself and stood up straight.
“What is this? How can I be so heavy?”
There was no magic in his surroundings but there were thin threads of divine energy around him. Kazuki tried to jump and fly into the sky. He made it about 3 feet off the ground before the intense weight brought him crashing back down.
*Phoom*
A tiny cloud of dust rose up about half a foot from the surface before the weight of this place brought it back down as well.
Kazuki gathered his strength and slowly sat up. Lifting his hand up above his head took a good deal of effort and he quickly broke out into a sweat.
(Is this gravity but I can’t feel any magic here.)
Kazuki looked into his soul world and even his own magic was gone. His source was tapped dry. He tried to gather magical energy from his surroundings. He could sense tiny specks of it trying to enter him but there was a force with more pull. It immediately dragged the tiny specks he gathered down toward his feet and into the sand beneath him.
(I can’t tell what this invisible force is and I can’t get a proper sense of the magic around here, and that’s if there even is any magic in this place.)
Looking in every direction, Kazuki had no clue which direction to go.
“I can’t fly in this place and there’s nothing but sand in every direction.”
Even though he had no clue where he was nor which direction to go in. One thing he knew for sure, he was lost somewhere in a Higher Realm.
“The fact that I can sense a small amount of divine energy is proof that I’m in a Higher Realm. I guess right now that’s all that matters.”
Kazuki stood there for a moment just trying to take everything in. He never thought he would ever return to a Higher Realm. Now that he was here, he felt extremely bitter. The reason for coming here, it was something one should never have to do. He couldn’t help but think about Nunully and Asuna before the image of Sephra laughing filled his mind.
“NOOOO!”
*BAM*
Kazuki punched the ground with all of his force. He had lost it for a moment. The moment he hit the ground, he snapped out of it because something was off.
“The ground, It didn’t break!”
This was shocking, to say the least. Kazuki had the power to destroy a Lower Realm just by gripping at his surroundings. He could flick a finger and break a Lower Realm but here, this world was left without a scratch.
*Rumble*
Suddenly the sand began to shift and the ground moved beneath Kauzki’s feet. Kazuki was caught off guard but at the same time alarms began to ring in his head and he kicked off the ground. This time he was prepared for the weight. Circulating his ki his strength multiplied and he dashed away as fast as he could under these conditions. To his surprise, he was still fairly slow. It looked like he was moving only a little bit faster than a normal person. This surprise could only last for a moment before his attention was stolen away.
The ground burst open and a large worm with a fin atop its body appeared. The worm was the same color as the sand, only a little darker. It had no eyes, ears, or nose, but it had a large mouth with a spiral of teeth tucked inside. The worm was already well over 30 feet wide but as it rose up from the ground, it was clear its width was only telling part of the story. Higher and higher it rose until it amassed a length of over a hundred feet.
Kazuki was at a loss for words but his instincts told him that was a good thing. He stood in place and dared not to move an inch. With a powerful punch from him, he couldn’t even scratch the surface of this world but this sandworm had managed to pierce all the way through the ground, seemingly with ease.
The worm made no noise. As it stood there, the fin atop its head tilted left and then right for a few seconds. After a few moments in silence, the sandworm retreated back into the ground. The hole left behind sank slightly before a hill’s worth of sand filled and replaced the gaping hole.
(DAMNIT ARC WAKE THE HELL UP ALREADY!)
There was still no response.
Kazuki continued to stand there for a few minutes before he finally thought about moving. He needed to find out what he could and couldn’t do in this world. He couldn’t sue magic the traditional way but what about the untraditional way.
His hands began to move and his fingers bent in odd ways as he tested out the ancient hand signs. All he wished to do was create a simple flame. Nothing grand or major, something a match could…match. To his dread, he could not even materialize a spark let alone a flame.
Taking a deep breath he moved on. He tried to access his storage ring but of course, with no magic, the ring didn’t even glow with dull light. Kazuki stretched out his aura and thankfully his aura could still work but at the same time, he could only stretch it a little more than 50 feet from his body in every direction.
(Damn, this place is even suppressing my soul. No no, don’t get discouraged. If I can still use my aura, I should still be able to fly.)
Kazuki used his aura to push himself off of the ground. It worked but not in the way that he hoped. He could get off the ground but he could not fly. Instead, he could use it to hover and only 50 feet at that.
(Damn, this means I can’t just avoid that worm. If I could go a bit higher I could stay away from it completely, but with only this much, If I’m not careful I might just wind up in its path.)
Kazuki then tried a few more things, including talismans. He did not think he would ever reach a place where talismans would be useful for him ever again but in this place, he would use anything he could get his hands on. Cutting a finger, he wrote out the ancient language on a small piece of torn cloth. Using his ki to activate it, Kazuki tossed the talisman as far as he could. It flew hundreds of feet into the air before it flashed with blinding light. The light flashed in all directions for several seconds before the talisman fell apart and the light faded away.
(I can use talismans at least.)
With no weapons, Kazuki was limited to the short range of his aura, his ki, and talismans. Besides that, he seemed to be out of luck. Just as he was lost in thought, in the distance something shined.
Kazuki squinted in this direction and saw something that looked like light reflecting off of a mirror.
(Is someone there? Did they mistake my talisman as some sort of signal? If they responded to my light, that could be an indicator that whoever it is, has some form of intelligence and can maybe communicate. That’s the direction I’ll go.)
Kazuki did not even think about if the being he met would be able to understand his language or if he could understand theirs or even if they were friends or foes. At this point, he didn’t care. He needed answers and without Arc, this was the only reasonable option in this place.
Kazuki tore off more of his shirt into tiny pieces and made plenty of talismans. In this way he now felt he was a little more prepared for what was to come and set out before anything else strange took place.
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