“Ugh…” Feeling dizzy, Illyan groaned as he rubbed his temples.

His ears were ringing and his sight was blurry as he tried to move his body while feeling panic creep into his scattered mind.

Splash

As he rolled around, he felt water splashing around him as if he lay in a shallow puddle.

“Gasp! Haah—haah…”

After rolling onto his back, he gasped for air as he tried to recollect his bearings.

Only after who knew how long did the sensations start to fade away, and Illyan could finally see properly again.

“Where the hell am I?”

Bewildered not to see the ceiling of his manor, Illyan wondered if he had been kidnapped.

Looking above, he saw a dark expanse with a myriad of stars and other celestial bodies that flew over his body.

They looked so far away, yet he felt that if he reached out for them, he would be able to touch them.

A few of such celestial bodies were all kinds of planets, stars, and even black holes.

While he didn’t know the names of many of them, there were a few that made him stop and wonder how they came to be.

One of such was a pair of suns that were larger than any other stars in the surroundings, yet didn’t seem to shine enough to spread their light to this land.

The other was a pair of moons that were in the opposite direction of the suns. However, they also weren’t illuminated by the light of the suns, and so they were barely visible in that darkness.

It was a strange sight, but at the same time, it looked harmonious in Illyan’s eyes.

“Ah?!” Just then, he saw a falling star pass through the night sky as it disappeared beyond the horizon.

However, what surprised Illyan was not the star itself but the sky itself.

Only after the bright white star illuminated that part of the sky did Illyan notice the small cracks that seemed to be etched into the space itself.

It was as if the sky was on the verge of shattering.

A wave of unbearable pain passed through Illyan’s head.

It felt as if his mind was pierced by thousands of needles.

As he groaned in pain, Illyan rolled onto his stomach as he used his hands as support to push his body off the shallow water.

His body was tense and his thoughts scattered; he slowly stood up and looked around.

But that just made him more confused.

‘At least it doesn’t seem to be the work of Vanda.’

Illyan firmly believed that this could not be her doing since it was way beyond her power.

The reason for that was the fact that the starry sky above was actually an endless expanse, as his surroundings were veiled in darkness with only stars illuminating it barely enough to realize there was literally nothing around.

Only the sky and shallow water that now reached his ankles were spread far and wide.

With a splash spreading from his leg, Illyan took his first step.

The pain tormenting him was becoming somewhat bearable once he got used to it, and thanks to that, he managed to keep his wits and think about his situation.

‘Staying in one place would solve nothing. Finding something that stands out is the best course for now…’

With a groan, Illyan started to wander around as he observed this strange place.

However, only after a few steps did he realize that this place reminded him of something.

Even while walking, it was as if he didn’t move at all from his original place.

‘It is similar to that time when I was judged by that alchemical eye.’ Illyan shuddered.

What did that mean? Was he back at the citadel? Or was he possessed by the treasure chest?

In the end, he could only sigh.

But just as he lamented over this, he looked up as he observed more and more stars falling from the sky.

He naturally understood a bit of astrology after reading so many books in the library, albeit just superficially.

However, after his deciphering of the citadel door diagram, Illyan observed the night sky for quite a bit of time and knew quite a few constellations.

‘This definitely isn’t the night sky from the Vanaras Kingdom. Or at least not in the current era.’

Illyan could think of many theories but postponed his thoughts as he saw more and more cracks in the sky.

They were as thin as hairs before, but with every second they got wider.

Beyond them, an endless white light resided.

“Argh?!” A muffled scream came out of his mouth as intense pain passed through his mind again as he held his head painfully.

But this time, it was not just temporary, as it escalated to the point where his legs wobbled and his vision narrowed to the point of seeing only the spot in front of him.

‘Shit, I am losing consciousness.’

As he thought, he would collapse.

Crack

A loud crack resounded in the place as the starry sky divided into two halves.

Illyan barely saw that as he knelt on one of his knees.

He breathed heavily as he watched the sky filled with the whiteness of the fissures.

As if that wasn’t enough…

Rumble

The fragments of the sky that came apart a second ago seemed to collapse right back into themselves.

Boom

At that moment, Illyan passed out from the sheer pain.

The light from the fissure disappeared as the two edges once again touched.

However, they didn’t connect and instead caused other cracks from the collision.

It truly looked like an apocalypse.

The worst was yet to come, though.

Two small fragments of the sky were trembling as they seemed to be out of the ordinary.

By that time, Illyan gasped as he woke up once again from another painful sensation stirring him up.

At this time, only a fool would not understand Illyan's situation.

‘Each time the sky cracks, I feel it in the form of a headache…’

With a scowl, Illyan tried to push through the pain.

And after a while, he finally remembered.

‘I was so tired. I think I… fell asleep. So is this a dream?’

As he thought, he saw the two fragments slowly wiggle their way out of the sky as they were hanging on barely by a strand of hair.

‘No. This isn't a dream. There is no way this is a dream.’

With a snap, the sky fragments detached from the starry night as they fell down.

As they were getting closer and closer to Illyan, he noticed their gigantic sizes that would cover entire cities once they reached the earth.

However, Illyan finally felt a calmness wash over his thoughts as he realized what was going on.

Even as the fragments were falling at him, there was a certain confidence that they would not crush him to death.

The reason? None.

Just a feeling. That was enough.

Despite his pain, his eyes were serene as he watched the sky fall upon him.

It was then when he felt a strange warmth at his lower back.

Nourishing as it was, Illyan felt ecstasy coming through his body to the ends of his limbs as the warmth traveled through his spine upwards.

And as if to mimic that, the pair of suns and moons in the sky started to circle around each other.

The momentum itself was getting stronger to the point that the other stars were losing their shine and even their shape as they passed by.

However, ironically enough, whenever these celestial bodies passed, the cracks thinned out as they started to recover.

Unfortunately, the two biggest sky fragments didn’t mend themselves back as they continued to fall.

The two pairs of suns and moons didn’t allow it, though.

As these cosmic bodies circled around themselves, reminding one of a double helix heading downwards, they slowly encased these two sky fragments and followed them in their downfall.

Once they finished encircling the sky fragments, they finally revealed their true identity.

The space underneath the two suns opened wide as it revealed an enormous maw.

The same happened underneath the moons as these mouths greedily gnawed on the large fragments.

Crack

Illyan grinned in disbelief.

‘So I was right.’

It was at this moment when he finally was sure.

The movement of the maws opening caused the illusion of them being one with the surroundings to break as the space around rippled, slowly revealing scale after scale before fully showing the titan-like bodies—one with eyes of darkness and the other with eyes of light—slithering across the skies, constricting the falling sky fragments.

The celestial bodies actually weren’t what they seemed and were actually the eyeballs of enormous creatures.

Two world-devouring serpents swallowed the sky in front of his eyes as Illyan laughed.

Once they did so, the surroundings opened while the serpents closed their eyes and huddled up together as they formed one big sphere of white and black above the place Illyan stood.

The rumbling sound of the sky being destroyed and the serpents’ bodies rubbing against each other made the world tremble, but Illyan didn’t even so much as flinch.

Because he finally understood.

And finally, when he watched the holes left behind by the sky fragments slowly disappear as the stars around started to fill in the holes until they once again became part of the starry sky, Illyan heard a soft yet mischievous voice behind him.

“Do you like my gift?”

Illyan sighed as he turned around.

There, a small girl stood proudly.

Her dress, made out of several animal hides roughly stitched up, gave her a wild visage, but with her pure smile, it didn’t look as savage as it should.

She had blonde hair in a bob cut and large eyes that were staring right into his eyes.

The biggest characteristic Illyan could see, however, was that she was standing on just one leg.

After all, the second one was not where it was supposed to be.

The silver wind swept up her hair as she stood eye to eye with him.

He stared at her and thought of the days before he left the Bakur Tribe. Back then, she was just a normal girl—a girl who lost her leg to an unfortunate incident.

But now, she was standing here in this strange place, looking at him with a smile but without a light in her eyes.

Her movements were unnatural, as if she moved with the wind that wasn’t even there, which gave Illyan an even more uncanny feeling as he didn’t know whether to be wary or not.

“Long time no see, Stone.”

She smiled as she waved her hand at him.

It was the first time in many years since they talked to each other while meeting personally.

But a small doubt—or rather suspicion—crept into Illyan’s mind.

With an expressionless face, his eyes looked as he asked, “Are you really Zephyr?”

The question, as if denying her existence, made Zephyr, the silver girl, widen her eyes in fake shock.

Illyan thought she would joke around with such an expression, but she didn’t as she answered truthfully.

“Yes and no. Does it really matter?”

Shock ran through Illyan’s body.

The suspicion that had been in his mind for some time already was not just him being paranoid.

In the end, he could only sigh with his eyes closed.

“Not really. There are more important things I want to ask. This place… it is my inner mind realm, right?”

Zephyr nodded with a satisfied expression as if she was proud that Illyan figured this out.

“That is right. It is your Mind Realm. I used the last bit of my authority to drag you in. It would normally be impossible, but since you were so fatigued this day, I managed to pull it off.”

She grinned as she spun on her one leg, splashing the water around. It was as if she was dancing in joy.

It was a familiar but strange sight to Illyan, who knew her for years.

But that gnawing curiosity and wariness over who she was didn’t disappear despite the familiarity. No, it was exactly because he was so familiar with her that this feeling of ignorance made him shudder.

He could not help but want to know, since she was with him for years. He felt he had the right to know that much.

But the words got stuck in his throat as he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.

However, Zephyr was not someone he could fool. Not in his Mind Realm, at least.

She smirked.

“You are still curious. But I guess it is inevitable. Curiosity is the thing that drives you forward. Not to mention that I owe you this explanation.”

And with that, everything changed.