"That's what you get for fooling around with crazy women," Lysandra yelled back at him. "Who told you to mess with their queen?"
"For god's sake, nothing happened between us, I swear!"
"Try telling them that!" Lysandra yelled, raising another barrier to stop the volley of arrows and spells.
YuWon thought as long as they made their way out of the cave, things would be easy. Unfortunately, he couldn't be more wrong.
The oni became infuriated when they entered the royal chamber and saw Akari's mate had escaped and tied her up.
The onis got so pissed; they abandoned everything and began chasing after the duo. They didn't care if YuWon had someone else. In their mind, he had to give Akari a child so she could carry on the lineage of royal blood further.
That crazy bitch. Instead of clearing their doubts, she left her crazed followers on me! They believe I slept with her and went to get milk.
However, before they could make a choice, a familiar flash of light blinded the two. The angel stood before them, fidgeting like she had done something to get in trouble.
"Um... good thing I found you," she said, smiling awkwardly.
"What do you want now?" YuWon asked and kept running.
"It's nothing much. I just made a mistake and have to correct it."
Even though YuWon didn't stop or say anything, he raised his eyebrow to convey his confusion.
"I might have miscalculated your arrival point. None of you were supposed to spawn here... hehe."
"Hehe? HEHE!?" YuWon finally retorted, remembering Anna's words.
In her timeline, they ended up in a desert, not a forest. YuWon thought it was weird and now the angel was there to correct her mistake.
YuWon blinked a few times to shake off the haziness. He looked around, trying to make sense of his surroundings, only to see Lysandra lying on top of him.
"Where are we?" YuWon mumbled, trying to force Lysandra up.
But then he heard footsteps and immediately got alert.
"Are you guys okay?" Yuna called out.
Soon Yeji, Gina, and the rest came into his vision. YuWon pushed himself on his elbows, careful not to disturb Lysandra, who was still half-asleep. As he looked around, he noticed some of them were injured. Even Yeji had a cut along her cheek that looked fresh.
"What happened to you?" YuWon asked.
"After you left to find Lysandra, the wolves came back," Yuna explained. " We lost a few more people, and the rest of us didn't get away unscathed. Even so, we ended up killing most wolves before we found ourselves here."
"Yes... where are we?" Gina asked, looking around. "This doesn't look like a forest to me."
"Yes, it's not a—"
YuWon was about to explain everything to them when Anna gasped and pointed ahead. They followed her trembling hand and saw a massive tree in some distance.
The tree towered over everything. It was so massive that they couldn't see the top of it. Its trunk was thicker than any mountain they had ever seen, stretching endlessly into the sky.
The most unsettling part was the branches. They spread out in every direction, covering the sky like a web. Instead of clouds, all they could see were the thick branches. It was as if the tree had swallowed the sky, leaving only a few patches of light to shine through.
"World tree..." YuWon mumbled, remembering what the angel had told him.
He finally understood why it was called as such. It wasn't a tree, but an entire world in itself. But Anna completely broke down.
"No... no, no, no. We're screwed," Anna shook her head as if she had seen a ghost. "We're so screwed now."