Death... and me



'What do we do now?' Rean couldn't help but ask.

Yet, an answer was hard to think about. 'I don't know. However, we need to at least check what is causing the fragment to be removed. As for the part where the Floating Islands of Time will be swallowed, we can think about it later.'

Kentucky, who was also told about the new quest by the system and sister orb, immediately asked. 'Shouldn't we at least warn the Minokawas in this place? If anything goes wrong, they might all die.'

'Jeskli-Go is at the Divinity Realm, so Spatial Storms are of little concern to him. Your race also has a couple of Space-Time Realm Minokawas present. Don't you think they are enough to protect the Minokawas that stayed here?' Rean asked back.

Kentucky narrowed his eyes. 'I'm not sure. We are talking about a phenomenon that will impact a huge region. Would it even be the same power as the Spatial Storms you get when you open Spatial Gates? Perhaps even Jskli can't deal with it.'

Luan also has another concern. 'Worse than that. What about us? Regardless if it is we who get the fragment or the other part, the fact is that we will be right in the middle of this place. If the Spatial Storm is the normal type, then okay. Uncler Rean and Father can deal with it. But if Kentucky is right and it is something many times more powerful, wouldn't we be committing suicide by taking the fragment away?'

Rean and Roan had to admit Luan was right. 'That's another problem...'

Roan then wondered if they should just leave straight away. 'Perhaps we should forget this fragment. It can't be destroyed, so we can look for it another time when it is taken away or whatever. After all, the system said nothing about penalties for failure.'

Kentucky didn't like it. 'So you saying we should just let everything be swallowed?'

Roan nodded without thinking twice. 'The only difference will be whether we are swallowed by that Spatial Storm together with the Islands or if we are not.'

'I can't just let that happen,' said Kentucky. 'I'm going to try and stop this.'

Rean pondered a bit before saying, 'In that case, you might want to go back to the Minokawas' Nest with Lily and warn Jskli-Go about it.'

Kentucky was taken aback. 'But I would need to tell him some of the truths to convince him of that. Besides, he probably would come here himself to try and stop this. We don't know if he would try to take the fragment for himself instead, either.'

Rean scratched his head. 'It's too many variables to think about. However, we don't know if we have time for anything.'

Kentucky then decided. 'Alright, Rean, Roan, and Luan should turn around and leave this place. You guys are the ones responsible for the unification of the two sides of the Universe, after all. I will go with Lily to the Center and see if I can find a way to stop this. Later on, if the fragment is taken, you can take your time to look for it. You shouldn't have a problem with that, right?'

Roan's expression got dark. Well, darker than it usually was... 'Forget it. We will all go to the Center and try to see what is happening.'

'Why would you do that?' kentucky asked, finding it strange. That wasn't the logical choice that Roan always strived to follow.

Roan shook his head. 'I just don't want to have to look for this fragment gain in the future.'

Rean smiled in response. 'He is just worried about you.'

'As if!' Roan obviously refused to accept that.

Kentucky didn't know what to say. 'Errrr... Ahem. Right, it would be annoying to not know who and where this fragment is being taken.' He also didn't want to say he liked that Roan was worried about him.

Rean shrugged his shoulder as he smiled. 'Yes, that's definitely the reason.'

Sometime later, Lily-Yu finally warned the twins. "We are here," she said while pointing forward. "From this point onwards, you won't be able to tell whether you are going forward or not. Once you notice it, you will already be somewhere else except the Center you wanted to go to. If you want, I can follow you since the same phenomenon happens to everyone. We will all end in the same place as long as we stay close."

Kentucky shook his head. "Lily-Yu, I have another mission for you. Go back to the Minokawas' Nest Area and tell Jeskli-Go to take everyone away from the Floating Islands of Time."

"What?!" Lily obviously didn't expect such a request. "Are you crazy? Why would I do such a thing?"

Rean was the one to answer that question. "You said that before trying to enter the Center, the Space, elements, and time would stay the same everywhere, with the same level of randomness. However, being this close to the Center, you should have noticed already."

Lily nodded. "Indeed, I can feel Space Power has got weirder. But what does it have to do with anything?"

"I can't tell you why, but we are pretty sure there is a very good chance the entire Floating Islands of Time are going to be swallowed by a Spatial Storm," Rean concluded.

Lily didn't really believe it, though. "Hahahaha! Yes, sure. Just because the environment changed a little, it definitely means a calamity of that level is going to happen. It makes a lot of sense... it's just that it doesn't. Are you out of your mind? There is no way the Floating Islands of Time would disappear."

She then took a communication badge from her Pocket Dimensional Realm. "However, I can definitely warn senior Jeskli-Go from here. I just doubt he will try such a thing."

Seeing the communication badge, Rean thought about something. "Say, where is the Minokawas Nests located?"

Lily found that a weird question for the moment but answered nonetheless. "In that direction. We would have to go around the center area to not get affected by its effects, though."

"So... you can communicate with the Minokawas Nests even though they are on the other side of the center, uh?" Rean immediately had an idea.