The two of us stayed in that tree for what must have been hours before we managed to get up. Even if there was nothing left, we wanted to give the people we had lived with for the last few months a proper burial. At the same time, thoughts began to flood into our heads. What if this happened on Desbar? How much would be destroyed before the Sky Citadel could arrive?

When we finally arrived at the site of the compound, what we saw left us just as shocked as the initial news. The center of the compound, the apartment complex, had turned into a smoking crater. By now, the Sky Citadel had already vanished, but nobody from the neighboring cities had arrived yet.

Rubble was thrown about the ground, bricks and steel beams, and shards of glass. Nearby, I could see the collapsed school, which looked like it had been toppled down from the shockwave. And on the other side, the fort that held the gate. Aside from a single collapsed wall, the fort itself seemed mostly intact.

Ashara and I moved towards the crater, our tails intertwining with each other as we walked side by side. At the center of the crater, we saw the monster. Or rather, its corpse.

The creature was three meters long, and looked like a silvery white snake. If not for the fact that its head had completely blown apart, I might even think it was still alive. Even still… there was only one way to be sure.

As I walked closer, I felt Ashara’s tail slip out of mine. “K-karn?! What are you doing? Don’t get close to it!” She called out in a panic, rushing up behind me.

“I need to be sure it’s dead.” I said back to her. I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to put this thing into a card, or if it was simply too big to do so. However, if I could card it, then that was a guarantee. After all, living things could only be made into cards if they were already a summon. This thing… was obviously not.

When I reached the center of the crater, I put my hands on the smooth scaled hide of the serpent. It was hard to believe that this thing was level four hundred, but Ashley would not have been wrong about that. So I focused, I focused purely on storing the creature.

Sure enough, a faint light slowly began to cover the creature’s body, moving from the stump of its neck to the tip of its tail. As the light progressed, I felt an invisible weight pressing down on my body, nearly making me buckle under the force. To withstand it, I pushed my ki into my arms and legs, holding me in place.

Ashara let out a gasp as she heard that, clutching her hands together and praying in a desperate voice. “Please, not him too… Don’t take him.” As she prayed, a warm light enveloped my body, relieving a great deal of the pressure and allowing me to stand my ground.

Once the light had fully encompassed the serpent’s body, the pressure suddenly vanished. I let out a heavy breath, smiling back to the worried Ashara. At the same time, the light shifted, the snake’s body shrinking and collapsing in on itself.

It was really dead. When the light finally finished collapsing, it formed not one… not two… but actually three cards that dropped onto the ground at my feet. Surprised, I reached down to pick them up. I had only ever heard about a creature dropping a single extra card, but never two.

When I flipped the three over to look at them, I gained a slight understanding of why it had been so strong. The Deathfog Serpent. It wasn’t the name of a race, but a unique being. Even among the creatures of the third world, this must have been something powerful.

The second card that I looked at was the ‘death’ magic card, from the third tier. And the third card was another third tier magic, this one with the name ‘cloud’. “Karn…” Ashara spoke, a new tone of shock in her voice. “Ashley just spoke to me again… we need to leave… we need to get to a town fast.”

I turned to look at her in surprise. “We just got here to bury everyone. We can’t just leave now, after we just got here.”

“We have to!” She suddenly raised her voice, more and more scared by the second. Her shouting startled me, but she quickly brought her hands up to place them on my shoulders. “Please… This thing… It didn’t come from the third world. Or from Desbar. Ashley said… it came from somewhere else.”

My eyes went wide as I heard that, and I immediately glanced towards the gate. “I thought that the invaders were being stalled? Isn’t that what Dale had promised?” I could feel my voice shaking, unable to properly understand what was happening.

“I… I don’t know. She’s trying to find out, but she doesn’t know when she’ll be able to say for sure. But right now, we need to go! We have to warn the city, the country, anyone we can tell.” Ashara seemed more panicked by the moment, and I just nodded my head in acceptance, slipping the three new cards in my pouch. They would serve as proof later, if anyone questioned the story.

“After--” I was about to speak up, but Ashara smiled at me gently and cut me off.

“They already know, Karn. Ashley said that she sent word to Desbar after the incident. They know about the attack… and they know that we survived.”

I opened my eyes wide again at that, barely able to nod my head. I had been worried, worried that my mother might think that I had died if communication with the fort was suddenly cut off. If that happened… I don’t know if she’d be able to take it. “Okay… Can you tell her thanks… for me?”

Ashara laughed lightly, shaking her head while a few stray tears fell from her eyes. “Yeah, sure… Now, let’s get going.”

I nodded again, but hesitated instead of moving. “Just… just a second, please.” I muttered, glancing around. I began pushing my mana into my eyes, hoping that I might be able to see a trace of… something. I knew that using ki on your eyes made your vision sharper, but many people still did not understand the uses of mana. Maybe it would help me find something. Maybe… maybe there was still someone to save.

I let out a gasp as I indeed saw forms standing among the wreckage. The shapes of Miss Lyrha, and the old Legionnaire. Enta, my summoning teacher… And in the sky, I saw several winged forms descending. Their race was recognizable as the only other winged goddess that had been with Dale… If I remember right, she was… The Goddess of Death.

“What is it, Karn?” Ashara asked as I looked up. “Do you see something?” She glanced up as well, but could apparently not see the misty forms that descended to the ground.

One of the figures broke off from the group, heading towards us. Seeing that my eyes were following it, the figure looked straight at me. It was a man, tall and slim, his wings spread wide from his body. You should leave this to us, Demon. He spoke, his words entering my mind. This is not the place for you now. We will guide them to their new home.

As he said that, I could see the other figures descend towards the ghostly versions of the people I had once known. Seeing them being tended to… and by people that seemed to follow a goddess themselves, I felt somewhat more relieved.

“Karn? Hello?” Ashara began waving her hand in front of my face, snapping me out of my thoughts. With the focus of my mana severed, the images of the ghostly figures all vanished like a lie. “Are you okay?”

I looked at her, seeing the obvious concern on her face, and nodded. “I’m fine. And… I think they are too, now…” I said as I glanced towards the ruins of the compound.

“Okay… you’re going to have to explain that to me. But first, we need to-- Oh, well that’s just cheating.” Ashara suddenly stopped mid sentence, glaring towards the sky.

“Uhm… something I should know about?”

“Sorry, sorry… Ashley spoke again. You have the cards of the monster, so she wants to take us directly to the city to warn people. Just… hold still.” As she spoke, a familiar golden mist appeared beneath our feet, slowly rising up to wrap around our bodies and fading away just as quickly.

When it faded away, however, we were no longer standing in the ruins of the compound, in the depths of the crater created by the Sky Citadel. Instead, we were… in a bedroom. An occupied bedroom. A kitsune woman was sprawled out on a large, soft-looking bed, her blanket not quite covering her naked body.

And that’s about all I saw before Ashara covered my eyes with her hands. “Very funny, goddess.” She grumbled, and there was a startled gasp from in front of us, followed by a surprised shriek.

“R-robbers! Thieves!” The kitsune woman yelled, and I had to push Ashara’s hands away from my eyes to see her drawn back against the wall on the bed, clutching her blanket to her body. “W-what do you want with me!? I could have you arrested! No, killed!”

“Sorry, but… where are we?” I couldn’t help but ask. The sky outside looked different, as if night had just set again. So either we traveled through time, or to a different time zone. And given how large this world is, time zones must be enormous.

“W-what do you mean?! You’re in my bedroom! Why are you in my bedroom!?”

“A completely fair and valid question.” Ashara responded in a deadpan. “One that I would like the answer to myself. Please tell me that you can pray to your goddess and get her to answer… mine is currently busy laughing in my ear.”

The kitsune woman looked at Ashara with a bewildered face, one eyebrow arched and her eyes open wide. However, she did briefly close her eyes, only a moment before opening them in alarm. “The fort?” She asked, staring straight at us.

We nodded, and she jumped to her feet, discarding her blanket as she moved towards a dresser. Once again, there were hands covering my eyes, causing me to grumble. However, even as I heard her shuffling through her drawers to get clothes, she kept talking. “Udona didn’t give me details. What happened?”

“You didn’t hear it from here?” Ashara asked in a surprised tone. “We must really be far away… A monster showed up… a powerful one. Too strong, the gods had to bring in the Sky Citadel, or it could kill everything in the world. The citadel destroyed the entire compound killing the creature.”

There was a moment of silence following Ashara’s sobering words. “Damn third world monsters…” The kitsune spoke through what sounded like gritted teeth, before Ashara spoke up to correct her.

“It wasn’t from the third world. Ashley said this is from somewhere else that she doesn’t know about…” There was another pause, and I could just imagine the shock on the woman’s face. “Yes, I know. She’s trying to learn more, but wanted to bring us here because we have the cards of the monster that attacked. She thought they might be useful to you, and that you could do something about the situation.”

“I… I can try, okay?” The kitsune woman sounded frustrated, and I could hear a pained groan from her. “This is all really sudden, and I don’t appreciate being intruded upon in my own bedroom!”

“Uhm… about that.” I spoke up, my eyes still covered. “We lived at the compound… so could we have a place to stay for a little bit…? The gods blew up our last home…”