Alex landed on Planet Eldaris without delay.
As soon as his ship touched down, he didn't waste any time. The moment the landing gear settled down on the soft terrain, he exited the craft, taking in his surroundings with a quick glance.
There was no time for unnecessary caution or overthinking — Mira was missing, and that was his only focus.
After stepping out, he immediately stored his ship in his spatial storage, a process that had become second nature to him now. The ship shimmered briefly before disappearing entirely, leaving no trace that it had ever been there.
But it also provided him with some cover for his tracks, the Red Demons, or whichever enemy was hiding by had most definitely noticed his entrance into this area, as Alex wasn't trying to hide it at all, but with his ship disappearing it would be hard to track where Alex was exactly.
Now, he was alone on the Planet's surface, ready to begin his search.
The landscape around him was dense with foliage, the thick green of Eldaris's forests stretching out in every direction.
Alex didn't pay much attention to the scenery.
The coordinates he had received covered a large area, but that didn't discourage him.
With his newly upgraded strength, he could cover the entire 500 kilometre radius in less than 10 seconds.
And with his spatial perception now stretching to over 20 kilometres, that would be a huge help to him as well.
He started moving immediately. Although the forest was dense, it wasn't an obstacle for him; he navigated through it with ease, his senses on high alert at all times and his Spatial perception scanning every nook and cranny of the surrounding area.
However, he hadn't spotted anything significant as of yet.
And this trend of finding nothing continued on, with not even a single beast or Red Demon in the area.
It was quite troubling for Alex, who wasn't in the mood for patience.
Every minute passed was another minute Mira was missing, and that thought drove him forward with even more motivation.
***
'This is just getting eerie now...'
Mira walked her way through the forest at a leisurely pace, as if she was not concerned by the idea that she may not be able to find a way out for a long, long time.
But whether she walked faster or slower mattered not to her, as she would still encounter the same environment, with the same complete lack of any life forms whatsoever.
It only made her wonder just where that Galephant came from, as it had to have come from somewhere where there were other beasts around.
The silence surrounding this place wasn't the calm, peaceful kind of silence, but the oppressive, heavy kind that made her feel like she was being watched from every direction.
The worst thing was the fact that her Spatial Perception didn't work in this place, so she couldn't even tell whether she was being watched or not...
But even if her sixth sense didn't work, her other five were still working just fine, and she had sense not a single thing with those either, so despite the eerie feeling that had been bugging her the whole time, she ignored it.
She didn't waste time panicking, instead just carrying her leisurely walk on.
Her idea was that if she walked for long and far enough, then surely she should come across some place new, right?
After all, they say that the Primordial Expanse is all one infinitely large world that is all interconnected, so no matter if two people entered and arrived millions of miles away from each other, they would still be able to meet up eventually if they walked towards the same direction the whole time.
Considering this factor, Mira had decided that even if she had to walk tens, if not hundreds of thousands of miles, she would make it out of this place.
But if they did disappear from this place completely, that only begged the question.
Where to?
'Wait...'
Alex paused.
Perhaps the absence of any signs or clues of Mira's whereabouts was a clue itself.
He knew Mira's talent, Call of the Void allowed her to teleport to the Void dimension whenever she liked.
But he doubted this was the cause of her disappearance.
For one, she had already told him how dangerous it is for her to use it for extended periods of time, and secondly, she would have already come back by this point if she had done so.
This only left one option in Alex's mind.
The Primordial Expanse.
He didn't know why Mira would be there, but right now that was his best guess.
But the fact that there were over a dozen other jump pods missing threw him off a little.
Unless they all collectively decided to go off the grid and enter the Primordial Expanse at the same time, something fishy was going on.
Alex considered the possibilities.
If Mira and the others were in the Primordial Expanse, it wasn't by choice — it had to be some kind of external force or anomaly.
But how? And why?
He didn't dwell on these questions for long.
The priority was finding out how to get her back.
He had no idea what kinds of conditions Mira or the others had been thrown into.
The sooner he found out, the better.
With this focus in mind, Alex shifted his attention.
This whole time, he had only been searching the 500 kilometre radius that had been mentioned in the reports.
However, now Alex had decided to follow his own plan.
Rather than scanning just this area, he was going to search the whole planet.
But before he did that, he needed to do a little bit of research.
He was in such a haste to make it over to this system and start searching for Mira that he had neglected to do any research about the environment or even what kind of place he was entering beforehand.
He knew this Planet was unique as the tactics both sides of the war used were different, but he hadn't even gotten to experience that yet, as he literally found zero other sentient beings in the vicinity of this area.
In fact, now that he thought about it, that seemed a little suspicious...