[Something is off…]
Kuro spoke after abruptly getting to his feet, his actions surprising Milena and a few other spirits. He looked around warily but could not quite put his finger on what exactly was 'off'.
[What's wrong, Kuro?]
Milena asked him with a tilt of her head, but after scanning the area and not sensing anything strange, he shook his head and turned his gaze back to Evan.
If only he knew the thoughts going through the Pegasus-shaped light spirit at the moment.
'Time was turned back and yet he still noticed something was off?!'
The high-ranking light spirit was shocked shitless by Kuro's sharp senses, as he knew fully well that what Kuro felt was 'off' was the fact that time was rewound.
In fact, besides him, no other being present remembered the 'conversation' that had taken place between the ETOD and that 'woman'.
Shaking his head silently, he flapped his wings and flew up towards the remains of Silverwing's nest, seeing the artifacts and magic items left there.
He was about to touch one of them but all of a sudden, he felt countless gazes on its body, looking up to see that all the ambient low and mid-ranking spirits were now staring at him silently.
'What?'
Even Kuro and Milena had turned in his direction, ignoring the others around them.
From their gazes, he could swear that they were daring him to touch even one of those artifacts.
'Is this because of that hero kid?'
The Pegasus was well aware of Evan's reasons for being here, as Hydran had informed him about it before leaving.
As such, he knew the hero was after the artifacts in Silverwing's nest, as well as the Realm Gate that was located in the Frozen Cavern.
And just as he tried to touch one of the artifacts Evan was after, all the spirits in the area except the high-ranked ones looked like they were about to turn hostile.
'Crazy!'
Shaking his head, he flew down from the nest and like magic, the spirits all returned to what they were doing like nothing happened.
'Truly Crazy!'
◇ ◇ ◇
Evan's eyelids fluttered to catch a pair of Sapphire-coloured eyes staring right at him.
From the sensation under his head and the two mounds of flesh partially covering his vision, he could instantly infer that he was laying on Eliza's lap.
[Master's awake!]
Kayla's cheerful voice rang out, drawing the attention of all the other beings present and they all turned towards him.
Slowly sitting up, he looked at the crowd before pulling up the system time and realising he had been out for an hour.
"It's already past noon."
"Indeed, it is. You slept like a baby."
? ? ? ? ?
"If I told you that I wasn't sleeping, would you believe me?"
Evan responded to Eliza as he got up to his feet and looked at his bloodied clothes, suddenly feeling the desire to take a bath.
Looking at his left hand, he saw that his fingers were back in place, he then turned towards Eliza who was responsible and thanked her for it.
"First, I think we should change."
With those words, he pulled out the portable changing booths and tossed Eliza her bag. He then pulled out towels, and buckets from his inventory.
He filled them up with basic water magic and heated them up with fire magic, before passing one set over to Eliza.
"As much as I would like an actual bath, I'd just make do with wiping down for now."
She accepted the bucket and towel before moving into one of the changing booths, while Evan moved into the other.
On a side note, Kayla who had woken up earlier had already cleaned up, along with Milena and Kuro, they only just got changed after collecting their stuff from Evan's inventory.
In less than 10 minutes, both of them had re-joined the group outside with not-so-new outfits.
Basically, they were wearing the exact same type of clothes as they had been before, made with the exact same materials.
When one of the Spirits asked why he had more than three versions of the same outfit, Evan only shrugged his shoulders and gave a simple reply.
"I had way too much Arch-Spider Queen thread."
Immediately after, Evan kicked off the ground and jumped over to where Silverwing's nest once was, collecting the giant bird's corpse on the way. Like he had expected, the artifacts and other treasures he was after were there within the nest.
A stray few spirits came over to his ears and whispered that the Pegasus wanted to take them, but Evan only laughed lightly in response while patting their heads.
"Hey, Evan."
"What's up?"
"Just what exactly was Silverwing's Level anyway?"
"I don't know. It just showed up as three question marks."I think you should take a look at
Eliza expressed mild surprise as she heard this, as this was the first time Evan's appraisal had not been able to tell anyone's level.
Her gaze turned to Hydran's subordinates as she spoke.
"It would have been nice to have gotten their help."
"No, it would have been disastrous.
We'd have definitely died if they tried to 'assist' us."
"Huh? Why?"
Hearing her question, Evan stopped tossing the artifacts into his inventory and turned to her before saying.
"Remember what I said at the start? Silverwing scales to his opponent's existence levels."
Pointing to an Epic level spirit, he continued.
"If she came in with us, Silverwing would have been at least Peak Epic Level."
He then pointed to the Pegasus and spoke.
"If he came in, then Silverwing would have insta-killed us all."
"How does that monster have such abilities?"
In response to Eliza's question, Evan resumed picking up the artifacts as he answered.
"It's not completely Silverwing's power, but the power of the 'Cavern of the Frozen Harbinger'.
As the master of this Cavern and the guardian of the Realm Gate, Silverwing could borrow power from the world to scale towards its opponent. It's complicated to explain so don't worry about it."
Waving her off, Evan finished picking all the items he wanted and then looked around the Cavern, he then spotted a small ledge high up, very close to the ceiling and a smile appeared on his face.
"Found it."
He grabbed Eliza's body and activated blink, teleporting to the ledge before summoning the spirits via his contracts.
In front of them was a seemingly empty natural-looking ice cave. Evan picked up the two rings on the floor in front of the cave faster than Eliza could notice them and then walked into the cave while beckoning for them to follow.
As they got closer to the end of the Cave, the eyes of the spirit trio widened as they were the first to notice what they were walking towards.
Eliza noticed a beat later, as she had seen a similar structure countless times in her life.
"This…a Dimensional Realm Gate!"
"It's 'Dimensional', but not a Dimensional Realm Gate."
Evan replied as he gazed at the swirling mass of purple-coloured spatial energies in front of them. If it wasn't for the Frozen Cavern's wall, then they would have been able to see the full appearance of the aurora-coloured tear in space-time that was hidden within the Frozen Walls.
"This…is a naturally occurring Dimensional Rift."
Shock coloured the eyes of the battle priestess as she never expected that there existed a Dimensional Rift on the Alpha continent, and what's more, it was right in front of her!!!
"W-where does it lead to?!"
"Nowhere dangerous.
This one just leads to a special part of a Realm that I wanted you to see."
Evan replied as he walked towards the rift, while Kuro, the person with the most spatial knowledge in the group spoke absentmindedly.
[For a Dimensional rift, it's so…stable.]
"As I said, it's a naturally occurring rift. Plus, the world itself took action to stabilize it, so it'd be a lot different from the one on the Dark Continent or the others that have appeared in the past few centuries."
Eliza felt a headache coming as she heard Evan casually say other Dimensional rifts had appeared in the past besides the one on the Dark Continent.
'Well, at least it explains why someone as powerful as 'that guy' is here.'
She thought to herself as she remembered the Ouroboros she and Evan had spoken to earlier in the day.
"Now then, without further ado, let's get going."
Without waiting for any answers, Evan casually stepped into the Dimensional Rift, excitement colouring his face as he was actually entering the Limited Time Event Area in Aidos Online.
◇ ◇ ◇
Like the Entrance to the 'Tower of Trials', the sight beyond the Dimensional Rift was also a breath-taking spectacle.
It was as if they were beholding a mystical fusion of the vast tumultuous spatial sea, and a colossal vortex of cosmic gas, shimmering dust, and enigmatic dark matter.
The tapestry of celestial bodies around them was in constant flux as if the cosmos were playing a game of cosmic chess, with each twinkling light a piece in a grand, eternal battle.
This sight lasted a few odd seconds after which they exited the rift and emerged on the other side.
"Is this…another world?"
Eliza's question was answered by the notification that appeared in front of her eyes the next moment.
[Welcome to the 'Regal Void Expanse' Realm]