Death... and me

Rean narrowed his eyes. He understood that Kentucky was now inside the Illusory World, so he couldn't hear Rean. Yet, the thing that bothered him was the fact he could see Kentucky, but he couldn't feel him nearby.

One must not forget that Rean, Roan, Kentucky, and Celis are connected, and that allows them to feel each other's location. Or, at the very least, they could tell the general direction of everyone. Rean could feel Kentucky very clearly a moment ago. Yet, now, even though Kentucky was right in front of him, no more than a few hundred meters away, his feeling of Kentucky told him the Minokawa was extremely far. 'Is the Kentucky I'm seeing fake?' Rean couldn't help but think. The connection between them was obviously through the soul. For Rean to feel Kentucky so far away meant Kentucky's Soul was far away, too. That was naturally impossible to happen with the system's soul protection. That said, the Kentucky he was seeing must be something else. The Real Kentucky has to have been transported somewhere else.

Yet, Rean thought about a possibility. 'Sister Orb, is it possible to drag our souls out of our body without the system intervening to protect our souls? I mean, if there is no real danger posed to the soul, could the system allow the souls to be brought away? After all, it only protects us against harmful effects. Or, obviously, as long as it thinks it is dangerous.'

[Hum... That should be possible,] Sister Orb answered. [But I find it hard that the system considers anything out of its control to be safe enough for it to allow your souls to be dragged away. What? Do you think that Kentucky ahead is real and only his soul is gone?]

'Yes,' Rean truly thought that. 'Am I wrong?'

Sister Orb didn't know. [Hard to say. The connection is with the soul, and all I can say is that nothing is wrong with his soul. I can't tell if the soul is within the body or not. Well, it doesn't matter that much. If Aelrie was telling the truth, then Kentucky just has to kill himself in the Illusory World, and he will be teleported to the entrance. I don't think she was lying.]

Rean nodded. 'I agree. I don't think she is lying, either. Well, Kentucky won't kill himself since we agreed to meet each other in the Illusory World. I'm going now.'

He looked at Aelrie. "Alright, I'll take a look inside and be back after a while. Thanks for the help."

"Oh, but I'm going in, too." Aelrie quickly spoke. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ NovᴇlFirᴇ.ɴet

Rean had to ask. "Why?"

"Because I want to see what you two are looking for," Aelrie answered. "You and Roan never do things without a reason, so how could I miss it?"

Rean found it funny. They do a lot of things without reason, especially if that means pulling each other's leg. "Well... that's up to you. So, I just need to exit the eleven-kilometer area by following Kentucky's steps, right?"

"Exactly," Aelrie was already walking ahead. "Let's go. It should be fun to watch the young one playing inside, too. Let's try to stay hidden in there so that we don't bother them."

"Oh, right!" Aelrie remembered something else. "Spatial Storages don't work inside. So, forget about using your Spatial Rings or accessing your Pocket Dimensional Realm."

Rean shrugged his shoulders and followed. He already couldn't access the Soul Gem Dimensional Realm anyway. As for his Spatial Rings, he didn't truly have anything of value inside except for his Light Star Sword, which he took out just in case. Aelrie was the first to go past the border, stopping walking a few moments later. Rean did the same after a few seconds.

For a moment, Rean's vision seemed to get blurry once again, just like it did when he entered this Dimensional Realm. Another second, and it returned to normal. It's just that he wasn't in the same open grassland anymore. He looked around and spread his Divine Sense, only to find out his Divine Sense didn't work in that place. 'This is already becoming quite a cliche. Why does it always have to block Divine Senses?'

Rean then tried to find himself, looking for some of the landmarks shown in Aelrie's Jade Slip Map. Yet, he simply couldn't see any of them. 'Oh well, she did say the Illusory World was enormous. I probably appeared somewhere without any of the mentioned landmarks. Still, I should be inside the same region.'

*bang, bang, boom, clang...*

Suddenly, Rean began to hear the sound of explosions and clashes in the distance. They were very faint at first, but the sounds increased in volume, showing that it was getting close to him. 'It should be one of the young Angels that train in this place.'

Rean quickly activated his Light Bending Skill, turning himself invisible. He wasn't sure if his body at the moment was real, but at least he could use his skills without issues. Right after, he took flight and went straight to the place where the sounds were coming from.

"Haaa!" An angel with just a single pair of wings was fighting a creature made of light. He slashed his dagger against the beast's paws, just for a current of lightning to run through it and hit the angel's body.

*Argh!*

The angel felt the electrical attack but gritted his teeth, moving his other dagger to piece the beast's belly. *Roar!*

The creature quickly jumped back while something that looked like white blood fell from the wound it had just received. In fact, there was more of it coming from several parts of its body, showing that it and the angel had been in a struggle against each other for quite a while. The angel, obviously, didn't look much better.

'Light Beast? But it has blood? White blood? So weird...' Rean couldn't help but think. Yet, he found that battle quite cute to watch. It was nothing more than a fight between a Nascent Soul Angel and an equivalent strong Light Beast. Truly nothing but kids playing in his eyes.