Soon, within her terrified gaze, the magical energy within the earth giant’s head contracted to its absolute peak. Then, with a deafening boom, it exploded!
Blinding light erupted from the giant’s head, instantly stripping the daylight of its color. The giant’s colossal body disintegrated into dust under the force of such an explosion, while fierce winds and shockwaves churned up vast amounts of earth, obliterating the nearby forest.
Hia and her companions had already kept their distance, and at the very moment of the explosion, they fled even further from the giant. Thus, they remained largely unaffected by the blast.
Even so, the aftershocks of the explosion still nearly caused them harm.
After the smoke and dust finally dispersed, Hia and her group returned to where the giant had stood. Now, nothing remained but a colossal, bottomless crater.
“Nona…”
Clutching her staff, Hia stared blankly into the deep pit before her, seemingly unable to accept that Nona had perished in such a manner. Olivia, too, felt her spirits plummet, knowing how slim Nona’s chances of survival were under those circumstances.
It wasn’t until Fely cast a divine spell, confirming that Nona was still alive, that their spirits revived. They then began their search for Nona’s traces within the forest.
While they worried for Nona, Ped, on the other hand, clenched his fists, his face visibly paling.
Not only Nona had vanished in the explosion, but also the stone platform containing clues to the Hero’s Sword. The white-robed woman was clearly an underling of the Evil God, meaning the clues had likely fallen into her hands…
This, in turn, implied that the Hero’s Sword might soon fall into the Evil God’s possession…
The mere thought of this possibility left Ped restless and deeply uneasy.
****
The instant the explosion occurred, Nona lost consciousness.
When she next regained awareness, she found herself in a castle corridor. Numerous red magical candles adorned the walls on both sides, their faint glow insufficient to fully illuminate the passage.
Accompanied by an eerie gloom, she advanced step by step. When a large door appeared on one side of the corridor, she approached, twisted the handle, and pushed it open.
Behind the door lay a kitchen, where someone was busily working.
Had it merely been that, she might have retreated from the kitchen and continued down the corridor. However, upon seeing who the busy individual was, she froze.
It was a figure with long, golden hair, standing intimately close to a silver-haired woman. She held the woman’s hand, meticulously helping her sculpt the cream on a cake.
“Mother?”
Nona felt a flicker of uncertainty. She slowly entered the kitchen, drawing closer to the golden-haired woman. Upon seeing her face, a surge of wild joy undeniably flashed through her eyes.
‘It was her mother!’
“Mother! Let’s go, quickly, we need to leave this place!”
Though she didn’t know where she was, seeing her mother after such a long time, Nona’s first instinct was to take her away. Yet, to her shock, her outstretched hand effortlessly passed right through her mother’s body.
She paused, then a realization dawned upon her.
‘This was a dream.’
‘A false dream.’
The woman her mother clung to so closely was the very one who had abducted her. With her blood-red eyes and pale cheeks, the woman appeared unnervingly morbid and dangerous from every angle.
As the woman helped sculpt the cake’s cream decorations, Nona noticed a sweet smile on her mother’s face—a smile she had rarely seen throughout her entire childhood.
Alongside a pang of jealousy, a sense of confusion also bloomed within Nona.
‘Why would her mother feel such sweetness while helping that woman decorate the cake? That woman was her captor, her enemy!’
Unable to comprehend these questions, she dismissed it all as a logical flaw caused by the absurd dream. Moments later, she watched as the silver-haired woman presented the cake to Isis and lit the candles on it.
‘Was this a birthday celebration for her?’
Nona remained stunned for a moment, a wave of guilt washing over her heart.
Throughout her entire life, she had never once celebrated her mother’s birthday. She didn’t even know when her mother’s birthday was.
If that woman had truly done all this for her mother, then her mother might genuinely display a happy smile.
After Isis made her wish, the silver-haired woman cut a slice of cake and offered it to her. Though Nona knew this was all a dream, a fabrication, she still couldn’t help but pray that her mother wouldn’t eat the cake.
‘These actions were all ploys used by that woman to ensnare her mother. If her mother ate it, she would fall into her trap, gradually succumbing to the woman’s deceptive tenderness and, in turn, forgetting Nona herself…’
However, no matter how fervently she prayed inwardly, the truth remained unaltered. She watched helplessly as her mother ate the cake, praised its taste, and then even invited the silver-haired woman to share it with her…
‘This silver-haired woman was the one who tore them apart, wasn’t she? Why would Mother…’
Even though she repeatedly told herself it was false, Nona still sank powerlessly to her knees, her heart aching as if it were being violently wrenched.
Inside the kitchen, her mother and the silver-haired woman were enjoying themselves, perfectly harmonious, like a truly happy family. Nona, however, felt like an outsider, utterly unable to intrude upon their lives.
“A nightmare, this is all a nightmare…”
She continued to murmur, trying to convince herself that this was merely a nightmare. Her mother could never be so intimate with that woman; she should despise her deeply…
But just as she sought to comfort herself, a cold snort echoed from all directions.
“You think all of this… is a nightmare?”
As the voice resounded, the kitchen floor began to shake violently, and cracks spiderwebbed across the space. The disoriented Nona lost her footing, stumbling clumsily to the ground.
Soon after, the space shattered like glass, plunging Nona into absolute darkness. Only when a massive, golden vertical pupil illuminated before her did the area gain a faint glimmer of light.
“What if I told you… all of this truly happened?”
The monster’s voice, heavy and resonant, uttered these words.
Nona propped herself up with her hands against the spatial floor, lifting her head to gaze at the monster with wide, shocked eyes.
Its body was colossal; a single golden pupil alone was dozens of times Nona’s size. Black scales covered its entire form, their brilliant sheen hinting at boundless resilience.
When it straightened its immense body, Nona seemed as tiny as an ant. It felt as though the monster could crush her with a single, casual step forward.
A long moment passed before Nona slowly regained her composure.
After another scrutinizing look at its sharp claws and massive wings, a realization struck her, intensifying the shock in her heart. To confirm her suspicion, she mustered her courage and cautiously asked:
“Are you… a dragon?”