It was a few hours after dusk, the sun had just completed its descent into the horizon. Robert had got himself nice and comfortable atop of a bell tower overlooking the abandoned village known as Pine Grove. To be precise, he made a camp at the balcony of the bell tower.

In truth, it wasn’t his intention to be early. It was merely a small oversight on his part.

Due to over-indulging in some private affairs, he lost track of time and rushed to the village without having supper. His haste was then proven to be needless. The night was still young. To sate his grumbling stomach, he nibbled on some dried rations he brought with him.

Despite his blunder, Robert proverbially patted himself on the back for not being negligent. Prior to his tryst, he had restock his arsenal and provisions by the way of Lily’s assistance. Aside from the essential items, he was given a reusable Magic Scroll enchanted with the spell, Summon Sparrow. The Sparrow from this spell was basically a homing pigeon but of Magic origins. Unlike pigeons, the message was imbued into the Sparrow familiar itself, divulging the message only to the intended recipients.

There were other ways of delivering messages through the use of Magic. Summon Sparrow was the most well-received due to its cost-performance.

“Okay… this is too peaceful”

The sky was long darken by the coming of night but nothing bizarre had yet to reveal itself. Robert was skeptical at the absence of aberrations but he gave it some time until midnight.

He stretched out his hyper-cognition but he couldn’t distinguish the position of the source. The ominous force was definitely present but it was spread too thin and evenly to be traced back. It was different than the Dark Zone where the source was blatantly revealing its spot.

Even getting into the Dark Zone was easier than Pine Grove.

The reason being the only way to get here was through a stone bridge spanning across a gap of a small valley. There were only four guards present on the bridge with two on each end. There were no patrols. Because of this, Robert had to get creative.

However, his solution wasn’t so novel. He moved a good distance away from the bridge. He simply put more Magic into his feet than normal and took a leap of faith across the gap. He scraped his knees and hit his chin but thanks to the light armor he donned, his knee got off lightly but his chin was now slight swollen and sore.

Pine Grove wasn’t what he had presumed in spite of the current state it was left in. It looked like any other village with the only notable differences being the surrounding Pine Trees and the pond just a stone throw away. The word “grove” did not came to mind when he arrived at the deserted village.

Villagers disappeared without traces and some died off without knowing the proper causes. Strangest thing of all, even the dead bodies had vanish from the village.

Robert had made his rounds before settling on top of the village’s bell tower. The half-eaten meals were all left as it is. The clothes on the drying lines were left hanging. The valuables and provisions weren’t taken or even touched. The conclusion he drawn was that the villagers disappeared all too quick. There was no signs of struggles, indicating nothing attacked them despite of the high death toll.

“Still, this is just too quiet.”

Robert guessed that if something were to happen, it would do so when midnight came. As Robert pondered deeply and waited for the impending mayhem, a discomforting feeling tugged him off his back. His hyper-cognition was yelling at him, warning him of the approaching presences.

“Humans? Twelve?” he roughly guessed from his hyper-cognition. “Oh right, Lily did said the interested parties are moving again, didn’t she?”

He stuck his head out of the balcony, a band of mismatched individuals strode into his field of vision. Seven of them were dress shabbily with worn-out armor, looking like thugs. Three of them were donning proper knight armors and the remaining two were wearing clergy attires, Clerics. In the hands of the two Clerics were staffs spanning the length of their respective height.

“Seven thugs, three knights, and two Clerics. Huh,” was the result of Robert’s observation.

The knights and Clerics were soak in some empyrean lights and the thugs were simply cloak thinly of the same essence. Robert recognized the lights as the lowest form of divinity, blessings of gods. Seeing the knights had more divinity protecting them then the thugs, he reckoned them to be Paladins, in common words, Temple Knights. Paladins were actual fighters contrary to Clerics which played supportive roles.

“Caelion’s believers, great,” Robert was able to tell. This was also a result of his hyper-cognition. He could discern one’s specific faith just from the speck of divinity the person was blessed with. “And they’re working together with other factions. Just fucking dandy.”

Robert wasn’t told about this. He would have be more prepared if he knew. Either Lily hid the fact from him or she simply didn’t know. Robert guessed it was more likely to be the latter. If it was the former, the anomalies would be the least of Lily’s worries.

 Judging from the thugs’ nonchalant expressions, Robert surmised the thugs couldn’t perceive those blessings and in all likelihood unaware of the imminent predicament, in contrast to the clergymen. Their gestures and movements suggested they were on edge.

Still, Robert stifled the need to mock at their attempts. They had not a single clue on the origins of these anomalies but they cooked up a solution that they merely “believed” it would work. It was better than nothing and it was doable. Robert had no doubt of the effectiveness but it would be a different story if they got close to the source.

“They must be desperate.”

Among the thugs, there were only one Elite but the Clerics and Paladins were all Elites and one of the Paladins was a Master. It would be wiser to also bring along a Master-level Cleric but Robert judged that the local Caelion Temple probably couldn’t afford to spare too much human resources.

“No witnesses, huh,” Robert mumbled the instructions from Lily. He intent to abide it but given the strength of this band of mismatched individuals, it would take some effort, miracle, and luck. Robert added patience to the list.

The Clerics issued some commands and the thugs moved out to scour the area. The Paladins and Clerics remained. The Paladins gathered around while the Clerics got on their knees. From their lips, Robert could tell they were praying. The Paladins were most likely having some combat-related discussion considering their roles but with their helmets on, Robert couldn’t be sure. He strained his ears to pick up the exchange but he heard only whispers.

It took Robert awhile to realize their helmets were infused with some spells to counteract eavesdropping. After the Paladins’ discussion ended, they drew their weapons out of the air as the ring on their finger glowed.

“Storage Ring, awesome… What’s next? A divine familiar?”

The two elite-level Paladins were wielding great swords and as for the master-level Paladin, he wielded a giant mace and a shield that could cover three-fourths of his body.

“No way, that can’t be,” Robert feasted his eyes on the shield. He recognized it. Or at least, the materials used. While it was generally forged with rare alloys and steel, the centerpiece of the shield was undoubtedly made of Dragon’s scales.

No matter which book he read or who he heard it from, the stories were always the same. Dragons were rarely encountered, much less sighted. They were the apex of all beasts. There was nothing their fangs couldn’t pierce and breaking through their scales would take steel or metal of legendary grade. According to the scholars, only three Dragons managed to be fell at the hands of mortals in the last two hundred years. So to say, weapons, armors, or any tools that were made using even the least bit of Dragon materials were rarer than a blue moon.

The fact that a Caelion’s Paladin was using such an item, just goes to show of their desperation and wealth.

On an unrelated interesting fact, using tools of any kind made with even the least bit of Dragon materials was considered heresy to the Aeryeon Faith. They worshiped Aeryo, the Dragon God. In turn, they treated Dragons as demi-gods and apostles of Aeryo. It was unfathomable for them to use even a piece of their God’s apostles as a tool.

And just when Robert thought that was the end of the complications, he noticed another hitch, in the form of an eccentric individual.

The individual had a vague presence. Robert wasn’t able to perceived the individual until it stepped away from the groups. It had blended quite well with the shadows and the crowd. The figure was dress in a black cloak that covered its whole body along with the aid of the night.

Robert couldn’t tell whether it was a man or woman but the presence, although faint, was familiar. It wasn’t as ominous as the anomalies but it was profound enough to capture Robert’s attention. Just as he struggled to remember this foreboding feeling, the figure’s shadows caught his attention with the way it oozed out vestiges of lives.

And it clicked in his head.

Valena Devetra.

While her figure was sheltered by the cloak she wore, Robert would never mistook those shadows of hers.

“What and why the fuck are you doing here?”

The Master Paladin approached Valena. He said something to her which Robert could only perceived it as orders.

Valena nodded and tittered with her hand covering her mouth, “of course, of course. I’ll do my part earn my keep.” Her current manner of conduct was a stark contrast to Robert’s impression of her.

“Perhaps this is her true self?” Robert thought.

Valena’s shadows spread out, pulling themselves apart from the main cluster and splitting into six parts. These offshoots of her shadows rose from the ground. The offshoots morphed into silhouettes resembling that of a cat. The only discrepancy from a normal cat was their tripled size and their forked tail which split into two down the middle.

The thugs who saw these were startle with their mouths agape but clergymen were unfazed. Unrest can be seeing growing in the eyes of the thug. They were casting dubious glances at Valena but some had room for deviant kind of gazes.

“That’s not good,” Robert’s mutters were literal this time. Although he found it fascinating but this was also a pickle.

The familiar of shadow-morph cats moved out to all directions. They went looking over places that the thugs neglected or forgotten, in which one of these places was the bell tower. One of the shadow-morph cats scaled the vertical slope of the tower as if it had the weight of a feather. It bounced between the slightest protrusions and when there was none, it used its claws. It climbed to the top before Robert could finish blinking. It found Robert without much effort.

Robert and the familiar had a stare down. An incredibly short but intense period of moment passed. The shadow-morph cat tilted its head and Robert followed.

Her offered his half-eaten dried ration.

The cat born of shadows flinched.

Instead of getting unnerved on the off chance he agitated the familiar, Robert chuckled at the shadow-morph cat’s adorable and uncanny likeness of an actual cat. He took a bite of the dried ration and offered it again.

The familiar shook its head.

Robert was taken aback.

He realized the familiar was conveying its owner’s intention and reaction. Valena was probably looking through her familiar eyes at this very moment.

Robert placed his finger at his lips, nodding to the familiar for a concord.

Without a response or reaction, the familiar simply stare and after a second went by, the familiar left by leaping off the bell tower.

Although the familiar did not alert everyone to his presence, he still couldn’t be sure if he was out of the heating pot.

He plopped down behind the pillars and strained his ears. He heard whispers directed at Valena, probably asking about the results of her scouting.

“There’s nothing in this place besides us, no beasts, monsters, or even animals,” she relayed her findings to the Master Paladin. Although he couldn’t make out the words from the Paladin, what he heard from Valena was enough to shower him with relief.

He found himself an ally, for now.

When he sneaked a peek at the groups below, his gaze matched with Valena’s. Now he was absolutely sure, the girl in the black cloak was definitely Valena Devetra but her demeanor resembled nothing of the Valena he knew in the academy, especially when she grinned impishly at him.

Robert wasn’t aware of the reason she assented to her silence but he knew it wasn’t wise to look the gift horse in the mouth, especially considering his current predicament.

“Well, this sucks,” Robert mused, quietly. He was stuck between the interfering parties and his duty obligations. He couldn’t move from this spot. He could sense one of the Clerics was a Sentry but the ominous forced hampered his range and sensitivity. Robert guessed this was why they asked Valena to use her familiars to scout around.

Robert glanced around some more while making sure he wouldn’t be exposed. He could see the groups weren’t exactly fully trusting of one another. The one who seemed to be the leader of the thugs were belittling and insulting the clergymen for their beliefs and superstitions, it then somehow extended to their incompetency. There were discussions on how would they go about stealing the clergymen’s weapons and articles. There were also comments on how they wished to have their ways with Valena if they ever got a chance. They even thought of selling her to corrupt nobles afterwards when they were done with her.

Robert wasn’t upset with their vulgar delusions. In fact, he was grateful. Now if the whole thing descended into bedlam, he would have absolutely no qualms with taking their lives.

Robert was also thankful for their loose tongues caused by their boredom, he heard a lot of things from them.

The thugs were hired by Dusk and they were only told to work with the Caelion Faith and they could only return if they produced results or when dawn broke. From the thug’s venomous words of insult, Robert found out that the Kiva and Caelion Faith outsourced their prior inspections of the anomalies. And when the temple got wind of some other faction gaining a lead ahead of them, only then they relented to use their own followers.

Something felt wrong for Robert. From what he read in Tann’s dossier, the founder of Dusk was no idiot. He couldn’t possibly overlooked how things would play out if he hired such men. It was almost as if he were banking on them to raise cain and imperil the mission. When Robert cerebrated further, he could only see Dusk as trying to impede the Caelion Faith.

But then again, Robert also wondered, would the Caelion Faith be this much of a dullard to fall for it?

And then there was Valena. It appeared that she was also hired by Dusk for her Anima Magic and neither the thugs nor the clergymen knew her true identity despite seeing her face. She was known only as Seven. It would be another question if Dusk was aware.

From what Robert gathered, they probably only knew there was a Devetra named Valena and she was of illegitimate birth but they didn’t know the next thing about her. Her status as a the illegitimate granddaughter of the Lord Governor most likely played a huge role in that line of reasoning.

Robert did mentioned about Valena to Iora while they were basking in the afterglow after hours of passionate coitus that lasted until evening. She told him that she only knew Valena existed as she was advised several times to best not acquaint herself with Valena. Iora was also informed of Valena’s enrollment into the academy as a Devetra but she was prohibited from flaunting her family name due to her illegitimacy status. All in all, Iora held no animosity towards Valena. In fact, she actually wanted to at least talk to her cousin.

Robert was mildly regretting at the fact that he promised Iora to do the best he can to get her and her cousin acquainted. He blamed it on the bliss from the coitus that swerved his thoughts.

The air was getting chilly and the moon continued to rise but nothing happened. The ominous presence still lingers but Robert kept hitting a dead end on his thoughts. And it wasn’t possible for him to proceed further with his investigation with all the oppositions lurking about.

All this while, the Clerics were swinging their staff and chanting something while the Paladins stood guard. It was probably some ritual but Robert’s sea of knowledge came up nothing.

The thugs had given up their search and were just loitering about and sitting around the campfire they built. Their focus were more dedicated on Valena and the clergymen.

Valena was quietly sitting by her own fire. Her familiars had return to her shadows. Robert couldn’t tell her current state since she had his back turned to him. This was definitely deliberate as she knew where Robert was hiding.

Besides the rising tension among them, everyone’s physical and mental health were still ordinary, Robert observed.

With nothing else to do, Robert tried to piece the puzzles together but it was naturally impossible with all the numerous missing pieces. He made do with the puzzle pieces he currently had.

All of the villagers along with the livestock disappeared suddenly, the cause and method was unknown.

Prior to the strange mass disappearance, in spite of the repeated death of the villagers, there were no signs of the village being attacked by something or someone.

Cause and method of death were also unknown.

Witnesses weren’t of sound mind to give the whole explanation. Some of the witnesses died shortly afterwards. Physician and Alchemist agreed the cause of death of these witnesses to be extreme stress.

No corpses or even carcasses of livestock were found after the disappearance of the entire village.

Valuables and provisions were untouched, hinting at the fact that whatever happened to them, it happened all too suddenly.

And Robert’s line of thoughts shifted to the Dark Zone’s anomaly.

The anomaly took effect during the night, unleashing an ominous force.

The ominous force turned every living thing into an extreme state of aggression and mutation.

The victims were near death but alive.

The source of the ominous force lay deep in the inner layer.

“Hmm… if it’s sudden mass disappearance, could they have been involved in a mass teleportation?” Robert pondered as he covered himself a blanket he took out from his Storage Ring. Although the cold didn’t bother him but it would still have an adverse effect on his body. “But a mass teleportation would bring along objects of any size as long its within the Teleportation Circle. The Magic consumption is proportional to the quantity and size of the objects transported. If it’s truly mass teleportation, Midas Valley wouldn’t have not noticed it with that much Magic used.”

He racked his brain at finding the possibilities and connections. He had a hunch that enlightenment might be close.

“Okay not teleportation but let’s say, mass transition. Instead of the individuals, the world itself would be doing the moving. What was that called again? Spirited away? The villagers get spirited away… yeah that’s really stretching.”

It was a stretch but it wasn’t an impossibility.There were real stories of people getting spirited away but Robert personally hadn’t experience it.

 “And the ominous force, it hangs lives on a thread, a sticky thread that wouldn’t let go even if the lives themselves did. But the villagers were dead. They weren’t hanging on a thread like the monsters and Ghouls in the Dark Zone.”

Somehow, these words reminded Robert of something that he knew, he was certain that he read about it. He dove into the inner recess of his mind, fumbling through his countless old and nearly-forgotten memories.

“I believed it was about another world. A world which represents the boundary of life and death, everything were suspend in that state. These words came from the ones who returned from said world. They claimed to have been spirited away but it was hard to believe their words. Their mind was no longer sound. The rambled on about many things. Many which borderline insanity.”

Robert was close. He could feel it.

“Hmm… this world-in-question, I believe the scholars called it—”

Before he could finish his deep line of thought, the world shook, violently. It was to the point that it wouldn’t be absurd to think his organs would spill out.

A massive overwhelming force came like a tidal wave. It crushed him.

It was all too sudden. His brain couldn’t follow.

He could do nothing in response but only to drown in the suffocating void.

But Robert wasn’t the slightest unsettled. He kept his composure. His mind couldn’t fought against the flow, so he let it drift along. His lung was devoid of air but he let it burn.

This much was nothing compared to what he had been through.

After some time, the overwhelming force subsided and he was able to breath again. His whole body was numb but he waited for his sense to return.

He was no longer on the bell tower. No, he was still at the tower but there was just what it was, simply a tower. The bell was no longer there and so was the roof. The bricks and stone that it was built of, looked as if it could be shattered with an effortless hit. The entirety of the tower was covered with vines that had overgrown from some plants.

Without the roof, Robert had a full view of the night sky and the moons. Yes, moons. There wasn’t just one. There were at least dozens. And none of the moon glowed. The moons resembled nothing more than a piece of rock.

Overlooking the area, Robert saw how everything he known had change. The city of Midas Valley in the distance had all but lost its liveliness and lights, leaving only a few flickers of flames that could be smothered with a gentle blow.

Everything seemed to be on the verge of their end but something wasn’t letting them go.

This scenery reminded Robert of the world he read, it was also a large piece to the grand puzzle. This world held the answers to the anomalies, this world that was known to many scholars as—

“Limbo.”